Quote of the Day

[Content Note: Rape culture; clergy sex abuse.]

"I'm not the slightest bit surprised that of course the scandal was going to be fun in the news—not fun, but the easiest thing to write about. If you have another bishop in the United States who has the record I have, I'd be happy to know who he is. … Well, the media everywhere made that the whole thing. I never had a case. And I believe that the cases I had were each handled just exactly as they should have been. … [The media] can talk about sex abuse or talk about their concern about finance—that's all right. I believe the sex abuse thing was incredibly good."—Former Bridgeport, Connecticut bishop and New York City cardinal Edward Egan, who, during his tenure at Bridgeport, "let accused priests continue to work in local parishes, authorized payments to victims in exchange for silence agreements, and lied about those payments during a deposition," but continues to maintain that the institutional sex abuse problem in the Catholic Church is a non-story inflamed by sensationalist media, and that the Church's—and especially his—handling of predator priests has been exemplary.

If the interview whence these excerpts came is indicative of the attitude among Church leadership—and one must reasonably believe that it is, given Egan's promotions and plaudits—it's no fucking wonder that there are legions of survivors of clergy abuse who have never seen anything resembling meaningful accountability.

[Via @delong.]

Something Something Ron Paul

[Content Note: Rape culture; encroachments on reproductive rights; violence.]

Yesterday, I wrote about Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul's recent interview with CNN host Piers Morgan in which Paul said he would give a family member who had survived a rape "a shot of estrogen," but only "if it's an honest rape."

scatx has been following up on reactions to this story and its coverage at the tumblr she created expressly for that purpose, Honest Rape. If you'd like to submit your translations of what Ron Paul meant by "honest rape," you can do so here.


My contribution.
Also, as per usual, the violent trolls are coming out in droves in response to scatx's feminist anti-rape activism, threatening and harassing her, thus proving the goddamn point again, and in the interest of balancing that scale a bit, I just want to take a moment to note that scatx is brave and strong and clever and awesome, a total fucking champion, and I am glad to have her on my side.

Something Something Ron Paul

[Content Note: Rape culture; encroachments on reproductive rights; violence.]

I didn't want to bury this in today's Primary Speaking post, because it's too important: Ron Paul's antipathy toward women plumbed new depths during a recent interview with CNN's Piers Morgan, during this extraordinary exchange about his views on abortion and sexual assault:

MORGAN: Here's the dilemma, and it's one I put to Rick Santorum very recently. I was surprised by his answer, although I sort of understood from his belief point of view that he would come up with this.

But it's a dilemma that I am going to put to you. You have two daughters. You have many granddaughters. If one of them was raped -- and I accept it's a very unlikely thing to happen. But if they were, would you honestly look at them in the eye and say they had to have that child if they were impregnated?

PAUL: No. If it's an honest rape, that individual should go immediately to the emergency room. I would give them a shot of estrogen or give them --

MORGAN: You would allow them to abort the baby?

PAUL: It is absolutely in limbo, because an hour after intercourse or a day afterwards, there is no legal or medical problem. If you talk about somebody coming in and they say, well, I was raped and I'm seven months pregnant and I don't want to have anything to do with it, it's a little bit different story.

But somebody arriving in an emergency room saying, I have just been raped and there is no chemical -- there's no medical and there's no legal evidence of a pregnancy --

MORGAN: Life doesn't begin at conception?

PAUL: Life does begin at conception.

MORGAN: Then you would be taking a life.

PAUL: Well, you don't know if you're taking a life either, because this is an area that is -- but to decide everything about abortion and respect for life on this one very, very theoretical condition, where there may have been a life or not a life.

MORGAN: But here's the thing: although it is a hypothetical, it does happen. People do get raped and they do get impregnated. And sometimes they are so ashamed by what's happened that weeks go by before they may even discover they are pregnant.

They have to face this dilemma. And they are going to have a president who has a very, very strong view about this.

PAUL: This is like the proposal that the people who like abortion, endorse abortion because it's the woman's right to her body. You say, well, does that mean one minute before birth, you can kill the baby? I did this on one of the TV programs where some women were opposed to what I was saying.

I said, this nine-pound baby is in the woman. She has the right. She argues her case. I said you would abort this baby because the woman has had unfortunate some circumstances, so the doctor gets paid a handsome fee to kill this nine-pound baby?

Oh, that's not what we're talking about. But that is what they are talking about. They are talking about a human life. So a person immediately after rape, yes. It's a tough one. I won't satisfy everybody there.

But to tell you the truth, what I saw happening in the 1960s and the change in the law and -- no, the change in attitude, people were doing illegal abortions. To me it is a moral problem. It was to change the morality of the '60s, the lack of respect for life, leads to the lack of respect for liberty and all the things that I believe in.

Emphases mine.

There is a lot to unpack there, but let's start with this notion of an "honest rape." First of all, Ron Paul is playing into and promulgating the erroneous narrative that women routinely lie about having been raped. That is flatly false.

Secondly, I will say again that denying access to a legal medical procedure to women is so thoroughly unethical and so thoroughly breaks faith with women and other people with uteri that even if they did have to lie to gain access to abortion, it would be entirely reasonable. If Ron Paul and his fellow exceptioneers want to limit access to safe abortions to people who have been raped, then they should expect women and other people with uteri who are pregnant to lie about having been raped (which, let's note, is fundamentally different than filing a false report against a specific individual). That's not because "bitches be lyin' about rape," as every rape apologist on the planet incessantly claims, but because whatever restrictions are placed on access to safe and legal abortion will force people to find whatever means possible to skirt those restrictions.

And anyone who thinks that's SIMPLY HORRIBLE really needs to take a breath and consider whether they wouldn't tell a lie if the alternatives were a radically life-altering event and/or temporary or permanent injury and/or death.

Then there's Piers Morgan's absurd contention that it's "very unlikely" one of Ron Paul's female relatives would be victimized by sexual violence. Um, no. Unfortunately, that is also flatly false.

But I guess one shouldn't be terribly surprised that Morgan isn't hip to rape statistics when he doesn't even seem to understand how reproduction works. Women and other people with uteri do not receive a magical pregnancy alert from uterus to brain at the precise moment of implantation. Most pregnant people don't know for at least a couple weeks if they're pregnant. That's nothing unique to survivors of rape who "are so ashamed by what's happened."

Certainly, the trauma of rape—of which shame is merely one manifestation—can delay the discovery or acknowledgment of pregnancy, but Morgan's bad math is not only contributing to the preponderance of bad information about how women's bodies work; it's also playing into and promulgating the narrative that women casually delay seeking abortions.

And then there's Ron Paul's laughable contention that "the lack of respect for life," that is, being pro-choice, "leads to the lack of respect for liberty," that is, being anti-choice.

Again: I can't put it more plainly than this: I am not free, if the word is to have any meaning at all, as long as Ron Paul is up in my uterus.

There's still plenty to parse and deconstruct here. Have at it in comments.

[Hat tip to Honest Rape.]

News I Don't Want to Write About

[Content Note: War, reproductive rights legislation, rape culture, violence, misogyny.]

Here is all the news I don't want to write about today!

There is the BIG NEWS that Iran is totally going to attack the US! It's true! Or not! It seems like I've heard this story before: The administration of a first-term president before a hotly contested election says that US intelligence has found that Iraq Iran is developing nuclear capabilities with intent to attack the US and/or US interests, and there are UN weapons inspections, with which Iraq Iran is cooperating, but the belligerent rhetoric of preemptive self-defense keeps getting ratcheted up nonetheless, including accusations of Iraq's Iran's noncompliance with those inspections. THIS IS A FAMILIAR TUNE, SHAKERS!

"Wolf!"—The Boy.

In good news, the New York Times is partying like it's 2003, because they've already got a year of reporting covered c/o search and replace.


There is the news that Michele Bachmann exited the presidential campaign one million dollars in debt. And the news that Rick Perry blew through $15 million in the final months of his campaign, for presumably no purpose other than raising awareness about what a douche he is so he could LOSE FASTER! This is yet another golden opportunity for USians to consider how utterly fucked up it is that we do not have publicly financed elections or limited electoral seasons, and very rich people spend enormous amounts of money to get elected while other politicians who have already been elected argue in fancy buildings about how we don't have any money to provide healthcare, food, and housing to everyone in the country.

There is the news that former Florida Governor Charlie Crist might someday run again for office as a Democrazzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Huntsman-Crist for President-VP of Napping!

There is the story about Janet Howell, a Virginia State Senator, who, to Make A Point, attached an amendment to a state mandatory ultrasound abortion bill "that would require men to have a rectal exam and a cardiac stress test before obtaining a prescription for erectile dysfunction medication." Hardy-har. Suffice it to say I don't find proposing the equivalent of a forced trans-vaginal sonogram law to be amusing, since it's little more than a sophisticated rape joke. I am, I trust it is evident, sympathetic to Howell's intentions, but I cannot get on board with fighting the nonconsensual control of the bodies of women and other people with uteri with a proposal for more of it, rather than less. Coercing a person to undergo an unnecessary vaginal probe to acquire a legal medical procedure is rape, and compelling an anal probe is no different.

There is news about ladies! The US women's soccer league's 2012 season has been cancelled less than 24 hours after the US women's national team qualified for the Olympics. If there's one thing we know how to do in America, it's treat women's sports like absolute shit!

There is the story of a man in Afghanistan, where we've been SPREADING FREEDOM for ten years and counting, who has reportedly strangled his wife after she failed to bear him a son. Three healthy daughters, though. Who now have no mother. Rage. Seethe. Boil.

There is this story about "three regulators [who] did indeed ring warning bells [about the subprime financial crisis]—at the right time, in the right places, and loud enough for other banking and financial system overseers," but were all ignored. Guess what they all have in common? Go on—guess! If you said they were all ladies, give yourself 1,000 points, redeemable at Shakesville's OMFG the Absurd Misogyny in the Year 2012 Shop!

Ladynews Trifecta!

There is, because I want to end on a hopeful note, this story about a potential breakthrough in cancer research and one patient's view of a future.

Talk about these things! Or don't. Whatever makes you happy. Life is short.

Today in Rick Santorum Says Something Stupid

[Content Note: This post discusses reproductive rights and sexual violence.]

Rick Santorum says lots of stupid things. I mean, he's basically a one-man stupid things saying machine. If the things that came out of his mouth were a Transformer, they'd transform into a dysfunctional hunk of stupid metal made exclusively of stupid parts with lots of little stupid bits sticking out all over it. The man is full of fuckery, is what I'm saying.

And every time he opens his mouth to disgorge another vomit-chunk of cruel, wretched, compassionless stupidity, it's somehow worse than the previously rancid pile of muck that fell from his lips after being malformed in his contemptibly antipathetic brainpan. To wit:

Standing steadfast as the most socially right-wing candidate in the GOP presidential field, Rick Santorum has repeatedly touted his extreme anti-choice position, which dictates that abortion should be uniformly illegal, even in cases of rape or incest. He even suggested that physicians who provide abortions to such victims should be criminally charged.

Last Friday, CNN's Piers Morgan asked Santorum to clarify his reasoning behind such a callous position. Insisting that "it's not a matter of religious values," Santorum explained that sexual assault victims should "accept this horribly created" pregnancy because it is "nevertheless a gift in a very broken way" and that, when it comes down to it, a victim just has "to make the best out of a bad situation":

SANTORUM: Well, you can make the argument that if she doesn't have this baby, if she kills her child, that that, too, could ruin her life. And this is not an easy choice. I understand that. As horrible as the way that that son or daughter and son was created, it still is her child. And whether she has that child or doesn't, it will always be her child. And she will always know that. And so to embrace her and to love her and to support her and get her through this very difficult time, I've always, you know, I believe and I think the right approach is to accept this horribly created — in the sense of rape — but nevertheless a gift in a very broken way, the gift of human life, and accept what God has given to you. As you know, we have to, in lots of different aspects of our life. We have horrible things happen. I can't think of anything more horrible. But, nevertheless, we have to make the best out of a bad situation.

The problem with Santorum's sense of humanity is that it doesn't seem to extend to the victim.

Yes. Indeed, that seems to be the problem with virtually every position Santorum holds: His definition of humanity almost always excludes women and other people with uteri.

As always, I do dearly love (read: detest with the fiery passion of 10,000 suns) the fact that Rick Santorum is so catastrophically incapable of self-reflection that he is able to acknowledge that rape (forcing a woman to do something with her body she doesn't want to do) is a Terrible Thing, while simultaneously asserting that the denial of abortion (forcing a woman to do something with her body she doesn't want to do) is a Moral Imperative.

I'm really hard-pressed to see why I should be any less contemptuous of a man who sits at a big mahogany desk in Washington making decisions about my body without my consent than I should be of a man who used physical force to make decisions about my body without my consent.

Undoubtedly, Mr. Santorum would be outraged and horrified to be compared, even obliquely, to a rapist.

As well he should be. I am horrified to have to make it.

Of course, a man who holds the position that he should be able to legislate away my bodily autonomy and supersede my consent about what happens to my body shouldn't be too goddamned surprised by the comparison.

Joe Paterno Died

[Content Note: This post includes discussion of rape apologia.]

This weekend, former Penn State football coach, Joe Paterno, who recently vacated his long-time position after allegations he did nothing to stop assistant coach Jerry Sandusky's rape of children, died.

There are literally hundreds of obits wringing their hands about his complicated legacy. And those of us who don't feel inclined to mitigate his role in perpetuating sexual abuse of children by remembering his great career in college football are being accused of disallowing his loved ones from being able to mourn in peace.

Well.

I have only this to say: If Joe Paterno's family finds it difficult to have to hear about how he abetted child rape, they have no one to blame but Joe Paterno for the terrible decisions he made.

Jerry Sandusky's victims haven't had the luxury of peace while thinking about any of the men who ran the Penn State football program, where institutional sexual violence was allowed to continue after its discovery.

Nothing's fair about sexual violence.

But let us be honest about the fact that Joe Paterno's family, friends, and colleagues could, today, be recalling among his other successes the time he was a hero who stopped a child predator in his tracks. The reason they're not is because Joe Paterno made the choice to value football over the safety of children.

Forgive me if I don't find it in me to acknowledge his love of the game, his dedication to the sport, his legendary relationship with the Penn State football program, when it was these very things that he privileged over doing what's right.

I do with my condolences to those who loved him, even as I argue for the right to acknowledge that which may be hard for them.

And I wish Jerry Sandusky's victims some measure of peace.

So Here's Some Good News

[Content Note: This post discusses sexual violence in the US military.]

The US military's truly abysmal record on preventing and prosecuting sexual violence among servicemembers is something about which I've written over the last seven years, rarely with anything resembling good news (unless the name Rep. Louise Slaughter was attached). But yesterday the AP reported that Defense Secretary Leon Panetta "has taken a personal interest in the problem [of sexual assault among servicemembers] and personally announced the changes in part because he wanted to focus on the issue a measure of attention he feels has been somewhat lacking in the department."

At the link, Representative Jackie Speier (D-CA) quite rightly notes that the measures being undertaken at Panetta's direction are insufficient, and much more will need to be done. Still: This is an important step in the right direction.

I want to quickly note that addressing the military culture in which servicemembers are assaulted by other servicemembers is not only important to protect those serving in the US military, but also because meaningfully subverting the rape culture within the military will decrease attacks on civilians committed by members of the US military, too.

Go here to sign the Change.org petition to Support Military Sexual Assault Survivors.

[H/T to Shaker Aeryl.]

Welcome to Your Backlash

[Content Note: This post discusses the encroachment on women's, trans men's, and genderqueer people with uteris bodily autonomy and the limitation of their reproductive rights and options, as well as the inherent violence of the anti-choice position and movement.]

Two stories arrived in my inbox in quick succession this morning:

1. Operation Rescue Launches Anti-Abortion Website: "Operation Rescue, an extremist anti-abortion group, has launched a website - abortiondocs.org - which lists the photographs and addresses of abortion providers, as well as maps to find their places of business. The website, which describes itself as the 'largest collection of documents on America's abortion cartel,' aims to list every abortion provider in the country." This is terrorism against abortionists and abortion-seeking people, or people who might ever have need of an abortion, plain and simple.

2. Long-Term Worldwide Decline in Abortions Has Stalled, and Unsafe Abortions Have Increased: "After a period of substantial decline, the global abortion rate has stalled, according to new research from the Guttmacher Institute and the World Health Organization (WHO). Between 1995 and 2003, the overall number of abortions per 1,000 women of childbearing age (15–44 years) dropped from 35 to 29; according to the new study, the global abortion rate in 2008 was virtually unchanged, at 28 per 1,000. This plateau coincides with a slowdown, documented by the United Nations, in contraceptive uptake, which has been especially marked in developing countries. The researchers also found that nearly half of all abortions worldwide are unsafe, and almost all unsafe abortions occur in the developing world."

On the one hand, these stories each deserve their own post, and I could spend the entire rest of my day writing 3,000 word pieces about each of them. On the other hand, they are part and parcel of the same issue, which is that the anti-choice position is inherently violent, whether it is forcing people with uteri who do not want to be pregnant to submit their bodies against their will to pregnancy and childbirth, or whether it is forcing people with uteri who do not want to be pregnant to seek out unsafe means of terminating a pregnancy—and there is nothing else to say but this: This is incompatible with freedom, if the word is to have any meaning at all.

This is an overtly misogynistic campaign to control the bodies of lives and women—and, by extension if not explicit design, a campaign that wants to wrestle away self-determination (and self-definition) from men and genderqueer people with uteri, too.

It is a violent backlash against the progress of feminism/womanism and gender equality. It is global, it is state-sanctioned in much of the world, and it is consigning people, mostly female people, to injury, to death, to lives they did not want.

This is not Woman's Work. The responsibility for turning this tide belongs to us all.

[See also: Misty's post. Respective hat tips to Shaker MinervaB and the Guttmacher Institute.]

There Is No Such Thing As Second-Hand Consent

[Content Note: This post contains reference to a sexual assault and discussion of intimate partner violence.]

In July 2010, I wrote a piece called "Your Underdog Lovelorn Romantic May Be My Rapist," about public romantic gestures in which strangers' participation is elicited, and the potential for people's good judgment to be undermined by the belief they're helping facilitate a grand romantic moment. Relatedly, male predators often get access to female victims by claiming to already be romantically involved with them.

Today, Shaker Courtney forwarded me this terrible story (which is rife with rape apologia right down the headline and its use of the loaded word "claim" vs. a less dubious word like "allege") about a woman who "is suing Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide, [alleging] staff at one of their hotels gave her room key to a drunken man who allegedly sexually assaulted her in her bed."

This guy had, according to Alison Fournier, hit on her earlier that night, and, after she'd made it clear she was not interested in having sex with him, she "retreated to her room to get away." So why did a hotel employee just hand out her room key to this guy?

That same man, according to the suit, later went to the front desk, said that he was Fournier's husband, and obtained a key from hotel staff to her room.

The staff did not ask him for any identification or proof that he was in fact Fournier's husband, according to the lawsuit.

Nor, evidently, did they even bother to pick up the phone and ring Fournier's room to get her permission to hand out a key to her room—which is something they should have done even if this guy had been her husband.

There is no such thing as second-hand consent. A husband cannot consent on his wife's behalf to give himself access to her room. There are husbands in this world who hit their wives, who rape their wives, who murder their wives. There are reasons that a wife could be in a hotel room to which she doesn't want her husband to have a key.

"In a statement given to ABC News by Starwoods Hotels and Resorts, Worldwide, the company said it is investigating the incident." Ya think? Fuck.

Chip, Chip, Chip...

[Content Note: Legislative encroachments on reproductive rights; invasive medical requirements; rape culture.]

Andrea Grimes reports that the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled Texas can enforce its forced trans-vaginal sonogram law while the heinous legislation is challenged in court.

I'll just refer you to the post I wrote when the same shit started in Oklahoma (where a similar law is being challenged, but which the state has been disallowed from enforcing in the meantime), and I'll reiterate here the basis of my unyielding objection: Compelling a person to undergo an unnecessary vaginal probe to acquire a legal medical procedure is fucking rape.

And that was true even before the US Justice Department revised its definition of rape to make it patently obvious that this is, indeed, rape—at least if the concept of consent is to have any real meaning at all.

A woman or trans man who cannot access a legal medical procedure without submitting hir body to a vaginal probe cannot be said to be meaningfully consenting. Consent requires a choice.

Consent requires a choice, because consent without a choice is not consent; it's coercion.

[H/T to @scatx.]

Calling Rape What It Is

[Content Note: Discussion of legislation regarding sexual violence.]

The US Justice Department has, after more than 80 years, changed its definition of what constitutes rape:

"The penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object, or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person, without the consent of the victim."

Since 1927, rape has been federally defined by the US as "the carnal knowledge of a woman, forcibly and against her will. That included penetration of a woman's vagina, but excluded oral or anal penetration and the rape of men." Now, rape will not be defined by the gender of the victim nor the perpetrator. Also:

The new definition will include ... assaults in which a victim cannot give consent because the individual has been incapacitated by drugs or alcohol, is under the age of consent, or is mentally or physically incapable of consent, the Justice Department said.

"This long-awaited change to the definition of rape is a victory for women and men across the country whose suffering has gone unaccounted for over 80 years," Vice President Joe Biden said in a statement.

While reports of rape to authorities are likely to rise, the Justice Department said that will only reflect more accurate reporting rather than the number of actual attacks increasing.

This is very good news.

[H/T to Shaker Charlie.]

Today in Rape Culture

[Content Note: Media coverage of sexual violence against children; gun violence.]

I've seen this story from late December in a couple places now, because its facts are so unusual: It's an article from Utah's Deseret News about a child sex predator whose offenses were discovered in a very peculiar way—police found his 13-year-old victim hiding in a closet when they searched his house after one of his roommates accidentally shot another roommate in the chest while drunkenly attempting to shoot a mouse.

The 34-year-old abuser, Paul Daniel Kunzler, was "booked into the Salt Lake County Jail for investigation of two counts of rape of a child, three counts of sodomy of a child, and three counts of sexual abuse of a child."

There is no state in the union in which a 13-year-old is considered old enough to consent to sexual activity. And Kunzler is clearly not her peer. He is 21 years her senior.

Nonetheless, the Deseret News repeatedly describes Kunzler and the 13-year-old girl as being in "a relationship."

The four-month relationship was discovered after a bizarre incident at the man's house...

During an ensuing search of the house, officers found a 13-year-old girl hiding in a basement closet, Wyant said. The girl told police she had sneaked out of her house without her father's knowledge to see Kunzler, according to a jail report.

After further questioning, investigators learned Kunzler and the 13-year-old had been having a relationship for four months. The two had met through a common friend, Wyant said.

It was not known Wednesday whether any of Kunzler's three housemates were aware of the relationship.

That "relationship" is considered an appropriate and uncontroversial way to describe a sexually abusive situation between a child and an adult 21 years her senior is just another reminder of how pervasive and profound the rape culture really is.

The irrelevant note about the girl sneaking out "without her father's knowledge" is interesting, too. Not only is it implicitly victim-blaming, framing her as a naughty girl who was looking for trouble, and suggestive of the possibility that 13-year-olds can give authentic, informed, enthusiastic consent to sexual activities with people old enough to be their parents, but it reinforces the narrative that fathers are protectors and defenders of their daughters' sexuality, and that female sexuality is a commodity to be exchanged between two men.

She sneaked out without her father's knowledge. Presumably, given the opportunity, he would have selected someone more suitable to whom to grant access to his daughter's cunt.

Is what we are meant to infer. In less blunt and more palatable terms, of course.

Parallel to that is the implication that parents can protect their children from sex predators (if only those naughty children don't sneak out of the house). Which: No. An alleged (or real) lack of parental vigilance is not a justification for the exploitation of a child. The exclusive responsibility for rape is always, always, the rapist's.

An Observation

[Trigger warning for rape culture.]

I find it interesting, ahem, how much public musing I've read over the years about whether fantasist Stephen Glass deserves a second chance in a new career ("being a lawyer is a privilege, not a right"), or has sufficiently earned forgiveness, or can be successfully rehabilitated, and other variations on questions of trust, integrity, and decency.

The reason I find it interesting is because I have not seen nearly the same about of public musing about, say, Mike Tyson, or Roman Polanski, even though they each did something rather quite worse than telling lies, even big lies that hurt and embarrassed and betrayed people.

We sure do have interesting priorities, and interesting beliefs about the things people do. Especially people who are men, admired by other men.

Gabe and Tycho Still Think Rape Is Hilarious

[Trigger warning for rape culture.]

Once upon a time, two dudes who write a web comic called "Penny Arcade" posted a strip that included a rape joke. Some people objected to this. It got nasty from there, in the same infuriatingly predictable way these things always get nasty. And then it got nastier, and more awful, and uglier, and more horrible, and worser, oof just so horrendo like whoa.

(The whole history is detailed here.)

The only thing that was certain is the only thing that's ever certain, which is that feminist survivors of sexual violence who don't find rape jokes funny are stupid, hypersensitive, rage-seeking missiles who want to censor the world. [sic]

It's funny the reputation feminists have. Because even in spite of being presumed to be a dour, man-hating, pessimistic cynic, I still sort of figured (or hoped) that Gabe and Tycho would, once the din subsided, chew on everything that had been said exhorting them to kinder selves, and maybe eventually get to a place where, even if they never made any sort of public amends, they could internally acknowledge The Point, and be a little more sensitive in future.

Whoooooooooooooooooooooops I am a real dunderhead!

Because last Friday, they ran a guest comic at the center of which was a rape joke and a "comical" image implying non-consensual sexual activity: Their recurrent character the "Fruit Fucker" is forcibly feeding a piece of fruit to Humpty Dumpty (ETA. or HD is wearing a ball gag), who's clad in bondage gear and looks terrified. It's labeled, in big letters: "NON-CONSENSUAL BREAKFAST!"

People objected. Brendan Atkins tweeted: "I'm an Enforcer, I love you guys, but I really hate it when you run rape jokes." To which Gabe responded: "the fruit fucker is a rapist of food. I'm not sure an egg can give consent anyway. Maybe a chicken, but not an egg."

Which seems a pretty weak defense when the joke, such as it is, turns on the word "non-consensual" and the egg being sentient and not giving consent.

I would say this is a terminal case of Not Getting It, if I thought that Gabe and Tycho really don't get it. But I think they do get it. At this point, it's not that they're just being insensitive to survivors who asked them to stop; they're actually being actively hostile to them. Contemptible.

Pranks and the Rape Culture

[Trigger warning for bullying/child abuse, incest, sexual violence.]

Yesterday, I wrote about a school-sanctioned parental prank at a high school in Minnesota, in which sports captains were blindfolded and promised a special kiss from a classmate, but were instead kissed by their parents. In the video of the incident, parents can be seen planting big smooches on their kids; one parent-child couple rolls around on the floor, and one mom grabs her son's hand and puts it on her butt. The entire scene is played for huge laughs.

Shaker Demivierge dropped into comments the link to an editorial in the local newspaper, which runs interference on behalf of the school and parents. There's a lot of minimizing and excuse-making and finger-wagging at anyone who takes issue with the "prank," and then there's this pathetic admonishment not to believe your lying eyes:

The parents hammed it up as they played their part. At least, we assume nobody was making out as intensely as the video seems to show. [Rosemount High School principal John Wollersheim] and others who were there say they weren't, and we tend to believe them. Parents have taken the opportunity at many other RHS pep fests to make their kids a little uncomfortable, but we suspect they'd all draw the line at the kind of passionate kisses the video seemed to show.

Just casually assuming that every parent would "draw the line" at sexual intimacy with hir own child is absurd. I also wrote yesterday about the CDC survey which found that "Nearly 1 in 5 women (18.3%) and 1 in 71 men (1.4%) in the United States have been raped at some time in their lives," and, of those survivors, 42.2% of female victims experienced their first completed rape before age 18, and 27.8% of male victims experienced their first rape when they were 10 years of age or younger. Over half of all survivors reported being raped by someone they knew.

Some of those children who were raped by someone they knew were raped by their parents. And many more will have been subjected to inappropriate sexual contact that doesn't meet the technical definition of rape.

Do the editors of the Rosemount TownPages believe that a parent who sexually abuses hir child will self-select out of a public event at which they have been given license to make out with hir kid? Because that's not how abusers work. That there was even a chance that a parent who's sexually abused hir kid just got an official stamp of approval from mandated reporters to go for it should underline how incredibly inappropriate this incident was, irrespective of what it "looked like," or what we might like to assume.

And, listen, I'm not a parent (but I am a daughter), and it's my impression that most parents, even the best ones, sometimes forget what it's like to be a kid. That's not a function of parenting; it's a function of human nature. I forget sometimes what it's like to be a kid, inclined as are we all to cast our minds backwards and look out through the eyes of memory with perspectives and instincts formed in the intervening years.

But I suspect that what constitutes a not-passionate kiss to me now, as an adult woman, would be very different than what constituted a not-passionate kiss to me as a teenage girl. A standard good-night kiss with my husband would have turned my legs to jelly when I was an unsophisticated kid, so new to the world of sexuality that when the math teacher on whom I had a crush gave me an entirely appropriate kiss on the cheek at the end of the year, I nearly fainted. (Or jizzed in my pants. Or both.)

I guess I'm just not sure that what feels not-passionate to a parent who knows zie's kissing hir kid definitely feels the same way to the kid who doesn't know zie's kissing hir parent. And that's is, suffice it to say, a problem.

More Parental Prankery

[Trigger warning for bullying/child abuse and incest.]

If you thought the Jimmy Kimmel Christmas prank was bad (it was! it was sooooo terrible!), get a load of the cool parents at Rosemount High in Minnesota who pranked their kids by blindfolding them and then making out with them: "And these are not just innocent pecks on the lips. The parents are intimately lip-locking their children for several seconds. One even progresses to rolling around on the gym floor. In another instance, a mother moves her son's hand south so he's grasping her butt."

To be clear: The kids were blindfolded. The parents were not. They knew they were kissing their kids, and they laughed uproariously as the kids were further embarrassed by being interviewed about what they thought of the kiss. "Luscious lips," answers one young man, before it is revealed he kissed his mother. My god.

There is video at the link, which I am not going to embed here, and I was pretty skeeved out watching it (to put it mildly). It's terrible enough that these kids were obliged into accepting "a kiss" while blindfolded in the first place, no less that they were "pranked" into kissing their own parents (some of whom might have previously sexually abused their kids). What a horror.

I quite honestly cannot begin to imagine why any parent would participate in this activity.

Now that the video is getting attention, the school has apparently apologized for the prank. Except: Schools who are made aware of the abuse of their students are obliged by law to report it. An apology is not enough. The students of Rosemount High should have some assurance that their school won't help orchestrate their abuse. Remedial mandated reporting for everyone, please.