RAPE DEFENDERS! - Awful Men Commenting on Rape - VERY TRIGGERING

Whenever I read an article about rape, I notice that the comments are full of angry men (and some women) lashing out at rape victims and those who support victims and oppose rape. & it really isn't surprising, because about 300 thousand people get sexually assaulted every year just in the U.S. according to the Department of Justice (via RAINN.org). There are less rapists than victims, but that is still hundreds of thousands of rapists.  Because of (mostly) men who dominate comments sections like this, many mainstream news sources are dominated by awful comments, as rational, compassionate people wisely choose not to look at the comments at all. However, I think we need to face what a significant portion of people truly believe when it comes to rape.

Here is a rundown of the sorts of comments you see:

- Rape jokes

- Stop talking about rape, what about FALSE rape accusations! 

- Oh, so now you are calling men looking at women rape?!

- Women lie about rape!

- Being drunk and regretting it isnt rape!

- Feminists lie about rape!

- Liberals lie about rape!

- People are profiting off lies about rape!

- These people are not real victims and this article is an insult to real victims!

- Slurs/insults like: bitch, retard, cunt, twat, feminazi, variations on idiot, other general name-calling

- Telling anyone who expresses support for rape victims or dissent that they are a bad person in some way

- Men get raped too!

- "Debunking" the story

- blaming the victim

- relentless 'debating" with someone who has asked them to stop, even after being asked to stop or ignored

- invoking rookie-level debate club terms like ad hominem and "logic", right after calling someone a retard

So I'm going to start by addressing the LEAST aggregious of these problems, because most rational, compassionate people can easily see the problems with most of these behaviors.  To me, the least bad thing here is bringing up male victims, but I will get back to that one; the second least worse imho is the "debunking" crowd, assuming they didn't engage in any of the other behaviors which is rarely the case. I think it's fine to point out errors in an article, study, argument, whatever, and even if you pointing out those errors doesn't seem like the best way to be an ally, it is better to have the correct information and that can only happen when people are willing to correct wrong info.  So let's assume that you see a "debunk" comment that isn't full of insults and inaccuracies, that even (as they rarely do) takes a moment to acknowledge that rape is a problem - what's so bad about that?

Well of course, the primary issue I have is that these posters rarely DO take a breath to acknowledge any sympathy for rape victims and often do start by name-calling and often cite untrustworthy sources, a misinterpretation, or are simply incorrect.   But that all aside, the main problem I have with this behavior is that these people seem to think, like a Creationist trying to "debunk" evolultion or a Holocaust Denier, that if they can find ONE discrepency that merits the silencing of anti-rape activism and we can all go back to pretending rape doesn't exist.  Instead of reading the article and thinking about it, they are immediately jumping to a "yeah, but-!" position, immediately googling furiously and copy-pasteing an article that often has more nuance than the commenter realizes, in an attempt to "disprove" the stories of rape victims and thus urge people to ignore them. It's also a  problem that these debunkers think they are being rebellious when in fact MOST articles about rape are full of comments like these, and ignoring and minimizing rape is the norm, just like how racists think it is rebellious to call black murder victims "thugs". It's a "truther" mentality, and it makes people focus on correcting the debunking instead of experiencing the emotionality of how terrible rape really is.

So what about those male rape victims?  Well, let me say that I am known in the internet wilds for being a hard-core, unrelenting, revolutionary, cunt-wielding patriarchy-smashing feminasti, as you can tell from my general writing.  However, believe it or not, like many feminists I (*gasp!*) have criticisms of feminism and feminists.  Like racism for example.  And leaving men who are hurt by patriarchy behind is a major problem to me.  Feminists do a lot to help male victims, such as being the people who made raping a man illegal, but we need to do more, because MRAs certainly aren't going to help, they're too busy harassing female rape victims. Male rape victims get left out by the mainstream media way too much and it sucks. So having said that, why am I sick of seeing men commenting "what about male victims?" on articles about rape?  Well, if I am dying of cancer and my mom comes to visit me, would it really be OK for my brother to come into my room and demand she leave immediately to talk about his AIDS instead? Or would it be more appropriate for him to join her in visiting me, and then to ask that she help care for him next? That may be a clumsy metaphor, so let me say it straight: When people are talking about female victims, we should be showing support for those women. When people talk about male victims, I dont see women saying "women get raped too!",  I see them supporting those men. Also, a lot of these comments arent really about supporting men at all, they are about shutting down women.

Now, let's say at this point you think I'm totally wrong about these two things, which I will grant is not unreasonable.  You are saying I am over reacting. Perhaps so. It's an easy thing to do when rape has hurt people you love.  However, I think it is incredibly irrational to defend all the other types of heinous comments people leave.  Angry (mostly) men responding to a story about rape by calling the victims liars, for example.  Oh, sure, it might seem to an uneducated person on a single article about, say, Cosby, that these people are simply expressing a difference of opinion.  but if you start reading comments about ANY rape victim, over and over again, you will see the same claims.

A popular claim is that women who have been raped were simply drunk and willing. I think this comes from the assumption that a barely-concious female body you are using to pleasure yourself with is not resisting, and maybe you are drunk also, so therefore it was willing. The idea that women simply decide after sex that it was a rape should be ridiculous on its' face but somehow people dont question it.  But THINK, dammit, WHY would women do this? IF they had sex and they enjoyed that sex shouldn't they be happy? If rape victims get so much abuse that some rape victims literally commit suicide due to bullying, and comments sections are full of people calling them liars, and there is no monetary value to an accusation, what's to be gained?  IF women are constantly falsely accusing, why is it that EVERYONE agrees that most victims never even report rape?  Why is it that in our personal lives we know women who tell you about a rape and don't even quite see it as a rape (for example, I know more than three women who said a man held them down and forced himself on them and didn't think it was rape even though they did feel scared. This thinking in victims is sadly most common with child victims because for obvious reasons they aren't taught about sex, consent and assault at all before being assaulted). 

The "she lies!" myth is inherently ironic because it presumes that we should assume a woman is lying without any actual proof that she is lying.  I hope I don't need to explain how that is hypocritical to you. In this view, rape victims are guily EVEN WHEN proven innocent - people are STILL calling vindicated victims like the - idk 40, 50? - Cosby accusers liars. Victims whose rapes were captured on film are called liars. Victims whose rapists were actually convicted are called liars.

Another thing these Rape Defenders commonly do is pretend that their position is the LOGIC! one.  This is really common with men trying to shut women up. They will say that whoever is talking to them is "relying only on emotion", even when she cites studies and is very calm, even when HE is angrily name calling and making false, unsubstantiated claim.  The hypocrtical irony HERE is that the entire reason people rape and defend rapists is emotional! They want power, they are angry, reading about rape makes them feel bad, so they defensively attack the article, the victim, the victim's supporters. It's also incredibly fucked up to expect people to not have emotions about rape, hopefully feeling sad and angry that rape occurs. We all SHOULD be feeling emotional about this.

Below are some screen shots of some of the stuff men said about rape that fit with the examples I've given of shitty behavior. These are all from one thread. I may add more photos to this same post in future. I believe many of these men are rapists themselves. Obviously this portion is extremely triggering. 'm sorry I didn't devote any time to transcribing this for people who can't see images, if you would like a transcription let me know in the comments. Until next time, take care of each other and support victims, not rapists. 

this is one of the few comments that FB has actually removed.

the article & highest rated comment. MRAs often send people to a comments section to flood it with bullshit, but this site, Vice, has a lot of asshole readers for whatever reason.

"White Knight" is an MRA concept - a man who defends women to get into their pants.

this is an example of a relentless commenter who "debates" someone who has told him to go the fuck away. Note the stereotyping. My majors have been in Creative Writing and my medical field career.

I apologize to people with an illness for using language that equates bigotry to illness.

Another relentless commenter 

the Bush comment is a running 9/11 "joke"

IF I recall correctly Revenge of the Nerds did have a rape scene in it, ironically - a man put on a mask and pretended to be a woman's boyfriend. Rape of a woman as revenge on a man. Incidentally, I think Joel's joke is kind of funny and not that awful tbh but I might go to Feminist Hell for even thinking that.

Denial

saying rape is based on how conventionally attractive someone is, even though men and children and the elderly and the dsabled (no I am not saying old and disabled people are unattractive, just not by conventional stndards) and overweight people and all sorts of people are victims, and it really isnt about attraction for at least a significant percentage of rapists.

Women offering a much-needed dose of reality. THANKS SISTERS!

I

Dear Fat Shamers: Get the Fucking Fat Facts!

I recently watched a viral video (Im not gonna bother to mention which unless requested) featuring a "funny" "comedian" making the easiest and laziest and oldest "joke" in the book - which boils down to "Fatty fat fat fat! Ha Ha!"  & Im fucking sick of it.

Seriously, at one point in the video she literally tells fat people to "STOP EATING". 

Like a lot of "fatties", I literally did make an attempt to completely stop eating. The results weren't pretty. Turns out, we need food to survive.  Without it, you get dizzy and tired and just generally make yourself sick.  As much as you might assume (and it is an assumption, a wrong one) that fat people are unhealthy, starving is the exact opposite of healthy. Starvation can cause serious problems, such as death. Your body can't just live off stored fat, it doesn't carry enough nutrients to properly fuel all your moving parts day by day.

Now I'm only a beginning bio student, so take what I write here with a grain of salt and do your own research, but I sure as hell am coming from a more scientific perspective than "JUST STOP EATING!!1!" lady, and I will be providing some actual citations. I know "jokes" are often given the excuse of not having to be factual, but when your "comedy" is really bullying and when it pretends to come from a "health" perspective, it needs a serious fact check.

When you starve, your body has to break down muscles for glucose and protein because it cannot get that from stored fat. Starvation has an effect on your organs, because the body doesn't just "eat" from your stomach fat but scary stuff like "atrophy of the heart" starts to occur, because your body doesn't recognize cardiac muscle as seperate.  People die when their organs begin to shut down.  You can starve to death and still appear "obese" because your body will start cannibalizing your muscles and organs at the same time it is drawing from stored fat. An obese person could starve to death just as fast as a thin person. The average person can survive about 21 days without food (NOT that long without water though) and so far I have been unable to find any data suggesting that overweight people could survive for longer, or much data about overweight people and starvation in general.  I did find several completely impossible and irresponsible claims, and lots of people online asking the question and making assumptions.  One man even claimed he hadn't eaten in a year! Not possible. Yet wierdly even that ficticious story included passages about liver damage and other common side effects of not eating.

I also found a lot of health experts debunking fat-phobic mythology online, thankfully. One common piece of advice (ie on WebMD) is that diets too low in calories aren't as effective long-term as more moderate caloric intake, and could even be dangerous. So even getting close to starvation IS NOT SAFE, yes even for those sub-human, ugly fatties.  In the video, Ms. Concern Troll says over and over that she wants fat people to stay alive. Telling fat people to starve themselves will literally kill fat people (even without mentioning issues like suicide). So if you actually want us to live, fucking stop it with that shit. 

There are scientific studies and data that suggests that overweight people tend to actually be HEALTHIER than average weight to underweight people, particularly the latter, which should be obvious - having an extra store of fat is better than literally not having enough nutrients to fuel your body to the point where the body has to start eating away at your heart muscle. Not only are fat people not "killing themselves" by merely being fat, but they are actually LESS LIKELY TO DIE than skinnier people! healthland.time.com/2013/01/02/being-overweight-is-linked-to-lower-risk-of-mortality/. So maybe we should start mercilessly mocking thin people and pressuring them to eat more ice cream, because "we dont want them to die"?

A lot of "common knowledge" about weight is actually just common bullshit. The BMI, for example, has been repeatedly called out by researchers as totally fucking bogus, as it doesnt take into account things like muscle mass and bone density, and would thus falsely label very fit, muscular people like Brad Pitt as "overweight". BMI is not even a good indication of how much fat a person has on their body, much less their overall health. www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/265215.php)

The shitty fat-hating video is almost entirely (at least pretending to be) based on the assumption that mockery and shame will encourage fat people to lose weight.  However, at least one recent study (http://www.livescience.com/47787-fat-shaming-weight-gain.html) has shown otherwise; shaming fat people actually can cause them to GAIN weight.  People who feel ashamed of their bodies and hate themselves are not going to have a positive attitude towards things like exercise, people full of negative emotions are not going to be able to pass up a cookie as easily.

Body positivity, on the other hand, invites the fat girls to dance at the club without fear of mockery, and in so doing, allows us more opportunities to stay active.

In one part of the video, she says that she wishes she could eat whatever she wants, implying fat people just eat whatever we want.  THAT fuckin shit made me laugh out loud, bitterly, both middle fingers raised high. 

As a fatty, I have had to be FAR more conservative in my eating habits than the people around me. People who don't gain fat as easily simply do not have to take as much care to avoid certain foods as I do. I watch thinner people around me eating fattening things like white pasta while they make fun of me for eating big bowls of lightly seasoned spinach.  I say no to ice cream outings when skinny people don't have to even worry about that. I watched my chronically-UNDERweight sister eating Burger King on a twice daily basis at a time when trying my best to eat almost nothing every day and even forcing myself to throw up healthy foods like salad out of guilt and self hate only got me down to 150 pounds, still looking chubby. Skinnier people who eat a hamburger are encouraged whilst I can't even eat a piece of bread without someone commenting on how "concerned" they are about my body (yes, I get shit no matter what I eat or dont eat!).  Anyone who hasn't lived a life as a fat person, especially as (seen by society as) female, really can't fully understand what it is like to be so constantly food-policed. It doesn't help!  Obsessing over food only leads to more obsessing over food! Just as starving can actually slow down weight loss. 

Fat shaming me, Just as people giving me shit for smoking cigarettes, or for not shaving my legs, doesnt help me. It just made me feel bad! & it didn't help me quit smoking or convince me that body hair on (assigned) females was EeeeeVIiiiilLLLLL! I could also throw in things I've been shamed about like being vegetarian (I'm not anymore, but not because of shamers) or being queer (I chose Pride). You get the idea. Whether a behavior or state of being is legit bad for you (smoking) or totally awesome (queerness), bullying DOESNT FUCKING HELP.

When you see someone who is fat, you don't know whether they 

- have a medical condition that causes them to gain weight

- have asthma or otherwise cant exercise very well to lose weight

- just lost 100 pounds

- work out daily, diet, and are committed to slowly and healthily getting in shape

- tend to eat very healthfully naturally 

- maybe just dont have a lot of time to worry about their body between the kids and the job

- just had a baby

- have recovered from an eating disorder

- are suffering from depression that includes self-hatred and dont need your shit 

- or hey, maybe they just like to eat what the fuck they want and don't give a fuck and didn't ask for your fucking opinion, bitch.

And EVERY fat person already knows they're fat, thanks.

So spare me your "concern". You don't know me. My body is awesome and it is none of your damn business.

Eeeeviiiiil Femisms vs. Actual Real Feminism

OK, let's look at the actions feminists have achieved/are working on:

- Legalized Female Vote (a right men already had)

- Legalized female property ownership (a right men already had)

- Successfully allowed women to attend school from primary education to college (a right males already had)

- Changed the legal definition of rape to include more victims including men (giving more protection to men and women)

- Opened up the job market to give women equal OPPORTUNITY, continues to push for more job inclusion of women (a right men already had)

- fighting for women to not be paid less just because they are women.

- Fighting against victim-blaming in rape and abuse cases, including for children and men.

- worked and working in solidarity with the LGBT movement

- Questioning gender norms so that everyone can do whatever they want regardless of gender (benefits everyone)

- increasingly working in solidarity with anti-racist movements under concept of intersectionality.

Now lets look at anti-feminist claims:

- BUT CIRCUMCISION!! - not invented by feminists, not endorsed by feminists, many feminists are active intactivists, and the feminist concept of bodily autonomy helped launch the modern intactivist movement

- BUT DIVORCE COURT! CHILD CUSTODY! Most judges are still men, as are most law makers. Feminism opposes the idea that men are naturally bad at taking care of kids.

BUT NOT ALL MEN! the feminist idea of holding rapists accountable for rape comes from the idea that men are adults who can control themselves.

BUT I PAID FOR DINNER! the feminist push for equal pay and job opportunities means we do not want men to have to pay for dinner.

Basically, the things that men have against feminism tend to be things that are actually promoted by sexism.

I'm not sure how to insult this new anti-feminist hate group nonsense appropriately because calling it a sickness is an insult to the sick, calling it insane insults the insane (which is a very real issue, actually, because being mentally ill is not the same as being irrational, bigoted, etc and mental illness stigma really sucks), calling it stupid is an insult to all the good people who aren't the sharpest knife in the drawer due to no fault of their own, calling it shit is an insult to our body's useful waste disposal process, etc. etc. Maybe we could start insulting people by comparing them to bigots because there are few things worse in the world than mindless hate.

The Nazis Hated Feminism

In 1934, Hitler proclaimed, "[Woman's] world is her husband, her family, her children, her house.

A popular way to insult women who want to be treated equally (ie not be harassed just for being women) these days is to call them FemiNazis. The term was invented by that bastion of wit and wisdom, Rush Limbaugh, in the 90s and has since been popularized by the hate groups who terrorize women online wvery time they open their mouths to say anything suggesting sexism might exist and might be bad. The term is ironic in displaying the speaker's ignorance of basic history, which is a cornerstone of sexist thinking in an time when even women who were alive back when women were barred from most careers and had only had the vote in the U.S. for 50 years support men like Paul Elam who make using men to hurt women a full-time career. I thought it might be interesting to examime the ways in which the Nazis were anti-feminist. My research is cursory, gleaned from secondary online sources like encyclopedias, and should thus be taken with a grain of salt and confirmed via direct primary sourcing for any serious scholarship, nonetheless, I am fairly confident it is generally accurate as the primary sources quoted included scholarly words, records, and other source-able material, and as it is logically consistent.

Nazism's central figure, Hitler himself, was an abuser of at least one woman in early life; he had a nonconsensual romantic obsession with his own (half-)niece, Geli Raubal, made her his housekeeper at 17, disallowed her to have consensual romantic relationships, abused and controlled her, probably sexually abused her in some manner, made her his prisoner, and finally drove her to suicide in 1931, out of despair because she could not pursue her dreams of singing, the man she loved, and was trapped with her a usive uncle who I think we all know was not a nice man. The Nazi party swept it under the rug in a typical example of a society that protected men who abused women. 

In an equal society, a woman would have more freedom, she would not be so easily controlled by a man. Her only hope of escape was marriage, and only if her uncle allowed it. Hitler clearly did not WANT this woman to have freedom and did not respect her feelings, seeing her as an object for him to control, an attitude that he would extend to millions of other people.

Furthermore, if the Nazis were feminist, surely they would not allow a woman-abuser to become their leader, right? Of course, if the Nazis were feminist, they probably would have had at least half their leaders be women. This is just the sort of thing sexist men take for granted - that in an equal society, half of leaders would be female, not 100% or so of them male.

Hitler is frequently quoted, from Mein Kampf and his speeches, talking about how women's role should be confined to motherhood. I'm not completely sure of the accuracy of quotes I found secondhand and in English, but given what we know about his actions we can determine such quotes to be in line with his thinking. In Mein Kampf, he says the primary aim of female education is for motherhood. He also said "A woman's world is her husband, her family, her children, her home, We do not find it right when she presses her way into the world of men."

His opposition to Communism, which promoted equality for women, is reflected in this quote: 

"The granting of equal rights to women, which Marxism demands...draws women into realms of society in which they are inferior."

This creepy quote makes a lot of sense given how he tortued his niece:

"A lass of 18 or 20 years is as pliable as wax. It must be possible for a man to impose his will on any girl. Indeed, a woman wants nothing else" - speech to Hitler Youth.

In my research, I found quite a few anti-feminist sites trying to put obviously fake pro-feminism quotes in Hitler's mouth, possibly as a joke, as if to say that if Hitler supported feminism, therefore it must be wrong, Aside from the fact that these quotes contradict his actions and other words he really did write and speak, if Hitler said the sky was blue that doesnt mean it is truly pink just because he was a bad man; it is simply bad logic. Likewise, feminism isnt good because Hitler opposed it, it is good for a variety of reasons that I think are frankly obvious but perhaps an article for another time anyway. 

As one example, one of the fake sites pretends Hitler was pro-abortion, which is only true when apploed to "inferior" people, but not as a support of women's autonomy; in actuality the Third Reiche not only made abortion illegal but imposed harsh penalties for it (and banned contraception) - for normative Aryan women, of course; for Jewish women it was encouraged or even forced. Mere discussion of contraception, even for the oppressed groups (why bother when they were to be killed, I guess) was illegal. While millions of Jewish and other targeted ethnic groups' children were mercilessly murdered, Aryan women were encouraged to have four or more children with Aryan men and discouraged from being single or having abortions. I mean, that just makes logical sense given Hitler's general game plan - if your goal is to have a particular race dominate, it just doesnt make sense to allow women reproductive freedom and thus allow Aryan children to not be born. At the same time, it is well-documented that the Nazis murdered homosexual and disabled people for similar reasons- their goal being to literally murder everyone who didnt fit their narrow idea of superiority. It is a strange idea that such a regime would view women as equals. Hitler glorified mothers but hated working, single women; single women were "staatsangehoringer", state property. Professional women were increasingly fired under Nazism. After 1936, women could no longer hold many jobs, particularly in leadership such as judges, not even as teachers or nurses. Feminization and modesty were stressed and even legally enforced.

Despite this, Aryan German/French/Polish etc women resisted in a variety of ways and were eventually needed, and even forced into, labor and military service, proving once again just how flawed this sexist ideology can be. While some women resisted sexism by becoming Nazi leaders, others resisted sexism and Nazism by becoming resistance leaders.  Because of course  the oppression of normative Aryan women is nothing in comparisom to the oppressed classes who were marked for torture and death.

Girls and Women who were Jewish, Roma, disabled, and otherwise deemed inferior were brutalized in specifically gendered ways in the Death Camps. Little girls are known to have been raped by S.S. officers, and females in general were often raped and beaten. There were at least 500 rape brothels run by the Nazis. Pregnant women were forced to have abortions or killed. Women were tortured in "experiments" and sterilized. Women could be forced to work or killed when seen as not strong enough to work. Women in camps worked together to survive and resist.

Women and girls were a key part of the resistance, even militarily. Women from many narions were eventually an importsnt part of the war effort. One well known girl was Sophie Scholl, a student who was executed as part of the White Rose French-Jewish resistace for no more than passing out fliers. Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore were gender-bending lesbians who used art to spread a message of resistance, decided to face death rather than give in, and ultimately died from prison conditions shortly after they were freed. And of course, Anne Frank is a very well-known victim of the Holocaust who still inspires us with her inner strength.

So the next time someone calls a woman a "feminazi", just remind them that it is people who want to force women into an inferior role and protect people who abuse women who are truly like Nazis, and it is women whi dare to resist who are the true heroes.

pictured: female resistance members

IT Is Blatantly Obvious That Sexism Definitely Still Exists

*Strong Trigger Warning: Sexual Assault (I'll put stars** around the worst parts so you can read the piece but avoid those parts)

I've been noticing a rather bizarre trend on teh interwebz in recent years; people, men and women ranging from teens to elderly men who should know better, who either pretend that sexism no longer exists, that it never existed, or that men are and have long been oppressed by women.  

I find this exceedingly baffling.  I mean, when I was 11 grown men used to hit on me in really disgusting ways - like masturbating at me, following me in a car. Does that happen to 11 year old boys?  Some people who I have mentioned this to either acted like they were shocked it happened or like it was no big deal ("you had tits, of course men harassed you." I was still only an eleven year old child with no sexual interests whatsoever). 1Those people were men. The women I mentioned it to had all had similar experiences.  Now, maybe not all women experience these sorts of things, but the YesAllWomen (experience harassment and sexism) hashtag was immensely popular precisely because MOST, and yea I'll go ahead and say probably all women do experience sexism, although a very small minority of women who tend to spend a lot of time hating on other women deny this.

*** & That's considered minor league stuff. I am considered lucky. I know several women who have been raped, some of them multiple times, and most of them were either blamed for their rape, told they were lying, in denial that it was rape (to any man daring to suggest that this doubt means it was not rape, ask yourself if someone holding an object over your face and penetrating you against your will in a manner that causes damage to your body sounds like fun; these are the types of situations women are not immediately recognizing as violence) or all of that; I also know a few men who have been raped and live with the added stigma of rape being a crime that is only suppose to be committed against women, which is still misogyny - the idea that women's bodies belong to men, that rape is inevitable, that men can't or shouldn't have to control themselves, that a man has to be magically stronger than everyone else or he is somehow a bad person rather than the person who hurt him, even if he was only a child and his abuser was an adult. ***

So I just really cannot understand how anyone can say that there isn't a problem here when the problem is so severe. I don't see anyone really saying that homophobia doesn't exist, and those who say racism is a thing of the past at least acknowledged it existed.  In the past, people justified sexism by saying it was best for women and men to have seperate roles and so on, but now people are simply saying sexism isn't happening.  

Part of the problem, of course, is our sub-par education system. When you hear someone saying something like "well men are the ones who have built everything", that is a direct product of an education system that has deliberately erased women from history.  In the same way, it is a symptom of ignorance that so many people think that something as institutionalized as sexism, wherein women did not receive the vote in the U.S. until the early 20s (for white women anyway), a fundamental human right which women world wide still lack based on gender alone, somehow will have dissapated within less than 100 years, as if all the people who were raised under the old regime immediately decided to treat everyone precisely equally the moment some women got the vote, at a time when women still could not safely wear pants in public, have a legal abortion even after rape or to save her life, hope to be taken seriously as a political candidate or CEO, and so on.

  I know a lot of these people are deliberately self-deluded, but I live in hope that people will consider the actual facts that exist in reality and turn away from ignorance. So I decided to compile some of the really blantantly obvious evidence that someone who has lived in a bubble may have missed. And really, it's not hard for men to live in a bubble. They are taught to stay away from girls from an early age; segregation is still one of the most powerful tools of oppression.

A lot of people don't know how to think critically. When something makes these people (we'll call them "Jack") uncomfortable -  such as the fact that other people might be suffering from a system that Jack benefits from, it make Jack feel bad. He has two options: he can do the hard work of trying to be part of the solution, or he can deny the problem exists.

I've actually seen people literally suggest, or rather insist, plead, and threaten that people stop talking about sexism because by talking about it they make it worse, or create the problem whole cloth. As if perfectly happy women with no problems are just sitting around, bored, and decided to invent something that isn't real. Nevermind all that historical evidence, nevermind all the data collected by such un-Feminist organizations as the FBI showing things like how many women are murdered by an intimate partner or all the scientific studies and collections of data showing that even male nurses get paid more than female nurses in a field dominated by women that is supposed to be woman's work (just as women in jobs dominated by men get paid less), hell even fields like cooking or poetry are dominated by sometimes super creepy, sexist men.

The U.S. has never had a serious front-runner female candidate for president, let along an actual female president, and the majority of congress is still male.  And to those who say women can't be leaders, that it isn't sexism because women just don't WANT to be leaders and aren't GOOD at it, please please please for the love of humanity study some damn history, because Cleopatra wasn't the only successful female ruler in history. 

I'm glad that things are getting so much better for women that women can actually attend colleges, apply to jobs, run for leadership positions, and so on. But it just hasn't been that long and it sure as hell isn't equal yet. And denying that fact is a huge part of the problem.  IF your feelings are hurt by the idea that you should maybe reconsider how you treat women, just think about how those women feel and maybe put basic decency first.

Microscopic opic oblique biopic of opaque cake

(a free poem)

lemonaide is key

destroys waste

   

                 cells

allergic to citrus

no gracias, mi doctura dice no citrus por mi, porque dolor de abdomem

the lining is destroyed

my body rejecting

       on the cellular level

   the mitochondria were 

 their own entity once

what is alive 

microscopic

little guys

running around on their

dont think

no brain

matter that moves 

programmed

what is wanting? what is will?

invaded the cell

who discovered

- wait but the cell is not a person either

what is a nucleus made of? 

it moves without thinking, along a path, until it collides

but what differentiates a mitochondrian from a cell from a bug from a tree from the air from the universe? 

a layer of tissue, a hard clump of cells, a configuration of atoms

smaller and smaller past where we can measure,

maybe forever,

and if not forever then how are endings possible, where could an ending be, how could nothing ever exist?

nothing seems to be nothing,

i see something with something, even the naked unmoving air is something, 

so

how could snything ever 

stop?

Recommends: Assigned Male

Assigned Male is a webcomic in the "teaching with humor" tradition of the Boondocks, about a young girl who decides to live as what she feels is her true gender despite being assigned male at birth. The comics range from multi panel poignant fictionalized memoir based on the experiences of the author, Sophia, but with more adult language (like Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes) - about friends and growing up, to straight-up trans awareness memes. It's all free of course. And unfortunately, the comic has become the target of bullies who just can't resist the idea of picking on a young girl who speaks her mind. All the more reason to read and even donate! I love this comic for the truths it puts forth about the trans experience. 

AssignedMale.tumblr.com

Queer for Life

People often talk about transgender, homosexuality, feminism, and other cases of breaking gender rules as if they are something people choose later in life due to some sort of defiance or illness.  It's like they never noticed the queer kids on the playground.

   When I was little, I got bullied out of my Catholic school. The girls didn't like me, and I wasn't a boy. I don't know what it was. Maybe it was my messy hair or my goody-two-shoes attitude or obnoxious sense of humor or the fact that I knew that "the Pee Girl" was actually a nice person who was fun to play with and didn't care that she had a disorder, and maybe it was because I was a tomboy. I remember one time on the playground when I felt accepted by the boys, when I felt like I was let into the boys club and would be allowed to play with boys - because they gave me a bloody knee. I was bullied into early childhood depression until I started hitting my bullies right in their faces and the adults finally decided to do something.

  When I went to hippie school, I was much happier. The school was diverse racially and in terms of the age groups who played together, and there were lots of kids with special needs. The older kids and teachers kept kids from being bullies. We were free to explore the woods and the park and the school, free to be kids and to play. On the playground I would always be Wolverine, or I wouldn't play. And a little black boy named Emilio would always be Storm.

  Emilio wasn't really a boy, and I am confident that today he is not a man. He was the pink ranger for Halloween, he walked and talked with a swish. I don't remember anyone being mean to him or thinking he was weird. His mom was a cop and his older brother acted gangster.

   My friends were mostly boys, so I was pretty confused when, on a camping trip, one of my friend's dads decided to cut me out of the group by pitting boys against girls. All of a sudden, I was the enemy, for no good reason. I was so angry at this man for thinking that shit was funny.

    In middle school I hung with dudes and would take out my aggression on my guy friends by kicking them and joking around. I thought it was all in good fun but later realized I was kind of being a bully without realizing it. I was just trying to conform to a hyper masculine image, but the guys I hung with were more chill, sensitive, musician types.

   In High School, I didn't have much sexuality, but I felt some attractions towards boys and some towards... Other girls. Mostly I was just afraid of sex, and deeply in denial that I was different sexually or gender...ly(?). So I was pretty outraged when some of the girls started a rumor about me being a lesbian. I let boys feel me up and just froze, scared they would take it further. I made friends with an older girl and worshipped her, and she did things like give me a private strip tease, but I was happy for the relationship to be unrequited. I wouldn't really be sexually mature until my late 20s, when I would figure out that I was grey-asexual, meaning I prefer to not have sex, even alone, very often. But in early high school, I tried very hard to seem normal - sexual, but not too sexual, straight, and a cis girl. I tried to do things like wear make up, and failed spectacularly. I wasn't being myself.

  By Junior year I found my place, with the stoner boys. I was so, so happy to be one of the guys again, like I had been in middle school, but even more so. My friends literally would tell people I was not a girl, and I approved.

  So when I grew up and learned that magic word transgender and admitted I just might be a lesbian and had a real, deep romantic relationship with a woman and started asserting myself, flirting with name and pronoun changes, wearing clothes that finally felt comfortable and like ME, I thought it was really wired to so many people close to me told me I wasn't trans or a lesbian or whatever (nobody really has thought the asexual thing was that strange though, not sure what to make of that). I've always thought it was obvious that I was queer, it was obvious to the kids who teased me, the street preachers who would look right at me when I was still in denial even to myself, maybe to some of the creeps who sexually harassed me even, since creeps do tend to pick out people they think will be an easy target... When everything snapped into place with that magical word transgender, some of the pieces that snapped were the way other people had treated me. I just don't think queer kids are invisible growing up. I think you can see us just as surely as we know ourselves. 

Nightmares of Madden: Life in a Chicago Public Mad House - Part One

     I've got a new addiction. It's Orange is the New Black.  As I was watching it, I started having flashbacks. Not to prison. I've never been. I flashed back to a place where the inmates are treated like prisoners. Where people who have been to prison say the food, and atmosphere in general, is worse than prison. A place where people die, are sexually harassed, are raped and then blamed for being raped by the people who failed to protect them, are denied basic nutritional and medical needs, are encouraged by the guards to physically fight without being truly protected from threats of violence, where powerful drugs are administered that turn you into a walking zombie. A place that is supposed to have been a mental health center, not two years ago, roughly October 2013, right after my birthday, in Chicago, USA.
     It is not always easy for people without mental illness to understand it, but most people know what it feels like to be extremely sad, and everyone experiences moments of irrationality and delusional thinking. Irrational thinking is not a mental illness by itself, because it is so normal.  A mental illness is when something is happening in your brain that causes your mood to be unstable enough and your thoughts irrational enough on a consistent basis that it interferes with your life. People with mental illnesses may often be seen by dramatic films as violent, highly delusional stereotypes, but most mental patients are completely normal people who just happen to have an illness.  In my case, it was a severe depressive episode.
    A family member had been sexually assaulted.  It was the first and only time I had felt a literally murderous rage shake my body, and I understood that "seeing red" is actually a pretty much literal phrase. I had always been afraid that I would be raped, and I had of course feared for other family members, but it still felt like something impossible had happened, like a monster I had dreamed of had walked out of my nightmares and was lurking in my every shadow.  Watching her go through the pain of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder - crying, screaming, grabbing for a knife to cut herself with right in front of us while I wrestled it out of her hands, not wanting to be touched by anyone for any reason, always needing a light on and not wanting to sleep on a pillow because her rapist had used one to try to suffocate her while she was intoxicated and helpless but trying to struggle and scream, knowing how her body had been damaged as she went to doctors to get medical treatment, watching people in her life blame, shame, and deny her as they continued to hang out with a rapist whose ex-girlfriend was also terrified of him, the entire family going to court to get a restraining order because we were unable to get criminal charges filed because she did not at first think a man holding her down, hitting, choking, and suffocating her was really a rape.... the experience was not only traumatizing for the direct victim, it hurt our entire family, and the person who did that is still free today, because of how our society mistreats rape victims.
    At the exact same time, I had just lost my independence and my home due to my work hours being cut back and difficulties finding a second job.
      But it wasn't just those things. Something chemical was happening inside me, in my brain, that caused a Depressive Episode.
      I have been poor and struggling my entire adult life, and I had for the most part been perfectly happy that way.  There is a difference between depression and regular stress or feeling "bummed out" or ennui. When I am not having a depressive episode, something terrible like a family death can occur, every day stresses of poverty like barely having enough money for groceries can wear on me, but I do not hit the depths of sadness - barely able and totally unwilling to summon energy to do basic things like clean my room, obsessive self-hatred, paranoid thoughts that long time loyal friends secretly hated me, little ability to find even a few moments of joy in my life.
    Depression runs in my family. More than one family member has "successfully" committed suicide, and many of us have tried, or at least become obsessed with the idea.  So when I became so obsessed that the part of me that still wanted to live and still was sane enough to want to protect my family from the pain of losing someone in what I knew damn well was the most terrible way to lose someone, I turned myself in to a mental hospital because I believed it was where I needed to be to recover and keep myself safe.... from myself.  Because part of me was still sane enough to know I could be happy again, and I desperately wanted to be happy again (and now I am!). After all, when it really comes down to it, the idea of living your life in misery so other people can be happy (to have a miserable loved one in their life rather than losing that loved one) is a terrible proposition. A suicidal person can be persuaded to endure a painful life for their family, but it is far better to be able to know that you will not always have to endure constant pain - and the intense sadness of depression is very painful.
    When I went to get help, I thought the hospital would be like the other hospitals I had been in, back when I was still on the family insurance. Strict, constant monitoring by guards who kept us safe. Really good food, better than I ever ate on the Outside, food that I could just feel repairing my weakened body and brain with serious Nutrition; boiled eggs, fresh burgers, crisp broccolis, a different feast every day that we were able to choose for ourselves. Consistant groups and classes. Sure, there were downsides, too, it wasn't a paradise - only compared to Madden.

   I was in the ravine in the woods sobbing.   Trying to gather the courage to slit my wrist.  After a long time I realized I really couldn't do it. I called my sister. She sang Monty Python's "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" to me over the phone.  I laughed, not because she didn't know the second verse began, "Always Look on the Bright Side of Death", but because she really did remind me why I really wanted to live. For her. and not just for her. For all of us. For me too.

    My mom called the cops and then called them off when I came up muddy from the woods, ditching my blade in a hollow tree where it must be rusting now.  I was wearing three day old clothes with no underwear and I probably hadn't showered in a while so I surely reeked.  I had cuts on my arm from trying to work up the nerve to slash the big one. I hid the sleeping pills and aspirin I had brough to take as a back up because pills are expensive; my mom found them later and got rid of them. We went to County hospital ER.  I was nearly catatonic. I remember the nurse snapping her fingers in my face and saying "hello!" because I couldn't or wouldn't answer questions, like where I got that big cut. I always think it's stupid when they try to bandage me up after I cut myself, like they're taking care of a wound when I don't deserve or need it, when I'm in that state.  My mother stayed with me until I asked her to leave because in wanting to fix me, somehow, she was just stressing me out, not that she wasn't doing her best from a place of love.

   I was visited by a few doctors and counselors.  One man I remember in particular because he talked to me about transgender issues and how he works with trans youth.  He had a very realistic attitutude about things like drugs and medication - most counselors in these places will take a very Just Say No hard line, but he acknowledged that something like marjuana might vary in efficacy from user to user. I trust people like that much more than the Just Say No, Not Even Once crowd.

   I was put in a room with two Latina ladies. The tiny elderly woman wanted to watch Telenovelas and I was happy to oblige. I practiced my Spanish talking with her. The younger one got sick of the TNs and we made a compromise. We were all in there overnight, almost 24 hours. The nurse got really angry at one of the women for vomiting at one point, but she was old and sick and couldn't help it and had been trying to tell them, I was angry at the nurse for being like that in front of the patients. In the middle of the night a man who only spoke Spanish was brought in in restraints, with a cop guarding him, and was screaming. The guards were saying he was a drunk who abused his wife and daughters. I heard them talk to each other about how to tell him things like calm the fuck down, so I taught them a few words in my pigeon Spanish. I felt good, useful. I felt like being in the hospital would be good for me.

   I was transferred to Madden. The regulations are that I had to be restrained in a bed, I had to wear a paper gown.  It makes you feel like less of a person, like an animal. The young man who sat with me in the back of the van was very nice. It was comforting.

    When I got to the facility, I went through the usual routine - surrendering my dirty clothes and wallet and phone and whatever else I had on me, answering a bunch of questions that I had already answered to someone else.  I knew right away that this facility would be awful. The younger Latina who had been at the ER had been so nervous about the hospital had been so worried, I had comforted her, and one of my major selling points was the food. All we got here, after over half a day without food or shower or real rest, was a burnt bowl of oat meal. I could picture her face and I felt like I had betrayed her, The bathroom was worse than at a Public Chicago High School in the 'hood. The guard treated me like I had personally done a series of terrible things to her and was now being imprisoned instead of someone who was suicidal and had turned myself in to get help and had just arrived.  Then I was transferred to my ward.

     As they processed me a guard made a joke about how I cut myself, like it was funny or cool or criminal when to me it was sick and painful and shameful. I was so angry at her for that moment of being so unprofessional.

    When I got there, I didn't want to see or talk to anyone. It had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that I was in a psych ward. When I am in a deep depressive state, I am afraid of all people and try to hide as much as possible; I get massive anxiety about things like people looking at me, large crowds, and using the phone. So I stayed in bed. I slept for a long time, then slept some more.  I finally had to come out for meals and slowly began engaging and socalizing. I wanted to get better.

   There was one advantage at Madden over other facilities that I want to mention before I really trash the place, because it really wasn't all bad, and there's one very strong reason why, and that is (most of) the people, especially the women (but there were certain men in particular who will always have a place in my heart too).  In other facilities, the psychologists were elite and unreachable, and a lot of the staff had an elitist attitude like they couldn't really understand our struggles. The staff at Madden had a few Rotten Assholes, but there were a lot of people there who were working really hard, for very little money, as a labor of love.  I was able to see my counselor by my own request after a few days, whereas in richer-people hospitals you got one, maybe two, visits on your way out the door. I was able to talk to a lot of people about my issues. They couldn't necessarily do anything about it, but they listened, they really cared, and they really felt me. There was the lady who played Scrabble and the Deaf man who gave a quiet strength and a big heart to our recreation, and the social workers who knew most of us had been abused and taught us not to blame ourselves.... there were a lot of good people holding up that shitty roof. And they were honest. They knew the food was bad, they knew it wasn't the best place to work. They put up with a lot of abuse from the patients and (except for the Rotten Assholes) were remarkably patient and understanding.  The staff are not the main problem at that place. The main problem is the main problem the poor always have - no money. And yes, getting screwed by a system that doesn't care about the poor and sick.

Next installment, I will talk more about what happened when the shit really started to hit the fan - about why a hardcore Atheist found zirself leading Bible studies, whether or not I actually killed a "wealthy" bitch over some coloring book pages, just what kind of drugs you can get when you throw a tantrum there, what a panic attack feels like, the war veteran who thought I was his cheating ex-girlfriend when I was actually a mental patient asking him to intervene agaisnt sexual harassment, the girl who couldn't remember her name or how to deal with her period, and more. Stay tuned.

Recommends!: Manic Pixie Nightmare Girls

Jessica's comics are amazing because they give the reader an unapologetic look into the life of a trans woman and teach trans feminism some comics are just about her own life, like human awkwardness at a party, others are biting criticisms of mainstream transmysogyny in our culture. I would describe her art style as conveying the general feeling of a bubbly but awkward girl next door and the writing as a sensible SJW, which is a compliment. I recommend her not just to trans people but to cis people who want to be good allies to trans people. Manic Pixie Nightmare Girls is on Tumble and Facebook for free, pretty much weekly. She is strict about maintaining a safe space on FB but can also be very kindly indulgence with people who just need a little help understanding her POV, not that she should have to indulge us in that way.  http://themanicpixienightmaregirl.tumblr.com/

Bill Clinton is (almost definitely) a rapist and sexual harasser

While Bill Cosby is finally having to pay for his lifetime of serial rapes, Bill Clinton has never had to pay. Most people don't even know Bill C. was accused of rape and sexual harassment multiple times, and that it was THOSE accusations that led to a national "scandal" about one consensual sexual ecounter he had as president.  Take a moment to think about how fucked up that is - people got really upset and pissed off that the man had consensual sex with someone other than his wife, and completely forgot about a string of rape and harassment allegations.

In (probably) 1978 at the Camelot hotel, according to five witnesses and the victim herself, Clinton allegedly raped a nursing home administrator. This was covered in the Wall Street Journal and other prominent news publications.  The brave survivor of this rape, Juanita Broaddrick, said that Clinton tried to apologize to her in 1991, and she told him, rightly, to "go to hell", because she does not owe a rapist her forgiveness.  After all, the most powerful man in the country certainly was willing to keep hurting her by continuing to deny it publicly and legally. One witness found the victim "distraut" directly afterwards, the others were informed by the victim afterwards.  The victim did not come forward publicly for many years, as most rape victims do not, especially in the 70s.

In 1998, a woman named Kathleen Willey said Clinton had groped her in a hallway in 1993. Her case was dismissed by authorities.

Clinton was also known to use the Jeffrey Epstein private airline, which solicited underage teenage prostitutes (which is rape; a young teenager is not old enough to consent to sex work with adults). Epstein refused to admit or deny his relationship with Clinton.  Epstein's victims, the teenage sex slaves, later sued, if anyone reading this is sick enough to doubt that young girls lack the agency to be prostitutes.

Paula Jones brought a sexual harassment lawsuit against Clinton.  Jones was raked through the coals in the media, and Clinton is still seen as a hero whose only crime was consensual sex, but Clinton ultimately had to pay her $850,000 to settle the suit, indicating that it was not without merit.  Most people forget that Jones was talking about HARASSMENT, not consensual sex. They also forget that the Clinton impeachment was based on perjury, not consensual sex.

Why is a powerful white man who was president able to get away with rape? Well the answer is self evident in the question.

But it is past time that we started holding him accountable for his crimes.

 

I Believe Them: Cosby and Rape Culture

When women first began telling people around them that Bill Cosby had raped them, over 30 years ago, the victims were discouraged from reporting to police, victim-blamed, made to believe that taking on a powerful man would destroy the victim's life and result in no justice.  This was the typical handling of rape victims at the time and prior to that time for thousands of years in a sexist society in which women had only recently earned the vote. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/11/13/bill-cosby-raped-me-why-did-it-take-30-years-for-people-to-believe-my-story/)

When one woman got some small measure of justice in court, and the man admitted to activities that confirmed he was a rapist, those records were kept from the public, the woman presurred to settle out of court, the press ditched the story, and the powerful man was able to go on to rape over 40 women.

When women again began reporting on this rape years later, older and more secure in a society that is less sexist and beginning to rebel against rape culture and fight for the rights of rape victims, the first women to report were told by the public that their word was not strong enough evidence to be believed. It's only one woman, they said, she is lying for money. Even though there is no money to be had from saying a rape occurred many years ago, and there certainly isnt any positive /attention to be had when people are calling you a liar and worse.  Whenever a rape victim stands up for herself, men and even women come crawling out of the internet woodwork to call her names and harass her.  Not that it's only online; in real life, women have been driven to suicide by angry mobs after taking their rapist to court, even when there is enough evidence including an actual photo or video of the rape that the rapists actually are convicted. (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/rehtaeh-parsons/)

Of course, when rapists are convicted, even the rapists of children are too often given a slap on the wrist.  We read about people who raped children being freed after a handful of years - such as the rapist who was recently dating "Honey Boo Boo"'s mother, the rapists who live in "Miracle Village" (http://www.vice.com/read/inside-miracle-village-379), the judge who reduced a TODDLER rapist's sentence because he "didnt intend to harm" a TODDLER when he RAPED A TODDLER (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/07/kevin-rojano-child-rapist-sentence-reduced_n_7019762.html), the prosecutor who called a ELEVEN year old gang rape victim a "spider" and blamed her for being assaulted by GROW MEN (http://jezebel.com/5964064/lawyer-says-11-year-old-gang-rape-victim-was-a-spider-luring-men-into-web), the young teen mocked online for being a rape victim: (http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/womens-blog/2014/jul/17/jadapose-online-ridiculing-rape-victims-sickening-trend), the Stuebenville case in which an entire community harassed the victim and protected the rapists, all while documenting the rape, then the proven rapists got less than two years in jail and the adults complicit got a slap on the wrist (http://www.newstatesman.com/laurie-penny/2013/03/steubenville-rape-cultures-abu-ghraib-moment); then of course there's rapsts like Roman Polanski, Woody Allen, and Stephen Collins, the latter a confessed rapist, who are beloved while their victims are attacked.  Then there are men who raped women or other men who walk free, like Mike Tyson, a brutal rapist who was offered a TV show after release.  People just don't care much about protecting people from rape.  Drug dealers get longer sentences. Homosexuals get more social condemnation.

Through all this, men are gathering online to express fear that women are demanding consent; of course, this fear for them is twisted into a fear of "false" rape accusations; many rapists don't truly understand what consent even is.  Many men even believe that being married to a woman, or having had a relationship with her once, or a woman being drunk or unconcious or seen as promiscuous, entitles a man to force her into sexual activities. This isn't something that evil Social Justice Feminasties invented, it's something that is well documented by science, such as case study interviews with rapists, and law enforcement like the FBI. 

Large recent rape study: http://www.unwomen.org/en/news/stories/2013/9/half-of-men-report-using-violence-and-a-quarter-perpetrate-rape-according-to-un-survey

Stats collected from FBI etc: https://www.rainn.org/statistics

Yet as more women are finding the courage and the social support to fight more forcefully against rape culture, many men are reacting by simply calling women liars. Nevermind the data.

As more women came out to support each other and bravely tell the world that they are survivors of rape, people continued to defend Cosby, saying that all these women and the various witnesses that also came forward, and of course all the journalists and lawyers involved with the accusations and legal case, must all be working together in an elaborate conspiracy to destroy one man for no real reason.  Because it makes a lot more sense that 60 or so people would work together flawlessly on a seemingly pointless conspiracy. It makes no sense when you break it down. Does the man really even have enough money to go around to this cabal? Why wouldn't the Evil Conspiracy keep their numbers smaller to get a bigger share and ensure secrecy? Why out him when threatening to out him - er, I mean falsely accuse him - is a better way to get money; why would he give people money AFTER they already have spoken against him, when the statue of limitations is up?

Speaking of which - a man recently killed a known child rapist (http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/courtroom-applauds-n-man-admits-killing-molester-article-1.2262471) because he was unable, after many years, to prevent the man from raping.  The judge lowered the charges and the jury applauded the man. Yet online, the rapist has his defenders, who again believe that the multiple adult survivors of this abuse coming forward today to suppor the survivor who killed the child rapist are all in on some grand conspiracy together - because a man killing his old scout leader for no reason and making up a lie about rape, and somehow getting other people to have his back while in police custody, makes more sense than a man wanting to get revenge and protect kids from a rapist.

People will go to all sorts of insane lengths to excuse and protect rapists. And it needs to stop. Becuase ANYONE can be a victim and the only way to protect ourselves is by making the world safer for victims to come forward and less safe for rapists to walk free.

The majority of rape victims never report. Of those that do, the majority of rapists never spend a day in jail, nevermind getting a serious sentence of more than a few months. 

Police have turned away rape victims by blaming them or denying that they were raped, or even prosecuting them (http://www.vice.com/read/i-was-rapedand-then-the-police-told-me-i-made-it-up) and then covering up their mistake.  Police have also, of course, tortured and raped and murdered people. 

Police, judges and other people tell sex workers they cannot be raped (http://ethicsalarms.com/2013/11/02/can-a-prostitute-be-raped/) because apparently being a sex worker means your body is public property in their view, to be tortued as much as anyone wishes, because being a sex worker (which is often not even a choice, some women, girls, and boys and men are sex slaves) makes you subhuman in some way to their eyes. 

People make a joke about men being raped in prison (women are also raped in prison, often by guards, and they dont deserve it for things like being a drug addict), people think men cant be raped by women. 

Tens of thousands of rape kits have gone untested. For decades. Meaning police ARENT EVEN INVESTIGATING rapes when victims come forward. http://www.endthebacklog.org/backlog/what-backlog

Society blames and shames rape victims and denies the realities of rape.

What can you do? Properly educate yourself. Talk  to your loved ones, especially young teens and pre-teens, about consent. Stand up for rape victims when others say ignorant things.  Vote for politicians who will support victims. Get in touch with your local police and pressure them to support victims. Donate or volunteer for rape crisis organizations. Attend a Slut Walk or other protest in support of reforms. Write you respresentatives and demand change, support change in your social life, online, in your workplace. And keep educating yourself throughout.

What we need is a social change. We need people to be educated about consent and rape. We need police and the general public to be supportive towards rape victims. We need rapes adequately investigated and prosecuted. We need to end the statute of limitations and increase sentencing and sentences so that rapists are kept away from the general public. We as a society need to decide that rape is a serious crime and do something about it. And that starts by not pretending the problem does not exist. We need to start believing victims instead of automatically condemning them. We need people to be able to trust us with their pain, and we need to help protect those people - and in doing so, we can protect ourselves and our children.

Need help?
Call 800.656.HOPE (4673) to be connected with a trained staff member from a sexual assault service provider in your area. (via RAINN)

edit: I was thinking a bit more about the racial aspect of the Cosby case in particular.  I won't go too much into it, but I would like to say that (1) black men are certainly more likely to be seen a predatory (see my open letter to Dylann Roof), and more likely to be punished for rape. White men like Bill Clinton (who, yes, was accused of sexual harassment and sexual assault) are more likely to get away with it. (2) Of the very, very, VERY rare instances of actual false rape accusations, black men have disproportionately been victims (ie lynching), although in some of those cases a rape had actually occurred, the lynching victim just didn't get a fair trial and may not have been the actual rapist; in some cases, consensual sex may have been misconstrued as rape by white men (not by the female in question) with proprietary attitudes towards women. This is also true of most unjust rape accusations that are later exonerated - a stranger rape did occur, but the wrong offender was imprisoned. (3) Black women deserve to be protected from rape. Black women were systematically raped by white men, but they have also been raped by black men, and some of Cosby's victims were women of color, so while it is certainly racist that Cosby gets more negative press than men like Woody Allen, it is also racist to presume that the women of color are not victims of rape deserving of protection.

Edit: I would like to add that in Cosby's own words, in his own deposition, he said no woman had asked him for money. All they asked was for an apology. He refused.

The Machina Treatment; Hyana: the Dead Marsh March

Background:
tentatively titled "The Machina Treatment", the story takes place in an (alt universe) earth city called Shikaga not long after earth is invaded & colonized by aliens.  Some humans, called "homs", have been essentially transformed into cyborgs. This is a flashback scene, but the main narrative will take place thousands of years from this point, at which point there will be very few homs left, all of the cyborg variety, basicly in hiding - until a young hom of unknown origins appears & ignites a revolution....
Other the shit you should know about this world : there is a zombie-like plague that the aliens brought with them, & the cyborg technology was partially modeled after a biological process call "vorm-ing" that some aliens are capable of, which is essentially changing your body from a solid to a liquid &/ gas.

....

Hyana: The Dead Marsh March

Yip realized he was shivering, shaking the sticky rotten visceral guts he was stuck in like a giant tape-worm thrashing around in the beast’s corpse, as if it were still fighting for life.  He fought to keep his body still, focusing on the sound of moaning, scraping feet coming closer, but he still had no power to control his limbs. He opened his eyes slowly, a sliver at a time, seeking through the bloody slit of furry skin.  He could see the faces of the Dead Men glowing, just in sight, through the weeds – bony fingers like claws outstretched - & in the distance, lit up by a giant red moon, his eyes struggled upwards through the bloodied fur & guts, reaching up to grasp the lone loping shadow staggering over the highest point in the Black Hills with the small body of a fresh kill slung over its’ back. As he clutched his teeth together to keep them from chattering and shut his eyes tight to silence their light & their horrible visions again, Yip thought bitterly that when had dreamed of adventures in the wild, this was not what he had pictured.

this thought had first come to him early on- after  weeks of aching feet and aching bellies crossing endless expanses of Nothing, silently listening for danger, searching the dry cracked ground for weeds to eat – if this was adventure, he thought, how much more exciting to be safe at home in bed with a viewscreen!  But all that was gone now – he’d be lucky to live through it.  No Hom had- why did he think he would be any different?

As the days wore on, Yip’s hope that the food would last the journey through the Dead Marsh had slowly drained away.  Griff did not mind – Marlocks store nutrients in the large bumps sticking out all over their skin like bulbous zits. & Zelop was a small, spiky reptilian, he could go a very long time with very little but bugs to eat.

Griff did what he could to comfort Yip, carrying him for long stretches..  Yet Hyana, a mere hom like himself, did not seem to fear death,  tho she herself had said that no hom had crossed the Dead Marsh and lived. With her it sounded like a challenge.

Nothing ever seemed to worry Hyana, the Shadow Huntress. She may have been a hom, a primitive Earther ape native, but Yip often thought she must be part machine.  She wore a cold stone mask no matter what happened, whether tredging hours through sinking mud or starving or skinning a fresh kill, it made no difference to her – she never seemed to suffer, to feel the slightest pain, never complained, always moving steadily & silently – she could kill as easily as one swats a fly, with that much emotion.  It was only when she was hunting – stalking her prey – that Yip could almost see almost see light behind her eyes -  hidden though they were behind a thin bent panel of black glass.  She was grim, but not solemn, exactly– the corners of her mouth seemed permanently lifted in a smug little smirk, as if she were always laughing at the expense off the rest of the world, holding deep within her a cruel joke that only she had the wisdom to understand.

Her skin seemed to shift into the shadows or whiten in the sun like a DawnScraper,  seemed to Yip she could be black as night or white as the sands of the Endless Desert.

If Yip was puzzled and awed by Hyana, the Marlocks were staggered by this strange hom. “Our fem Hom there, it no sleep?”  Griff grumfed, shifting his aft-hump closer to the watch fire.

“All homs sleep, Griff, even the Huntress- sometime.. right, Yip?” Zelop said.

“yup” Yip said.  Yet he thought to himself that he had never once seen her so much as close her eyes completely.

“that one there, no sleep.  Griff watch. Huntress has open eyes – starlit, dark, every breath.   Homs is Darkers, no?”

Zelop snorted. “Shit, Griff, how long you been on this planet? Homs ain’t Darkers or StarSiders.  This planet rotates, scumsucker. Even the slowest shadow stalker could see that!  Day and Night are a matter of time, not distance –  or didn’t you notice?”

Marlocks never laugh, so Griff did not, but he did seem amused – “Homs is Dawnscrapers, then – dark & light- sun & shadow.”

“yup. We sleep at night cuz we can’t see so good, tho.”

suddenly he felt himself grabbed from behind. A squeal emerged from his throat into a leather gloved hand.  It was Hyana.

“Never tell anyone your weaknesses, noob.” She hissed in his ear, “& especially never attempt to discern mine.” she tossed him lightly back to the ground. With her other hand, she pulled a string of critter corpses from her shoulders – all she’d been able to catch on the dry plains –little birds & rats.

 “meat” she glowed,  picking up a knife and bending to strip away the skin.

Yip looked around at his companions, who didn’t seem to have noticed – they were drooling towards the meat.  Hyana set the naked meat on the spit.  Her eyes glittered as he glared at her – but his eyes lowered to the meat and he held his tongue.  Hyana did not-

“take what we call Firebirds.  Guess what their weakness is?”

She flicked her fingers and flames shot out into the sky,

Yip shrieked and cowered under a rock.

The flames exploded colors into the blacknesss.  Orange and purple and shades the hom-eyed watchers could not see.  Glinting off Hyana’s shark-teethed as she grinned against the lighted sky...

Yip watched as two red & yellow winged birds suddenly appeared, screeching, flapping down at them as if to stamp them out or scratch them up and eat them.  Hyana drew her bow, shot them down, & began carving them up.

“how did you do that?” Yip asked Hyana wonderingly, “what was that thing?”

Firebursts”. Hyana grinned,”a hom  spawn, scum-ape earther , who does not know firebursts? Tsk, tsk, what is this world coming to?”

“Well, I didn’t come from Homs…”

no shit, let me guess - you were raised by Japners? those pointy headed little spider fucks  with skin like jagged rock?”

“don’t call them that. They’re Jasperians.  They’re my family.”

“Our Huntress is Speciesist.”  Griff grunted.

“How can a Hom be Specieist?” Zelop said to him, “We’re the ones who took over their planet.”

“you’re their dog,” Hyana taunted Yip,  “They cut off your balls and teach you to do tricks?”  

Yip blushed and scowled.  “you don’t know anything.”

Zelop made a screeching sound & flicked his upper tongue in the air like a razor-edged ribbon – “Japners are scum.  They take other species as pets.”

“My Jasperian family respects me!” Yip protested, rising, cheeks flushed red.

Hyana did not even look at him. He threatened her about as much as a small child might. “If you like them so damn much, why aren’t you with them instead of out here crossing this death trap like a fool?”

“Same reason as you –  I wanna lay my stakes on that Asteroid.” Yip pulled his small pickaxe from his belt where he kept it for use as a sort of multi-tool.  He didn’t have the first clue what he’d be mining, but a giant hunk of rock fallen from space had to have something useful inside it, if the memes of smiling miners on his viewscreen’s book of faces were true as they felt.

Hyana seemed to creep forward, through the shadows, her white eyes gleaming- “Seems to me like you’re running from something.  I know the scent of desperation, and it’s all over you.”

Yip said nothing – swallowing hard, he slumped back down in his seat, put away his axe, packed up & pulled smoke from his pipe to keep water from flowing from his eyes. He had started to think he should hide himself from Hyana, curl up inside his shell. Bow your head and follow. Good Dog.

Hyana tore off a small chunk of raw Marshrat in her claws and began chewing it as the fire crackled over the tiny bodies tied in a line to the spit. Griff had begun chewing on the feathers the Huntress had discarded.  Zelop, uninterested In meat or fire, had crawled uphill to stare at the sky.

“Ice storm coming” He screeched.

Hyana nodded.  “gonna stick your head in the mud, Lizard-man?”

Zelop bit at his front claw “& sleep away my share of the bounty?  I’m a better digger than any of you hot-bloods.”

He scuttled out to the edge of a rock to catch moon-rays while the  mammals settled under furs before the fire.

The next morning when Yip woke, Zelop was gone.  They looked all over, but there was no trace of the lizard.  Finally Griff said he must have dug himself a hole and hibernated after all.  The ice storm never hit.

Soon there were fewer and fewer animals to kill for meat,  less edible vegetation, & only the greenest of water.   Yip began to really understand that the Dead Swamp was not a casual nickname, & it finally occurred to him that he, too, could die. The fear he would be the next to fall gripped him like ice.

But he was wrong. It happened shortly after a rare miracle occured, & Hyana was able to catch a snake & make snake stew with some foragings. As they crossed the muddy swamp on fallen trees, suddenly Griff kneeled over in the mud.  He began to sink.

“pull him out!” Hyana screamed.  She had already fashioned a rope, which she threw around his head.  “Get down there & push!” she called to Yip, cracking her whip against his ankle.  Yip was afraid to go in the mud, but he thought of all the times Griff had carried him, and he struggled against the big body.  Griff seemed dead already, seemed to push against him as if to bring him into the swampy afterlife with him, but Hyana pulled hard on his neck and they laid his massive body out on the shore.  Yip thrust his head to one of the creature’s hearts and listened until long after it stopped beating.

“What do we do now?” Yip asked mournfully, looking up at Hyana through Griff’s still silent fur.

“We eat him.” The Huntress said calmly.

“We can’t!” Yip cried.

“Why not?”

“What if he’s poisoned? We could get sick.”

“Oh, he was poisoned.” She grinned, “ but we won’t get sick.”

“What do you mean?”

“carrots.” She growled. “they’re poison to Marlocks.”  She began slitting open Griff’s sagging hump, “but not to us. “

“how do you know that?”

“Nevermind how I know. He’s dead. meat’s meat.”  She flicked her hand and out shot her knife.

“Griff isn’t meat!” Yip protested.  He wanted to get down and hug his friend’s carcass, but he could not make his leaden legs move.  He trembled.

“Fuck’s sake, Yip, you dumbfuck Jarp-licker, he’s just a shaggy scumfuck humpback alien fatsacks.  If we don’t eat him, we starve, it’s simple as that. Why do you think they call it the Dead Marsh?  There’s no food anywhere, as far as I know there’s no other way to make it forward or even back & I know better than anyone; no way to carry enough food...  Marlocks, on the other hand, carry their food on their backs. & now he’s dead, and it’s our food.“ the corners of her mouth twitched.
 Far off, Yip thought he heard a Mad Dog laughed.  He gazed out at the rocky, jungle swamp around him, thick weeds reaching dead fingers towards dark clouds reflected in still green water. He wanted to look anywhere but Griff’s giant shaggy corpse being split under Hyana’s knife.  Suddenly a fury overwhelmed his more sensible cowardice -

“You – you – you only brought him here to kill him!” he screamed at her.

Hyana considered him a moment.  She seemed to hold his eyes with hers, a shock of white ice and deep midnight jungle black.  Yip felt wild panic but could not will himself to move.

“yes.” She said finally, rising slowly, body twisting towards him, bloodied knife in hand at her side.  Yip could not help it. He sprang back a pace and yelped.  Hyana chuckled low & spread her fingers, dropping the knife; both homs knew this didn’t truly disarm her. “Yip, my hom bro, I ain’t got shit against you if you got nothin’ on me, dig?”

“Yea-yea…”

“As it happens, Yip, I’m the only way in hell you’re going to survive this, even if it’s only for a few days....  All you have to do is listen to me & try not to do anything stupid, you understand?”

“Y-yes.”

Good. Homs gotta stick together, right?  Build a fire.”

She stripped & flayed the meat and made a thick soup and pemmican balls out of the fat that had been stored in the hump.  Hyana made Yip help her drain the water first, through a bladder.  Yip kept thinking of Griff rubbing his big shaggy face against his in greeting and it made him dry-heave.

Hyana gave him water and warned him, fingers lightly tapping the back of his neck, “If you puke him up after we eat him, you’ll have to eat up the puke. We don’t have enough to be wasted.”  This, of course, only made him sick, but there was not yet anything in his stomach & he gasped dryly like a fish, half hoping he vomited his guts up and died right there.

He did not bother to ask if she knew what had happened to Zelop.

It was that night that the hail storm finally hit.  Hyana did not allow them to make camp.  They struggled against the rocky stones below two great shields Hyana had made from Grif’s circular bones.  Even in death, Grif was still protecting Yip.  And so was Hyana-

“So why do you keep me alive?” he shouted to her.

“You won’t stay alive long if you don’t pay attention.” She said flatly, just loud enough to be heard.

He ran a few paces and swung around to stand in front of her. The ice rocks hit against his spine.

“Why didn’t you kill me, too?” he moaned, staring into her silvery eyes.

“I need you, Yip.  Sometimes two do better than one.  Besides, Homs have to stick together.”  She pushed past him and continued climbing against the storm.  Yip ran after her.

“How do I know you won’t betray me?”

“I would never betray my own kind.” She said.  The corners of her mouth dancing.

In the morning when the storm settled Hyana made Yip another soup of Grif’s innards – she herself ate only the pemicin -& insisted on carrying him on her back so he could sleep.  He dreamed of riding inside of one of Griff’s humps, stuck inside the viscera, unable to breathe -  He woke to the sound of howling. Night had fallen.  Hyana, with him on his back, had shot a giant Darkwolf and her cub, which lay at her feet.

you’ll want your pick.” Hyana told him, handing the simple miner’s tool to him.

“W-why?”

“I don’t need it. I’ve already got one.”

“What?” he gasped groggily, hoping this was still a dream.

A shadow fell across Hyana’s face.  The flashing panel wrapt tight below her eyes turned deep space   black – the corners of her mouth still teasing a smirk, the deadly snaggle-toothed grin of a shadowcat – only her eyes betrayed a flashing light – she spoke in a low purr, a growl as she slunk closer-

“don’t you know why homs never cross the Marsh Wastes?  It’s a fuckin’ breeding ground for the Corpse Plague, man.  The Dead walk deep in the Dark Marsh Waste – and you know what they like to eat, don’t you?”

Yip began to tremble.   Of course he  did.  Homs everywhere still spoke of the Corpse Plague in hushed voices.  The bodies of the dead rising to feed on the flesh of the living – suddenly he thought he could hear them groaning through the trees

“No!” he sputtered – “it’s not true! They’re all dead!”

“oh, they’re dead all right.” Hyana said.  “they’re dead and they smell blood. Can you run?”

“I can’t m-move my legs.”

Hyana grinned.  “Marlock liver.  Poison to homs. Paralyzes you. Those Dead Eaters love blood – especially hom blood.”  She reached down and shoved Yip into the wolf’s carcus.  In one swift motion, she lifted the cub over, onto her shoulder.  She grinned down at Yip, tucked inside the wolf.

“This bitch was following us long time, waiting for us to die.  They’ll smell her first, then they’ll smell you.  They have a preference for living hom hosts.”

“W-why are you doing this?  Yip called, fighting & failing to move his leadening limbs.

Hyana grin never faded.  “sometimes two go better than one” she growled.   “ I needed another hom to keep these fucks busy while I get past.”

“you said you’d never betray your own kind” Yip whined, eyes filling uselessly with water.

“I lied to you, Yip. I hate homs more than any other creature. You’re just meat to me like all the rest of them.”

As he pleaded weakly to her, she turned her back on him and continued her journey East as the Dead Eaters began stumbling from the woods towards the fresh meat.  

Years later they would talk of seeing a single figure walking alone down the mountain, and wonder how it was that all of Hyana’s party died and yet she seemed so unchanged, well fed and cheerful even, when she returned alone.