Olney Magazine Tries To Pretend It Never Published A Rape Scene

Event Summary

This is a chronicle of how Olney magazine and its masthead fiction contributer, Jennifer C Martin, refuse to acknowledge and apologize for the harm done when they published the story Dead Black Lingerie. Despite their claim that the story is entirely fictional, it is heavily based on a real grieving widower. Although they quietly revised the story, the original version perpetuated rape culture. Lastly, they engaged in gaslighting by denying the revision and publicly belittling concerns raised.

Olney Publishes "Dead Black Lingerie"

Olney Published Dead Black Lingerie by Jennifer C Martin. Olney and Jennifer Martin claim that this story is entirely fictional, but it is heavily based on a real person. Jennifer gave him the name Joey in the story, so we will call him Joey during this summary.

In the story, Jennifer physically described Joey, his wife, and their two children. She described aspects of their lifestyle. She described Joey’s wife’s illness and eventual death. She even threw in a recipe for Peruvian Chicken, because the real Joey is part-Peruvian. All of these details made it obvious to the people who knew the real Joey that Jennifer was writing about him.

However, in the story, Jennifer Martin also described a sexual encounter that never happened. The real Joey hasn’t seen Jennifer Martin since his wife’s Celebration of Life.

This sexual encounter could reasonably be perceived as a rape. There was no explicit consent. It started with a violent act. Joey grabbed the narrator and pushed her against the wall. The narrator was silent during the sexual encounter and expressed no enthusiasm for what was occurring. Afterward, the narrator told Joey it was fun, and inwardly wished to go home. Many people who are assaulted pretend that everything is fine so that they can leave the situation without any further violence.

Below is the sexual encounter the way it was originally written.

Joey's Reaction

Joey read the story and was gutted. He texted Rachel McGuire to say that he was hurting. Rachel read the story and was sickened. Rachel asked Joey if it would be ok for her to confront Jennifer about it. Joey agreed. From this point on, everything that Rachel did was run by Joey first. Joey was supportive and appreciative of Rachel’s advocacy, and Rachel told him that he was allowed to change his mind about it at any time. Joey’s request, at first, was just that Rachel not make her complaints about Joey’s feelings. He wanted to stay out of it and focus his energy on working and raising his kids.

The screenshots below are Rachel and Joey’s initial conversation on the story.

 

Reaching Out To Jennifer

Rachel texted Jennifer first. Rachel and Jennifer dated for years and had a close relationship. Rachel offered to have the conversation however Jennifer wanted to have it. Jennifer said to just do it over text.

The screenshots below are Rachel and Jennifer’s initial conversation on the story.

 

Reaching Out To Olney

Two mutual friends read the story and expressed to Rachel McGuire how upset they were. One of these friends was so concerned about the sexual encounter that she asked Rachel, “How close is this story to real life?” In the days to come, more mutual friends would message Rachel with similar questions. Some of them would ask even more bluntly, “Is Jennifer trying to say that Joey raped her?”

Rachel McGuire emailed the editors of Olney, and mostly communicated with Brandon Noel. Rachel had previously had a poem published by Olney.

Rachel was very hesitant to say the word rape. She suspected that as soon as she said the word rape, her concerns would be dismissed. Nevertheless, the reality of the situation was that the sexual encounter looked a lot like a rape scene and that was hugely problematic.

Of course, just as Rachel suspected, her concerns were immediately dismissed when she said that the sexual encounter could be perceived as a rape.

Meanwhile, Jennifer emailed Joey a rambling pseudo-apology, since he had said no to getting coffee.

The screenshots below are Rachel and Olney’s initial conversation on the story.

Jennifer Tweets

Jennifer promoted the story using the fact that her girlfriend, Rachel McGuire, had dumped her over it. She also dismissed Rachel’s concerns in the comments of that post.

Olney Makes a Public Statement

Olney made a public statement about the story. They made no mention of rape. They did reiterate that it’s a fictional story with fictional characters. We all know that’s a lie.

 

Rachel Makes a Public Statement

Rachel McGuire spoke publicly against Olney’s decision to publish the story. She asked everyone who supported that decision to reconsider.

 

Jennifer Martin posted on Facebook to promote the story. Because of the promotion on Facebook, Joey responded to Jennifer’s email and asked her to either revise the story or take it down.

The screenshot below is Joey’s email to Jennifer.

 

Brandon Begins Dismissing Claims Publically

Olney’s cofounder, Brandon Noel, publicly posted on his personal account that Rachel was “big mad” over the little magazine not removing a story she just doesn’t like and causing drama.

When others called Olney out on the word choice of “drama”, Olney responded with this tweet:

Olney Quietly Revises Their Story

Jennifer Martin and Olney quietly revised the story. They changed the physical description of Joey. They removed the descriptions of his children. They added enthusiasm from the narrator during the sexual encounter, so that it would look less like a rape.

Below is the revised sexual encounter.

That night Jennifer talked about “being canceled” in her podcast and how she doesn’t care about those who raise concerns about her work.

Jennifer: “like obviously stuff that I write is offensive to some people, but I don’t care about those people, so it doesn’t matter”

Podcast Co-Host: “[…] We don’t care about you, Jennifer’s ex-girlfriend.”

Jennifer: “Yeah, I don’t care.”

The full audio segment is below, but for ease of locating the above quote, the start time has been advanced.

Continued Denial and Social Media Promotion

Jennifer has continued to post publicly that “out of nowhere” Rachel started a campaign to “cancel” Jennifer over her “fictional” story. As we have covered in every step here, this story was not fictional and Rachel is not trying to have Jennifer canceled. A public apology is all that’s being asked for.

 

Additionally, Olney has continued to promote tweets that focus on the controversy instead of addressing it.

 

Current State and Joey's Words

To date neither Jennifer C Martin nor Olney Magazine nor any of its editors or founders have publicly acknowledged the revisions or apologized for the harm done. Additionally, Jennifer continues to use the controversy to promote the story.

Rachel Lynn McGuire never advocated for Jennifer or Olney to get canceled. She just wanted them to fix this.

Joey drafted an email and considered sending it to the editors of Olney when he saw the way they were publicly gaslighting Rachel McGuire. He ultimately decided not to send that email, because he wanted to protect his privacy and conserve his energy. He has agreed to share this draft here.