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Hey media friends, did you all just here that slight popping noise? That was my cerebral cortex disconnecting itself from all of its higher functions after viewing this lovely clip on CNN about the missing Malaysia Airlines flight. This is what happens when news is cobbled together out of speculation, innuendo and whatever the editors at CNN pull out of their ass.
Speaking of pulling things out of one’s anal sphincter, Fox News puts in a shiny second place performance by shamelessly fabricating nonsense about Noah’s Arc with regards to the important shipwrecked discoveries of humanity. It is nice that Fox services its base so adroitly with its biblical bullshit as opposed to the sciency-tinfoil hat bullshit that CNN recently extruded.
Manufactured stupid stories like this is why we need private and pubic broadcasters in the market.
Sometimes news just isn’t colourful or exciting. Those who relentlessly chase ratings will shamelessly confabulate stories in their never ending hunt for advertising dollars. This is where a pubic broadcaster can shine as it is still necessary to know what is going on in the world without having to chase flashy phantom stories that attract eyeballs, but not intelligence.
I’m glad I’ll be dead when humanity’s collective shit hits the fan. I used to get all wrapped up in debates about Capitalism and the slow motion Seppuku we’re committing. I was genuinely flummoxed when my arguments were characterized as hopelessly naive and that my positions were unfounded vis-a-vis economic reality (a.k.a the dominant capitalist consumption paradigm).
Bollocks to that noise.
I’m out of fucks to give about important economic arguments and how super-fucking-awesome capitalism is. I will not be around when glitz comes off of our over-consumption and enough of humanity realizes how hard they’ve been screwed over by our benevolent job creating, all-boats-raising, [insert mendacious free-market dogmatic sentiment here], elite whose only goal is to keep their particular party going on the backs of every else. I, if consciousness exists after corporeal death, will be bathing in tears of the elite, relishing every savoury nanosecond of schadenfreude, as their hard “earned” lifestyle and material wealth crumbles to ash in a fiery pyre with the rest humanity.
Our human tendency to stratify our societies is our downfall. The inequalities that capitalism creates blinds those with power and privilege to the destruction of the very means of survival. Ronald Wright wrote this about the importance of the biosphere and the resources it supplies. To0 tree-huggy for you? Tough darts friend, the historical record is littered with the wrecks of societies that did not learn this fundamental lesson.
The lesson I read in the past is this: that the health of land and water – and of woods, which are the keepers of water – can be the only lasting basis for any civilization’s survival and success.
—A Short History of Progress, p 105
Don’t believe me? Well fuckmesideways bro, you don’t have too, it might be easier if you don’t see this one coming. The good scientists over at NASA have published a neat study on the merry death-spiral we happen to be inhabiting, The Guardian has an article summarizing said paper, thus we’ll peruse the highlights here.
This paragraph’s prescience is chilling:
“Noting that warnings of ‘collapse’ are often seen to be fringe or controversial, the study attempts to make sense of compelling historical data showing that “the process of rise-and-collapse is actually a recurrent cycle found throughout history.” Cases of severe civilisational disruption due to “precipitous collapse – often lasting centuries – have been quite common.”
Useful thought experiment time. Imagine when you were a teenager. Remember how thoroughly self absorbed, shallow, and brain-dead you were? That same myopic narcissism is reflected in intellectual, political and social stands that typify the attitudes of the elite. This NASA study is a smackdown of all of what our cherished elites hold dear.
Will a peer reviewed article suddenly change minds and ingrained attitudes? Considerthe prevalence and persistence of religious belief despite the wealth of knowledge that contradicts said venerated mythology. The sheer number of people that haplessly cling to religious delusion is a testament to the doggerel stupidity our species is infected with. The peoples minds we need to change have the influence and the inclination not to listen to reason. So let’s not get all lathered up about the ramifications of this report, even if does purportedly deal in fact.
“It finds that according to the historical record even advanced, complex civilisations are susceptible to collapse, raising questions about the sustainability of modern civilisation:
“The fall of the Roman Empire, and the equally (if not more) advanced Han, Mauryan, and Gupta Empires, as well as so many advanced Mesopotamian Empires, are all testimony to the fact that advanced, sophisticated, complex, and creative civilizations can be both fragile and impermanent.
Mmm. Sounds nothing at all like our society. But let’s not learn from the past because the ignoble fate suffered by those societies couldn’t possibly happen today.
Because hubris.
(I could have stopped the post here, but sadly, my sanguine nature runs both wide and deep, thus we continue, hoping a difference might be made)
But what are the causes of the downfall of human civilizations?
“[…]lead to collapse when they converge to generate two crucial social features: “the stretching of resources due to the strain placed on the ecological carrying capacity”; and “the economic stratification of society into Elites [rich] and Masses (or “Commoners”) [poor]” These social phenomena have played “a central role in the character or in the process of the collapse,” in all such cases over “the last five thousand years.”
Wow. You mean the rich worry only about getting richer and fucking everyone else over is an actual historical(now supported with SCIENCE!!!)fact? Thank you brave scientists heads for nailing that conclusion that has been obvious to anyone who studies history and has more than two fucking neurons to rub together. So one could say that a system that creates stratification – CAPITALISM – isn’t a really a good system to blindly, balls-to-the-wall-style, endorse. Who would have figured that shit out (hint: rhymes with ‘parks’).
“Currently, high levels of economic stratification are linked directly to overconsumption of resources, with “Elites” based largely in industrialised countries responsible for both:
“… accumulated surplus is not evenly distributed throughout society, but rather has been controlled by an elite. The mass of the population, while producing the wealth, is only allocated a small portion of it by elites, usually at or just above subsistence levels.”
Are you enjoying your peon status? I know I certainly am. But hey, you could make it rich someday too and live just like the fat cats – not that the elites would propagate popular myths (thank you corporate media) to keep the drones in line. But why listen to bitter ole Arbourist? Ronald Wright has done the dirty work and comes to a similar (paraphrased)conclusion:
“Wright sees needed reforms being blocked by vested interests who reject multi-lateral organisations, and support laissez-faire economics and transfers of power to corporations as leading to the social and environmental degradations that led to the collapse of previous civilisations. Necessary reforms are, in Wright’s view, being blocked by vested interests who are hostile to change, including American market extremists. Wright concludes that “our present behaviour is typical of failed societies at the zenith of their greed and arrogance” and calls for a shift towards long-term thinking:”
Yep, and the Elites and their libertarian teenager mentality are going to resolutely deny this until they are standing in the warm rich glow of their freshly razed gated communities and mansions. Only then does this sort of message sink in.
“Modelling a range of different scenarios, Motesharri and his colleagues conclude that under conditions “closely reflecting the reality of the world today… we find that collapse is difficult to avoid.” In the first of these scenarios, civilisation:
“…. appears to be on a sustainable path for quite a long time, but even using an optimal depletion rate and starting with a very small number of Elites, the Elites eventually consume too much, resulting in a famine among Commoners that eventually causes the collapse of society. It is important to note that this Type-L collapse is due to an inequality-induced famine that causes a loss of workers, rather than a collapse of Nature.”
So many options, how about option #2?
“Another scenario focuses on the role of continued resource exploitation, finding that “with a larger depletion rate, the decline of the Commoners occurs faster, while the Elites are still thriving, but eventually the Commoners collapse completely, followed by the Elites.”
Oh this sounds all gloomy and pretty shitty overall, do we have some sciency facts on this? Of course we do…
“In both scenarios, Elite wealth monopolies mean that they are buffered from the most “detrimental effects of the environmental collapse until much later than the Commoners”, allowing them to “continue ‘business as usual’ despite the impending catastrophe.” The same mechanism, they argue, could explain how “historical collapses were allowed to occur by elites who appear to be oblivious to the catastrophic trajectory (most clearly apparent in the Roman and Mayan cases).”
Pretty good argument for a more egalitarian society no? Because the status quo means most of us die and the remainder to to live life Hobbsian style: “Nasty, Brutish 
and short.” Did statement that just send up a dog whistle for our dear friends of capitalism?? Sharing wealth, income redistribution.. the soon to be named spectre of unfuckingwashed Socialism?
Damn straight, son.
Oh were you contemplating bringing some apologia for capitalism to the comments section to set me straight on how fucking wonderful it is and how really if we just keep innovating it will be a panacea for all? (Tell that to third world parents whose kids(21 a minute if you have statistical fetish) are still dying of preventable diseases). Change this shitty system now or get used to the happy-funtime reality that Hobbes and Malthus intimately describe.
“Applying this lesson to our contemporary predicament, the study warns that:
“While some members of society might raise the alarm that the system is moving towards an impending collapse and therefore advocate structural changes to society in order to avoid it, Elites and their supporters, who opposed making these changes, could point to the long sustainable trajectory ‘so far’ in support of doing nothing.”
It won’t change, not by our hand. I get that – keep the orgy going kids; I expect nothing less.
But as I said earlier I won’t be around to stew when things go sideways (well maybe as a wizened old soul on a rocking chair with a shotgun and cats), so enjoy your mess assholes. I’m frackking done with this.
Let’s close with a non swear word laden summary from Ronald Wright of many of my thoughts on humanities majestic progress and the challenges we face:
“Things are moving so fast that inaction itself is one of the biggest mistakes. The 10,000-year experiment of the settled life will stand or fall by what we
do, and don’t do, now. The reform that is needed is not anti-capitalist, anti-American, or even deep environmentalist; it is simply the transition from short-term to long-term thinking. From recklessness and excess to moderation and the precautionary principle.
The great advantage we have, our best chance for avoiding the fate of past societies, is that we know about those past societies. We can see how and why they went wrong. Homo sapiens has the information to know itself for what it is: an Ice Age hunter only half-evolved towards intelligence; clever but seldom wise.
We are now at the stage when the Easter Islanders could still have halted the senseless cutting and carving, could have gathered the last trees’ seeds to plant out of reach of the rats. We have the tools and the means to share resources, clean up pollution, dispense basic health care and birth control, set economic limits in line with natural ones. If we don’t do these things now, while we prosper, we will never be able to do them when times get hard. Our fate will twist out of our hands.”
—A Short History of Progress, p 131–2
Short History of Progress Wikipedia.
Short History of Progress Review on Quill and Quire
Surviving Progress: Documentary Film featuring Ronald Wright.
The Massey Lecture Series: A Short History of Progress produced by the CBC on youtube-
Dark Matter2525 takes on the religious idea that somehow because we have free will their grand ooga-booga is somehow a less terrible entity for creating and sending people to hell.
How many of you out there have either heard these words or said them to others? I’m willing to bet most males out there has heard it at some point and many women have told the males in their lives these words. It’s part of the social narrative, these constructs of what gender is and how someone should and should not act. Men are strong, men don’t cry, men are athletic, men demand respect, men settle their differences physically and most importantly men don’t show weakness.
Of course, this is all tripe. These social constructs are ultimately just that, constructs. And like anything constructed, it can be deconstructed. When these things are deconstructed, the seem silly and pointless. However, pointless as they may be they are still exceptionally harmful.
And of course that’s where Be A Man comes in. These three words are the epitome of how patriarchy harms everyone. These three words are toxic. These three words have done so much harm to so many men that I am ill equipped to describe exactly how. Fortunately for both me and you the good people at The Representation Project are. They are currently creating a film tackling this very issue. I urge everyone to watch the trailer for this upcoming film: The Mask You Live In.
I just happen to have the sheet music for this piece. Now I just need to persuade TIO that she’s really an alto, and we’ll be set.
Free markets make for a level playing field, ensuring the best products get to the consumers at the lowest price by rewarding hard working people who go the extra mile to bring the people what they want….except when someone other than the established upper class might take some of their wealth away. Then “free” markets make laws to ban that shit immediately.
The illusion that capitalism benefits anyone other than the haves over the have-nots is laid bare once again, this time in the automotive industry. Recently there have been two articles about Tesla Motors at wired.com that caught my interest.
For those who haven’t heard of them, Tesla makes electric cars that actually look cool. That whole ‘you gotta be some kind of nerdy hipster to do away with gas guzzlers’ thing? Tesla says “Fuck that shit. Our cars will not only run on batteries, they will also look so awesome that autophiles will bust a nut at the sight of them.” Currently they cater a relatively wealthy demographic, but they are continually getting closer to producing an electric car that the masses could feasibly acquire.
The first article looks at how maintaining an electric vehicle requires so much less than a traditional gas car. No oil, pistons, air filters, pumps, belts, spark plugs, or any of that myriad of other bits and pieces that car garages charge you through the nose to look after for you. All this makes other car dealers very unhappy. These problems that Tesla is trying to make better is how car shops make money. In their eyes, selling the public a sub-standard product is preferable as it will ensure years of expensive repairs. On top of that, Tesla is offering flat rate plans for what little maintenance one might need for their electric car, rather than charging for each and every little thing they do. If the public ever got used to ideas like that, it would be the end of both seedy garages that will screw you out of a couple hundred bucks as well as the posh dealership garages that will screw you out of thousands.
The second article looks at how Tesla sells its vehicles. Apparently Tesla is trying to make the process of buying a car not suck gangrenous donkey sack. By selling only direct over the internet, Tesla stores are located in malls, not lots; staffed with informative promoters, not pushy salesmen; providing a consistent experience across stores, not a terrifying crap shoot. Taking away the dealership middleman may make things fantastically better for the customer, but threatens another crux of the established car industry. Oh the horror! If this catches on, people would stop putting up with manipulative pressuring assholes car salespeople, who would then, in turn, have to get some other job.
So this all sounds great. A new age of cleaner cars, better buying experiences, and a substantial drop in the sleaziness that the average person is exposed to. Except that the only losers in this scenario, the car dealers, have lots and lots of money. Enough money to buy big powerful lobbyists. But but we live in democracy with a free market, right? Whatever. People with money say no go. New Jersey has now banned Tesla stores, as car dealer lobbyists insist that Tesla’s better way of doing things gives them an unfair advantage. Legal battles like this are happening in many other places across the states.
A very grim and cynical part of me thinks it’s hilarious when capitalism advocates point at the corruptibility and horror of other economic systems. All the “free” market does is allow oppressors to pretend that they have earned the right to screw over the masses. Once stymying collective progress becomes easier and/or more profitable than short term individual gains, that invisible hand is much more likely to be used to beat down the public, rather than be any kind of positive force.
Sometimes you just can’t pass up an opportunity to signal boost an important message. Trigger warnings for Rape, Sexual Abuse, Rape Culture
Original Essay: The Not Rape Epidemic
*Trigger Warning*
Latoya’s Note: So, as promised, here’s the original version of the essay that appears in Yes Means Yes. If you see this popping up in your reader, I do not recommend you read it at work.
Rape is only four letters, one small syllable, and yet it is one of the hardest words to coax from your lips when you need it most.
Entering our teenage years in the sex saturated ’90s, my friends and I knew tons about rape. We knew to always be aware while walking, to hold your keys out as a possible weapon against an attack. We knew that we shouldn’t walk alone at night, and if we absolutely had to, we were to avoid shortcuts, dark paths, or alleyways. We even learned ways to combat date rape, even though none of us were old enough to have friends that drove, or to be invited to parties with alcohol. We memorized the mantras, chanting them like a yogic sutra, crafting our words into a protective charm with which to ward off potential rapists: do not walk alone at night. Put a napkin over your drink at parties. Don’t get into cars with strange men. If someone tries to abduct you, scream loudly and try to attack them because a rapist tries to pick women who are easy targets.
Yes, we learned a lot about rape.
What we were not prepared for was everything else. Rape was something we could identify, an act with a strict definition and two distinct scenarios. Not rape was something else entirely.
Not rape was all those other little things that we experienced everyday and struggled to learn how to deal with those situations. In those days, my ears were filled with secrets that were not my own, the confessions of not rapes experienced by the girls I knew then and the women I know now.
When I was twelve, my best friend at the time had met a guy and lied to him about her age. She told him she was sixteen and she did have the body to back it up. Some “poor hapless” guy sleeping with her accidentally would make complete sense – except for the fact that guy was twenty-five. He eventually slept with her, taking her virginity, even after he figured out how old we were. After all, it’s kind of a dead giveaway if you’re picking your girlfriend up at a middle school.
Another friend of mine friend shocked me one day after a guy (man really) walked past us and she broke down into a sobbing heap where we stood. She confided in me that when she was eleven she had a child, but her mother had forced her to put the child up for adoption. The baby’s father was the guy who had nonchalantly passed her by on the street. We were thirteen at the time, a few weeks shy of entering high school.
Later, I found out that she was at school when she met her future abuser/baby daddy. He was aware she was about eleven – what other age group is enrolled in Middle School? At the time, this guy was about nineteen. He strung her along in this grand relationship fantasy, helping her to cut school as they drove around and had sex in the back of his car. When she got pregnant with his child, he dropped her. However, living in the same area means she would run into him about once a month, normally leading to an outburst of tears or screaming fits on her end and cool indifference (with the occasional “you were just a slut anyway”) from him.
In high school, I had two Asian friends I was fairly close with. We would often end up hanging out after school at the mall with all the other teenagers our age. Occasionally, we would take the bus to the really nice mall in the upper class neighborhood, so we could be broke in style. It was there – in the affluent neighborhood – that my Asian friends dealt with the worst of their harassment. I can remember that each friend, on different occasions, was approached by older white men in their thirties and forties and quizzed about their ethnic backgrounds, ages, and dating status. These men always seemed to slip cards into their hands, asking them to call them later. My friends smiled demurely, always waiting until the man had gone before throwing their number away.
The years kept passing and the stories kept coming.
My ex-boyfriend had a friend who had been dating the same girl for about seven years. I found out the girl was eighteen at the time of their breakup. Eighteen minus seven equals what? The girl was eleven when they began dating while the man involved was nineteen. When the relationship ended, he was twenty-seven. I expressed disgust, and my ex had told me that while everyone else in their friend circle had felt the same way, the girl’s parents were fine with it, even allowing the guy to spend the night at their home. “Besides,” my ex offered nonchalantly, “she had the body of a grown woman at age eleven.”
Not rape came in other many other forms as well. No one escaped – all my friends had some kind of experience with it during their teen years.
Not rape was being pressured into losing your virginity in a swimming pool pump room to keep your older boyfriend happy.
Not rape was waking up in the middle of the night to find a trusted family friend in bed with you – and having nightmares about something that you can’t remember during the daylight hours.
Not rape was having your mother’s boyfriends ask you for sexual favors.
Not rape was feeling the same group of boys grope you between classes, day after day after day.
Not rape was being twelve years old, having a “boyfriend” who was twenty-four and trading sex for free rides, pocket money, Reeboks, and a place to stay when your mother was tripping.
My friends and I confided in each other, swapping stories, sharing out pain, while keeping it all hidden from the adults in our lives. After all, who could we tell? This wasn’t rape – it didn’t fit the definitions. This was Not rape. We should have known better. We were the ones who would take the blame. We would be punished, and no one wanted that. So, these actions went on, aided by a cloak of silence.
For me, Not rape came in the form of a guy from around the neighborhood. I remember that they called him Puffy because he looked like the rapper Sean “Puffy” Combs. He was friends with a guy I was friends with, T. I was home alone on hot summer day when I heard a knock on the patio door. I peeked through the blinds and recognized Puffy, so I opened the door a few inches. He asked if I had seen T around, and I told him no. The conversation continued, the contents so trivial that they are lost to memory.
So, I have no idea why he chose to pause and look me full in the face before saying:
“I can do whatever I want to you.”
My youthful braggadocio got the best of me, so I spat out, “Oh, what the fuck ever,” moving to pull the door closed.
Quick as a cobra, his hand darted past the screen, catching my wrist as I reached for the latch. A bit of tugging quickly turned sinister as I realized he wasn’t playing around.
He pinned me in the doorway, forcing me down to the floor barely inside my apartment. Holding my arm behind my back with one hand as I struggled against him, he calmly, deliberately allowed his free hand to explore my body. He squeezed my still budding breasts, then slipped his hands down my pants, taking his time while feeling up my behind. When he was finished, he let me up, saying again, “I can do whatever I want.” After he finished his cold display of power, he walked away.
After he left, I closed the balcony door, locked it, and put the security bar in the window, even though it was broad daylight.
I felt disgusting and dirty and used. I remember wanting to take a shower, but instead taking a seat on the couch trying to process what had happened and what I could do next.
Fighting him was out, as he had already proved he was stronger than I was. I considered telling some of my guy friends, but I quickly realized I had nothing to tell them. After all, I wasn’t raped, and it would really come to my word against his. As I was the neighborhood newcomer, I was at a disadvantage on that front. Telling my mom was out as well – I’d only get into trouble for opening the door for boys while she was at work.
I gritted my teeth in frustration. There was nothing I could do to him that wouldn’t come back on me worse. So I got up, took my shower, and stayed silent.
A few weeks later, I ran into T and some other guys from the neighborhood while I was walking to the store with one of my friends. T informed us that they were going to hang out in one of the empty apartments in the neighborhood. This was a popular activity in my old neighborhood – some guys would normally find a way to gain entry into one of the vacant apartments or townhouses and then use the place as a clubhouse for a few days.
My friend was game, but I felt myself hesitate. The memory of my Not rape was still fresh in my mind and T was still friends with Puffy. There was also the possibility that Puffy would be there in the apartment, and that was a confrontation I did not want. I refused, and my friend was angry at me for passing up the chance to hang out with the cutest boys in the neighborhood. Since I had never told this particular friend what happened, I shrugged off her anger and made an excuse to head home.
A few days after that meeting, I was on the school bus headed to morning classes. The local news report was on and the announcement that came across the airwaves stunned the normally rowdy bus into silence. The voice on the radio informed us of a brutal rape that occurred in our neighborhood. Due to the savage nature of the crime, all six of the teenage defendants would be tried as adults. The names were read and a collective gasp rose from the bus – T’s name was on that list! Jay, a guy who knew about the friendly flirtation I had going with T, leaned over and joked “Uh-huh – T’s gonna get you!”
I remained silent as my mind was racing. The strongest, most persistent thought rose to the top of my mind – oh my God, that could have been me.
At the time, I didn’t know how right I was.
A few years later, I was a high school junior on top of the world. For the most part, memories of my Not rape had been buried in the back of my mind somewhere. My third year in high school was consumed by two major responsibilities: student government and mock trial.
When I was sixteen, I knew I was destined to be a lawyer and I took advantage of every opportunity that would push me toward that goal. I signed up for mock trial and as part of our responsibilities our trial team was supposed to watch a criminal proceeding in action.
On the day we arrived at the local courthouse, there were three trials on the docket: a traffic case, a murder case, and a rape case. Nixing the traffic case, we trouped into the first courtroom which held the murder trial, only to find that the trial was on hold, pending pre-trial motions. We turned back and went into the courtroom where the rape trial was being held.
Never did it cross my mind that I would walk through the doors to see to picture of my Not rapist, captured in a Polaroid and displayed on a whiteboard with the other five rapists being tried. The prosecution was speaking, so we were quickly caught up on the specifics of the case.
While the rape had occurred in 1997 and most of the defendants – including T – had been convicted in 1998, this was the trial to determine the fate of the last of the six, a man who claimed he had left the scene before any crime had occurred.
Through word of mouth, I had learned that T had been sentenced and he would not be eligible for parole until he was forty-six years old. (I have since learned that T should be released by the end of this year. His victim should be about 21 years of age.) I had also learned that the crime was a gang rape, but knew no other details.
The prosecutor pulled out a picture of the girl the six boys had brutalized. In the first photo she was bright-eyed and neat looking, her dark hair pulled into a high ponytail which complimented her fair skin. She was dressed in athletic casual wear, as if she was on her way to a track meet.
The prosecutor then pulled out a second picture, taken post assault. Her face was a mass of purple and red bruises. One of her eyes was blood red – the attorney informed us that she had received extensive damage to the blood vessels in her eyes. The other eye was swollen shut. Her lips were also bloodied and bruised. He placed the two photographs side by side. From photo to photo, the girl had been rendered unrecognizable.
Quietly laying out the facts, the prosecutor deftly painted a tale of horror. The girl had met T and another boy (my Not rapist? I still didn’t know his government name) on a bus. The boys had convinced her to come with them and they led her to a vacant apartment. Unknown to the girl, there were four other men also hanging out that day. She was forced to give oral sex to some of the men, and then she was beaten, raped, and sodomized. She was found in the apartment unconscious, surrounded by used condoms, semen, and fecal matter.
My blood ran cold as I tried to process what I was hearing.
T was capable of this? The prosecutor was still speaking, and he made mention that there appeared to be one main ringleader with the other five guys going along for the ride. My teammates sat in rapt attention while I tried to figure out how soon we could leave. On one hand, I realized that my Not rapist and T were behind bars already, instead of roaming the streets to do this to someone else.
And yet, a part of me wondered if I should have spoken up. If I had told someone, anyone, could I have prevented this from happening? I regarded the girl’s picture once again. It is pretty rare to see the expression “beaten to a bloody pulp” illustrated in real life. I should have said something, I thought to myself, I should have tried.
My internal monologue was interrupted by the defense attorney taking the floor. He pointed out his client from the photos lining the wall, and calmly explained how his client was present in the apartment, but left before the attack began. He built his case, explaining that his client was generally a good kid, but outnumbered, and that his client opted to leave the area instead of participate in any wrongdoing. He then turned to the jury and said:
- You will also hear that —– wasn’t such a good girl after all. You will hear that she skipped school. You will hear that she smoked marijuana. You will hear that she willingly skipped school to go smoke marijuana with two boys she had just met.
My mouth fell open out of shock. There wasn’t even a question of consent in this case – the damage to the girl’s face attested to that. And yet, here was this defense attorney trying to assassinate the victim’s character. For what? Why was what she was doing that day even relevant in the context of what she experienced?
The defense attorney finished his opening statement and the judge started dispensing instructions to the jury. I forced myself to swallow the bile in my throat. As the judge dismissed the court for a break, I scooted out of the room and took a deep breath of air. My team went for lunch, and I persuaded them not to go back to watch the next part of the trial.
That day in court was the day I fully understood the concept of being raped twice – first during the act and then later during the court proceedings. That was also the day I realized that telling someone about my Not rape would have netted a similar, if not more dismissive response. I had no evidence of the act, no used condom wrapper, no rape kit, no forced penetration.
If the defense attorney was attempting to sow the seeds of doubt in the face of indisputable evidence, what would have happened if I had chosen to speak up?
This is how the Not Rape epidemic spreads – through fear and silence, which become complicit in perpetuating the behaviors described here. Women of all backgrounds are affected by these kinds of acts, regardless of race, ethnicity, or social class. So many of us carry the scars of the past with us into our daily lives. Most of us have pushed these stories to the back of our minds, trying to have some semblance of a normal life that includes romantic and sexual relationships. However, waiting just behind the tongue is story after story of the horrors other women experience and hide deep within the self behind a protective wall of silence.
As I continue to discuss these issues, I continue to be surprised when revealing my story reveals an outpouring of emotion or confession from other women. When I first began discussing my Not Rape and all of the baggage that comes with it, I expected to be blamed or not to be believed.
I never expected that each woman I told would respond with her own story in kind.
I am twenty-four years old now, ten years removed from my Not rape. I still think of the girl who was assaulted and hope that she was still able to have something of a normal life. As I matured, I came to understand more about the situation. As the years passed, my shame turned to anger, and I began learning the tools I could have used to fight back.
At age fourteen, I lacked the words to speak my experience into reality. Without those words, I was rendered silent and impotent, burdened with the knowledge of what did not happen, but unable to free myself by talking about what did happen.
I cannot change the experiences of the past.
But, I can teach these words, so that they may one day be used by a young girl to save herself.
Not rape comes in many forms – it is often known by other names. What happened to me is called a sexual assault. It is not the same as rape, but it is damaging and painful. My friends experienced statutory rape, molest, and coercion.
What happened in the courtroom is a byproduct of rape culture – when what happens to women in marginalized, when beyond a shadow of a doubt still isn’t enough, when your past, manner of dress, grade point average or intoxication level are used to excuse the despicable acts of sexual violence inflicted upon you by another.
Internalized shame is what I experienced, that heavy feeling that it was my fault for allowing the sexual assault to happen. There was a fear that if I spoke up, people would look at me differently, or worse, wouldn’t believe me at all.
Without these words, those experiences feed off each other, perpetuating a culture of silence and allowing these attacks to continue.
With the proper tools, we equip our girls to speak of their truth and to end the silence that is complicit in rape culture.
Teenaged girls need to know that dating an older man will not make them cooler, and that older man cannot rescue them from their parents. Teenaged boys should be able to help as well, trying to keep their friends away from predators. (My male friends did this for me a few times if they were around, coming to my aid of some guy started acting up. For some reason, the simple presence of another man is enough to make these kind of men leave.) Adult men should be cautioned about the effects of the actions and how most of these girls are not of the age of consent. And parents should be made aware that their children are being targeted by predatory men and that they should stay vigilant.
Adults, particularly older women, should take an active interest in the young girls they know.
My boyfriend has two younger sisters. One of them recently entered her teenage years. Her body started to develop and she has attracted more male attention. I notice small changes in her – how she looks at the floor a lot more than she used to, or how she seems uncomfortable going anywhere without a group of girlfriends. She still looks like an average teenager but she is often hesitant and uncomfortable, unless she is around her peers. However, I knew her before she developed so quickly. And I notice the change that a year (as well as taking the metro to and from school) starts. I’m fairly certain she’s trying to navigate the minefield of male attention she receives.
After all, I’ve walked that same field as well.
Finally, we need to cast a critical eye on how rape culture is perpetuated on an institutional level. From how hospitals distribute rape kits to keeping tags on questionable verdicts, we must take the lead in telling the criminal justice system that rape apologists and enablers will not be tolerated.
But above all, we must give girls the tools they need to defend themselves against sexual predators.
The small things we can do – paying attention, giving the words they need, instilling the confidence in which to handle these situations and providing a non judgmental ear when a student or teen approaches us with a problem – may be the best, an perhaps only, weapons they have to continue the fight against this epidemic.
bleatmop
Mystro
Dead Wild Roses 
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