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.”

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.

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.