PHOTO/ (AP Photo/The Tennessean, John Partipilo, Pool)

Former Vanderbilt football players Brandon Vandenburg. left, and Cory Batey were convicted of of aggravated rape on Tuesday, Jan. 27, 2015, in Nashville, Tennessee.

In a bit of good news, two football players from Vanderbilt University were convicted of rape last week and they now face decades behind bars for a crime almost too horrible to write about. Suffice it to say it involved the gang rape of an unconscious woman, the use of bottles as objects of torture, and the celebratory distribution of photographs of the crime.
The reportedly "nice" boys from "good" families were led off in handcuffs while their parents sobbed.

Why is this "good" news?

For starters, few campus sex offenders are ever held accountable, so the conviction will deter similar behavior. In addition, the crime was discovered by Vanderbilt officials who quickly expelled the men and contacted police. Kudos to Vanderbilt for stepping ahead of the pack and for caring more about women’s safety and equality than bad press.

The high profile nature of the case will dispel offensive myths about whether "nice" boys are the "types" who commit such atrocities. The truth is, it is often the "nice" boys who brutalize women on campus. And they don't rape women because they got drunk. Most do it simply because they were raised to believe they could do whatever they want, and get away with it. With luck, this case will also serve as a slap in the head to parents who teach their children that they need not take responsibility for their actions.

When the public sees "nice" boys go to prison for gang rape, they are more likely to judge all rape cases more fairly in the future, without getting bogged down in stereotypes about “normal” male and female behavior.

Now the bad news.

What happened at Vanderbilt is not unusual. Attacks on college women are more violent today than ever before, and many researchers are asking why. Why would sexual assault on campus be more brutal today than, say, twenty years ago?

Dr. Gail Dines, a researcher from Wheelock College and star of the new documentary based on her book of the same name, "Pornland," sees a connection between readily available, free, violent pornography and "extra" violent rape on campus. “Studies show that boys who see violent porn buy into the message that women enjoy being degraded,” Dines says. She fears that Porn has “hijacked the authentic sexuality of young people, especially men by socializing them to see sexual abuse of women as pleasurable.”

Dr. Dines’ view is consistent with what I see in my work. Twenty years ago, if a victim endured “extra” violence during a sexual assault, the case was a slam-dunk. But an examination of recent appellate court decisions involving rape reveals that defense attorneys are much more willing to argue that a woman "consented" to serious violence, and juries are more wiling to accept the claim as true. The defense sticks, in part, because today’s porn makes "extra" violence seem normal. And because boys learn about sex through porn, they act out what they watched on film; thinking nothing of brutalizing a woman because it looks so enjoyable.

It's difficult for an impressionable boy’s brain to reject the idea that violent sex is acceptable when images of human degradation are mixed with great pleasure. Those boys then go to college where they become whole communities of porn-infected men, together with an endless supply of vulnerable prey.

College officials like to blame alcohol even though, as the victim testified in the Vanderbilt case, a major factor is surreptitious drugging because an unconscious victim can’t testify and rape drugs are hard to detect in blood tests because they dissipate quickly. Drugs can be detected in hair, however, even months after an attack. Schools should have mandatory “hair-testing” programs in place because studies show that just having such policies deters offenders.

And schools should be thinking hard about whether it makes more sense to show Dr. Dines new film, rather than teaching students silly ideas about "bystander intervention," and "yes means yes" laws.

Parents have responsibilities, too. In addition to raising more compassionate sons, they should be demanding that colleges have policies to screen out or at least carefully monitor men who pose a high risk of harm to women. For example, an applicant for admission should be rejected if he has a record of disrespectful treatment of women in high school, or if he shows signs of entitlement, narcissism, lack of empathy or unaddressed addiction.

These things, and not whether a guy is from a "good" family, make for very bad behavior.

Wendy Murphy is adjunct professor of law at New England Law|Boston and a television legal analyst. A former prosecutor, Murphy specializes in the representation of crime victims in civil and criminal litigation. Her first book, “And Justice For Some,” was  released in paperback in 2013. Read more of her columns at wendymurphylaw.com.