Someone sure is confused, but it ain't who you think it is, KK

Apparently Katherine Kersten's poor widdwe bwain is aww confused - she just can't undewstand that consensual sex and rape are different things.

Advice, honey: don't presume our young men are as confused as you are, that's insulting to men.  These students knew exactly what they were saying, and prettymuch every adult other than you understands the difference between "yes" and "no."  Hint: their definitions are in the dictionary.

Silence is the Enemy

This post will be unpleasant. It is meant to be. I'm sure some of you know what I have gone through, and that it is difficult for me to write about rape. But my discomfort in writing, and anyone's discomfort in reading pales in comparison to what women and girls are living daily. For their sake, educate yourself, speak out, donate. Our eyes need opening.

There is an online movement happening to raise awareness and action to end the systematic rape of women and girls. While we seek to end all rape, the main focus of this movement is to end the rape of the majority of females in the war-torn countries of Liberia and the Congo, where rape was used as a tactic of war. As Dr. Denis Mukwege explains, in a column penned by Bob Herbert :

“Once they have raped these women in such a public way,” he said, “sometimes maiming them, destroying their sexual organs — and with everybody watching — the women themselves are destroyed, or virtually destroyed. They are traumatized and humiliated on every level, physical and psychological. That’s the first consequence.

“The second consequence is that the whole family and the entire neighborhood is traumatized by what they have seen. The ordinary sense of family and community is lost after a man has been forced to watch his wife being raped, or parents are forced to watch the rape of their daughters, or children see their mothers raped.

“Neighbors are witnesses to this. Many flee. Families are dislocated. Social relationships are lost. There is no more social network, village network. Not only the victims have been destroyed; the whole village is destroyed.”

Women and girls are being sexually mutilated: raped so severely they will never bear children, cannot walk for months, have permanent incontinence. Some have been raped to death. And those are just the physical scars. It began as a tactic of war, and continues long after the wars have ended. It is estimated that in Eastern Congo, 1,100 women are raped a month. One thousand one hundred. In some regions, it is rare to find a female who has not been raped.

What You Can Do

Educate yourself:

• Silence is the Enemy
  
• After Wars, Mass Rapes Persist
• War on Women in Congo
• The Invisible War
• Women Left for Dead
• Shattered Lives
• Sexual Violence
  

Participate in Silence is the Enemy:

• Join the Facebook Group
• Visit these blogs; they are donating revenue to Doctors Without Borders and income is determined by blog traffic. Every click helps.
• Donate. I am. (A good list of organizations to donate through is here.)
  
• Speak out: Counter rape myths, link to the blogring, make a note on your facebook page, write to your congressional representatives
• I read that there is a Twitter feed for the event as well. I don't Tweet, as a rule, but the tag is #silencehurts

For too long, rape has been a subject relegated to whispers and innuendo. This silence has placed victims into a realm of shame and isolation, though we are many. This silence has allowed rapists to ruin lives with impunity. Do not stigmatize victims or empower rapists, rapist sympathizers and rape apologists: Refuse to be silent. We will be heard.

April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month

Gotta get something up before it's over!

So as many of you may know, I am a survivor of childhood sexual assault. In light of this, I like to do something special every April to raise awareness and combat myths as my contribution to sexual assault awareness month.

In lieu of telling my own story this year, I am going to link to a few articles that are pertinent to it or are pertinent to our culture right now.

I think a lot of people are starting to understand and know the Department of Justice statistic that 1 in 6 women are raped over the course of their lifetime (not including sexual assault that did not include penetration or attempted sexual assault). But not a lot of people know how many rapists there are out there, how this number is terrifying to women and why we live our lives in constant fear of being raped. That number, folks, is 4.5%. Another way of putting it: 1 in 25. If you know 25 men, chances are you know a rapist. I'm pretty sure we all know at least one rapist. They are people we love, people we respect, people we loathe, people who hide their misogyny behind charm, good looks, or chivalry. Think 4.5% is a small number? From Alas, a blog:

4.5% of the men in the United States is an incredibly high number - that translates into over six million men.


If you added up every US citizen who was officially unemployed or looking for work in 2001, that would be less than the total number of rapists.


If you added up every US citizen who is Jewish, that would still be less than the total number of rapists.


If you added up every teenage boy who had any sort of job - an afterschool job, a summer job, working full-time after dropping out, including all of those - you’d still have over a million fewer people then the total number of rapists.


There are twice as many rapists in the USA as there are single mothers.


For every drunk driver who is in a fatal accident this year, there are over 500 rapists.


If you take every doctor and nurse in the United States; and you added them to every librarian, every cashier, every cop, every postal clerk, and every bank teller in the whole country; you still wouldn’t have as many people as the number of rapists in the United States.

To relate the fear that women experience on a daily basis because of these rapists (again from Alas, a blog):

Imagine that one out of 25 men have at some point in their lives attacked and tortured an Oregonian. You don’t know which ones had done it - you just know it’s about one in 25. And they had done it simply because they had wanted to, and they consider people from Oregon to be just that worthless.

Now imagine you were born in Oregon.

How safe would you feel in your daily life? What would it do to your feeling of security and safety, knowing that “only” one out of 25 of the men you stand in line with at the bank, the male cashiers you meet at the grocery, the male cops patrolling the streets, the male students you take classes with and the male professors you learn from, and your male co-workers at the office, has attacked someone like you, because they were like you?

Part of my rape was the involvement of pornography. It was used to show me what to do, who I was. Considering, too, that my attacker was under 18, it probably informed him of exactly what females were good for. Porn is very poor sex education, except in my experience most young men learn about sex, at least vis-a-vis what women enjoy, from porn. Talk about missing the mark. "What does porn have to do with rape?" one might ask. A lot. Check out one angry girl's section on porn myths. Particularly, the sections entitled "Porn is harmless and has no effect on the person using it" and "Porn is an outlet or safety valve for men who might otherwise do Bad Things" are eye-opening; they contains findings from decades of research on the relationship between pornography and misogystic attitudes, sexual aggression and addiction. One researcher found that "The relationship between particularly sexually violent images in the media and subsequent aggression...is much stronger statistically than the relationship between smoking and lung cancer" (Edward Donnerstein). I have ambivalent feelings about porn. On the one hand, a lot of it is disgustingly misogynistic, promotes rape by treating rape as normal sex and enjoyable to the woman, ignores real female sexuality, etc etc. On the other hand, it can be hot to watch two people going at it. In this case, context is EVERYTHING.

Finally, a bit of current events. Something even I failed to consider, when thinking about the War on Terror, is the effect on the female soldiers from the U.S. I figured there would be a huge increase in rape of Iraqi women and girls at the hands of invading and insurgent forces, and there has been, but I didn't for a moment think that this fate would also befall our own soldiers. Indeed, aside from all the KBR madness, it has recently been found that female U.S. soldiers serving in Iraq are more likely to be raped by their "fellow" soldiers than killed in combat. I know, I know, women aren't "allowed" in combat, but this war doesn't have a clear front line, and women are dying in combat nearly every day. That means they are also being raped by their fellow soldiers every day.


Please take some time out of your day to think about these things, without being defensive. Recognize that, if one in six women is raped, and if you include the women who are victims of non-penatrative sexual assault and attempted sexual assault, that means 1 in 4 women is sexually victimized. 1 in 4. Your mother. Your sister. Your daughter. Your wife. Your fiancee. Your girlfriend. Your aunt. Your grandmother. Your cousin. Your best friend. YOU KNOW a woman who has been raped. Sit down and think for a few minutes about how YOU can make this world a better place for all the women in your life, and thank them for being so strong and brave in the face of the worst kind of adversity - physical hatred. Don a teal ribbon, I know I am.



Sexual Assault Awareness Month official website

Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN) for survivors, their supporters, and those who want to learn more

100 Things

I'm not feeling very creative today, so I'm stealing a blog meme and doing a 100 things about me post. I'm going to try to keep it to things that are NOT already on the blog though :)

1. I have two last names. No, not hyphenated last names. Two. Separate. Last. Names.
2. I have a dent in my thigh. I got it from an infant shot that became terribly infected. The doctors told my mom not to pop it but she didn't listen. Being a nurse, and I suspect almost as science-geeky as me, she measured the amount of pus that came out of it. It was 1 tablespoon.
3. The Tick is my hero, but secretly I adore The Evil Midnight Bomber What Bombs at Midnight.
4. I think dark chocolate is the superior chocolate.
5. My mother has boundary issues. Once, she invited me to a sex toy party. When I was 19. When I vehemently opposed the idea, she persisted. Six months later, she tried again.
6. My favorite number is 4 and my favorite color is blue.
7. I was born on Independence Day. When my mom was in labor, she told my dad, "If it's a boy, we're naming it Yankee Doodle." I am glad I'm female.
8. This is already harder than I thought it would be.
9. I used to have a very flatulent schnauzer named Fred. He went to that great yard in the sky when I was 15. I still miss him.
10. My cat Max likes to decapitate mice. I wish I were kidding.
11. My favorite cuisines are Mexican and Indian. The spicier the better.
12. I often don't know what is socially appropriate. For instance, talking about food right after talking about dead mice.
13. My brother is seriously dating a girl with the same (somewhat unusual) name as me. It's weird.
14. I am a very successful ex-nailbiter. I have not bitten in 5 years.
15. I love garlic so much it should be illegal.
16. I don't like being hugged. I have personal space issues.
17. I don't think ice cream is all that great.
18. I spoil my pets rotten.
19. I used to be a kleptomaniac. No, seriously.
20. I love baking, but I am not so fond of cooking.
21. My hair used to be rather straight, but in the last two years, it decided to get curly. I yell at it constantly.
22. I'm constantly being mistaken for a race or ethnicity that I'm not. A lot of people think I'm Asian, some have thought I was an ethnic Jew, and once, a guy that I had known for a while swore that I was Puerto Rican. My ethnic makeup is actually (in order of degree): French/French-Canadian, Swedish, Irish, Welsh, English and Scottish.
23. My husband is Bohemian (2nd American generation though). I think that's so cool. I used to call him my gypsy until he said he didn't like it.
24. I was once called a cryptotranscendentalist.
25. When I was a kid, I didn't like to eat much, so I would store my food in my (ginormous) cheeks and hide vegetables behind my ears. Mom would find me eating hours later.
26. I went to an all-girls, Catholic high school.
27. I went to a Montesorri school instead of preschool and during my tenure there I learned how to write a few words in cursive.
28. I still have nightmares from this one time in Montesorri when I had uncontrollable diarrhea during song time.
29. I started dating LB when I was 16 years old.
30. I am bisexual. When I came out to LB, he said, "Well I could have told you that." I guess it was no secret (except from myself!).
31. I don't think I'll ever come out to my family.*
32. I am a survivor of childhood sexual assault. I was 4. Never think your child is too young to know about these things, they NEED to!
33. I am also a survivor of attempted murder. I was 10.

34. I have forgiven both of my attackers unconditionally.
35. I think this list has gotten too morose.
36. Speaking of morose, I loved Sweeny Todd. But I hate the songwriter, because that $%&$%@& Johanna song gets stuck in my head ALL THE TIME.
37. I am scared to death of clowns and people with mascot costumes on, for no apparent reason.
38. I have an eyebrow piercing.
39. I talk to myself so much that one of my coworkers once got asked if I was "all there."
40. I secretly love having pets because instead of talking to myself, I can talk to them.
41. I had never seen a satellite in the night sky until last summer. I thought it was a falling star and LB had a good laugh.
42. I think Mel Brooks is a comic genius.
43. I think there is something wrong with my sense of humor.
44. I had braces twice when I was a kid.
45. I have had plastic surgery. When I was a toddler, I was a climber (still am, actually). I had climbed onto the back of the couch, and I slipped between the couch and the wall. I didn't hit the floor though, because my upper lip caught me. So the docs fixed that. I always wondered why that was the one part of my face that wasn't asymmetric in any way.
46. I didn't find out about that surgery until I was a teenager. I was railing on about the evils of plastic surgery when my mom said, "You've had plastic surgery, you know."
47. I was born six months after my parents got married. You do the math.
48. Despite that shaky beginning, my parents are still married, 26 years later.
49. Whenever I talk to my pets, I inappropriately put an "s" on the end of words. "Freki, it's time for your dinners." "Kitties! Do you want some shrimps?"
50. I'm a genius, but you wouldn't know it from talking to me.
51. I'm also the world's biggest ditz.
52. I love stationery and other paper products so much that LB only lets me visit Office Max on special occasions.
53. I used to be a huge tomboy but now I love many girly things, including underwear, shoes, purses and makeup.
54. I'm still conflicted about this, but the conflicted feelings fade with every new pair of shoes...
55. Speaking of shoes, LB is in the final steps of purchasing a shoe store. Closing date is April 1...keep your fingers crossed!
56. I love to read.
57. I didn't used to, until we figured out that I was farsighted. After I got my reading glasses, I became a very avid reader.
58. I think I am losing my hearing, and it terrifies me.
59. I'm really really liberal. Not anarchist liberal, though.
60. I'm pretty ticklish.
61. One of my favorite "everyday treats" is vanilla yogurt with some granola and lots of ripe raspberries.
62. I love hockey. I have a secret plan to marry a hot goalie and then keep LB as my poolboy. LB thinks it's a cool plan because then he gets to be a kept man.
63. I like camping.
64. One of my favorite movie lines ever? "This is not a democracy, it is a cheerocracy."
65. I like to shoot guns. And bows.
66. The first time I ever shot, I was given a .12 shotgun. After I shot it, I fell on my ass. BUT, safety rules firmly in place in my head, I kept the gun pointing downrange at all times.
67. I have thrown a bowling ball backwards. Twice. I was drunk neither time.
68. I'm pretty religious.
69. Heh. 69. I'm also pretty immature.
70. Nothing makes me more mad than when people base their beleifs and lifestyles on things the Bible doesn't say, but they claim it does.
71. Except maybe when people use the Bible/religion as an excuse for hate and discrimination.
72. The color pink makes me twitch with rage.
73. The day I stop leaving my keys in weird places is the day the universe ceases to exist.
74. I'm a lot more sensitive than I let on.
75. I need medication just to be normal. LB and I call my medication my happy pills.
76. In case you're wondering, this is normal.
77. I am a supertaster.
78. Some of my best friends I met online.
79. Sometimes I use weird sentence structure.
80. Neither of my cats is declawed.
81. In my mother's posession is a picture of a little girl who looks EXACTLY like I did at 4-5 years old. The picture was taken nearly 50 years before I was born. She took it to a psychic and asked the psychic only to tell her about the children in the photo (there were like 8 of them), and the psychic picked out that girl, told my mom about her life and death (and was right, when my mom later researched it), and said that I was her reincarnation.
82. I have never met either of my biological grandfathers - one died long before I was born and the other was a deadbeat.
83. If 82 is the last number you saw on this post it's because I accidentally hit publish instead of save before I went home from work.
84. I sometimes talk in my sleep. I have been known to say "Get bublegum for Fred" (my former dog) and "breasts are expensive."
85. I performed in the Super Bowl XXIX halftime show.
86. I hate decorating.
87. No matter how hard I try, I can't manage to get out of bed on time.
88. My favorite flavors are lemon and raspberry.
89. I don't like to eat fish, but I like most sushi. LB is my sushi taster; if he says it's too fishy, I don't eat it. This is a sacred trust.
90. I HATE HATE HATE it when people eat off of my plate without asking. Dude! Just ask and I'll give you a bite.
91. LB and I met when he was my brother's camp counselor. I was a camper. Ooooh, naughty.
92. We discovered we went to sister schools - he went to the all-boys high school right next door to my all-girls school.
93. I stole him from his girlfriend.
94. He said he loved me for the first time on our third date. His hand was still on my boob when he said it. I reciprocated (I mean about the I love you part not the boob part).
95. During our wedding reception, we played White Wedding by Billy Idol.
96. I'm a freaky good boggle player.
97. LB won't play with me anymore, so sometimes I play with myself. Boggle, I mean, you sicko.
98. I like depressing songs that have an upbeat rhythm.
99. My major hope in life is to someday be a grandma. I'd make a kick ass grannie.
100. In my next life, I want to return as a house cat.


*Since writing this post, I came out, but unfortunately, I did so unplanned and drunk.  That is not a good idea.