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.