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"There&amp;amp;#8217;s a big story about Serena Williams in the new issue of Rolling Stone, and it covers all the usual stuff&amp;amp;#8212;her amazing career, her sister, her white Rolls Royce named Casper&amp;amp;#8212;until the end, when she takes the reporter with her to get a pedicure. Per the Rolling Stone article, here&amp;amp;#8217;s what happened: We watch the news for a while, and the infamous Steubenville rape case flashes on the TV - two high school football players raped a drunk 16-year-old, while other students watched and texted details of the crime. Serena just shakes her head. &amp;quot;Do you think it was fair, what they got? They did something stupid, but I don&amp;#x27;t know. I&amp;#x27;m not blaming the girl, but if you&amp;#x27;re a 16-year-old and you&amp;#x27;re drunk like that, your parents should teach you: Don&amp;#x27;t take drinks from other people. She&amp;#x27;s 16, why was she that drunk where she doesn&amp;#x27;t remember? It could have been much worse. She&amp;#x27;s lucky. Obviously, I don&amp;#x27;t know, maybe she wasn&amp;#x27;t a virgin, but she shouldn&amp;#x27;t have put herself in that position, unless they slipped her something, then that&amp;#x27;s different.&amp;quot; If you&amp;amp;#8217;re like me, your jaw is hanging open right now. We&amp;#x27;ve always been big Serena fans, awed at all she has accomplished on the tennis courts, and what she has done for women in sports. But it&amp;#x27;s just not acceptable to blame a survivor for her assault (though she says in her interview that she doesn&amp;#x27;t blame the girl, when you say she &amp;#x27;put herself in that situation,&amp;#x27; that sounds an awful lot like blaming her). Bottom line: It doesn&amp;amp;#8217;t matter if she was drinking, it doesn&amp;amp;#8217;t matter what she was wearing, it doesn&amp;amp;#8217;t matter if she is a virgin or not (?!). There is no &amp;amp;#8220;position&amp;amp;#8221; that anyone &amp;amp;#8220;puts herself in&amp;amp;#8221; that makes it OK to sexually assault her. It&amp;amp;#8217;s awesome when women speak out, and Serena is an incredible cultural force whose star power goes way beyond tennis. I just wish she had thought a little more about what she was saying, and about what a 16-year-old girl went through. What do you think about Serena&amp;#x27;s comments? Was she blaming the victim? Update: Last night, Serena posted the following statement on her website: &amp;amp;#8220;What happened in Steubenville was a real shock for me. I was deeply saddened. For someone to be raped, and at only sixteen, is such a horrible tragedy! For both families involved - that of the rape victim and of the accused. I am currently reaching out to the girl&amp;amp;#8217;s family to let her know that I am deeply sorry for what was written in the Rolling Stone article. What was written - what I supposedly said - is insensitive and hurtful, and I by no means would say or insinuate that she was at all to blame. I have fought all of my career for women&amp;amp;#8217;s equality, women&amp;amp;#8217;s equal rights, respect in their fields - anything I could do to support women I have done. My prayers and support always goes out to the rape victim. In this case, most especially, to an innocent sixteen year old child.&amp;amp;#8221; Photo: Getty Images"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.glamour.com/inspired/blogs/the-conversation/2013/06/whoaserena-williams-has-some-s>