Rape, Rape Culture, and Recovery - 3 Years Out

By Liberate Zealot
*Content Warning - Discussions of rape, rape culture, and PTSD*

Let me begin by saying these are my own personal experiences and in no way meant to reflect the experiences of all victims/survivors.  Even victims/survivors with similar experiences of sexual violence might experience very different effects and have very different roads of recovery.

The one thing I think the vast majority of us share is that recovery is not an absolute, it is a constant journey of progress and triggers and backsliding and unlikely to fully ever end.

I know sometimes I have thought I've reached, or nearly reached, the end of my recovery.  Months have passed since I've thought of him, or that night.  Since I've felt that knot of anxiety in my stomach, or that strange mental disconnect where my brain seems to float partially separated from my body.  Since that dizzy, rushing feeling overtakes my ears, eyes, brain, and body.
Sometimes months pass, but then something happens.  His name shows up on my Facebook feed, I see someone who looks like him when I'm out and about, I hear about another woman's rape which is similar enough to mine that I cannot disconnect my own experiences from hers.  Perhaps I hear a rape joke, am watching some movie or TV show that features a rape (these are worst when I cannot prepare for them).  Perhaps I just surprisingly dream in some way of that night and awaken, shaking.

Statistics vs Lived Experiences for Women at College

By Liberate Zealot
*Content Warning for discussion of sexual assault, rape, stalking, domestic violence, and rape culture*

Recently in the feminist/social justice sphere of social media that I inhabit a variety of people have been naming Cards Against Humanity and one of its originators, Max Tempkin, as good examples of those with privilege listening/learning/and properly apologizing for when they harm others.  And this regard for the game, and its creators, especially of Max, is something I take great issue with.

Not only because it is a game created by a bunch of (to my knowledge) heterocis white dudes who are upper middle class and therefore its hard to take any of its racist/sexism/homophobic/transphobic/ableist jokes as "ironic".  After all Max Tempkin wrote a lovely apology about that using all the appropriate language of "privilege" and how irony doesn't "punch down."

The issue with this apology and Cards Against Humanity is that I know Max.  We attended the same small liberal arts college, we have many mutual acquaintances, and Max Tempkin is a rapist.

By Liberate Zealot

Because watching my drink

And white knuckling keys between my fingers

And wearing jeans and sensible shoes

Was supposed to be my contract with the world

Providing safe passage

Protection against rape from the shadowy stranger

Haunting the corners of the club or streets. 

Because in the years of safety advice

From teachers, friends, chain letters, and police

Never once did they admit I would know him

That he would look me in the eyes and smile

He would wait days or weeks or months

And say all the right words before ignoring my own. 

Because even after that night

They still won’t admit its not the stranger in the street

I should fear

Or that the predator in the clubs is the ex-boyfriend

Or that it wasn’t caused by the length of a skirt

Or having long hair and a glass of wine.

Because they won’t admit

That following the rules isn’t protection

I know other women will have

The same realization that the one that will hurt you

Isn’t the shadowy figure in the night

(Though we’ll still fear him too).

This Past Week in Rape Culture

By: Liberate Zealot
Content Warning: Discussions and descriptions of rape, assault, and rape culture

It's been months since we got a comment on the Daniel Tosh and Rape posts, but this week another one showed up.  Invariably it was filled with rape apologism, and like a lot of the rape apologist comments related to this post, was full of information about how the commenter, or people they knew, were engaging in sexual assault (obviously not calling it such though).  I guess such people didn't like the realization that some feminists on the internet thought they, or their friends, where sexual assaulters.  Though why this commenter felt the need to describe the assault in detail for me I don't know.

Luckily it wasn't triggering, mainly I just despaired for humanity.  And if this hadn't been the 4th instance of rape culture knocking on my door than maybe I'd have deleted the comment and gone on my merry way and  DudeBro could think about the fascist feminists who obvi didn't let his post through because of how spot on it was.   But instead I'll be addressing it, and the other instances of rape culture.  Because this shit needs to be called out, and I'm tired of seeing myself and other anti-rape activists being called overly sensitive when in reality rape culture is all around us and everyone else is just inured from how prevalent it all is.

But, seriously, why can't we just shoot all the rapists?

The following is cross-posted from the Damsel in de Tech blog. Click here to see the original.


*CONTENT WARNING FOR DISCUSSIONS OF RAPE AND GUN VIOLENCE*

As a follow-up to the post "Kill all rapists!...", here are some practical considerations to take into account when trying to tell women that they all should arm themselves as a method of rape-prevention.

To start off, here are some quick groups that armament won't help, that I really don't think need any further clarification (or least I sincerely hope not):
- infants and children below the age that are legally able to carry firearms
- persons with disabilities that prevent them from being able to handle a firearm
- persons with mental health issues that would make possession of a firearm exceptionally unsafe and irresponsible

I hope we can agree that persons from those groups should not have to arm themselves. Unfortunately, those groups make up a large portion of the victims of sexual violence.

Next, there are some people who may not want to have firearms:
- pacifists who do not believe in responding with violence under any circumstances, including those whose religious beliefs dictate such
- parents who are afraid their young children may get a hold of their weapons
- persons with abusive partners that have not been able to move out and have reasonable fears around keeping weapons in the household
- persons who are not comfortable around guns due to a history of family violence, PTSD, having lost a loved one to gun violence, or any other of a million valid reasons

Now that we've got those groups out of the way, we'll assume that the advice of "carry a gun" is just being directed at this time towards women who are old enough to legally own and responsibly handle a firearm, who want to carry a firearm, and who can conceivably arm themselves at all times because of the particular gun laws where they live.

Let's say that I'm walking through an alley (I know, I know - why would I do that if I value my safety and vagina?) Let's just say that there's construction on the street and all foot-traffic is being diverted through the alley. Let's say I hear footsteps coming up quickly behind me.  I'm armed, I'm alarmed, and someone grabs my arm! I turn and fire off a bunch of shots into... a nun who was trying to return the wallet I dropped. Well, that was a justifiable homicide, right?

Ok, let's be more serious. Let's say that I'm on the subway and it's later at night, maybe around 8 or 9pm, and this far up on the line it's deserted except for me and a man who is staring at me. His stares are making me quite uncomfortable, so I try to keep myself occupied by reading Facebook on my phone. Then, I realize he's masturbating. Can I shoot him, yet? Do I have to wait to see if he approaches me? If I wait, am I just giving him signals that he's safe to assault me because he's already violated my boundaries and I haven't done anything about it?

How about I'm at a house party and a friend is drunk and being really overly friendly and handsy with me. She pulls me in for a kiss, even though I've been trying to keep her at bay all night. Do I shoot her now? Do I wait until she tries to stick her hand down my pants? And if she does, is that enough to shoot her? Or am I only supposed to be shooting men? And what if it's a woman sexually assaulting a man? Can he shoot her? Is this just the kind of protective violence we sanction in theory coming from straight ciswomen to straight cismen, or can people of any gender identity shoot anyone else who attacks them without concern for how the law sees them?

Let's say that I'm fast asleep in bed at home and I wake up and my husband of 20 years is having sex with me in my sleep? Can I casually reach over into the nightstand and grab my gun and shoot him? Do we run drills like we would fire drills so I can practice going throught the motions of shooting someone when suddenly woken up out of a dead sleep?

What if it's a Thursday afternoon and I'm catcalled on my way home from work? Can I shoot the catcaller in the face? I don't know if I ignore him or respond if he'll react with anger. I don't know if this interaction will escalate. I don't know if I'm in physical danger or if he just wants to spook and publicly humiliate me. How long do I have to wait to make sure?

What line has to be crossed before I get the go-ahead?

What threshold has to be met in order for me to shoot any of the people who make me sexually threatened in the course of a day or a week or a month or my lifetime?

Do I have to wait until it's "too late" and they've already penetrated me? How is carrying a gun then a prevention measure as opposed to a measure of vegeance and inhilliation afterthefact?

Does the advice of "carry a gun and shoot all rapists" have anything at all to do with a realistic notion of safety, or is it a gratifying way for people to feel like they're adding something constructive to the conversation without having to do any of the heavy-lifting of understanding how rape happens?

I don't know if the people who give the advice of "carry a gun and shoot all rapists" know how often women feel sexually threatened. The thing about sexual violence, is it's a part of a continuum of unwanted sexual behaviours, and we never know whether or to what degree it will escalate. That's not because we're not aware of our surroundings, or we're inexperienced, etc. It's because the degree of escalation is not up to us - it's up to the perpetrator.

Things like peeping, public masturbation, groping, breaking and entering, etc, can all be a pre-cursor to more extreme levels of sexual violence. Or the perpetrators may not escalate. The people they target do not know whether or not this will escalate, because we are not psychic.

If you really, sincerely think that giving a good number of the population access to and permission to use lethal weapons against people who they fear will rape them, then be prepared for a lot of bloodshed, because these transgressions against our physical boundaries happen to a lot of people on a regular basis.

Or, you can passing along some tangible, effective safety advice that can start working right now, today, towards reducing the instances of sexual violence, and that doesn't require people to kill each other.

Today in Rape Culture

Content Warning: Rape references, rape culture

Every now and again we like to check out the Traffic for our site, specifically the searches that lead people to us.  Today's was especially disturbing.  Image after the cut

Action Against Tosh

Here is a list of various actions people can take if they are looking for something to do in light of Daniel Tosh's many incidents of enforcing rape culture. 


There is a change.org petition making the rounds.  It's to the CEO of Comedy Central and asks for them to take Tosh.0 off the air. 


If you're interested in something a little more direct and time intensive (but still not very difficult) you can contact Comedy Central and their parent company Viacom to complain and/or ask them to take Tosh.0 off the air. 
Comedy Central -  
1775 Broadway, 10th Fl.
New York , NY 10019
Phone: (212) 767-8600
Fax: (212) 767-8592
Web: www.comedycentral.comEmail: mail@comedycentral.com
Facebook : http://www.facebook.com/ComedyCentral
Link to their contact page.


Viacom - 
Link to their contact page 


Here's the letter I sent, feel free to use it.

I'm writing in wake of the increasing scandal around Daniel Tosh, Tosh.0 and his use of rape "jokes" and disregard for people's body autonomy and safety. Along with the well publicized incident where Tosh said "Wouldn't it be funny if that girl got raped by like, 5 guys right now? Like right now? What if a bunch of guys just raped her…".  The alternative accounts of that event are little better as they still involve Daniel Tosh using a "rape joke" as a means to silence a woman, other stories have come to light. 

• Daniel Tosh has encouraged his audience to tape themselves sneaking up on women and touching them without their consent.  In this 
segment he makes repeated jokes that are a regular part of rape culture. 

• There is also a story circulating the web that on 6/14/11 Daniel Tosh showed the sexual assault of a teen boy as a Video Breakdown.  Furthermore, during this segment Tosh made many racist jokes and rape jokes.

• Lastly there is also the news that when Daniel Tosh decided to remove the rape jokes from his new animated series the producers and editors were "freaking out, because most of the pilot is about rape."

These incidents, and Daniel Tosh's lackluster apology, are completely unacceptable.  Rape is a serious, endemic crime in our culture and Tosh's jokes only increase the problem. His jokes are likely to trigger survivors of sexual violence (of which 1 in 3 women and 1 in 6 men report being survivors of sexual assault). Some of his actions encourage people, often teen boys, to ignore and violate the body autonomy of women. He has laughed and made jokes while watching and broadcasting an actual rape. (The last two are actions all of Comedy Central are responsible for). 
I have reported the 6/14/11 to the FCC.  I encourage you to take Tosh.0 off the air and sever all ties with Daniel Tosh. I will boycott Comedy Central, and encourage everyone I know to do the same, until this has happened. 

If you want to really make life hard for Daniel Tosh and Comedy Central, report this to the FCC. To do so:

1. Go to the FCC website for filing complaints here. Select “Broadcast (TV and Radio), Cable, and Satellite Issues” then hit “Next.”
2. On the next screen, choose “Broadcast programs showing obscene, profane, and/or indecent material.” Hit next.
3. On the next screen, choose “Complete the form” under “Online form-recommended method.”
4. Complete the form and hit “Submit.”

The episode where Tosh showed the rape of the teen boy aired on 6/14/11.

Tosh.0 Shows Rape of Teen

By: Liberate Zealot
Content Warning - Rape

So some members of F.A.R (and possibly others) reported the video on youtube.com and its been deleted.  But I went in search of proof that it had been shown on Tosh.0  So below the cut is a screen grab of the video being shown, with Daniel Tosh commenting on it, on his webpage. The video was originally aired on 6/14/11.  The screen grab does not show the actual rape, though it does show the sexual assault that lead up to it, and is from moments before the rape started. So severe trigger warning.

See here fore detailed description of the video.

Daniel Tosh and Rape

By Liberate Zealot

Content Warning - Rape

So Daniel Tosh is a horrid person who makes jokes about rape and uses threats of rape as a means to silence women. 

Lovely, and not too surprising considering an episode of his TV show I saw last summer. It was one of the few times I’ve watched and in it Tosh showed a video of a “dildo fight” that turned into a rape.

He made jokes about the video. This man showed a video of a teen boy being rape by his friend with a dildo for entertainment purposes.  He made jokes about it. 

A description of the video is bellow the cut.  I removed the embedding because they're teens and it might be child porn and illegal.  It's up on Youtube. Again, it’s likely triggering.

Lions, Tigers, and Rapists. Oh, my!

The following is cross-posted from the Damsel in de Tech blog. Click here to see the original.


If you've spent any amount of time on forums talking about sexual violence, you've likely come across posts similar to the following:

Hypothetical situation: You live in a savanna, inhabited by lions. You know the lions exist, and you are warned of the lions by your friends, family, and colleagues.

However, it is your right to wear an outfit made out of raw meat, if you so please. You do so, and are brutally mutilated by a lion before you can be rushed to the hospital.

You start a [futile] campaign to eradicate dangerous lions from the savanna, while also campaigning against victim-blaming, arguing that your outfit was no excuse for a lion to attack you

Is this justified?

First off, the comparison between rapists and lions is ridiculous. When we're discussing rape and rape culture, we're not talking about animals attacking people. We're talking about people attacking people.

But, for the sake of argument, I'll play along with this particular scenario.

Let's say that I do live in the savana, as many people do, and that there are lions. And let's say I wear a suit made of meat (maybe Lady Gaga is making a visit and it's an hommage of sorts). If a lion attacks me, I could potentially take off the meat suit and toss it at the lion to stave off attack, since the lion will be after the meatsuit, and not necessarily me.

Heck, if I left the meatsuit out on the line, the lion would go after it. If the lion/ rapist analogy were accurate, then I could leave skivvies or miniskirts or any other manner of "slutty" items on the fence around my house to deflect the rapists. Or, I could keep some lingerie in my purse, and if I were feeling threatened, I could toss those at the potential rapist to distract hir long enough to get away.

Or, let's say I don't wear a meat suit. Well, to a lion, I am a meat suit. So, unless I'm wearing a bearproof (or lionproof) suit, then I'm still vulnerable.

Now, taking from the above example, let's say that my family and friends didn't let me know that I'm still meat to the lion even when I'm not wearing the dreaded meat suit. Let's say they also didn't tell me that lions can be my friends and family members and coworkers and spouses. Let's say that they think the lions only live in the savana and attack meat suits, and then blame me when I'm attacked in my home when wearing a night gown. How did this meat suit "advice" protect me?

Also, if we were talking about actual lions, it would be pretty easy to eradicate them. Humans have been driving other species into exctinction for at least hundreds of years, now. If I could just shoot and kill these lions without censure or recourse or being more heavily punished than the lion that attacked me, then this would be an entirely different situation.

As it stands, I'd much rather try my chances with a lion. At least I can spot a lion, I know what a lion is, what to expect from a lion, and if I were to get mauled by a lion no one would debate whether I got mauled or was just faking it.

But, seriously, lions are fucking scary.

Why SlutWalk - Several Days Late

By: Liberate Zealot
Content Warning: Discussions of rape, rape culture and slut-shaming


This post is several days late, I apologize, but I was traveling and away from my computer at the time. 

Belvedere

By: Malanka Sveta


Content Warning: Violent Depictions of Rape

I love Escher.  And "Belvedere" has always been one of my favorites.  The way the building twists and the way you lose your perspective from one point to the next (a hallmark of Escher) is magical.  It is the expectation that the world has far more to offer than we can see.  Sometimes a loss of perspective is how we gain perspective. 

 And sometimes a loss of perspective is how we communicate our intentions.  Belvedere Vodka lost their perspective yesterday.  Hopefully they lost a significant portion of sales as well because their intentions were particularly heinous.

#ididnotreport

By: Liberate Zealot
Content Warning: Rape, rape culture, violence