Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Why yes, m*****rf****rs, I WILL play the rape survivor card.

Update: @ButMadNNW brought the Kitty Genovese case and this article by @MarkTyrrell to my attention.
This relates directly to the Richmond High School case. (See Below.)

There are about...four things that have happened in the last four months to make my gang-rape survivor radar, start blipping like the motherfucking Kraken is rising from the motherfucking deeps. (Cover your ears, children. The nice lady is about to lose her shit and get medieval on some asses.)
The most recent, and most innocuous: Natalie Portman's vegan advocacy equates eating meat with rape! Here's what actually happened. Get real. I actually agree with the moral stance posited in the original piece. If someone is a vegan and genuinely believes that eating meat is murder, (annoying as that may be to omnivores,) it is an ethical act for them to speak up. Just as it would be an ethical act, (as stated in the article, before it got mangled,) for someone to, in the face of rape, speak up. Is it a bit of a hyperbolic analogy? Yes. However, it is a rational analogy, regardless of the amperage. 
The second, which is where the maces and broadswords start coming out, is here and here
Last Friday, after leaving a homecoming dance, a 15 year old girl was beaten and gang-raped for nearly two hours. I'm going to let that sink in first, because that's not the worst of it.
While this young woman had apparently gotten drunk and was walking home, then set on by 7 men who viciously beat and raped her, more than a dozen people stood by and watched - DOING NOTHING TO STOP OR REPORT THE ATTACK.  Go ahead and take some deep breaths, because that's not even the end of it. The school officials and security personnel claim that, "It's the parents' responsibility to prevent..." this sort of thing, being the gist of it. She was walking to meet her father, who was picking her up. If you can't be responsible for the safety of someone on school property after a school function, when there are security cameras on-campus and the crime takes two hours to commit, when the FUCK can you be responsible for the safety of your students, faculty and personnel?
That sound you hear, is the sound of my brain trying to turn itself inside out.
The part that makes me wish for a fucking flash-freeze scenario out of, "The Day After Tomorrow," is this: MORE THAN A DOZEN PEOPLE, some estimates say close to TWO dozen...STOOD AND WATCHED. They stood and watched and didn't try to stop it, they didn't call for help, (although some of these jackals wearing human masks did use their cell phones to take pictures and video, apparently.) Someone did eventually tip off security that something was wrong. They found her unconscious near a picnic table. She's still in the hospital.
Do we even deserve to exist as a species if we're not only capable of such horrific brutality, but such terrifying apathy? I say that every last one of the spectators should be charged criminally. Then sued by the girl and her family. For every last penny their parents are worth. Let these hellspawn rot in jail and bankrupt their families. That seems fair to me.

I can speak from experience, if this girl survives the first year, she's got a shot at making it out of the other side of the hell she's going to have to walk through every day. I can also tell you from experience, surviving the first year...I didn't want to. I had someone who depended on me and I stayed alive for her. That's the only reason I made it through that year. It's like spending every day of your life with broken glass covering every inch of skin - inside and out. Just because survival is possible, doesn't make it easy.

Note: What happened to me? Simple. One night, away on a work trip, myself and 3 colleagues, plus one's GF, went out to dinner. We went to the hotel bar. In total, over 6 hours, I had 7 drinks. We had food. I'm not a small person. 7 drinks is enough to leave me relaxed, maybe a little buzzed, but not in any way out of control. There were a couple of guys flirting with me. At one point I walked into the corridor to take a phone call. I left my drink on the table with my friends. It was a stupid mistake that changed my life. After finishing my drink, everything else is pretty much a blur. I didn't remember that I threw up at one point until somebody told me. I don't know how I got back to my hotel room. None of the people I was with, had the sense to take it upon themselves to decide I wasn't ok, and make sure I got to my room safely. Everything else is flashes. Disjointed and horrific snapshots. I couldn't speak, I couldn't move. I may have done both of those things, but I was completely disconnected. There were two men who took turns doing...things, to me. This included violating me with a mini bottle of champagne. There was a third man in the room, watching. When I woke up, I didn't remember any of this. I was just sick and hurt. Ultimately, because I hadn't put all the pieces together by that time, on Monday morning, I sat through a reprimand about my behavior. Someone had assumed I was simply out of control. In a way, they were right. I was out of control. Not because of anything I'd done, but because of what was done to me. I was drugged and raped and no one did a thing that could have prevented or stopped it. It's always somebody else's problem, isn't it?


Which brings me to the circle of hell I'm reserving for women who cry rape.
Unless it happens in a public place, with witnesses, with DNA evidence and a complaining witness who can ID her attacker...rape is one of the hardest crimes to prosecute. Date rape is a he said / she said quagmire that has led to bad campus policy and a lot of women being torn apart on the witness stand. Even intruder rapes aren't always easy to prove. A woman's sexuality is always suspect. God help a DA if they try to prosecute the rape of a sex-worker. At least half of all rapes go unreported, GHB and Rohypnol have made it easy for men to turn women into amnesiacs who aren't even aware they've been raped until all the evidence is gone. I should know, it's what happened to me.

I have a metaphorical t-shirt, "You can't scare me, I've been gang-raped."
Can I still be hurt? Of course. Do I still worry and get freaked by day to day stress? Duh.
But I've survived far worse than most people are capable of dishing out. To them, I say: Go fuck yourselves, pedants. I've seen the big bad wolf, and you ain't it.

Here's the latest in the Ben Roethlisberger case. All of the stories I've read, because, A. I don't think celebs and sports stars should be let of the hook when they commit crimes, and B. The story seemed hinky to me from the start, (google for more, people,) indicate to me, and my survivor spider-sense, that this is a case of going for a paycheck, rather than a case of rape. If you're raped at your workplace, by someone you can identify and you've got security on-site, YOU FUCKING REPORT IT.
Then, there' this: 15 year old girl claimed she was abducted and raped in order to avoid being punished for having sex with her boyfriend.
Are we making the sexuality of young women so anathema that they're willing to cry rape out of fear of the consequences, or are we so numb to rape that it doesn't seem like that big a deal?

The cumulative effect on my brain is simple: We don't take women seriously. We don't sexually empower women. We treat women like objects. Our bodies, our lives are worth less than a man's, we are not entitled to control over them, and we prostitute ourselves and marginalize the very real traumas that are perpetrated every day. Then we act like carrion-feeders.
What the FUCK is wrong with the human race?
I want an answer.
Now.
By the way, in my utter rage, I almost forgot this. I can't rant anymore, but this is what our tax dollars are paying for.

1 comment:

  1. I turned that show off right after she came on..Natalie...glad I did. I'm soooo sorry for your experience and I appreciate you sharing. My girl passed out at a bar years ago and I carried her to the bathroom and called 911. She is so little and was unconscious. We never found out what it was but we assumed someone had but ghb in her drink while we were watching the dance floor....

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