Call me a middle-aged mom, but I'm obsessed with the St. Paul's School rape trial. And I don't follow every last detail because I think Owen Labrie is cute. In fact, his attractiveness is one of the things about this case I find least intriguing, mostly because it is completely irrelevant to anything about this case that holds merit.

If you haven't heard, Labrie was accused of raping a 15-year-old girl during St. Paul's "Senior Salute" this past August. Last week, the former soccer captain was sentenced to a year in jail and five years of probation on charges involving relations with a minor. To top it off, his acceptance to Harvard to study was revoked.

In all honestly, I don't know any more about trials than your average Poli Sci major (because that's what I am, albeit limited in terms of sexual assault cases), but I do know that in terms of how often this kind of incident occurs, rarely is it ever brought to light -- especially by the flashing bulbs of every major news outlet in America. In itself, this was enough to pique my curiosity.

Here we've got a girl, young and scared, taking on the bear that will dictate how she perceives the rest of her life, and that bear's name isn't Owen Labrie. Sure, he is part of the problem -- a little cub, cowering behind the legs of his mama, the media. Because let's face it, this kind of attention is what's going to determine the direction of the rest of her life, not necessarily his actions alone.

Now, let's get this straight: I am absolutely not belittling rape in any way. This girl has to live with what Labrie did to her, regardless of the clarity of his conviction, for the rest of her life; the length of his jail sentence is a story for another day. However, the way the media portrays these cases is often overshadowed by the silhouettes of the main actors.

Maybe it's just me, a Pennsylvania gal far away from the clutches of New Hampshire, but people don't seem to be talking about this -- and that's the problem. Even though three articles a day have been popping up on my Twitter feed since the end of August, filled with quotes, facts, and enough information to educate yourself, the most thoughtful commentary I've heard is, "Oh, he was cute. That's a shame."

Not once do people question why the only pictures arising in the headlines are of Labrie, an exceptionally young-looking kid with glasses his lawyer told him to wear. We're paying a disservice to this girl, the only one who can face the media and fight words with words, facts with facades, and give us something to not only talk about, but to think about. That's why I spend hours reading articles with the same information about this case: because it forces me to challenge what's presented by some writer behind a screen with what the writer within myself can deem important in relation to the society and media I'm familiar with.

So it becomes the plaintiff vs. the media, and who will win? Surely not a 15-year-old girl against the likes of a jury and 20 million readers. But maybe that should change, especially when she's the only one brave enough to stand in the ring.