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Una idea simple

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Nos queremos vivas, libres y sin miedo.

[Manifestación ante los femicidios; Buenos Aires, 2015]

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There's no Rape Culture in the US, I don't know about Canada. The 1 in whatever they're saying it is is actually fake, I don't know what else you believe so I won't talk about anything else here.

Rape culture is encouraging male sexual aggression. Rape culture is regarding violence as sexy and sexuality as violent. Rape culture is treating rape as a compliment, as the unbridled passion stirred in a healthy man by a beautiful woman, making irresistible the urge to rip open her bodice or slam her against a wall, or a wrought-iron fence, or a car hood, or pull her by her hair, or shove her onto a bed, or any one of a million other images of fight-fucking in movies and television shows and on the covers of romance novels that convey violent urges are inextricably linked with (straight) sexuality.Rape culture is treating straight sexuality as the norm. Rape culture is lumping queer sexuality into nonconsensual sexual practices like pedophilia and bestiality. Rape culture is privileging heterosexuality because ubiquitous imagery of two adults of the same-sex engaging in egalitarian partnerships without gender-based dominance and submission undermines (erroneous) biological rationales for the rape culture’s existence.Rape culture is rape being used as a weapon, a tool of war and genocide and oppression. Rape culture is rape being used as a corrective to “cure” queer women. Rape culture is a militarized culture and “the natural product of all wars, everywhere, at all times, in all forms.”Rape culture is 1 in 33 men being sexually assaulted in their lifetimes. Rape culture is encouraging men to use the language of rape to establish dominance over one another (“I’ll make you my bitch”). Rape culture is making rape a ubiquitous part of male-exclusive bonding. Rape culture is ignoring the cavernous need for men’s prison reform in part because the threat of being raped in prison is considered an acceptable deterrent to committing crime, and the threat only works if actual men are actually being raped.Rape culture is 1 in 6 women being sexually assaulted in their lifetimes. Rape culture is not even talking about the reality that many women are sexually assaulted multiple times in their lives. Rape culture is the way in which the constant threat of sexual assault affects women’s daily movements. Rape culture is telling girls and women to be careful about what you wear, how you wear it, how you carry yourself, where you walk, when you walk there, with whom you walk, whom you trust, what you do, where you do it, with whom you do it, what you drink, how much you drink, whether you make eye contact, if you’re alone, if you’re with a stranger, if you’re in a group, if you’re in a group of strangers, if it’s dark, if the area is unfamiliar, if you’re carrying something, how you carry it, what kind of shoes you’re wearing in case you have to run, what kind of purse you carry, what jewelry you wear, what time it is, what street it is, what environment it is, how many people you sleep with, what kind of people you sleep with, who your friends are, to whom you give your number, who’s around when the delivery guy comes, to get an apartment where you can see who’s at the door before they can see you, to check before you open the door to the delivery guy, to own a dog or a dog-sound-making machine, to get a roommate, to take self-defense, to always be alert always pay attention always watch your back always be aware of your surroundings and never let your guard down for a moment lest you be sexually assaulted and if you are and didn’t follow all the rules it’s your fault.Rape culture is victim-blaming. Rape culture is a judge blaming a child for her own rape. Rape culture is a minister blaming his child victims. Rape culture is accusing a child of enjoying being held hostage, raped, and tortured. Rape culture is spending enormous amounts of time finding any reason at all that a victim can be blamed for hir own rape.Rape culture is judges banning the use of the word rape in the courtroom. Rape culture is the media using euphemisms for sexual assault. Rape culture is stories about rape being featured in the Odd News.Rape culture is tasking victims with the burden of rape prevention. Rape culture is encouraging women to take self-defense as though that is the only solution required to preventing rape. Rape culture is admonishing women to “learn common sense” or “be more responsible” or “be aware of barroom risks” or “avoid these places” or “don’t dress this way,” and failing to admonish men to not rape.Rape culture is “nothing” being the most frequent answer to a question about what people have been formally taught about rape.Rape culture is boys under 10 years old knowing how to rape.Rape culture is the idea that only certain people rape—and only certain people get raped. Rape culture is ignoring that the thing about rapists is that they rape people. They rape people who are strong and people who are weak, people who are smart and people who are dumb, people who fight back and people who submit just to get it over with, people who are sluts and people who are prudes, people who rich and people who are poor, people who are tall and people who are short, people who are fat and people who are thin, people who are blind and people who are sighted, people who are deaf and people who can hear, people of every race and shape and size and ability and circumstance.Rape culture is the narrative that sex workers can’t be raped. Rape culture is the assertion that wives can’t be raped. Rape culture is the contention that only nice girls can be raped.Rape culture is refusing to acknowledge that the only thing that the victim of every rapist shares in common is bad fucking luck. Rape culture is refusing to acknowledge that the only thing a person can do to avoid being raped is never be in the same room as a rapist. Rape culture is avoiding talking about what an absurdly unreasonable expectation that is, since rapists don’t announce themselves or wear signs or glow purple.Rape culture is people meant to protect you raping you instead—like parents, teachers, doctors, ministers, cops, soldiers, self-defense instructors.Rape culture is a serial rapist being appointed to a federal panel that makes decisions regarding women’s health.Rape culture is a ruling that says women cannot withdraw consent once sex commences.Rape culture is a collective understanding about classifications of rapists: The “normal” rapist (whose crime is most likely to be dismissed with a “boys will be boys” sort of jocular apologia) is the man who forces himself on attractive women, women his age in fine health and form, whose crime is disturbingly understandable to his male defenders. The “real sickos” are the men who go after children, old ladies, the disabled, accident victims languishing in comas—the sort of people who can’t fight back, whose rape is difficult to imagine as titillating, unlike the rape of “pretty girls,” so easily cast in a fight-fuck fantasy of squealing and squirming and eventual relenting to the “flattery” of being raped.Rape culture is the insistence on trying to distinguish between different kinds of rape via the use of terms like “gray rape” or “date rape.”Rape culture is pervasive narratives about rape that exist despite evidence to the contrary. Rape culture is pervasive imagery of stranger rape, even though women are three times more likely to be raped by someone they know than a stranger, and nine times more likely to be raped in their home, the home of someone they know, or anywhere else than being raped on the street, making what is commonly referred to as “date rape” by far the most prevalent type of rape. Rape culture is pervasive insistence that false reports are common, although they are less common (1.6%) than false reports of auto theft (2.6%). Rape culture is pervasive claims that women make rape accusations willy-nilly, when 61% of rapes remain unreported.Rape culture is the pervasive narrative that there is a “typical” way to behave after being raped, instead of the acknowledgment that responses to rape are as varied as its victims, that, immediately following a rape, some women go into shock; some are lucid; some are angry; some are ashamed; some are stoic; some are erratic; some want to report it; some don’t; some will act out; some will crawl inside themselves; some will have healthy sex lives; some never will again.Rape culture is the pervasive narrative that a rape victim who reports hir rape is readily believed and well-supported, instead of acknowledging that reporting a rape is a huge personal investment, a difficult process that can be embarrassing, shameful, hurtful, frustrating, and too often unfulfilling. Rape culture is ignoring that there is very little incentive to report a rape; it’s a terrible experience with a small likelihood of seeing justice served.Rape culture is hospitals that won’t do rape kits, disbelieving law enforcement, unmotivated prosecutors, hostile judges, victim-blaming juries, and paltry sentencing.Rape culture is the fact that higher incidents of rape tend to correlate with lower conviction rates.Rape culture is silence around rape in the national discourse, and in rape victims’ homes. Rape culture is treating surviving rape as something of which to be ashamed. Rape culture is families torn apart because of rape allegations that are disbelieved or ignored or sunk to the bottom of a deep, dark sea in an iron vault of secrecy and silence.Rape culture is the objectification of women, which is part of a dehumanizing process that renders consent irrelevant. Rape culture is treating women’s bodies like public property. Rape culture is street harassment and groping on public transportation and equating raped women’s bodies to a man walking around with valuables hanging out of his pockets. Rape culture is most men being so far removed from the threat of rape that invoking property theft is evidently the closest thing many of them can imagine to being forcibly subjected to a sexual assault.Rape culture is treating 13-year-old girls like trophies for men regarded as great artists.Rape culture is ignoring the way in which professional environments that treat sexual access to female subordinates as entitlements of successful men can be coercive and compromise enthusiastic consent.Rape culture is a convicted rapist getting a standing ovation at Cannes, a cameo in a hit movie, and a career resurgence in which he can joke about how he hates seeing people get hurt.Rape culture is when running dogfights is said to elicit more outrage than raping a woman would.Rape culture is blurred lines between persistence and coercion. Rape culture is treating diminished capacity to consent as the natural path to sexual activity.Rape culture is pretending that non-physical sexual assaults, like peeping tomming, is totally unrelated to brutal and physical sexual assaults, rather than viewing them on a continuum of sexual assault.Rape culture is diminishing the gravity of any sexual assault, attempted sexual assault, or culture of actual or potential coercion in any way.Rape culture is using the word “rape” to describe something that has been done to you other than a forced or coerced sex act. Rape culture is saying things like “That ATM raped me with a huge fee” or “The IRS raped me on my taxes.”Rape culture is rape being used as entertainment, in movies and television shows and books and in video games.Rape culture is television shows and movies leaving rape out of situations where it would be a present and significant threat in real life.Rape culture is Amazon offering to locate “rape” products for you.Rape culture is rape jokes. Rape culture is rape jokes on t-shirts, rape jokes in college newspapers, rape jokes in soldiers’ home videos, rape jokes on the radio, rape jokes on news broadcasts, rape jokes in magazines, rape jokes in viral videos, rape jokes in promotions for children’s movies, rape jokes on Page Six (and again!), rape jokes on the funny pages, rape jokes on TV shows, rape jokes on the campaign trail, rape jokes on Halloween, rape jokes in online content by famous people, rape jokes in online content by non-famous people, rape jokes in headlines, rape jokes onstage at clubs, rape jokes in politics, rape jokes in one-woman shows, rape jokes in print campaigns, rape jokes in movies, rape jokes in cartoons, rape jokes in nightclubs, rape jokes on MTV, rape jokes on late-night chat shows, rape jokes in tattoos, rape jokes in stand-upcomedy, rape jokes on websites, rape jokes at awards shows, rape jokes in online contests, rape jokes in movie trailers, rape jokes on the sides of buses, rape jokes on cultural institutions…Rape culture is people objecting to the detritus of the rape culture being called oversensitive, rather than people who perpetuate the rape culture being regarded as not sensitive enough.Rape culture is the myriad ways in which rape is tacitly and overtly abetted and encouraged having saturated every corner of our culture so thoroughly that people can’t easily wrap their heads around what the rape culture actually is.That’s hardly everything. It’s merely the tip of an unfathomable iceberg.

By Melissa McEwan in “Rape Culture 101″

p.s., I (feministingforchange) am actually a PhD student studying Rape Culture from a critical criminological, intersectional feminist, and cultural studies perspective and let me assure you that rape culture exists in America, Canada, and as far as I’m aware, every other country on this small blue marble. But nice try ;)

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A poem I wrote on the femicide in Ciudad Juárez / a call to end violence against womyn everywhere.

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There's nothing wrong with sex, people.

- Having sex every day. - Saving sex for your wedding night. - Never having sex. - Having sex with different people. - Having sex with one person. - Having sex with a person of your same gender. - Loving sex. - Hating sex. - Being loud. - Being quiet.

The only thing wrong with sex?

When it’s not consensual.

Because that’s not sex. That’s rape.

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http://www.gofundme.com/femtorship Now more than ever we need to invest in our youth and provide them with safe spaces for dialogue and organization. Sisters of South LA provides young woman in South Central Los Angeles with alternative education, resources, and female identified role models. We need all the help we can get to make this year’s Femtorship Program happen. Please consider making a donation. And please help us spread the word. 💚

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[Watch the entire video of tomska's Sex Talk here]

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Survivors, we will fight until surviving isn't necessary or punished.

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… this one will make you cry ….

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I do agree that teaching consent is extremely important but rape is clearly not going to be obliterated anytime soon so, don't you think it's our responsibility as women to protect ourselves and not put ourselves in situations where we are intoxicated with people we don't trust without out people around to have our backs? Don't you think we should arm ourselves? I mean it sucks we have to worry about rape at all but I just think it's irresponsible to put yourself in those situations.

I agree that it is important to be careful. However, it is never okay to justify rape by saying that the victim put herself in that situation. When we use that language we put all the responsibility on the victim. We blame them instead of the person actually responsible. It's never the victim's fault because this shouldn't be a problem in the first place.

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Please help

I’m starting this project to help raise awareness on rape, sexual abuse, and sexual abuse. We are trying to spread the word to make this a success. It would really help if you guys followed the following social media accounts and spread the word, and to have others do the same. This would mean so much to me. Thank you.

Instagram: breakthesilence67

Twitter: @endvictimshame 

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yoooooo

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The Different Stages of Recovery from Sexual Abuse/Assault

No one has formerly outlined this before, but I’ve been at this for over 20 yrs and a see these repetitive stages or breakthroughs that happen.  

When survivors disagree about advice, it’s often because what is appropriate at one level is absolutely necessary in other levels. 

ADMITTING TO YOUR SELF you were sexually abused.  

We are all groomed from birth  to accept male domination and fault for causing their negative side.   This leads us to believe we deserved the assault(s) and/or we are blaming eve. This cognitive dissonance (imbalance betw heart, mind & body) causes us to act out in anger, addictions & we are told repetitively we are at fault for our actions, never relating it to the original traumas because they are so numerous we become numb.  RECOVERY: We decide to become a feminist & label patriarchy.

ADMITTING TO A TRUSTED PERSON

This again gets blocked by internal shaming depending on how much grooming you already received.  Realize that with all sexual abuse, the abuser uses emotional abuse to direct threats of death.  This is why? If you tell me about the grooming, I now there’s verifiable sexual abuse or the grooming wouldn’t exist.  Grooming proves your brain is struggling and therefore the abuse did happen even if you don’t remember it.

But you have to be very careful who you disclosure to because if sexual abuse in systemic in your family everyone will turn on you to keep the secret.  This includes your own mother, siblings, even religious figures & teachers if they feel dealing with the abuser is harder than simply discounting you.

This step requires you to solidify you convictions that you are a victim but it also requires you to identify who will be a friend or foe and finding out who is a foe can be even more damaging then the sexual abuse; realizing the reality of who “really” loves you can be devastating.

You also can not trust just any therapist just because they’re degreed; you must find an therapist who specializes in sexual assault.  When they go to school, they get the entire field from ADHD to DID and one week on sexual assault.  Our traumas have not been studied and not deemed high priority in teaching for years.   RECOVERY: call a sexual assault center and get a therapist who interned there to get their degree.

NOW COMES SEEKING JUSTICE

To seek public justice, socially, civil, criminal, you have to be at the point you are not afraid to claim your name and victim status.   This is the stage I say is similar to coming out gay.  How you choose to do this can range from social shaming, videos, Bill Cosby method to filing Title IX or a police report.  

Problem is? you need to be prepared & strong enough to deal with what was first the patriarchy push back to keep silent within your self, then within your personal family friends to know every Tom Dick & Harry out there who believes they know the truth.  This is why I would have your support network solidified before you take this step. 

This is where I am absolutely against the trend patriarchy has of not revealing the victim’s name.   Patriarchy put this in place which in my opinion only deepens the shame.  It teaches you that if everyone found out you were raped it would destroy your life.  Isn’t this victim-shaming?  They label it as protecting her identity but how will she every shake the internal self-hared until she has pride in her survivor status.  If your not ready to tell the world you are a rape victim, I would not seek public social justice because when you don’t get support the scars to your self-esteem will be deadly. If you were stabbed, would you feel the need to keep you name secret?

 At each one of these stages you will receive huge resistance to keep the issue quiet and status quo.  You’re a liar.  You wanted it.  It was consequential. 

Please don���t believe the BS that all you need to do is come forward and the truth will make things right and justice.  

No, it just starts your battle against the rape culture.  First within yourself, then within your family/friends, then within society and popular opinion.

It can destroy your family relationships and while you must do this get rid of that anger, if your not prepared and strong enough in your self-esteem you can easily dip into suicidal depression and that’s why sexual assault survivors have such a high rate of suicide either directly or indirectly/slower from addictions from drugs to food. 

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