Telling tales of drunkenness and cruelty

Help me, help me, help me sail away
Well give me two good reasons why I oughta stay

~~ "Sunny Afternoon" by The Kinks

NO. I will not give you two reasons, Brett Kavanaugh. In fact, take your rapey, punk ass back where it came from!

Everyone has heard about Kavanaugh's accuser by now, right? She went public because people were harassing her and trying to get a statement from her. Good for you, Professor. 

Kavanaugh needs to withdraw now. I had already sent an email to my Democratic Senator, Joe Donnelly, urging him to vote against Kavanaugh's confirmation and that was yesterday before this woman went public. I would hope that every woman who cares about their rights and their autonomy is sending messages to their own Senators, especially the constituents of women like Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski. 

Listen, I know how it feels. My freshman year in college, I was at a party, and stupidly got myself into a similar situation. This was only one guy and I was able to get myself out of it, but I was really freakin' scared for a while. I was 17 at the time, and Kavanaugh's victim was only 14. Fourteen! 

This is not acceptable. I don't give a fuck that it was 30 years ago. This is someone that could be on the Court for decades, deciding questions about women's health, women's rights, and so many other things that will affect us for the foreseeable future. 

Withdraw now, Kavanaugh. And any Senator that votes for him? You are on notice. 

Getting it horribly wrong

Yesterday, we got a piece of good news out of Ohio, when the judge found the two high school football players in Steubenville guilty of rape. It was a horrible incident, with a 16-year-old girl drunk, passed out, and violated by two young men. Some of the super geniuses involved decided to take pictures and video, and you know the rest.

The fact that they were guilty was the good part, but CNN and other news outlets had to go mess it up by talking about how these boys got good grades and now their lives are ruined and they have to register as sex offenders and blah di fucking blah.

Seriously? As if they had no culpability in this matter? As if they were good kids who just...got caught being rapists? What the hell was the point of this bizarre defense of these two rapists? If they didn’t want their lives messed up, perhaps they shouldn’t have, you know...RAPED A GIRL.

This is nothing new. We’ve heard it all before. “She shouldn’t have gotten so drunk.” “She shouldn’t have been out that late.” And that extra-special one, “She shouldn’t have dressed like a slut.” It’s called blaming the victim, and I’m sick of it. How about we start blaming the rapist instead of the woman? Let’s understand, once and for all, that rape is a crime of violence, not one of sex.

This is offensive enough to women, but men should find it equally as insulting. It implies that they are idiot creatures who have no control over their testosterone, and are driven simply mad by the sight of a woman in a short skirt. If I were a guy, I don’t think I’d appreciate being thought of as that stupid and out of control.

It’s a dumb argument on both sides, and it’s time to alter the discussion. Instead of slut-shaming or portraying men as a bunch of dumbasses who can’t control themselves, let’s start sending the message that rape is rape, and it is always wrong. It’s not wrong only if you get caught, it’s not wrong only if the woman is aware enough to fight back, it is wrong. From the time I was a young woman, I was taught to stay out of dark alleys, not walk anywhere by myself, and to not dress provocatively. This is the wrong conversation and the wrong audience. Start teaching young men at an early age that it is. Wrong, wrong, wrong. What is so difficult about this concept?

If we have failed these young men, it is a failure of our society and culture. The message needs to be sent early and often: not to young women about dressing appropriately, but to young men about respecting boundaries and understanding that an assault is always wrong, no matter the circumstances. The blame is not on a woman for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. It is squarely on the shoulders of those who assault her. That includes those two young men, sobbing so pitifully in court. Their lives are ruined? I would imagine that it would be more than a little disturbing and ruinous to see the video of your sexual assault all over YouTube.

Shame on the media for driving this false perception and feeding the “oh, those poor boys” paradigm. Time to change the conversation.