The Dolce & Gabbana maybe-gang-rape ad of two years ago looked rather harmless at the time. It was just one of those nonsensical things fashion types do to look arty or whatever-bleeding edge "LOOK AT ME!" and all that. But through the prism of the last month's gang rapeof a 15-year-old girl outside her high school's homecoming dance, it looks a little, well, harder to look at. Events like that certainly make Whoopi Goldberg's Roman "I don't believe it was rape-rape" Polanski statement look even more absurd. All this, and the LAPD recently celebrated having reduced, by 64%, its backlog of unprocessed DNA evidence from thousands of rape and sexual assault cases. Only 2,500 left! Rape as a focus for media "debate," or as something for marketers to exploit, is out. Domestic abuse and sexual harassment, however, are in. READ MORE

Last night singer Chris Brown-who recently received five years of probation after entering a guilty plea for assaulting his girlfriend Rihanna-appeared on "Larry King Live" in an attempt to rehabilitate his image and perhaps explain what caused such reprehensible acts. As someone who does not believe that domestic violence is any more glamorous or noteworthy when it is perpetrated by or on celebrities, I have only a cursory awareness of the story, and did not tune in. But Awl Director of Business Development/SEO Coordinator David Cho has been following the case since it began, and was eager to explain it to me. If you're also curious as to what transpired, read on. READ MORE