Paige Michalchuk

A lot of people must have thought what happened to Paige Michalchuk in the episode, Shout was her fault. I think they're wrong. I'm sure Paige takes full responsibility for her actions in that episode and that she now knows that some of the things she did with Dean Walton in that episode weren't very smart but whatever Paige did in that episode, she didn't ask to be raped. Like when Terri MacGregor was battered physically and emotionally in the episode, Never Gonna Give You Up and eventually put in a coma in the episode, Don't Dream it's Over, we might say she wasn't very smart but we wouldn't say she deserved it. We wouldn't say Rick Murray who battered her and put her in a coma was innocent because of what Terri did. No one deserves to be raped. No matter what the circumstance, if a woman says no and a man forces her to have intercourse, whether that force is verbal or sexual, that's rape. That's the law. A woman is raped in high school every 21 hours. 90% of all high school rapes go unreported. Only 1 out of 100 of these rapists is prosecuted. I'm sure it wasn't easy for Paige to talk about what happened to her. It wasn't easy for her to say she was raped. Paige came forward with her story to encourage other women to come forward with theirs. Date rape has been a crime of silence for too long.