Did you know that rape is a form of casual sex? News to me, too.

Good old Man Boobz has done it again, and lead me to a post I can write about by Susan Walsh of Hooking Up Smart.

*Trigger warning for sexual assault apologia, and sexual assault stories


She made a “flow-chart” (in scare quotes because it’s…not really a flow-chart at all so much as, I don’t know, vomit with a bunch of arrows? I’m being generous here) in which she tries to show how casual sex leads to “ECONOMIC STAGNATION!!!!!!!!!!” Yes, that is an exact quotation from her chart. And you know, I could detail, as others already have, how problematic it is to assume that something untested and unproven is “common sense”, but that’s not what pissed me off or inspired me to write about it. Rather, it’s that sexual assault is included under “casual sex”.

Regender Challenge!

At man boobz, David issued a challenge using the Regender website. It allows one to enter a URL and change everything male to female and vice versa. I have a lot of MRA and other misogynist quotes I'd like to play with, so instead of cluttering up the thread, I've decided to post them here. For whatever reason, the deviantART URLs don't work, so I've edited the quotes myself. I've also reversed rape and false accusations of rape because I think it's funny.

I'll be waiting a while

Well, breakups suck. My boyfriend of six years broke up with me last night. That and many other reasons contribute to the suckitude (it's a word, damn it!) of this, not least that male "friends" of mine whom have shown more-than-friendly interest in the past are now going to assume I'll go for them. Men who can actually see women as human beings they might want to just be friends with seem few and far between for me past high school. One I lost contact with, one I ended up dating (he's the one who just broke up with me), and the other is gay. Just about every other male friend of mine is, well, too friendly, and there are few, if any, of them I would actually take up on their offers. You see, investing in a relationship with a very intelligent and intellectual man for over a quarter of my life has left me with some high standards. Basically, I don't want to do it all over again with another man. He's simply going to already be where I'm at. Thus, I decided to to devise some ground rules for dating me. The fact that none of the aforementioned too friendly males have likely read this or will read it pretty much solidifies that we will never end up together. So here it is as follows:

You think you even have a chance at a long-term relationship with me?

It gets easier

As a feminist, one becomes more and more aware of our misogynist society and all of the little and big things that help to uphold it. As anyone recognizable as a woman, cis or trans, one thus can no longer accept street harassment as "normal" behaviour. But it's still hard to deal with. Realizing that such people are exercising their privilege and think of you as an object, rather than it being something you've done, doesn't help one deal with such harassment, at least at first.
      

Smile, bitch!

So, it’s currently 5:22 this sunny afternoon* and I just got told to smile about ten minutes ago. What, on earth, does this have to do with anything, you ask? Well, let me share with you that I had just finished renewing my bus pass and was on my way to the bus stop when I noticed a man I’d passed earlier playing his guitar. I’d already given him two quarters and didn’t expect him to recognize me. I wanted to avoid the awkward, “Oh I just saw you a little while ago” partly because I hate not to give what little money I can spare to those in need of it. What can I say? I’m something of a philanthropist. Well, in trying to avoid looking at this man, I, looking in front of me (as one generally does when walking), accidentally made eye-contact with a different man sitting outside a restaurant. I looked away and continued walking and just as I passed him, he said “Smile.”

A true account of abortion

I have a story to tell here. For safety's sake, I won't tell who's it is, be that mine, my friend's, my family member's, or some random woman's whom I met on the bus, although I have written it in my style regardless. But I have to tell it because it deals with an important issue to me, made even more important by this story, and it flies in the face of many common myths surrounding abortion. Nothing has been embellished here; it's all true. Some of those reading may know whose story this is, and that's fine, but I'm relying on the relative anonymity of the internet to at least induce enough confusion to protect the narrator's identity.

*Trigger warning for sexual abuse, emotional turmoil, and described abortion

The most laughable of MRA myths

I might be late to the party here as, but the MRA myths are getting really, really ridiculous, so I just have to debunk them.


Women urinate from their vaginas. (tenth comment down) 
Lead there from Man Boobz. 

Osama bin Laden

So apparently he's dead. I'd heard from unverified sources that he'd died years ago, and I do find it a little suspicious that his body was simply dumped into the ocean without, it would seem, an autopsy, etc.. Of course, they claim to have DNA evidence, but where's the proof that they have it? It also seems just a little too convenient given that Obama's popularity had significantly fallen and now this happens shortly before the next US election, and predictably everyone's an Obama fan now.


But whatever. We'll leave all that aside. It may be coincidence after all; he really could have been killed recently. I don't know for certain, so let's go with it. And this brings me to people's responses, mostly Christians, remember.

I can't help but cry

I love The Curvature and visit it often. There hasn't been an update in a while and the last post is on the De Anza rape case, an open letter in empathy to the victim since she lost the civil suit too. I had already read it, but couldn't help myself from reading it again. Maybe because the complete lack of justice in this case hurts and I'm still trying to process it, I don't know. But I decided to read Cara's earliest post on this. It's full of rage and understandably so, but coherent nonetheless. I also read the one following it. Cara's been at this case for a while, so I imagine she's still pretty upset by this.

Holding the Door

Cross-posted on my deviantART account.

Often, in arguments of feminism, you come across the subject of chivalry. These days, it seems that anti-feminists are offended at feminism's rejection of chivalry (holding the door, taking her coat, pulling out a chair, etc.), but let's take a closer examination, shall we?
      
      In many arguments I've had in the past, I've had men declare that if women wanted equality, then they shouldn't expect chivalry. Well, I personally have never expected chivalry. I was taught that it's polite to hold a door, not that it's polite for specifically men to hold the door for specifically women. If I reach the door first, I hold it for the person who comes after me, regardless of gender. If someone is ahead of me but is elderly, has too much to carry, is physically-handicapped, or has small children with hir, then I will speed ahead to hold the door. If, however, a perfectly capable person is ahead of me, then I expect that person, again regardless of gender, to hold the door for me. Or if I am carrying many things, I would be grateful if someone sped ahead of me to hold the door. It's just simple politeness between human beings.
      

Words and terms you may come across in this blog

Everyone has their own personal set. This is mine.

Enema: Replacement for "douche bag" as an insult since it is gender inclusive.

Dershbag: Also a replacement for "douche bag", but with its own meaning as well. Since the term "douche bag" is harmful to women, "dershbag" is a term for people who are themselves harmful to women, such as misogynist lawyer Alan Dershowitz. Dershbag may also be applied to people guilty of a slew of Dershowitz-like behaviour, such as plagiarism, hypocrisy, and outright lies, particularly pathological lying.

Wrestlemania: bad, but not as bad as it could be

Part of any relationship is compromise. The compromise last weekend began with a discussion well before in which I told my boyfriend that it would be nice if he involved me in some of the activities he did with his friends. He then recently extended an invitation to me to Wrestlemania weekend. So a compromise. I hadn't watched wrestling since I was a child since my stepfather loved it, nor had I any wish to. But I was happy to be invited and I enjoy spending time with my boyfriend and I felt it would be a good opportunity to analyze it from a feminist perspective.

So much for that "accidental" sexual assault...

Well, what do you know? A study shows what we've been saying all along! Rapists know when someone isn't consenting.

Why do they always get it wrong?

A relative of mine linked to this article on Facebook. Now, while I'm always glad when people are as upset with the sexual objectification of other people as I am, there are several problems with the views expressed in this article.

First off, I really, really dislike putting it in terms of "send[ing] out really bad signals to adult men about young girls being appropriate sexual objects, objects of sexual desire for young men". It nurses the myth that men can't control themselves and sexual assault happens because women dress like sluts*. The truth, of course, is that men know full fucking well that they should stay away from children (and women who haven't consented) regardless of "signals".

Remember: if the witnesses to a rape aren't male, then they are inadmissible

Came across this on the curvature. Cara's words on it are well-thought out, as I always find her posts to be, so I don't have much more to add to it, other than the criminal case itself.

There are Islamist societies where, when it comes to rape, a man must have been a witness or it is inadmissible in court, meaning a man can rape a woman in the presence of other women and get away with it. But that's hardly anything unknown. All over the media we see Muslim=misogynist, regardless of the accuracy, etc. This, one would think, should be in contrast to the West, shouldn't it? Here in the West, if there's a witness to a crime, we take that witness seriously, regardless of gender, right? Except not.

man boobz: misogyny, the men's rights movement and more: The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys

man boobz: misogyny, the men's rights movement and more: The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys: "I'm walkin' here! Pierce Harlan of the False Rape Society has broken past the limits of mere logic, arguing that the fact that a small num..."

How feminists "expand the definition" of sexual assault

I hear and read this phrase a lot from pseudo-feminists (people, especially women, who call themselves feminists and use that as an excuse to criticize and disagree with just about everything feminism stands for), anti-feminists (same as pseudo-feminists, but they don't claim to be feminists), men's rights activists (anti-feminists who claim that men, not women, are oppressed), turncoats (they used to identify as feminists, and perhaps still do, and used to pretend to support feminist theory and philosophy, but are now pseudo-feminists, anti-feminists, or men's rights activists). First of all, let's be clear: I am in no way purporting that the continued expansion of the definition of sexual assault couldn't lead us down a dangerous road. If, for example, sexual assault included all anal sex (which, by the way, is a hell of a lot more likely to come from religious Right-wing fanatics than from feminists), or, in a rather mangled quote misattributed to feminist Catharine McKinnon (it was Andrea Dworkin), that all consensual sex between a woman and man is rape (and that wasn't what she meant), there is cause for concern.

About that "rape by deception"

*Trigger warning for sexual assault scenario

Last I wrote about it, I'll admit, I was angry, and what I said about that particular case I still stand by, but what if the case actually had been as we had initially thought? A few posts ago, I listed some "gray rape" scenarios and explained why each was either clearly rape or clearly sex. Rape by deception generally actually refers to instances such as a man turning out the lights and pretending to be woman's husband before sleeping with her, something I listed as rape for obvious reasons, which I won't explain here. If you want the explanation, visit my "gray rape" post. Another example of rape by deception would be a police officer telling a person ze caught that ze will let hir off if ze has 'sex' with hir, and the officer then did not let hir off. That's rape for other reasons too, obviously. So what about what we believed this case to be? Claims went from "She specifically said she wanted a long-term relationship with only a Jewish man, and he said he was Jewish" to "They were in the heat of the moment and she asked if he was Jewish and he said yes" to "She didn't even ask if he was Jewish or not; she just assumed because his nickname was considered Jewish". Not in any particular order, and there were all sorts of in between, but since these are the ones that stood out to me, these are what I will tackle.

Reverse Sexism

...doesn't exist but what if it did? Inspired by an essay where a woman described how, hey, she wouldn't mind a wife of her own! Men don't seem to get sexism, but I'm sure they might if the roles were reversed. A lot of people seemed to like this on deviantart (with the exception of that MRA I mentioned in my first post), so I'm posting it here.

*Trigger warning for simulated sexual assault apologia

       I am a modern woman. What do I want? First, let’s start with language. When using a singular pronoun of unknown gender, I want it to be written in the feminine (for example, she, her, hers). When referring to the human race, I want it called womankind, women, and woman because words like humanity, people, humankind, and humans are unnecessary after all. However, I want certain objects to have male pronouns such as ships and cars, and we shall call our home countries the “fatherland”, unless that country wants the world to know how powerful it is, in which case it will be appropriately termed "motherland".
       If we must be gender inclusive, we will always put the feminine before the masculine, such as “her or him,” “she or he,” “her or his.” Animal names shall also be in the feminine and we will only use the male version when referring to the gender (example; a lion is a male lioness).

How Gray is "Gray Rape" Really?

Originally posted on my deviantart account.

*Trigger warning for rape apologism

*Trigger warning for described rape scenarios

I recently came across a Cosmopolitan article (on the net, since I don't read Cosmo) that discussed a "new kind of rape" it calls "gray rape." I shit you not. Now, I was lead there from Cara on The Curvature, and she was just as infuriated as I was when I read the article. Admittedly, this discussion took place in 2007, but I still find it a relevant topic to discuss right here, right now. Why? Because people still don't get it. I recently had a conversation in which the person I was talking to said, "But you have to admit that there is a gray area." I have to admit no such thing. Because there isn't. People may not be black and white, but actions can be and often are. Rape is black and white. It either happened or it didn't. If it did, then only the perpetrator is to blame. If it didn't, then only the false accuser is to blame. Period. No gray.

Gray rape is supposedly "sex that falls somewhere between consent and denial and is even more confusing than date rape because often both parties wake up unsure of who wanted what." From this, you would expect the stories to be of a nature where two strangers woke up not knowing each other and couldn't remember what happened the night before and one of them wonders if it was rape (and even then it wouldn't be "gray rape" since if one later remembered that they hadn't said yes, it would still have been rape). But no. As Cara stated, "victims of gray rape didn't only all fail to say yes, but also all actually say no", which they did. I read the article, and there was nothing gray about any of these scenarios, and that includes the one that they didn't even bother to list as gray rape but rather as a confusing experience. By they, I really mean "she," Laura Sessions Stepp, according to whom these assaults wouldn't happen if only women didn't partake in the hook-up culture.

Lolicon as an "Art Form"

Cross-posted on my deviantart account. I'm not linking to the argument itself.

*Trigger warning for sexual assault apologism and defense

There are few people who get my ire up more than sexual assault apologists, and defenders of the abomination that is lolicon (and shotacon) are exactly that. I'm posting an argument I had on deviantart.com concerning the subject where this pedophile tried to defend it as an "art form". I've said most of what I want to say on the subject in this argument. 1, as I call him here, was a lolicon 'artist' himself, surprise, surprise. One of his pieces of 'art' depicted the young adolescent girls with the title, "So easy, a cave man could do them" and another with the title, "Lolicon Dating: get them now because in a few short years they'll realize you have to spend money on them first". For easier reading, since this is light text on a black background, my comments will again be in magenta.

1: If you don't like an artform then don't look at it. I don't like yaoso I avoid it, I don't like how museums have neaked dude taking a sh*t or sitting nude on a rock and I avoid it. I don't make useless complaints about it.



2: But lolicon could potentially harm someone. If a person got too much into lolicon, it could lead to lusting after little girls in real life. I don't support getting rid of it, either, but I can understand the point.

Case in Point: the Everyday Misogynist

My boyfriend told me about this conversation that occurred on facebook. In the interest of protecting people, even people who disgust me, I will use initials rather than people's names here and only the first letter of any city described. I will not include parts of the conversation that are irrelevant to what I want I want to discuss here, nor comments that reveal too much personal information. This is a prime example of the closet misogynist. Notice how he begins, and what is actually revealed. Notice that the comments reveal that he, in fact, is a straight conservative white middle class male who believes that if we are equal under the law, we must be in society. He believes that he is no more privileged than anyone else and that no one is less privileged than he is. He uses words like "scream" to describe the rightful protests demanding equality. People were being polite to him, I think. I don't intend to be. Once again, my commentary will be in magenta.

AE: is brainstorming for a speech for international women's day at the beginning of March.

PH: When is international men's day?

He couldn't just, you know, not comment?

AE: Every day... P
 

PH: No, really? Why is there a day for women and not men? Are we not all equal? I personally don't think there should be a day for either.

Because women are oppressed for being women, and men are not oppressed for being men. No, we are not all equal, yet. Ah, of course you don't think there should be a day for either, and that would have absolutely nothing to do with the fact that you're a privileged male, now would it?

How Privileged We Women Are!

I, from time to time, find myself at an MRA ("men's rights activists" or "morally ridiculous assholes", take your pick) website, and most of what I find is either loltastic and useless or frightening. However, I did come across a little tidbit. In response to the ALAS! male privilege checklist, Masculist Advice posted another list (among others) to counter it, found on some MRA forum or other. I haven't looked at the other so-called female privilege checklists, but this one defines ridiculous. I'm posting it below, along with my commentary, which is in magenta. My boyfriend made a suggestion to aid in my commentary for 11).

1) Career wise, I can complain about harassment and not be laughed at or have my gender called into question by both genders.
Having the harassment minimized by the harasser and other co-workers alike, regardless of gender, and being accused of ulterior motives is so much better.

2) I can skip a few years of employment and then return, demanding the same raises that others have had who remained employed. If my demand is not met, I can accuse the company of discrimination.
I can totally decide to do this even when I don’t have children, and I will never be fired or conveniently laid off for it.

WWII Survivors and their Descendents Oppose Israel's Treatment of Palestinians

*Trigger warning for psychological after-effects on war survivors

As I allude to in this blog's description, I am a woman of multiple causes, one of them being the Israel/Palestine conflict. As a result of being pro-Palestinian, I inevitably discovered Norman Finkelstein, and I have read several of his books and have attended two speeches. It would take an entirely different post to detail my respect and admiration of this man, but that's for another day. I frequent his website and there is an excerpt of a political memoir he's writing. The excerpt focuses on his mother, who survived the holocaust. For the sake of brevity, I have placed in ellipses those parts not relevant to what I want to discuss.

Every night as we watched the news on television my mother would avert her eyes and raise her hand to block the screen when scenes from Vietnam flashed across it. After a few moments the question would invariably come: "Is it over yet?" Not at all given to self-dramatization, she simply couldn't endure the scenes of destruction and death. ... My mother's whole being revolted against it. ...

"Rape By Deception" is that by the Israeli Court System

*Trigger warning for abuse of a rape victim by the court system

So I might be a little late on this, but I'm adding my two cents anyway. According to BBC News, it turns out that that whole rape by deception case in Israel is not as many of us had previously thought.

This was in fact a "real" rape charge where the girl in question had to be taken to the hospital, bleeding and bruised and half-naked. This girl had also been sexually abused by her father since the age of six, forced into sexual slavery, and had been living in a women's shelter when she met Sabbar Kashur. She had felt safe with him, and had hoped for a relationship, not sex. So where does the rape by deception part come in? A plea bargain.

Yeah. Rather than face full sentence, Kashur took the plea bargain sentence of eighteen months in prison on the charge of "rape by deception". Thus, the whole she-cried-rape-when-it-turned-out-he-wasn't-Jewish crap came not from her at all, but from the courts.

The Real Reasons Men Should Speak Up For Choice

My boyfriend recently directed me to a Salon article entitled Why men need to speak up about abortion. He felt it was lacking and that I could do a better job. I don't know if that's true, but I can certainly say what I think is lacking in the article.

The title itself is rather ambiguous; is the author calling for men to speak against abortion, in favour of choice, or simply to talk about it either way? The content of the article, however, is indeed pro-choice with the author claiming to owe his life to his mother's previous abortion, without which she would never have become pregnant with him. The author also acknowledges that his immature response to his girlfriend's abortion proved that he wasn't at all ready to raise a child. Not bad content. Here's what's lacking: the author seems to feel that abortion shouldn't "just" be a "female issue" since men are affected by it as well, as though if men were somehow not affected by it, it would be a perfectly justifiable reason for them not to give a shit. The fact that young men have to pay higher insurance for vehicles sure as hell doesn't affect me for the worse, yet I'm still in favour of abolishing that rule. Why? Well it might just have to do with that little thing called equality. But Goddess forbid a man should have the ability to keep his privilege in check enough to care about an issue that affects men less than women, let alone one that affects only women. But hey, at least he's trying right? And that's why I won't go too hard on him.

Welcome

New to this, but after posting most of my rants on deviantart.com for Goddess knows how long, I feel confident to make a start at this now. Ironically, I only found out about the feminist blogosphere after an argument with the first MRA (men's rights activist) I had ever encountered, so I thank him for his idiocy.

The concept behind the Feminist wing is that on the political spectrum I don't believe that feminist concerns are properly presented. Certainly not by the Right, and not by the centre, and although most feminists, including myself, identify with the Left, it really isn't sympathetic enough to our concerns either, as is proven most recently by the Julian Assange case, but also when leftist men sexually objectify women like Sarah Palin, Ann Coulter, Condoleeza Rice, etc. We need a new political wing. No, not just a party, but an entire wing devoted to feminist concerns. Will there be a lot of overlap with the Left? Sure there will be, but also plenty of disagreement, such as on the age of consent and how we deal with heroes who are accused of a crime. The Feminist wing could contain several parties, some extremist, some religious, some environmental, you name it. But again, all of them would be feminist. I don't know how realistic this idea of mine is and it may be better to improve the Left. I don't know. I do know, however, that when it comes to feminism the Left currently isn't good enough, so I do want to get discussion rolling.

I think that's about all I have to say for this post. I am first and foremost an anti-sexual assault activist, so most of my posts will involve that.