This is your trigger warning.

Scroll fast if you need to because I'm not cutting this.

Before this case came about, I'd heard of Steubenville from a lovely older couple (the Enditches from Steubenville, which is how I remember) on a bus tour I took roughly twenty-two years ago.

I didn't know about the football program there or how it was basically the only thing that held the town together.  However, when I heard it, it didn't surprise me because of how utterly beyond the pale OSU fans are.  They riot sometimes when they WIN, :/.

For those of you who are either not in the U.S. or who have been living under a large boulder for the last few months, a young woman of sixteen got drunk at a party last August and was dragged, semi-conscious and unconscious to several locations, where she was sexually assaulted multiple times.  She didn't know she'd been attacked until the next day, when she discovered multiple text posts, pictures, and videos about/of the assaults had been posted online.

Sunday, two football players, Trent Mays and Ma'lik Richmond, were convicted of "digitally penetrating" her. There were at least two dozen other witnesses/possible assailants, but these two were (in my opinion) the sacrificial lambs.  I wonder how good they were on the team?  I wonder how many more players/bystanders actually assaulted this young woman?  These two young men were convicted in juvenile court despite their ages (seventeen and sixteen, which in a lot of cases would have them tried as adults), which means that once they're over twenty-one, their records could be swept clean.  Yes, they have to register as "juvenile sex offenders" and yes, their pictures have been plastered all over the media, (we'll be talking more about the media in a moment), which will hopefully help to save future victims, but they still won't have ADULT criminal records.  This still won't necessarily ruin their lives forever in the same way it's affected the life of their victim, who has been shamed in court and received death threats from two other young women via social media sites.  Ohio's Attorney General is charging those who made the latest threats, but where are the charges against all of those who watched this young women be raped?  Not only that, but made videos in which they were laughing about her being raped.

To be clear, I think that this young woman can overcome this, but she might not.  She might not be able to come back from what they did to her.  Her life might spiral out of control because of the control that was stolen from her that night.  She's a survivor either way, but whether this rules her life forever or she's able to put it behind her, the fault still lies with those who, according to the prosecution, "treated her like a toy."

Where is the outrage?  Oh, that's right.  It's being directed towards the RAPISTS, in that media outlets like CNN think it's a shame that their lives were ruined by all of this. (Here's a petition you can sign to tell them what you think of their coverage of this issue.)  And the fucking Onion predicted all of this two years ago.

So what am I taking away from all of this?  I'm not a person once I get drunk.  Hell, I'm not a person if I'm out after dark alone or forget to lock my door or to set my alarm or am not careful enough with my surroundings or wear pants that are "too tight," a skirt that is "too short," or a burqa that shows "too much ankle."  You see where I'm going with this, right?

We teach men that women are "asking for it."  We teach them that they aren't responsible for their actions and that their "innocent lives" could be ruined by "giving in" to a girl who was too drunk to say no.  We shame rape victims so much that someone made a video called, "Shit Everyone Says To Rape Victims," and I'd heard them all before.

Our society doesn't teach men not to rape. Look at what happened to the woman who dared to suggest that we do so on Fox News - she was vilified and got both rape and death threats. Bullying is a part of it - men are bullied by their peers into going along with behavior that makes them seem "manly" to said peers. Even now, we're telling them to "man up," as though being a man is automatically strong and capable.


However, young men are also bullied by their fathers who bullied them, "Don't be a [misogynistic slur]" if they dare to express their emotions. They are bullied by a society that tells them that they aren't "real men" unless they attract as many women as possible, by any means possible. This is not peer-on-peer bullying. This is bullying at every level, from every angle, every day from the moment these young men are born.


If this is not 100% clear - I'm not excusing their actions, but until the rape culture stops telling women how they can avoid rape instead of telling men not to rape, cases like this will continue to happen.  People are starting to think this way (in Vancouver, an ad campaign entitled "Don't Be That Guy" has helped to reduce sexual assaults there by 10%), but the process is entirely too slow.   Also, the myth of the stranger attack needs to go away. Most women are raped by men they know. The Steubenville survivor even testified that she "thought she could trust" one of her rapists and didn't realize that she couldn't until she saw all of the social media about her attack the next day.

Can you imagine that?  Finding out you were raped (and that multiple bystanders, many of whom were your classmates, stood around ENJOYING your rape as though it was entertainment) via fucking Facebook and Twitter?  Can you imagine having two supposed friends of yours call you a liar and end your friendship because they wanted you to leave the party and you didn't do so, ergo what happened to you was your fault?

I've spoken about this before, but seeing what this sixteen-year-old woman is having to go through, with 18,000 townspeople she's known all her life and thousands more strangers online all acting as though this situation came about because she was drunk and not because those young men are fucking rapists, is making me sick on a level I can't begin to express.

She deserves better.  She deserves to be believed, to be supported, to be cared for, and, above all, to be told it was NOT HER FAULT!  But we don't do that in this country, or apparently any other, if Steig Larson and recent reports out of India are accurate, which I'm certain they are.  And those are only two examples - if anyone knows of a country/culture where rape is considered SOLELY the fault of the rapist, I would certainly love to hear about it, as I could use some good news on this front today.

The worst part - everything I've linked here is the barest tip of an iceberg so huge it could sink a million Titanics.  I could find dozens more links, all telling me that in the eyes of the world, my bodily autonomy is subject to the whims of others.

Society doesn't see me as a person.  I'm going to fight to change that.


ETA: Henry Rollins' commentary is rather similar to mine.
Black Women, Sexual Assault, and the Art of Resistance



This is an amazing article and the trailer for this documentary moved me deeply.  I won't say that I'm looking forward to seeing the documentary in its entirety, but I do plan to watch it.
It's amazing how a few little bleeps can entirely change the meaning of an innocent song.  I dare you not to laugh at this, seriously.

Video under the cut. )
Watching this, I was reminded that the Doctor used to be a lot more sanguine about killing.  I saw a disintegration (with a GUN) and a broken neck in there...  Then again, I suppose being directly responsible for the deaths of two species (and for 2/3 of the universe being destroyed) might change one's worldview...

Video under the cut. )
WARNING for victim blaming, slut shaming, and generally horrible things that people say.  I know because I've heard every.  Single. ONE OF THEM!

Video under the cut. )

PS - the video itself is positive in that it's shining a light on the horrible things that people say to survivors.  It's the fact that it could be made that's making me so very angry at the world today.
Now you can look like a covergirl with the magic of Photoshop, by Adobé. 

Fake commercial under the cut. )

As someone who has been photoshopped (see icon), I can vouch for both the accuracy of the ad and the unrealistic beauty standards it promotes.
Trigger warnings for references to things that happen to girls and women every minute of every day.  )

If you watch nothing else today, please watch this.  It is stark and disturbing, but it needs to be seen and shared.  Please pass it on.

Thank you.

This a classic Comic Relief Special - I highly recommend it for all Doctor Who fans, though this is more of a "Classic Who" spoof, :). 
Video under the cut. )
So about 18 months ago, I defended someone who was using a "Grammar Nazi" icon.  It was a shitty thing to do, I was rightly called out for it and since then I've become more aware of the word and have started calling people out when I see them using it to mean anything other than "people who support or supported Hitler". 

So now, 18 months later, someone's passing around a spelling meme on Facebook and captioned it, "For all you Grammar Nazis Out There".  I said something to the originator of the meme.  Was argued with.  Twice.  And so posted the following as my status:

Things that are Nazis: People who support or supported Hitler and his ideology.
Things that are not Nazis: Everyone else.
Please do not confuse one with the other. Thank you.
The following conversation ensued:

Cut for length and epic stupidity. )ETA: Random Commenter #2 )Cut for length and epic stupidity. )


ETA 2: The Jackass' response and more conversation. )
ETA 3: Yet another response from the jackass and my response. )ETA 4: Deep. Hurting. Yep, he responded again and derailed the conversation so far off the original point that I have no clue how to get it back on track. I tried, though. )
ETA 5: Jackass: I understand that you're offended by me using the term "IT Nazi". Well, I am not going to change it. )



*************************************************

Here's the thing, 18 months ago, I was that jackass.

Cut for length.  )
Warning: Possible triggers for slurs in both the comments and the post.  Also, general asshattery. 

Well, Shit

Oct. 26th, 2011 12:03 am
For those who can't see the video below, it's an ad for Dr. Pepper that parodies an action movie and says, "This movie isn't for you and neither is Dr. Pepper 10."

I usually don't see commercials because I DVR everything and fast-forward, but this one popped up on [livejournal.com profile] sf_drama and pissed me off enough for me to make a separate post about it for one reason and one reason only.

I love Dr. Pepper.  It's literally my favorite soda.  It's in my pantry and if it's on the menu, it's what I always order at a restaurant.  And now I can never drink it again because drinking it would literally leave a bad taste in my mouth.  I'm tasting bile right now because of it.  And yes, I do have more important things to be thinking about, which is, in part, why this is pissing me off so much.  I should be worrying about how my abortion rights are being curtailed.  I should be worrying about a GOP candidate who's so stupid that he thinks that the President signs Constitutional Amendments

Instead, I'm thinking about Dr. Pepper and about how a lot of women are BUYING it "in protest", basically giving in to the reverse psychology of this ad telling them they can't drink it.  Which is depressing, because the only way for a company to not do this shit is for people to NOT buy the product.  As I am doing.  Someone just told me to, "Have fun making absolutely no impact on Dr. Pepper's marketing strategies," which is a fair comment.  Dr. Pepper doesn't give a shit about whether or not I buy it - they just proved it with this ad.  So the only impact I'm going to try to make here is on my wallet.  Every time I see Dr. Pepper on a menu, I'm going to not order it and have water only instead.  I'm going to make a note of what it would have cost and stick that money in a jar somewhere.  When I would have bought it at the grocery store (along with Mt. Dew, because those are the two sodas I buy when Coke and Sprite aren't on sale), I'm going to save that money too. 

We'll see how much adds up in a year. 
Cut for video of the ad. )

Apologies to those who saw this on [livejournal.com profile] trauma_rec_fic - I have no clue how it posted there!


Mostly because it reminds me of the one Broadway show I went to, "Ragtime," with a lot of old people from the ninth circle of hell, uh, the area where my mom lives, who had NO idea what the play was actually about when they booked their tickets and were dead silent and/or asleep through most of it.  The discomfort on the bus ride home to Ohio was palpable.  I enjoyed it thoroughly.  I'm a bad, bad person.  Though their discomfort was more racially motivated than anti-BGLTQP, I found myself feeling happy that they'd been accidentally forced out of their narrow little box and even a tiny bit hopeful that perhaps something had made them think, even if it was just for the evening, before going back to that dour little corner of the red state in which I live. 
TMI, I know, ;).


TW: This video contains a rape survivor telling her story. 

I found this when I was answering a comment on a previous post and watched the video that was attached again.  It's a bit old, but I doubt she's changed her mind at all.  As if I needed another reason to hate what Sarah Palin stands for:



For [livejournal.com profile] darth_eldritch - thanks [livejournal.com profile] heeroluva!
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