Feminist Friday: Responding to Sexual Assault

(Trigger Warning!)

A few weeks ago, there was a Thought Catalog article (yes, another one) titled "What if We Responded to Sexual Assault By Limiting Men's Freedom Like We Limit Women's?" Indeed...how would we respond? Reading the article and thinking about it I was reminded of a few analogies:

Here's a favorite of mine:

Let’s imagine a world in which women cut men’s dicks off. Like, frequently. To the extent that one in five men has had his dick cut off by a woman or had a woman attempt to cut his dick off.

Sometimes it’s a clear-cut case where a woman attacks you in the street, out of nowhere, and cuts your dick off. But more often it’s a situation where you actually know the woman, maybe you trust her, maybe you think everything’s okay, and then one day she cuts your dick off.

Okay, now let’s also say that the shame and guilt around having your dick cut off is so strong that many dick-cuttings go completely unreported. After all, someone is likely to raise the question of whether or not you were “asking for it” in one way or another. And if you do accuse a woman of cutting your dick off, you can expect to see people (quite naturally) rally to her defense and slander your character in response.

You can expect to see her friends … who are maybe also friends or yours … shrug their shoulders and say “Well, I don’t know, it’s complicated … it sounds like something was just happening between the two of them and maybe it got out of hand. I dunno. But I know that Sarah’s not a bad gal. I know she would never, like, MALICIOUSLY cut a dude’s dick off.”

Now imagine every time it says "cut a man's dick off" replace it with "rape" and you'll see why I get really pissed off when people don't take sexual assault seriously.

Finally, some Rape Prevention Tips (for men!):

Feminist Friday meets Thought Catalog

This is an excerpt from Lucy Tiven's "I Am Digging Up the Desecrated Corpse of Feminism." I started reading the article, and I liked it, and I could really relate to it. But then I got to the end, when Tiven goes on a badass feminist rant and she puts it so eloquently. I'm asked sometimes (thought, usually not outright) why I'm so feminist.  The thing is, I don't see how I could live with myself morally, if I wasn't. My feminist beliefs are my human beliefs, my moral, spiritual beliefs.

I am a human but I am also a feminist. I am a feminist because not being a feminist is not merely a circumstantial choice or preference: it is a moral flaw. I know this now. I don’t listen to riot grrl music or practice particularly esoteric sexual behavior. I wear dresses everyday and am compelled to learn how to dance. I try to feel pretty almost all of the time, and part of me always believes that if I lose fifteen pounds I will be, not only a more beautiful, but also a happier person.

But that isn’t everything. I am damn smart and I am pursuing noble purposes: not merely through my actions, but through the use of language. And I refuse to be relegated to an object, sexual conquest or measured in the terms of a gendered stereotype.

I will humbly accept being told to cross my legs and embarrassingly hide my slip if it is showing, but I will not be told when I can speak for myself or accept being scared off by the implication of a physical threat. If you want to call me a cunt or a slut, a little girl or anything else, go ahead, but don’t tell me when or how I am allowed to respond.

If you want to “put me in my place,” let me save you the trouble. I know I am a young woman. I know exactly whom I have and haven’t slept with. I know how much money my parents make and every house I have lived. I know each of the countless experiences and pains that have shaped me, and I am always moving through and between them. You can clumsily try to pin me down with a word or a cluster concept and watch as I slip through it.

I am not the kind of thing to be placed. I am not a screw or a lost part or a volume to categorize and shelve. I am a feminist, but I am more than that. I am no less or other than a human subject: this mind and the strange vessel of the body that houses it.

Thought Catalog: I Want a Tuesday Kind of Love

From Thought Catalog

I want a Tuesday kind of love. The sort of thing that involves little dreaming and scheming; the sort of thing that comes paired with too-strong coffee and too-loud songbirds and the drone of the news at 6 a.m. or any time before the sky finds its identity, really. A Tuesday kind of love that isn’t indulgent, one that doesn’t stop the earth from spinning but maybe keeps us grounded in spite of all that uncontrollable movement.

I want to split the bill and pay the bills and not get lost in some unsustainable delusion where the rest of our lives become inconsequential. I want us to be human, I want to argue, I want to take too long in the shower. I want to hear about the horrific lines at the DMV, about a boss who doesn’t get it, about plans to pick up the laundry after work. I want stories of strangers on the bus, of a child who looked lost but turned out not to be, of chance encounters with high school classmates because these seemingly colorless instances are meaningful when filtered through the eyes of someone I care about. A Tuesday kind of love, breathing relevance into otherwise monotonous moments.

A Tuesday kind of love is this: commuting to work knowing that someone cares about what you’re going to have for lunch; understanding that you do not have to be your dynamic, charming, weekend self this time; this time you can butcher sentences and make bad jokes and trip over thin air and it won’t change anything. A Tuesday kind of love is when weekends and weekdays are one and the same, expanses of time where unpredictable, irreplaceable closeness exists, swells, bursts. Tuesday is directionless conversation about things that happened five hours or five years ago; it’s knowing where he keeps his receipts and when he has a doctor appointment; it’s ordering Chinese food or taking his parents out for dinner because they’re in town or forgetting to eat because you’re full of each other’s words and there’s just no room for anything else.

I don’t want to dream through our lives together, don’t want to sleep in, don’t want to put on my sunglasses and pretend that life’s a vacation. The fantasy is that I want to exist in reality; the fantasy is to be there for someone on a Sunday morning but also on a Tuesday night, when the haze and laze of the weekend has worn thin and seems far away as ever. I want a Tuesday kind of love.

Thought Catalog: Things You Forget When You're Single

This post came out in June 2012, at which point I had been single for about two years. Then I met someone this summer. We were together (if you can even call it that) for several months, but then it ended. I deserve better. That's what I'm telling myself, anyway.  I ran across this post again and it was like this summer never happened. I'm back where I started. 


From Thought Catalog

I’ve been single for a long time now. Too long. I feel my private parts getting swallowed up, making me look like Barbie but with cellulite and a size-12 waist. I’m starting to forget what it ever felt like to be in a relationship, what it felt like to always have someone to call and make plans with. This feeling that someone needed you more than they needed anyone else. You were their person. You were the person they left parties early for, just so they could take a drunk cab ride to your apartment at 3 a.m. and have you be the last person they saw before they fell asleep. When you’re single, there’s no guaranteed silver lining to your drunk, no person whose text messages can make you instantly feel safe and like you always have somewhere to go.

I’ve had this before. I’ve been someone’s + 1 but it never worked out. I got too bored and anxious, and ended it. I was always the one to end it. I was dating quality men too. I’m talking about boys who would always text back and have “I’D BE A REALLY GOOD DAD!” written on their forehead. I tried so hard to love them as much as they loved me but I couldn’t or, perhaps more accurately, wouldn’t. I didn’t think that breaking up would be a big deal. I’d find someone else, someone better. That’s how it goes. You jump from relationship to relationship. It never really stops unless you want it to, right?

It does stop. It did stop. Something shifted and all of a sudden there were no more potential + 1′s. It’s been two years now and I feel like I’m experiencing some kind of amnesia. I’m forgetting how I ever was with someone. It doesn’t feel real to me. Was I ever someone’s person? I honestly don’t remember. And if I was, if I was the person you could come to drunk at 3 a.m. and cook breakfast with, how did I do it? Did I smile at the appropriate times? Did I scratch your back? As corny and Miss Dependent as it sounds, there’s something inside of you that is kept alive when you’re in love with someone. It’s a vital part of who you are; you need to be able to give all your love to someone. You need to feel wanted. It’s as important as drinking water or getting oxygen. We were built to love and when you don’t have a partner, you feel totally incomplete. This goes beyond the feeling of shame you get when you’re alone. It’s more of a biological need.

I’m forgetting more and more each day. I’m forgetting how to compromise with someone, how to structure my life around someone else. I mean, it’s not like I ever really did that anyway. I’ve always been someone who’s needed their alone time and done their own thing. But I do like this idea of being a team and working together. You spend too much time alone and you forget how to do that. You forget how to be with someone other than yourself.

I forget what it’s like to see the same naked body over and over again, learning every crevice and sketching the outline with my fingers. I forget what it’s like to feel safe, like if I slipped and died in my apartment, there would be someone looking for me within the day. I forget what it’s like to deal with other people’s families, of awkward blending during the holidays. I forget the excitement you feel when their birthday is coming up and wanting something so perfect for them. You would do pretty much anything to see them smile. I forget The Future with capital letters and having something tangible to look forward to. I forget what it’s like to love someone when they’re at their most unlovable. Forget. Forget. Forgotten.

Thought Catalog: Signs You're a Premature Old Person

It's not secret that I'm addicted to Thought Catalog. Yesterday they posted an article "23 Signs You're a Premature Old Person." Of course, I had to look. It's an inside joke between my friends and I that I am either a 6-year-old, or I am 84. I am not the 21-year-old that I appear to be. It's all a sham. So I've picked out the signs that relate to me. Enjoy, readers.

2. You actively look forward to going to bed early and have been known to start getting tired around 11 on a Saturday night, because you’re up past your bedtime. Sometimes this Saturday night entails staying at home to feed your cat and hang out with your house plants.

You know that sensor in your head that tells you when you've slept to much? How most people can't sleep more than 7 or 8 hours? I don't have that. I have literally slept from 11pm until 6pm THE NEXT DAY. I call it hibernation.

5. Your TiVo or Netflix Instant Watch list includes lots of episodes of Antiques Roadshow, NCIS, Murder She Wrote, Wheel of Fortune, Jeopardy, The Good Wife, The Voice, Castle, Bones, The View, Desperate Housewives, Unsolved Mysteries (which Lifetime airs reruns of!) and PBS specials, because dat Nova is “off the chain, yo.” Or something.

 The Good Wife is a good show. YOU'RE JUST JEALOUS. Also I'm only slightly ashamed that I enjoy watching American Pickers with my dad.

6. You want to be Betty White when you grow up.

Is that something to be ashamed of? That broad is badass.

8. You always make people’s presents every year for Christmas. You think the homemade stuff is just more meaningful, and who doesn’t need matching bright red knit socks with their name sewn into them? Everyone wants that, even if they don’t know it yet. Also, great for Christmas: baking, which is great for every occasion. 

Guilty. I'm a stress baker. It's a condition. WebMD will surely be adding it to their list of afflictions soon.

9. You refer to Justin Bieber as “what the kids are listening to these days” and say things like, “When I was a kid, we had real music,” even though your music was probably more or less of the same quality. (90’s and early 2000s kids, remember we have the Baha Men, Lou Bega and Shaggy to answer for. It’s a lot to deal with.) You still don’t understand how LMFAO or Skrillex qualify as music. It just sounds like dying.

Remember when the biggest fight you had in elementary school with your best friend was about which Backstreet Boy was cuter? My "I <3 Nick Carter" sweatshirt says it all. Those were the days.

16. You’re always calling everyone “baby” or “honey” or “sweetie,” taking care of everyone and inquiring about their health — if they’re eating right, getting enough fluids and staying away from whatever Dr. Oz or Oprah say are bad this week. You also have most of Web MD memorized so you always think you’re coming down with something or dying. When people assure you that you aren’t, the answer is something like, “Are you sure? The internet says I’m dying.”

See above.

23. You once snuck coffee into a bar.

No, but I sometimes sneak my own liqueur into the bar.  It's just so expensive there nowadays! Also, since when is it not ok to take sugar packets from restaurants? I did this with my grandma as a kid and it was like 007. If they don't want you to take them all, why do they leave them out?