Thomas posts about Anthony Ottaviano, an attorney at Paul Weiss in New York who was murdered by his girlfriend’s stalker. More specifically, Thomas writes about the New York Post’s sensationalist coverage of the murder — which basically amounts to “Pervert killed by other pervert.”
Ottaviano’s girlfriend, Edythe Maa, is a dominatrix and fetish model. Ottaviano also enjoyed BDSM in his private life. Maa had a stalker, who kidnapped her and killed Ottaviano before killing himself. This is how the Post describes it:
Ottaviano and Maa partied together at kinky New York City fetish parties, sometimes with him wearing lipstick, a garter belt, stockings and high heels.
His secret leather-loving lifestyle – seen on photos posted on fetish Web sites – turned out to be his downfall.
Actually, his downfall was a violent stalker.
The Post mentions that Maa had been stalked for months, and that friends recommended she get a restraining order but she didn’t follow through. Can you blame her, though? I’m sure she knew exactly what the judge would say to her; I’m sure she knew that her “lifestyle” would be blamed for attracting weirdos.
The Post is the same publication that printed the “One-Legged Hooker Slain” headline. And while most publications aren’t as insensitive or sensationalist as The Post, there are similar running themes in crime stories even in more reputable publications.
In Virgin or Vamp: How the Press Covers Sex Crimes
, Helen Benedict writes about gendered media narratives in sexual assault cases, making the argument that media reports categorize sexual assault survivors according to their perceived worthiness and sexual status — virgins, like the Central Park Jogger, or vamps, like Jennifer Levin (the victim in the 1986 “preppie murder” case). The vamp narrative is, basically, “she had it coming.” In the cases Benedict discusses, the victims’ sex lives are put to a trial, in the courts and in the media. Jennifer Levin’s murder made headlines in the New York tabloids, with the Daily News running stories titled “How Jennifer Courted Death” and “Sex Play Got Rough”. The man who murdered her — who had been kicked out of several private schools, was asked to leave Boston University after one semester for a series of problems (including stealing a credit card), and had a history of drug abuse and petty crime — was portrayed as an “altar boy” with “a promising future.” He claimed Jennifer was killed by rough sex she initiated.
Similar narratives happen in murder cases where the victim is a social “other” — where she or he is transgender, for example, or a sex worker. “How [insert name here] Courted Death” sums up their media treatment — with an extra dash of “and they weren’t quite human anyway.”
Little Light wrote about a feminism of the monstrous, and her thoughts are informing this post. Piny’s piece about advocating not only for the most normative model of social acceptance but for those on the edges of perceived “normalcy” is also on my mind.
Thomas sent me this article, and in our email exchange he posed an important question that I can’t stop thinking about: What would they say about you if you died?
If media narratives are to be believed, I “court death” with some regularity — I go out to bars, I drink, I date men without adequate supervision, I travel alone. I’m also a cisgendered, heterosexual, white, middle-class professional, which mediates a lot of that and makes my existence and my choices more acceptable.
But who of us hasn’t been in a situation where if, God forbid, something happened, we’d be the slut or the freak or the weirdo who was asking for it? (I know that some of us have actually been in that position). And for those of us who live in skin and scales (to borrow from Little Light), the greater battle for social justice isn’t just about rights and liberties (although it’s about those, too). It’s about our most basic perceptions of humanity, and making sure that everyone is included under that umbrella.
When those outside of what’s “normal” or socially accepted — or those who transgress the established social boundaries for a person in their position — come into the media spotlight through death or other crime, the degree to which humanity is accorded to only a privileged few is startling.
And of course there are those whose deaths and other victimizations don’t even raise a media eyebrow.
Anthony Ottaviano was killed as he was coming home from having dinner with his girlfriend. His death is a tragedy. He sounds like he was a good man who will be much missed. My thoughts and condolences go out to his girlfriend as well.
If anyone has information about how Anthony would have liked to have been remembered and honored, please leave it in the comments.