Kohlberg, Morality, and Rape

Two girls were raped in and around my home town a couple months back. I'm not going to link to the articles, because although almost no one who doesn't actually know me reads this I'm a little leery of being completely out based on what happened to various people who commented positively on Lena Chen's articles and also what happened to Sady Doyle and to some poeople who tried to defend her. But also because at least one of the victims is underage and easily identified as well. It it what it is, but apparently you can't get your face hit a bunch of times and then smashed into a sidewalk, raped, and then report it without being completely outed at your local high school. And, frankly, that girl (and the other girl I don't personally know of) has to deal with enough crap without her story being linked on various blogs.

So. You're going to have to take my word for it that two girls were raped in and around my home town a couple of months back. You're going to have to take my word for it that the girl I know of was told in the high school after the fact that she deserved to be raped, and you're going to have to take my word for it the accused rapist is being defended with the same old lines about how girls lie, about how he could get any girl he wanted, about how these girls probably wanted a relationship and he said no so now they're getting revenge.

As if beating yourself up and putting yourself in a situation where someone will come up to you and tell you that you deserve to be raped is really worth it.

There's another part of this, too. This isn't the first time sexual violence has hit my town, obviously. It isn't the first time the kids in this age range have had to deal with this sort of thing. Another girl in my town, someone who is close to my sisters and whom I actually actively know, was sexually assaulted by her mom's boyfriend. And when she told her mom, when her mom believed her and pressed charges, people at the school told her she must have liked it.

All of this rattles around in my head, and what comes out is how similar these reactions are to every other rape or sexual assault case. Those two girls above? They were violently assaulted. There is DNA evidence. The girl I know of was in the hospital, had black eyes, had choke marks on her neck, had the blood vessels burst in her eye. And you know what people wrote on the news reports? "What was she doing out there at 11 at night?" "I know him, and he wouldn't do that." "Those girls are ugly, and he could get any girl he wanted so why rape them?" "They're stories are too similar. They probably got together to ruin him." All of these, by the way, are paraphrased, because although any one of these remarks are probably present on any news story dealing with rape anywhere in the nation right now, I really am serious about keeping these particular girls as anonymous as I possibly can.

There were other people who pointed out that rape isn't exactly about sex, not always, but oftentimes about power. There were people who pointed out that these girls were minors, that the guy in question is not, that girls generally don't give themselves black eyes and get semen in them just as a way to secure a false rape conviction.

But the reactions from the deniers are exactly the same, if less prevalent, as the deniers in, say, the Julian Assange case. There is this same thread of "women lie, repeatedly", "women conspire with one another to screw over men", "women aren't to be trusted", "women are raped, but these women clearly weren't", "men may rape, but these men, men that we like, do not and have not". "Don't ruin this man's life just because these women said that this thing happened against their will".

Where did we get the idea that all women lie about rape? Where did we get the idea that innocent until proven guilty meant that it was okay to shame the victim, to call them sluts, to call them liars, to question their moral integrity?

I think it stems from two seemingly polar opposite places: (1) the idea that women are the moral arbiters of sexual action, and (2) that women are less than men, both as moral actors and as people. These two ideas come together in really weird ways.

There's the idea that a man's sexual attraction and sexual action is somehow based on a woman's presentation: her looks, her attire, her attitude. This is the "How could she not want it? Look at what she wears/how she looks/what she was doing with that lollipop!" defense. In line with this point is the idea that women should act in accordance with what will bring men the least amount of sexual attraction. These would be arguments for women wearing more clothing, being more modest, throwing away their sexy underwear and their mini skirts. The realm of sexual morality is, in this philosophical vein, the woman's purview, even if what women are and are not allowed to pursue, in the interests of not arousing men's attractions, are not wholly their own decision.

And that's where number (2) really comes in. Women are in charge of preventing men's sexual interests, but they aren't really in charge of deciding what is or isn't responsible for exciting that interest. That is the job for others.

Number (2) is also, I think, influenced by what we see as objective decisions regarding morality. I remember, freshman year of college I took a class in sociology - because my experience with a psychology class was so bad in high school. In that sociology class, I learned about Kohlberg's theory of the stages of moral development. In Kohlberg's five stages, women consistently only reached level 3, whereas men generally would reach levels 4 or 5, the more theoretical moral levels. Men, under Kohlberg's stages, are more advanced moral actors than women. And although Kohlberg's theories have been critiqued by the likes of Carol Gilligan and others, I do believe that there is this odd bit of thought that runs throughout our culture about women: how the ideal is that they are better moral actors than men because they, as an ideal, are self-sacrificing and the "fairer" sex; but in practice we see women as less reliable narrators of their own experiences, as less moral, as more likely to manipulate interpersonal situations for their own personal gain.

Add that with a propensity to grant more weight to men's opinions, thoughts, and ideas, and there is a volatile mix that leaves women being seen as untrustworthy. As liars. As manipulators trying to pull one over on the rest of society. By hurting a really nice guy. A guy who could go on to do great things. Or who has people who love him. As if those girls are automatically not nice, could not go on to do great things, and don't have people who love them.

As an ending, I can't think of a better one than this post by Sady Doyle, whom I typically quote from too much, on rape and rape accusations.

Here's The Thing:

I should be in bed. I should be sleeping. I just recently had my wisdom teeth out (like, on friday), and anyone who follows me on twitter or even just popped in over the last 2 days knows that I look like a deranged chipmunk and that I've been a little pathetic regarding the whole thing.

Plus, I get to go sign a lease for an apartment in the morning, all the while looking like a deranged chipmunk.

So, I really should be sleeping, both because signing a lease will require me to be somewhat awake and because nothing else seems to be helping the chipmunk effect I'm presently suffering from.

And yet what I keep getting drawn back to, again and again, is Sady Doyle and her #MooreandMe crusade on twitter. If you haven't checked it out, I highly recommend doing so. It is probably the only thing aside from the current condition of my face I'm tweeting about with any regularity.

The latest post by Sady is perhaps the one that truly demonstrates how Michael Moore's comments are merely the ones that broke the camel's back. But she does it beautifully when she writes:

We’re not backing down. We’re not disappearing. Because they scared and bullied and threatened and shamed and lied to and lied about and disappeared all of those women, all of those women who were scared enough to go away or too scared to report in the first place, they all went away, and somebody has to not go away. We have to not go away.

Michael Moore and Keith Olbermann are progressive men. But they are flawed progressive men and their flaw, in this case, is minimizing rape because the man accused of rape is someone they admire.

I am a Countdown viewer, and I gasped at loud in my car when I heard Michael Moore perpetuate the lie that Julian Assange is in custody merely because of a broken condom during consensual sex. I felt like I was kicked in the stomach when Keith Olbermann did nothing to correct that blatant misrepresentation of the facts.

But, and here's why I'm not sleeping, I have come to accept and expect that sort of feeling when I watch liberals and leftists and people with whom I am in agreement almost 99 percent of the time. I have come to accept that Michael Moore is going to call on the president to take off his tutu and fight, as if tutus represent all that is weak because tutus are feminine. I have come to accept that men I respect and admire are going to use gendered terms, are going to not quite get it, are going to come to the defense of other men at the expense of women.

This is (was) my nihilistic stance. That to ally myself, even just intellectually, with the progressive community is to acknowledge that, sometimes, women are going to get thrown under the bus. To listen to progressive podcasts like Best of the Left, I'm going to have to hear about how we should make flying an expensive venture again, with stewardesses we can all leer at. To listen to progressive shows like Countdown, I'm going to have to hear Keith Olbermann or a guest say something sexist, demeaning, or outright demoralizing, and know that it will never be corrected.

About two months ago, Hugo Schwyzer wrote "Keep quiet for the cause": on sexual abuse in progressive movements. That post is almost directly related to Sady Doyle's latest piece about standing outside Michael Moore's tower. A student of Schwyzer's was raped by a progressive leader and the response was:

“He’s helping so many”, she was told, “and he hurt you. Isn’t it better to just avoid him? We’ll warn him to shape up, but we can’t go further than that. He’s too valuable.”

He's too valuable. For too long, my nihilism was based in that: liberal voices were so precious to me that they were valued far and above their occasional mishaps. I was starving for intellectual nourishment that made me feel like I was not crazy to feel the ways I was feeling or to think the ways I was thinking. And for a long time, I was able to separate the, "but what about that whole 'feminism' thing?" from it. I was able to convince myself that every stumble, every statement that made me see red, every nonapology apology, was worth the price of admission. Because I had access to 'my people'. And because nobody's perfect.

Well, no one is perfect. But as @FeministSpock wrote,

To err is human. To acknowledge, logical. To apologize, evolved.

Julian Assange is no more Wikileaks than Michael Moore and Keith Olbermann are Progressivism. And because they cannot separate their false idols from that which they admire, I have to.

I stand with Sady Doyle. Not because she is an idol. Not because she is perfect. Because here and now, she is right. Women matter. Rape victims matter. Justice matters. And if Michael Moore and Keith Olbermann or anyone else is looking to be a prominent voice in progressive circles, then they are going to have to acknowledge that. They are going to have to acknowledge women, and the lives of women.

Rape and Wikileaks

This morning, I woke up, checked twitter, and had this:

Rape is being used in the #Assange prosecution in the same way that women's freedom was used to invade Afghanistan. Wake up! #wikilieaks

by Naomi Klein staring at me. It galled me so much I sent my first "@" reply to someone marginally famous, and went on with my day. But my mind kept returning time and time again to this idea, the idea that Assange is being railroaded as a way of getting to Wikileaks. And what it came down to is this: I don't care.

Don't get me wrong, I'm more or less okay with Wikileaks as an organization. This last round of leaks left me fairly unimpressed, as it was mostly just gossip; and the leaks before that about the Afghanistan war effort had the potential to place the American troops on the ground in danger and I was definitely angry about that. But at this point, I find the idea behind Wikileaks to be something worth exploring. And Tom Merritt is right when he says, "It is not against the law to publish this information." In that sense, going after Julian Assange more vigorously than any other person accused of the same crime is exactly what Naomi Klein is saying: Assange has attracted more attention for this particular, often overlooked, crime because of who he is and because of what website he runs. But Klein is completely incorrect in asserting that we should wake up to this reality, and that because Assange is being pursued in such a manner we should defend him and decry the pursuit itself. Instead, the question we should be asking isn't why is this particular case getting so much attention, but why aren't all of the other cases out there getting taken as seriously?

This is an issue completely separate from a defense of Wikileaks. We can discuss whether or not the application of these charges were politically motivated. We can discuss if this is a tactic being used to attack Wikileaks. We can discuss how unbalanced the application of this law may be. What we cannot do, what we should not do, is defend Assange based on the unbalanced application of the law because he may be doing something we find admirable in other quarters. Whatever you think of Wikileaks as an organization, I think we can all agree that if its spokesman and editor-in-chief has charges brought up against him, he should stand trial.

This, right here, is what makes rape an insidious crime. Those we admire, those we respect, we tend to minimize, deflect, or outright deny such a charge against them. What we as a society have got to come to realize is that a rapist can do good in other areas and still have raped someone. A rapist can be someone who does works we admire. A rapist can be someone whom we have previously respected, and whose political and ideological beliefs mirror our own. Which is why an organization or political thought should stand alone, divorced from its most vociferous defenders and/or creators. Wikileaks needs to stand or fall on its own merits, and we need to defend or decry Wikileaks on its own merits (or lack thereof). What we cannot do is excuse Julian Assange from even having to defend himself against a charge because such a charge may hurt his organization. Which is where Klein is wrong again. Yes, women's freedom was used as a battle cry in Afghanistan. Yes, it was the wrong cry, not in the least because we have done a piss poor job of securing the safety and freedom of women since entering Afghanistan. But Julian Assange may have actually committed rape. And there are laws against rape. And he can and should be charged with the crime. This isn't some nebulous "protect teh women" battle cry.

I don't know if Julian Assange is or is not a rapist. I know he is being held in connection to a crime. I know that the support he is receiving from Klein is, to be frank, beneath her. As Jessica Valenti highlighted, one of the charges facing Assange is not merely that he had sex with a woman without the condom she required but that he engaged in sexual intercourse with a sleeping woman. That last one? That's describing rape, pure and simple. It's rape, because a sleeping woman does not have the ability to consent to sex. These two women deserve their day in court. If their accusations are true, they deserve every measure of justice that can be awarded to them.

It is a shame that Wikileaks can be undermined because its editor-in-chief and spokesperson is alleged to have committed an act of sexual assault. But it isn't our shame. It is Assange's own, and it is a bed of his making. Our shame comes from the fact that we do not take every allegation of rape seriously. Our shame comes from the fact that we leave rape kits untested, that we victim-blame, that we use horrifying and damaging excuses like "women don't do that" or "boys will be boys" or "what were you doing there, anyway". Our shame comes from the strange idea that to assent to one sexual act is to assent to all sexual acts, that anything less than "no" is "yes", that enthusiastic consent is too hard a criteria to meet, that enthusiastic consent is not sexy because it makes sex into a negotiation. Sex is a negotiation. Sex is about communication. Sex is about boundaries, about which ones can be crossed by whom and when. Sex is about recognizing that if your partner wants sex with a condom, you'd better damn well put on a condom. Sex is about recognizing that if you don't have an already established understanding that starting while your partner is sleeping is both okay and relished, you can't do that. Sex is about stopping when your partner asks you to stop, tells you to stop, for whatever reason zie does so.

Our shame is that people feel comfortable defending Assange because that we are taking this particular sexual assault seriously deviates from the norm.

Further reading:

Naomi Wolf Really Needs to Read the Internet - Jessica Valenti

Some Thoughts On "Sex By Surprise" - Jill

Julian Assange Captured By World's Dating Police - Lena Chen

How We Describe Women Who Report Sexual Assaults Now - Sady Doyle

Jeans, and Consent

When I was around the age of twelve, I read a quote from some judge in some rape case somewhere that basically amounted to "girls can't get raped if they're wearing jeans, because you need help to get someone's jeans off". I, for my part, was thrilled. Jeans were already an essential part of any outfit, and to learn that they were practically a sure-fire way to not be raped, ever, was just awesome. I should also mention that 12 was the age I was when I was first cat-called, so the possibility of sexual violence being done to my person was probably more present than it would have otherwise been. I excitedly told my mother the news: Jeans Prevent Rape!!

And she scoffed at me.

I was a bit confused, and she never truly explained the nature of her scoffing. Presumably, because she thought I'd figured it out in that moment. Because, well, how stupid would I have to be to think that JEANS prevented someone from being raped?

Apparently, as stupid as a judge in Australia.

I've since become aware that jeans do not stop rape. That the idea that jeans could stop rape was referenced in my Newsweek because it was just that crazy everyone reading the quote would recognize the complete lack of validity without explanation. Everyone except twelve-year old me, that is. Because twelve-year old me was still trying to figure out the magic equation that would prevent anyone from touching me in a way I didn't want, ever. It saddens me that the rest of the world hasn't caught up; that Newsweek was wrong. That the idea doesn't seem as ludicrous to a whole host of people as it should.

Who Is Like The Beast?

Remember when Speaker Pelosi walked arm and arm in a Civil Rights March across Independence Avenue, from the House buildings over to the Capitol. In three years, I have never seen Nancy Pelosi cross the street the way that you saw in that picture. They deliberately went through that crowd, perhaps to try and incite something.

- Michelle Bachmann

If she was really worried about violence and she thought these people were violent, why would you grab a big hammer and walk into a sea of people?

Did anyone say to Nancy Pelosi, "You're inciting violence. You're slapping them across the face"?

- Glenn Beck

They faked - they were trying to provoke an incident. There's no reason to walk above ground to get to the Capitol building from their offices. There's tunnels underneath with trains, subways, and so forth. They're purpose - send the Congressional Black Caucus to walk over, send Pelosi over there with a big gavel, trying to provoke an incident.

- Rush Limbaugh

Listen, I know the three people listed above can in no way really be described as serious people in search of an honest debate on the issues. But one of the things I found so interesting in their various statements was how close these come to some classic rape apologia statements - you know, the ones that go, "She shouldn't have been there", "Did you see how she was dressed?" "She obviously wanted it", etc.

I especially find it interesting how the act of crossing the street, whether or not Speaker Pelosi does so often, is deemed indefensible here.

There is something happening in this vision of reality that seems to claim any and all negative actions taken against a person should be that person's responsibility. Even if all she did was cross a street when a bunch of protesters were out there showing their might.

There is something else that I find strange here as well, and that is this idea that not allowing a protest to effect your actions - or to not respond in the manner desired by the protesters - is suddenly a call to incite violence.

If Michelle Bachmann is right and Nancy Pelosi truly never has "cross[ed] the street the way that you saw" before, then what she seems to have been doing is creating a demonstration of her own. Not a show of force, no matter what Limbaugh and Beck think about her big gavel. But a demonstration of determination, a demonstration that she and those with her were not going to be bullied or be shamed for what they saw as a necessary vote for needed legislation - no matter how much they wanted/didn't want that was left out/put in the bill.

In effect, Nancy Pelosi seemed to be giving a clear message to the protesters, and to those people like Beck and Bachmann. That message was that she was proud of her accomplishments and her vote, and she was not going to be scared underground because there were people above ground who didn't like it and who didn't want to see her walk to the Capitol Building.

Frankly, it was a message that she deserved to walk up to that particular building in the light of day just as much as they deserved to demonstrate outside that building in the light of day. That she and her rights weren't dissolved simply because this group didn't like her and her ilk very much.

And if that very action was seen as a provocation, if hanging onto a giant gavel that was first used when Medicare was passed while walking was a horrible indignity those protesting and those commenting favorably on the protests, then the problem lies more with them than with her.

She was just, you know, doing her thing. Walking along. Being proud.

Too often, doing your thing, walking along, being proud, carrying a giant gavel is used as an explanation for someone else's actions.

Hopefully, enough people will see how silly this line of thinking is when it comes to someone like Nancy Pelosi and the passage of healthcare, and think back on that giant gavel. Hopefully, enough people will see how silly this line of thinking is when someone is walking down a street, and recognize that simply the act of living is in no way something that prompts an angry, violent response.

There are the things Nancy Pelosi talks about, when she brought up her experiences in 1970s San Francisco, that could be used, by some, as a balance, a sort of, "You're all hypocrites" and "the Left talks about provocations to violence too, so she shouldn't have walked there".

For the record, Pelosi has said, "I think we all have to take responsibility for our actions and our words. We are a free country and this balance between freedom and safety is one that we have to carefully balance... ...But again, our country is great because people can say what they think and believe. But I also think they have to take responsibility for any incitement they may cause."

And a person could claim that Pelosi is simply getting hit from the Right with essentially the same stick she advocates for here. I don't think so, though. Because there is a difference between walking to a place you have to go anyway, and speaking in such a way that could incite violence. There is a difference between carrying a comically large gavel, and, say, a blogger who urges his readership to break DNC office windows in an attempt to avoid a larger - armed - conflict.

I happen to agree with Pelosi's statement. I'm a free speech advocate, but I also believe in a speaker's responsibility - along with the responsibility of the rest of us to call out speech we find to be unsavory. I am a fan of verbal self-restraint, though that may astonish anyone who has heard me babble for any length of time. I'm a fan of recognizing the power your words hold, and realizing the effect those words may have on an audience. I'm not a fan of the government making that line, and forming those distinctions.

I started this out by making allusions between rape apologia and what these three right-wing people said about Speaker Pelosi's march on the Capitol Building. But what I find interesting is that in these cases, it isn't merely that there are more often than not marginalized bodies involved. It is the weirdly fatalistic viewpoint. In rape apologia, a lot of the criticism comes down to Doing Something While Female. And in this, there may be more than a little of Being Speaker While Female.

But there is also this idea that we should beware of waking the foul Beast. Because the Beast cannot be controlled, should not be expected to control the urge compelling violence. All we can hope to do is not anger the Beast, to not draw the Beast's attention to us, to creep around as quietly as we possibly can and make as few waves as possible, lest we attract the Beast's attention. And if you do? If you awaken the Beast, if you are attacked or hurt or raped? It is obviously your fault. Because the Beast is nothing but a force compelled to action. To hold the Beast accountable would be foolhardy, and besides, only those people stupid enough to not follow Teh Rules get attacked. There's never this compulsion that maybe, just maybe, we should do something about the Beast itself. That maybe walking to work, even if there are angry people afoot, shouldn't be something that can be used to scold someone for provoking some sort of negative action, should that negative action arise. But no.

Rape & Sex Education, A Two-Part Rant

So, yesterday, at lunch, the women I work with were discussing their families. I generally like these discussions, since they so rarely veer off into political speak or declarations about how Fox News is just so unbiased. They're a bit on the boring side, but they also make my coworkers happy. And I'd rather have a happy coworker when I need help than the opposite. But every once in a while, a subject comes up that veers us close to the third rail of office discussion.

Yesterday was one of those days. A woman's niece, age 12, was staying after school to finish a test, and was left alone for a few minutes with two boys in her class - also age 12. One of the boys then said, "Let's rape _____". The girl asked the boy why he wanted babies (which seemed like an odd reaction to me, but wevs), and then told her mother after she got home.

Here is the first part of my rant. Everyone at lunch agreed that this was inappropriate. Everyone agreed that the mother, my coworker's sister, should report the incident to the principal. And I was one of those agreeing.

But at the same time, the incident was profoundly disturbing to me. Part of it is because in recent months, a 12 year old girl was raped, by a fourteen year old, and that rape was not seen as a serious matter by school officials. It was also because I happened to sit across from a jerk of an 8th grader at lunch, and his continuous barrage of sexual-type comments were not taken seriously by my school officials, up until I hit him with his own lunch tray. And then I was told "boys will be boys" (yes, seriously, that exact phrase was used). It is because when I was in high school, my regulation tank top was deemed as being "distracting and exciting to the boys" by my gym teacher. And it was only because I have a father who is actually pretty damn scary when he's pissed that I got an apology for that. In other words, we live in a world, even us in the liberaler states in the Union, where schools like to protect their own asses, and where the culture of boys will be boys and girls have to endure sexual comments doesn't stop at the doors of an educational facility.

It is terrible that my coworker's 12 year old niece was threatened (jokingly or not) with rape. On an individual level, it is horrible. Her mother should report the incident to the principal, to the teacher, and maybe calling up the boy's parent(s)/guardian(s) and telling them what their son said. But on a more meta and less micro level, shouldn't we be focusing part of our attention on why this statement could and is casually uttered? I know kids and teenagers and young adults say shocking and controversial things, sometimes in order to seem more sophisticated, sometimes to lash out, and sometimes simply to be seen as shocking and controversial. I'm Facebook friends with a large portion of my sisters' high school, and they have taken to FormSpring like ducks to water, so I know. Trust me. And that could segue into a post about how being gay (or bisexual, or assumed to be gay) is still ZOMG, the WORST thing to be EVER in high school, but I'll just restrain myself. The thing is, something must make it seem like it is okay for this 12 year old to talk about raping his classmate, and it isn't something that affects just this 12 year old. And we should prevent individual 12 year olds from saying such things, but shouldn't we impress upon everyone that rape isn't, actually, something to casually throw around? That it is, actually, a serious offense? That it isn't, actually, something that should be used as a threat, fake or not, faux-funny or not?

But instead, we switched over to sex education, where the second part of my rant comes in.

Mother to the 12 year old girl decided that her daughter's response to a rape threat should probably not be, "Why do you want babies?" So, she sat said daughter down for a sex talk. And talked about how much sex hurt. Always. And about how sex was bad, how sex was unpleasant, and how if you kissed someone, you were kissing every single person he ever kissed (being gay really isn't seen as an option in that house).

First my sister's reaction to the kissing line: "I would have said, 'Well, then I guess I've kissed a lot of people'". Which was, especially if you know her, hilarious.

Secondly, I understand the impetus to discuss sex and what sex is when your daughter is sheltered at age 12. I don't understand the impetus to discuss sex and not touch upon what rape is, why it is a horrible thing to say to someone. It seems that if your sex talk is happening because a kid in your daughter's class talked about raping your daughter, some discussion about rape would be in there. But, no, apparently not.

Third, though, is this: if you decide to have a discussion with your twelve year old about sex because you feel that she is sheltered and needs to have some understanding of it, what the fuck does telling her lies about sex do for her? Seriously now. And here is the crux of the post. As much as it isn't an aberration for a 12 year old boy to feel like joking about rape is acceptable, it is also not aberrant for people to not actually have solid, true information about sex. What benefit is gained from telling a 12 year old girl that sex always hurts, that sex is bad, that sexual contact is something to be avoided? None.

I'm not suggesting that parents should begin telling their children that sex is wonderful, is the best thing ever, and you should totes be open to it. What I am suggesting is that misinformation about sex is troubling, that painting sex as bad or dirty or a necessary evil is problematic, and that telling little girls that sex hurts always is wrong. Morally as well as factually.

This isn't just a problem for this specific 12 year old. This is a problem for all of the twelve year olds who do have parents who aren't open and honest with them, who go to schools where the answer to any sex question is "don't".

And that brings us to this question: is the problem teenagers having sex, or is the problem teenagers having sex irresponsibly?

I would prefer to think of my 17 year old sisters as 5 years old for the rest of their lives. I would prefer to not think about their sexual predilections or habits. But what I want is for them to have the information, to know about sex, to not feel shamed for having it or wanting it. I want them to know about contraception, and also more of the fun stuff. I want them to feel comfortable asking questions, and for them to have the reasonable expectation of honest answers. And I want that for their friends, and their friends' friends. I want sex to not be a mystery to them, not something their parents squick away from discussing, and their school refuses to touch. And I want that for my coworker's niece as well. I want sex education to contain some education about sex. And I don't think that's too much to ask.

Opening Doors

Now, there is something that really bugs me. That really pisses me off. That, at times, has led to me flying off the handle. And that is having doors held open for me. Not all of the time, mind you. If I didn't get to the door first, I am grateful the person who did get to it first has seen fit to hold it open for me. The degrees of gratefulness are different depending upon how the person has held the door - I prefer it when the person is in the process of walking through and keeps it open for me to walk through after hir as opposed to the person physically holding the handle and urging me to walk in front of them. I could go into the reasons why and the anecdotal evidence I have that has women mostly doing the first and men mostly doing the second, but I understand that most people don't get as deep into door-holding politics as I do.

What I hate is when I get to the door at the same time or before someone else, and that person (who is most often of the male persuasion) insists on holding the door open for me. This creates a bad situation, even if it were in no other way but logistical. Now, we have to swap positions. Now, the time it would take for me to get through that door has lengthened. This has done absolutely nothing to help me, and in fact hinders my own process.

I also hate it because it is chivalry at its worst. It implies that the man holding the door open for me is performing, even if just in that moment, as my servant; and yet the true dynamics of the situation are far different. He still controls the situation, because he is insistent; he controls the situation by making me accept his brief servitude. His wants, desires, and impulses still take precedent over my own. I want to hold open the door for myself, and for him, because all equality measures aside, that is what makes the most sense. That is what is easier for me. And, truly, for him.

Part of why the door holding thing annoys me so much is because it is not my natural order of things. That, and the whole ease of access thing. Throughout my life, I've been able and allowed to hold open whatever door I've gotten to first, even if there is a guy trailing me. Because it is not the natural order of things, I tend to be sharp on when things have started to not go well for me. It gets under my skin in a way it probably wouldn't to someone who has had the experience of doors being held open for them throughout their life, for someone for whom the hindrance of having a door held open in such a fashion is merely life as it has always been and will always be. For that person, if they decide that the door-held-open thing is actually annoying or sexist or just inefficient, the warning bells may not go off as frequently still - because this is the life they have always led.

Why am I going on a huge ass rant about my issues with doors and the men who hold them? Well, it comes down to the idea of infantilizing women. No, seriously, it totally does. In one of the links I posted yesterday, this one, one of the arguments that came up in the comments is that rape statistics - and the way those rape statistics are measured - infantilize women. This is an argument I've heard before, and I'm sure I'll hear it again.

See, in my life, it is obvious that having a door held open for me when I got there first is a pain in the neck, and sexist to boot. If a guy refuses to walk through the door I'm holding open, how could it be anything but?

However, there are people for whom this realization won't come naturally, because it is what they live with. Which leads me directly to a post by Thomas, who, in reviewing C.J. Pascoe's Dude, You're a Fag, has demonstrates exactly what it is that makes cases of rape and/or sexual harassment and assault difficult for a lot of women to recognize in talking about this particular high school climate:

This is a culture where:
- boys’ physical abuse of girls who shut down and barely complain is normal;
- boys’ pursuit of sexual activity that girls do not want is normal;
- boys’ sense of entitlement to date women of their choice is normal;
- girls’ assertion and determined defense of bodily boundaries is not normal.

This is the world a lot of girls inhabit. This is the world we have to recognize as being the norm, as being as natural as having a guy insist on opening a door. Obviously, the situations are more disparate than the same, in terms of the overall affect. But we can't ignore the effect of growing up with the understanding that "boys will be boys" is a legitimate excuse for half of the behavior on the list. And how we - as girls, as a society - tacitly accept that. And how that acceptance leads to girls not having the words or the understanding of the situation at hand to say, "He raped me; he touched me where he shouldn't have; his verbal intonations have become sexual harassment". Because "boys will be boys" - and girls walk in jungles they shouldn't.

I had a boy sit at my lunch table when I was in 8th grade. He constantly sat next to me or across from me, and although he never touched me, he described scenes from porn movies he'd watched in detail, knowing I didn't want to hear it. He described his own masturbation habits. And the one day when he went "too far", when my already short fuse was shorter still, I threw my lunch tray at him. We were both hauled up to the principal's office, and I told her what had happened, how the only advice I had been given by teachers and lunch aides to this point was to move to another table. Which, by the way, didn't exactly work for me. That had been MY lunch table. It wasn't my fault some pervy kid had decided to sit there. It wasn't my responsibility to move from the table I'd been sitting for the past year and a half. And she told me, again, to move my seat if he bothered me, and that "boys will be boys".

And here's the thing - I knew she was wrong. After all, I knew plenty of boys who weren't doing those things/saying those things. But did I fight it? Not so much.

And I have and have had the resources to properly articulate what was happening. I have two feminist parents. I have been well-versed in sexual matters since I first asked where babies came from at the age of 4. And yet, in many moments, throughout my life, I have lacked the ability to say, "This is what happened to me".

So when someone says the feminist movement is a rape crisis movement, or that it infantilizes women, I say this:

It doesn't. Some feminists may; some feminists do. But recognizing that we rarely give women the tools to properly label what has happened - and in some cases, is happening - to them is different from saying, "You will never know what the truth is, so I'm going to take your experience and make it into what I want the truth to be". It is also an acknowledgement that what we say and how we act can be eons apart. We can tell women they have the right to body autonomy - and then we read lists compiled about what guys in high schools get away with. How that assertion of body autonomy melts away in the face of "boys will be boys". How that doesn't necessarily change when we exit high school. How all the theoretical tools in the world (no means no; if anyone touches you in a place normally covered by your bathing suit, it is sexual assault and you should tell the nearest grown up; etc) come up short when you are constantly inundated with concrete evidence that those tools are as solid as a paper kite in a rain storm. That concrete evidence makes it all the harder to recognize when those tools are appropriate - when it was rape and not just sex you didn't want. When it is sexual assault and not simply boys being boys.

Monday Reading List

I Don't Care If You're Offended:

Now, I think many people who write about and try to fight structural bias are just accustomed to using “offensive” as something of a shorthand for this notion of harmful-because-it-reinforces-pernicious-memes; I know I generally have. But offense is only defined in terms of how the offended person feels, which means it’s an insufficient concept. It actually obscures the real problem.

The Looting Lie

For example, I was watching CNN, and there was a CNN reporter that was talking about a Haitian hotel that brought a hose out for people to take water from if they came by. Were those people looting water? I’d say no. The norms changed. What if people are together in a group and they decide that they need to go get some rice. Is it looting to get rice and feed your family in desperate situations? No. It’s a new norm developing in the midst of a very extreme situation.

Remembering National Tragedies: The U.S. vs Germany:

Plantations were many other things, but they were also the engine of slavery. It is this that should stand out as the most important thing about them. Concentration camps were many other things as well (e.g., a military training site, a daily job site for German soldiers, a factory producing goods, and a strategic part of the war effort), but we have absorbed the important lessons from them so thoroughly that it is difficult to even imagine what an alternative tour might look like. In contrast, one can visit the Lara Plantation and come away not really thinking about slavery at all, in favor of how pretty the china was and oooh did you smell that candle as we walked by? Delicious. I need a coke, you?

At War With Our Bodies:

We live in a society that makes money off of making us feel bad about ourselves, after all people who are 100% content with their body don’t go on expensive fad diets or purchase tons of expensive beauty supplies.

Female Sexuality As A Weapon:

With the recent release of Bayonetta, I was reminded of female sexuality being used as a weapon or a power in games. This is not an original idea. Having not played Bayonetta I will only mention some other games that use this mechanic.

Rape Analogy Redux: The "Stroll In The Jungle" Theory:

What is the fate of the man-eating bear? Many of the past decade’s person-eaters were either shot, killed in some other way, pepper-sprayed, lured out of the wilderness with elaborate traps, or quarantined in animal training. Sixty percent of rapes are not even reported to police, which seriously impedes the government’s ability to trap rapists. Why aren’t these women reporting their rapes? Oh, perhaps it has s0mething to do with jungle rape theorists who suggest that everyone who gets raped is a big ‘ol dumbass.

Also, Felicia Day, otherwise known in these parts as that girl who lives through Epitaph One and the girl who doesn't live through Dr. Horrible's Sing Along-Blog has her own blog! In it, she is as witty as one could hope. I highly recommend reading her, and I defy you from coming away fantasizing she'll be you're new BFF. And Stuff You Should Know's Kiva team, of which I am a part, has raised $64,225 so far. Go Team!

And comic:

toothpastefordinner.com

Risk and Poor Judgement

In the wake of the Amy Dickinson drama, there is a mindset that concerns me greatly, and that is the correlation between risk and poor judgement. Risk is inevitable. Every action holds with it a certain amount of risk, and at certain times the risk offered by a situation far outways the rewards. But that doesn't mean unnecessary risk automatically is a symptom of bad judgement, and your unnecessary risk is going to be different from my unnecessary risk. I'm sure there are places where most people's unnecessary risk overlaps; but there are people who also don't lock up their guns when there are children in the house, so I'm not betting on anything.

In terms of the financial crisis, I'm willing to say some poor judgement went down; but more than that, unnecessary risk was present in droves. And it was a situation where more than just the primary, or even secondary, players were to be greatly and acutely and intimately affected. That is a risk I am not willing to take, but that is because until I got to college, I had a tendency to shake after making a very large purpose and have immediate buyer's remorse, even for things that were necessary. However, it is also a greater risk because its effect went beyond those making the original assessment. The amount of risk in terms of life-destroying financial decisions should be, I think, couched in part by how many lives will be destroyed. It's an inexact science, to be sure.

But then, there is the risks that, generally, affect only ourselves. The risk of wearing a miniskirt in 1960s America. The risk of riding the subway whenever as a woman. The risk of talking to a stranger at a party.

There are all sorts of risks that are both greater than the average and exhibit poor judgement, without being immoral or criminal. Lighting one's own head on fire. Taunting a group of Hells Angels with your police badge. Yelling at a police officer. Getting a piggie back ride from an extremely drunk friend. Doing anything ever first demonstrated on Jackass.

Talking to a stranger at a party, going to another room with a new acquaintance at a party isn't on that list. Even while drunk. There is a risk factor, yes. But there is (a) also the risk of reward, and (b) the assumption your companion isn't about to break the law. Does (a) or (b) always hold up? No. But it is there, and it is the counterbalance. It is the thing that makes the risk worth the reward, meeting someone new.

Rape is frequently compared to muggings or walking down dark alleyways. And while a post by someone else I can't find at the moment details the problems with comparing a violation through sex to the removal from your possession of your wordly goods, there is a deeper issue at hand. What happens if your life includes that dark alleyway? I don't mean, "Oh, I'm going to wander down a dark alleyway I don't know tonight!" but "That dark alleyway is in my neighborhood, and it is a way of getting from place to place". You could still say it is stupid to take it, but is it really? If it is your neighborhood, if walking through all of the other streets is just as risky? Women get drunk. Women drink. The people women drink around are not always going to be people they know. And women are, generally, in the presence of men. If a drunk man is a dark alleyway, the chances are a woman has been alone with multiple ones over the course of her life. Because she has to interact with that dark alleyway sometimes. Because rape doesn't happen with strangers leaping out at us from dark alleyways. Rapists are most often the people close to us, and the people close to the rapists are most often their victims. And because, all things considered equal, talking to a drunk guy alone isn't that much more risky with talking to any guy unfamiliar to her alone. Which is to say, it could go rather poorly - or he could be wonderful and end up as her not-boyfriend before the week is out, and everything in between.

I don't go to parties, and I never much enjoyed them in college. My risk ratio was that I don't like people, I don't like large gatherings of people, even among those I know, and I'm not the most fun person to meet at parties. I prefer to hang out with my friends, the people I know and can talk to. But, if I were someone who enjoyed people and hanging out with a whole host of them when we were all drunk, the risk-reward ratio would shift. A lot.

And then there is the other part of this, and that is that with all of the concern Amy and others have placed on how this girl exhibited poor judgement, the actual criminal and his criminal act gets lost in the shuffle. We're not talking about his risk-ratio, his poor judgement, his criminal actions. We're not talking about how to talk to men about rape, committing it and how to not. We're talking to a woman, and to all women, about their poor judgement, and the rapist suddenly disappears from the conversation.

No.

The rapist should be front and center. The rapist should not have as a comfort the "rape is always wrong - but" going on. The rapist needs to be the focus, because otherwise we're just having another conversation about women and how they get raped. Women don't "get" raped. Women are raped, by other people. Most often, by men. And the way we help victims isn't by foisting upon them some idea of agency, some idea that if we can teach them how they've done wrong and they have to own their poor judgement. We have to talk about how, by being raped, someone didn't acknowledge their agency, didn't recognize their humanity. We have to change the conversation. Because for too long, it has been about women, and what they do or don't. For once, it really is a "what about teh menz?!" issue.

Monday Reading List

Clothing: The Newest Weapon Against Sexual Assault:

Adam Whiton, an MIT student, and Yolita Nugent, a clothing designer, are leading a research project to develop sensor-studded clothing for women that will record data about an attack in real time and store that information on a computer. Having such hard evidence about an attack may persuade more women to turn to the authorities in crisis situations, and this evidence may make it easier to prosecute and convict offenders.

Just How Pro-Choice Is America, Really?:

...in late 1995, a Florida Republican congressman named Charles Canady had a stroke of insight that would shift it to the realm of both the metaphysical and brutally physical, which is precisely where the pro-life movement wanted it all along. On the floor of the House, he introduced a bill that would ban so-called “partial-birth abortions,” a second-trimester surgical method previously known as intact dilation and extraction. The procedure was extremely upsetting to behold. In it, the fetus—or is it a baby?—is removed from the uterus and stabbed in the back of the head with surgical scissors. It’s a revolting image, one to which the public was ritualistically subjected on the evening news as the debate raged on the House and Senate floors. Defending it was a pro-choice person’s nightmare. Pat Moynihan compared it to infanticide. Clinton still vetoed the ban in 1996, but it was eventually signed into law in 2003 and withstood a Supreme Court challenge in 2007. More important, women were spooked. “A lot of our patients started asking whether or not the fetus felt pain after that, even if they were early along in their pregnancy,” says Albert George Thomas, who until two years ago had spent eighteen years as the head of the family-planning clinic at Mount Sinai.

Ads Gone Bad: The Dockers Man-ifesto:

Once upon a time, men didn't have anyone questioning their shit. They wanted to be congratulated for opening doors and walking across streets. Men were in charge because they kept everyone else down. But somewhere along the way, women wised up and were like, these dudes are fucking assholes and we'd like some freedom and autonomy now, please.

Three Examples of Rape Culture in Nice Guy (tm) Breast Cancer Activism:

Do you feel safer yet? Oh, but this is hilarious, right? Because no-one ever ACTUALLY touches breasts against their owner’s will! See? It’s SATIRICAL. Don’t you get it? The threat is just a JOKE! Lighten up, chicks! God, you’re so SERIOUS.

John's working on a new project, Operation Backlog Slog, Days 1-5, Day 6, and Days 7-9:

Beginning December 1st, I swore off purchasing any new music, movies, TV shows, video games, graphic novels until I finish my existing stockpile of each. I haven’t done a full inventory yet, but I’ve got at least 10 video games, 10 graphic novels (here, plus hundreds back home), two high-capacity DVD binders full of movies and TV shows and several albums to go through.

Stuff You Should Know's Josh and Chuck have a Kiva Team, of which I am a part, has raised $38,600, well on their way to the $100,000 challenge they've set for themselves.

And Toothpaste for Dinner!

toothpastefordinner.com

Yes, Virginia, It IS Victim Blaming

There has lately been a big stink raised about Amy Dickinson's advice to a college girl asking if she was raped at a frat party. I let most of it pass me by in spite of my antipathy for advice columns of late, because, frankly, faster and more precise fingers flew on the issue. But then, a friend was shown an article criticizing Dickinson's advice. And although I've already commented on the post itself, something naggled at the back of my skull. So, in the midst of rewatching A Love Supreme for review purposes, I was compelled to respond to my friend's response.

First, the letter:

Dear Amy: I recently attended a frat party, got drunk and made some bad decisions.

I let a guy take me to "his" room because he promised that he wouldn't do anything I wasn't comfortable with.

Many times, I clearly said I didn't want to have sex, and he promised to my face that he wouldn't.

Then he quickly proceeded to go against what he "promised." I was shocked, and maybe being intoxicated made my reaction time a bit slow in realizing what was happening.

We were soon kicked out of the room by the guy who lived there, who was pretty angry.

I guess my question is, if I wasn't kicking and fighting him off, is it still rape?

I feel like calling it that is a bit extreme, but I haven't felt the same since it happened.

Am I a victim?

-- Victim? in Virginia

Dear Victim?: First of all, thank you. I hope your letter will be posted on college bulletin boards everywhere.

Were you a victim? Yes.

First, you were a victim of your own awful judgment. Getting drunk at a frat house is a hazardous choice for anyone to make because of the risk (some might say a likelihood) that you will engage in unwise or unwanted sexual contact.

You don't say whether the guy was also drunk. If so, his judgment was also impaired.

No matter what -- no means no. If you say no beforehand, then the sex shouldn't happen. If you say no while its happening, then the sex should stop.

According to the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network Web site (rainn.org):

"Alcohol and drugs are not an excuse -- or an alibi. The key question is still: Did you consent or not? Regardless of whether you were drunk or sober, if the sex is nonconsensual, it is rape. However, because each state has different definitions of "nonconsensual," please contact your local center or local police if you have questions about this. (If you were so drunk or drugged that you passed out and were unable to consent, it was rape. Both people must be conscious and willing participants.)"

Go to your college's health department to be tested for STDs and pregnancy. See a counselor to determine how you want to approach this. You must involve the guy in question in order to determine what happened and because he absolutely must take responsibility and face the consequences for his actions, just as you are prepared to do. He may have done this before.

My friend agrees with Dickinson's advice, saying:

In her letter, the alleged victim initially states that she "made some mistakes." And, based on her story, she's right. Despite what Dickinson's critics say, it is risky for a girl to get drunk at a fraternity party and go off with a fellow she doesn't know very well. This decision reflects poor judgment.

To say I disagree is an understatement. In the aftermath of a sexual assault, it is fairly normal to assume much of the blame. "I made some mistakes" is not an admission of anything more than the feelings of assumed guilt of someone who endured a traumatic experience. "I made some mistakes" is a qualifier for someone who is feeling ashamed and confused and violated. "I made some mistakes" is not, strictly speaking, the mark of mistakes being made. Is it possible she actually did make some mistakes? Sure. Are any of them outlined in her description of the event? Not really.

And why? Because trusting people is not a demonstration of "poor judgement". Because what Amy Dickinson, and my friend, is suggesting something that is not possible.

What my friend and Dickinson are suggesting is that it is poor judgement for women to drink, and for women to meet men while drinking. Sorry, but that's a whole huge swath of human interaction - especially in college - being denied to women on the basis that participating in this type of fun is an exercise in poor judgement.

Look, rape is a difficult crime. You can say that women (and men) should abstain from taking certain risks. But risk is a part of life, and interactions between women and men unfamiliar to them is how one gets to interactions between women and men who are familiar to them.

The same thing that makes rape a hard crime to get a conviction for is the same thing that makes simplistic "well, you shouldn't have gone there with him, and if you did you were a victim of your own poor judgement" absolute bullpucky. And that is this: women like sexual contact. Not always and not always all the way to sex, but a lot of women are attracted to men and a lot of women like to do things like kiss men, and fool around with men, and sometimes they even like to have sex with men. And in order to get to the kissing, the fooling around, and/or the sex, women have to meet men and spend time alone with them. And to be told that spending time alone with strange men is a product of our own poor judgement, but don't you dare think of all men as rapists because that is misandry at work, is such a piece of work.

And then there's this. Say there was a second girl at this precise party. She meets a guy. They're drinking. They're laughing. She lets him take her to "his" room. She makes it clear she doesn't want to have sex. He makes it clear he isn't going to do anything she isn't comfortable with. And he doesn't. They don't have sex. They go precisely as far as she is comfortable with. They're giddy, and having a good time. Soon, they are kicked out of the room by the guy who actually lives there. She laughs at her companion, he explains that he just wanted to spend some alone time with her. She finds him sweet. They see each other again. They end up dating. Was she the victim of bad judgement? Or is the bad judgement of the first girl in the situation contingent upon the events that transpired after she entered the room? I think, it is the second option. I think we foster ideas about bad/poor judgement on women who have already been victimized, when if after 50 years of marriage, the second girl were to write into whomever was Ask Amying it up in the future to tell her "funny, romantic" tale, there would be no "And you were lucky he wasn't a rapist!" anywhere in Future Ask Amy Columnist's response.

Rape isn't like other crimes. We generally don't want our money stolen, our houses broken into, our noses broken, etc. We do, generally, want to converse and mingle and have sex with those who have the power to rape us. And there are no easy answers for why rape occurs or how we can stop it from occurring, if we want to be serious about either. Thomas from Yes Means Yes has written something in the past I find to be quite right, so I'm going to quote it now:

We will also surely see remarks from people who don’t want to be called rape apologists, and who may even think they are not rape apologists while they gyrate wildly to turn the focus on the victim instead of the rapists and their crowd of aiders and abetters where it belongs. These people will almost always start with some version of “of course I’m not blaming the victim and what the rapists did was wrong and all that …” And then will come the key word, BUT.

Then they will make their real argument. And their real argument is that they are unwilling to actually take rape seriously or do anything to hold rapists accountable. What they believe and argue (but will avoid saying outright) is that the rapist’s behavior is unavoidable, as much a natural disaster as a hurricane or an earthquake, and so the only sensible thing is to plan for its inevitability. The argument will proceed from the dreaded BUT to focus on what SHE did, and how wrong and stupid it was, and ultimately conclude that if women just curtailed their behavior in one or several additional ways, the problem would be solved.

My friend, who is a good, kind, and decent human being, is guilty of the same thing I myself have been guilty of, and will continue to be guilty of in the future when I first hear of these events. And that is the "but":

Rape is never the victim's fault, but that doesn't mean that the victim's prior decisions are always value-neutral.

The victim's prior decisions are, in many ways, value-neutral in that the value we assign tends to correlate to the outcome of the situation. And they are value-neutral precisely because those "risky behaviors", those exercises of "bad judgement", are living. Simply living. They are what men get to do, almost automatically. They are what women should be able to do, with the patronizing "Silly women, living's for men!" hanging over their heads. And they are in the course of normal human interaction. The "but" is easy, because it allows us to assign a certain action for a certain outcome. Of course, she was raped. She did X. Of course, she was raped. She didn't do Y. Of course, she was raped. She was wearing Z. She just shouldn't do X, should do Y, and should never, ever wear Z.

Except, that doesn't do anything to answer for why he did A. And why men rape is, I think, a more important question to answer than instructing women on how to not be raped. Because The Rules for that are arbitrary and dependent upon the situation. Because The Rules for that are limiting, and confine women too much. Because The Rules accept the inevitability that if a woman is "stupid" by the dictum of The Rules - that is, if she doesn't conform to what we would consider 'good girl behavior' - she is likely to be raped. Because if every women ever followed The Rules, mini skirts would not be the thing and women would barely be able to exit their homes without being accompanied by a male companion. I like my independence. I like my mini skirts. I like knowing that The Rules are more about the illusion of safety than the promise of ensuring it. What I would like is for more people to recognize that too.

Monday Reading List

Not The Man I Know by Cara:

This is the danger of making statements about what “the man I know” would and wouldn’t do. It places our own experiences with a person above those of a person with whom they have been violent. And it erases the fact that violence against women exists, that it is being committed right now as I write this, and that it’s being committed by men who we’ve gone to school with, been to dinner parties with, played on the playground with, by men who have been non-violent towards us, who have helped us, who have been nice to us.

Belonging Review: Dollhouse 2.04 from Maia:

Belonging wasn’t the fantasy of killing a rapist, there was a body and it traumatised Priya even more. The fight was messy, Priya had a normal person’s strength and was lucky. Although I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who shouted at the screen “Topher couldn’t you have helped by providing her with Kung Fu skills. But it wouldn’t have worked if he had. And after there was blood, a body, and very few options. There were still fantasy elements – Boyd arrived on cue with body disposal skills, but it was the reality, not the fantasy that we were left with. The scene, or story, didn’t end with her stabbing him.

How I Found Out I Was Politically Correct, a post only slightly marred by the misnaming Joss Whedon as Josh Whedon:

The next time someone complains about “political correctness”, listen close. Chances are they’re either talking about someone not knowing their place, or someone having the gall to tell the listener to act like a decent human being. “What‘s this chick robot doing in my show about walking dude robots? TOKENISM! Chew with my mouth closed? POLITICAL CORRECTNESS GONE WILD!” These folks are under the impression that they’re “edgy”. After all, what is more rare and groundbreaking than straight white dudes ragging on things? Sometimes I can go an entire day without hearing that! Assuming I don’t watch television or listen to radio or go on the internet, and also spend the entire day in the woods.

Only Those With Power Can Participate In Racism:

...if you're black, say, and engage in prejudiced opinions and behavior against white people, you are not participating in a power structure that systematically oppresses white people, because no such power structure exists. You are engaging in a singular act of prejudice that does not, in the end, change, effect, or even play into the balance of power.

Amanda's Looking at Releasing Dirty Pictures As A Form Of Sexual Assault:

Understanding that this kind of thing is a form of sexual assault also helps us understand how it’s victim-blaming to suggest that the girls deserve all this because they were foolish enough to take these pictures. Whether or not it’s wise to do this doesn’t diminish one bit the fact that it’s wrong to use these kinds of pictures to hurt and control young women. Indeed, the only reason that taking these kinds of pictures is reckless is because there’s so many wannabe sexual assailants out there, and they know that they won’t be held responsible if they perform their assaults by leaking these pictures. Just as rape creates a general loss of freedom for women, who have to control their associations and movements out of fear that it will happen, this form of sexual assault also creates a loss of freedom. In all cases, men should consider how this loss of freedom is wrong not just because it hurts women, but also because it hurts them. When women know that some assholes are out there, waiting to punish and humiliate you if you express yourself a little bit, you don’t express yourself. And the men who might be the beneficiaries of your enthusiastic, consensual self-expression don’t get that. In this case, every use of dirty pictures to punish and humiliate women results in more women deciding that they will never, ever take and send such pictures.

From Garfield Minus Garfield:

Monday Reading List

Lawyer Claims Rapist "Misread the Situation" by Cara. I think the title says it all.

Pussy, Pussy, Come Here! by Echidne.

From the Women Can't Win Files by Pilgrim Soul:

A female colleague of mine at work once remarked that when the elevator doors opened, she would often hear the group inside (if all male) fall silent, as though she had broken up the party. Small cues like that, dudes, are how you tell us you don’t think we get an equal share of the world. If you were making the kind of joke that would make a woman uncomfortable, the problem is not that she interrupted your fun. The problem is that you made the joke in the first place.

There's More To Life Than Marriage by MediaMaven.

Everything You Ever Loved Was Always Horrible, featuring: Short Circuit by Sady Doyle, who wittily and handily explores two movies I have never seen, owing at least in part to my weird-ass childhood where it was the odd thing I saw that wasn't produced by PBS or Jim Henson (and Short Circuit wasn't one of those). And then there's her point, choicely noted:

Because, you know, shit was fucked up. It continues to be fucked-up now, in fact! With any luck, our descendants will look back on our movies and be like, “Jesus, people WATCHED that? And didn’t get how TERRIBLE it was?” Because things will be better for them than they are for us, and they will get to take more for granted, which means we will all seem stupid and somewhat loathsome, which is as it should be.

Blaming the Gang Rape Victim by Tracy Clark-Flory:

She didn't deserve to be raped, but she was raped because she made some stupid mistakes.

It's such a convenient response, because every single day women do all sorts of things that seem reckless, especially after the fact of a crime against them. We leave our houses alone. We use underground parking garages and ride in elevators. We answer the door while we're home alone. We wear makeup. We wear clothing that doesn't hide our breasts and hips. We allow men in our lives, as family, lovers, friends and casual acquaintances. The list goes on and on.

And a comic from Toothpaste for Dinner that describes my life kind of perfectly.

toothpastefordinner.com

Rape ≠ "Messed Up Romantic Relationship"

This is an FYI for Stephen Goldmeier, who says this:

By far the most dark and twisted relationship on Dollhouse, though, is that between Sierra and her original handler. Her handler, on multiple occasions, took advantage of the preternatural trust programmed into the otherwise blank Sierra to take advantage of her innocence and rape her.

It's one of the most twisted sexual events Whedon has yet crafted, and it further proves his fascination with strange, unconventional, or even downright disturbingly messed up romantic relationships.

Which, no. Just no.

I'm not one who believes there is a total disconnect between sex and rape, forever and always. I am one who believes rape is a form of asserting power, but rapes come in many different forms. There are rapes that do exist within "disturbingly messed up romantic relationships". One of Whedon's own shows even examines that: Buffy the Vampire Slayer! Spike trying to "make [Buffy] feel it" is an excellent example of where power and sex manifest into attempted rape.

Hearn raping Sierra doesn't fit in that pantheon. It is the classic rape-as-power. Hearn says it himself when Adelle asks him, "Did it make it better? That she didn’t struggle?" and Hearn responds, "No. It made it easier."

This was an abuse of the power a caregiver has over his charge, nothing more and nothing less. To describe Hearn's continued abuse of Sierra in romantic terms is to completely misunderstand the presented scenario, and to categorize all rape as somehow romantic in nature, no matter what.

Say, What?

Or, a post where I cowardly voice my confusion here instead of actually at Shakesville, due to the whole "Luddite"/"flight animal" thing. I'm sure both play a large part in this decision. I'm going to err more on the side of the "flight animal" instinct though.

In a post called Rape Reports Hit Two-Decade Low, a regular of Shakesville e-mailed Melissa McEwan a USA Today article detailing, obviously, how rape reporting has hit a two decade low. All's on the up and up, and all past this point is on the up and up, but this one comment by the Shaker who sent in the article? Not so much on the up and up:

Rape prosecutions have improved dramatically over the past two decades because of advances in DNA testing to pinpoint a rapist rather than forcing prosecutors to rely solely on a victim's identification of her attacker, says Kim Gandy, past president of the National Organization for Women and a former prosecutor.

Oh yes, god forbid we have to rely on the testimony of a victim, of a woman. No wonder conviction rates were so low! Thank god we have rational science now instead of hysterical, over-accusing women!

Here's my problem with this. Yes, conviction rates of rapes were (and are) probably low partially because of how we as a society perceive women, and how we think of rape. But, and it is a big "but" indeed, I'm betting that as much as that perception has and will continue to negatively influence rape convictions, there is a bigger issue at play here. And that is the way our justice system is set up.

Our justice system is, at best, imperfect. Jay Smooth outlined one of the ways it is imperfect just as recently as my last post. Yes, the one right below this one! Our justice system has convicted innocent men and women, because of biases. It has also let clearly guilty men and women walk, because of biases. The reason for the White Night riots wasn't because Dan White got the book thrown at him. The reason for the 1992 L.A. riots weren't because the officers who beat Rodney King were sentenced to jail time.

But, the justice system is set up to err on the side of caution. It is set up to protect the liberty of an innocent (wo)man more than it is to punish the guilty (wo)man. I'm of the mindset that this is a pretty nifty system, indeed. A system where the government has to prove the guilt of the accused rather than a system where the accused has to prove his or her own innocence is a place I want to be. Partially because perception is a malleable thing, and walking into a trial with the mindset the accused is guilty until proven innocent will make for a higher conviction rate.

Thus, if the charge placed before the court is to find the accused guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, the lack of evidence present to prove the accused guilty of sex at all is going to be a downer in terms of conviction rates. Overall, I'm not doubting that the "hysterical woman" thing plays a part in the trial; but even so, the jury can't convict, shouldn't convict, if the proof is circumstantial or if the proof offered is the testimony of the victim of the rape. In that sense, rape convictions would almost have to go up with the advent of DNA evidence, because now the proof of sexual contact is hard and fast. That is one less thing the prosecutor has to convince the jury of, and one less thing the defense attorney can question.

So, even though I'm in full agreement with the rest of the post, I can't legitimately say, "Right on" to this part of it. Because although it sucks rape victims don't get justice often enough, I can't imagine living under a system of law where the testimony of the victim is enough to convict someone of a crime - any crime. I'm a firm believer in supporting the victims of sex crimes. But I'm also a firm believer in our imperfect system. I'm a believer in the burden of proof being on the government, and not the accused. It doesn't always end with justice being served, but it is a sight less scary than some of the other possible systems of justice.

"That's All The Money I'm Gonna Save When I Never Go To The Movies Again"

In case anyone had any doubts, I still friggin' love Jay Smooth:



You know, videos about child rape aren't really supposed to make me this happy. But hearing Jay Smooth's passionate articulation of the ins and outs of the whole Roman Polanski saga/scandal makes me insanely happy. Because he is so right. And so wonderful while being right - especially with his bit about the switch from "victim" to "accuser"/"survivor" and how Roman Polanski's not facing the law isn't as much a problem for him as it is for the survivor.

There are so many examples of straight up awesomeness that it really makes sense to just watch the entire video; but in case anyone is interested in my favorite bit of absolute awesomeness, it is this part:

Point number 2:
Let's be clear about why he got to plead to that vague, ambiguous thing. If you watch that documentary that came out last year, which was a very slanted pro-Polanski documentary, even in that film they make it clear that this plea bargain was set up by the family and their attorneys, because they saw no other way to protect this girl from the trauma of a trial that would take away her anonymity and subject her to an endless media frenzy. They did not set up that plea bargain because they had any doubts about being able to prove her original charges. They set up the plea bargain because they saw a system that could not adequately protect this child, so they felt they had no other choice but to compromise and settle for something less than justice.

Bold is all mine. Seriously though, chills down the spine to hear it laid out so clearly.

What Counts As "Rape-Rape"?

Because, honestly, I think that being a 13 year old who is intoxicated and drugged by a forty-three year old who then proceeds to have sex with the scared 13 year old would be "rape-rape" at least 3 different ways. Not, apparently, according to Whoopi Goldberg, who said on The View:

"I know it wasn't rape-rape. It was something else but I don't believe it was rape-rape. He went to jail and and when they let him out he was like "You know what this guy's going to give me a hundred years in jail I'm not staying, so that's why he left."

I've avoided the Roman Polanski arrest, because it seems so cut-and-dried, and other have covered it and covered it better than I could ever hope to. I rolled my eyes at the "He's such a great artiste" arguments that erupted from the anti-arrest side, and nodded along to the "What part of 'he raped a 13 year old' do you not understand?" crowd.

But this? This just makes me squint and look at my computer sideways. And, it makes me experience the strange vertigo-like sensation I get when I'm especially angry. My cheeks don't feel pins-and needlesy, though, and that is because this particular argument isn't incredibly shocking. It has, after all, been made before. By people in comments sections, in the "it was consensual" defense, and in the "she had sex before" defense. This defense has been made for many, many other accused rapists, and accused child rapists, in the past. Like R. Kelly.

These are, invariably, incredibly bad defenses, especially when the victim in question is under the age of consent. Because in that situation, it doesn't matter if the 13 year old high as a kite and three sheets to the wind didn't say no. S/he can't actually say, "Yes", and have that be the defense in court. Because sleeping with a 13 year old when you're 3 decades older than her, even when she isn't drugged up, is enough to make it "rape-rape". Because that is the exact definition of statutory rape. Add in the drugs, the alcohol, and the fact that the victim was scared, and it is all "rape-rape". Maybe Whoopi doesn't know this, but having sex with someone you've plied with drugs and alcohol counts as rape-rape no matter their age.

Otherwise, what we're dealing with here is the belief that some rapes don't count as much. If the victim had sex before? Not rape-rape! If the victim isn't bloody and bruised, showing she put up a fight? Not rape-rape! If the victim took off all of her clothing in front of the rapist? Not rape-rape! If the victim didn't say 'no', and often, even if she were below the age of consent? Not rape-rape! And that? Is bullshit. Because statutory rape is really rape. Because drugging someone in order to facilitate a sexual act does really count as rape. Because coerced sex, sex where the victim is too scared to voice dissent, is really rape.

The mythical 'real' rape victim, the person who never had sex before, who never walked the streets alone, who was home before dark, who carried mace to the store, who never dressed 'provocatively' and only wore white, cotton granny panties, and who was sitting at home knitting socks for the poor when s/he was violently assaulted, doesn't negate all of the rapes experienced by those who didn't always follow the rules - the ones who have had sex before, the ones who have walked alone, the ones who have been drunk around the other gender (or even the same gender). Those rapes are rape-rapes. Those rapes count as real rapes too.

Shame on Whoopi for suggesting otherwise.

(h/t Jezebel)

Another Must Read

This post is incredible:

So we learn the rules will protect us. We learn that, when we step out of line, somebody around us might very well turn crazy. Might hurt us. And we won’t be defended by onlookers, who think we’ve provoked the crazy somehow. So, having your ass grabbed at the bus stop, having to go out to dinner with a guy you fucking can’t stand, maybe even having to fuck him once or twice, it’s a small sacrifice to avoid being ostracized, insulted, verbally abused, and possibly physically assaulted.

It’s a rude fucking awakening when a woman gets raped, and follows the rules she has been taught her whole life — doesn’t refuse to talk, doesn’t refuse to flirt, doesn’t walk away ignoring him, doesn’t hit, doesn’t scream, doesn’t fight, doesn’t raise her voice, doesn’t deny she liked kissing — and finds out after that she is now to blame for the rape. She followed the rules. The rules that were supposed to keep the rape from happening. The rules that would keep her from being fair game for verbal and physical abuse. Breaking the rules is supposed to result in punishment, not following them. For every time she lowered her voice, let go of a boundary, didn’t move away, let her needs be conveniently misinterpreted, and was given positive reinforcement and a place in society, she is now being told that all that was wrong, this one time, and she should have known that, duh.

Well worth the time it takes to read.

A Must Read

This post about rape jokes:

So when rape is not depicted as a serious act, something that affects real people, something that women live with for the rest of their lives (because women aren’t real people), of course it’s not considered a serious topic. The stereotypical representation of rape is as serious as a fat waddling Southern man with a belt the size of a hula hoop. So when we trot out rape a a topic, unless the audience has personal experience with rape, we are all thinking of the Lifetime channel, or some hot hot scene from a movie, or angry-faced women on the news marching down the street all frumpy and queer. Of course it generates nervous giggles, and “edgy” humor, and is allowable conversation for not-so-secret misogynists — that’s what the cultural depiction of rape is meant to do. Humor that is degrading or offensive to oppressed populations has always operated as a pressure release valve for the things we know we are not “supposed” to say or think anymore. You might not be able to say you really don’t think 1 in 4 women are actually being raped, and if they are, they probably deserved it, and there are some circumstances where rape is okay – but you can sure as shit make a joke about it! And if somebody objects, well, here’s the built-in beauty of an oppressive system: that somebody is probably going to be a member of the oppressed class you are mocking. And it’s very easy to dismiss the opinions of oppressed populations. If we valued the thoughts, feelings, and desires of oppressed populations, we wouldn’t be able to rationalize and minimize the rape, torture, and murder of them.

It is an engrossing. long, incredible piece.

Because I Can't Say It Better:

"I'm from the government and I'm here to inspect your hamburger meat" scares the hell out of them, but "I'm from the government and I rape and murder women and children to protect you" slides down the throat as easily as the Flavor-Aid in Jonestown.

So says Capt. Fogg at The Reaction about the contents of the as of yet unreleased Abu Ghraib photographs purportedly depicting the rape and sexual assaults of Iraqi prisoners.