I have been wavering on moving my blog, but for some reason, I haven't quite gotten around to converting completely and instead am maintaining two identical blogs, which is a bag pain.
So I think I am going to finally do it. You can find me here:
http://myverylastnerve.wordpress.com/
Unless you live under a rock, you’ve been hearing a lot about rape
lately. And most of it isn’t good. Not that rape it ever good, but
hearing about educating girls, protecting women, punishing offenders are
all good stories about a very bad thing. But no – instead we’re hearing
about idiots who are so profoundly stupid that they are trying to
spread a whole bunch of nonsense about what rape is and its effect on
women (and society in general, for that matter).
I won’t go on and on about it, since unless you live under a rock,
you’ve heard it all already. But I will say this. I am outraged and
sickened that – in 2012 – we have people who:
A) believe that women’s bodies have some sort of magical,
bad-guy-rapist-fighting secretions that keep them from getting pregnant
(and lest you think that the latest asshole, Akin is the only one, this
has been going on for years – for YEARS, assholes have been telling us
that “rape causes a woman to ‘secrete a certain secretion’ that kills
sperm”, that “women do not get pregnant when raped because ‘the juices
don’t flow, the body functions don’t work’” and that “the emotional
trauma of rape upsets the possibility of ovulation, fertilization,
implantation and even nurturing of a pregnancy”), and
B) are seeking to “define” rape. Let me help them out here – rape is
defined by RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network) as:
“Forced sexual intercourse, including vaginal, anal, or oral
penetration. Penetration may be by a body part or an object. Rape
victims may be forced through threats or physical means. In about 8 out
of 10 rapes, no weapon is used other than physical force. Anyone may be a
victim of rape: women, men or children, straight or gay.”
Got it? There is no “legitimate rape” vs. well…I don’t know what the
alternative is – illegitimate rape? I don’t know what they are thinking
with that one.
And while we’re on the subject, we don’t need to call it “forcible rape” either – because by definition, rape is always “forcible” – otherwise it would just be called sex.
And we don’t need to qualify the circumstances either. There is no
date rape, or acquaintance rape – calling it by those names diminishes
the severity of the crime. If sexual activity is forced on a woman (or
man), knowing the rapist, dating the rapist – being married to
the rapist doesn’t change the fact that it is rape. We need to
stop this nonsense and start valuing the rights of our women (and yes –
men, but let’s be honest, if men getting raped were more common, this
would likely not be an issue).
I had an incident when I was in high school that the “rape
qualifiers” would call (attempted) date rape (actually, “acquaintance
rape” because he wasn’t my date, but he was a classmate at the same
party) – and that offends me. Because the phrase “date rape” sounds like
two people who decided to fool around and then one felt guilty
afterward. It’s basically a way of condescending to the woman who has
experience, while winking at the man and saying, “We know it wasn’t really
rape.” This is not what happened to me. I was physically restrained,
touched without my consent and nearly raped, and only a lucky break of
circumstances stopped it. It was violent and terrifying and to this day –
nearly 30 years later – I can remember how I felt and how he looked and
what he tasted like. It was no less serious than so-called “forcible”
or “legitimate” rape. I wrote about it before, but the whole “going
(more) public” with this blog has made me lock some entries up for
privacy. But here is an excerpt:
He was harmless. Or at least I thought he was until he grabbed me
and threw me on the bed. He got on top of me and starting kissing me.
He tasted like chocolate cake. I was terrified and gagging and trying to
protest, but he kept shoving his tongue down my throat and rubbing
himself on me, grabbing my breasts, trying to get his hands in my pants.
I fought him off as well as I could and then he got his knees on my
arms and pinned me down. I wanted to punch him in his disgusting, ugly
face, but I couldn’t move. He was trying to simultaneously get my pants
off and take his penis out. Or maybe I should say his dick or his cock.
Penis sounds too innocuous. Those words do a better job of getting
across the ugliness. I couldn’t scream because he kept covering my mouth
with his. I was crying and thrashing around and thinking that this was
it – he was raping me. I wasn’t a virgin at this point but I was pretty
close to it – sex was still something special to me and I sure as hell
didn’t want to share it with this asshole.
Just then, a group of girls came into the room and he jumped off
me. One of those girls was his date – a long-time friend. Another was a
very good friend of mine. The third was a girl who hated me. And
immediately, even though they saw with their own eyes the position I was
in and even though they should have been easily able to hear my
protests and even though my face was covered in tears and my clothes
were in disarray and even though I had angry red marks on my arm, they
looked at me and yelled, “Gina! What are you doing?” In that one
instant, I went from being the girl who was almost raped to the girl who
tried to fuck her friend’s boyfriend at the prom picnic. I’m not sure
which hurt worse. At the same time, I hated those girls for treating me
that way and was grateful that they stopped what almost happened. But
mostly, it was like buckets of salt on a fresh, gaping wound and I hated
them. I hated him, I hated them, I hated everyone.
And I stopped eating chocolate cake.
Recently, someone gave me some zucchini, as people often do when they grow 25 billion more than they will ever use. Unfortunately, they were enormous, which makes them not so great for anything other thasn baking. I did eat one for duinner one night and it proved to be exactly as not great as I thought, so when the girl asked if she could play with the other one, I said yes (despite the fact that I had no idea what she wanted it for).
A few minutes later, she came into the room, carrying this:
