rape

A couple of weeks ago, a young woman was sexually assaulted and killed while walking home from a bar at four in the morning. This happened in Milan, only a few feet away from my old high school. She was chatted up by a man she'd seen collecting bottles at the bar she'd been to, and she assumed that he worked there and was thus 'safe'. He wasn't.

That was the second such attack within a short period of time, and sparked renewed discussion on women's safety. One of those discussions took place in the 'opinion' section of Milan's Metro newspaper, where a female reader shared her experience of sexual abuse and whose letter had been entitled "Men are Monsters" (and while I can't swear to this, I am fairly certain it's the paper who titles the letters, not the readers). This prompted several replies by enraged men who felt misjudged and misunderstood. One particularly appalling letter was from a man who felt that women use the word 'abuse' to easily and that, at least within marriage, it is a woman's duty to pleasure her man. Another writer complained that women are too ungrateful and do not know how good they have it. This exchange took place over the course of a week, and every time I read the letters, I had to remind myself that this is indeed the 21st century.

“Actually, Buju Banton* used to be a rapist, I believe”

The hippy said to us, pouring the mixture through the strainer.

Good reggae vibrations floated toward me as I pondered,

“What does it mean to have once been a rapist?

Is it something you can shed like a torn coat, or a snake skin, a piece of baggage you can just set down?

An old Nazi uniform you can just take off, “he used to gas Jews but he’s cool now.”

Bathed in the blood of Jesus or the word of Jah,

Saved

Redeemed

Born Anew

Hallelujah!

How convenient for you, to move through these rigid identities.

I too used to be.

I used to be a victim but I finally managed to shrug off that heavy bloodstained dress, though no white man washed me clean.

Now I wear a survivor badge, heavy like iron over my heart.

I used to be

I used to be free

You took that away from me.

Marine runs away to Mexico

Maria condemned, unbelieved, gets a shallow grave.

She was 20, like me.

I open my mouth to ask the guys

What does it mean to “used to be a Rapist”?

And why don’t the raped get that luxury?

of used to be

But they are already talking about something else

I keep meaning to write an article about the election and my opinion on Sen. Clinton. I will get around to it, too. In the meantime, there's this:

Grave of Pregnant Marine Found

The North Carolina police found what they believe to be the body of a female marine that had gone missing in Deccember - shortly after reporting that she had been raped by a fellow Marine. Who is now, to the surprise of no one, the prime suspect for her murder.

What I found even more disgusting (and what, curiously, isn't discussed in the article) is that, after reporting the rape, Marines scratched up her car, called her names, and one even punched her in the face. Got that from the CNN news on TV just now.

No single news item has dominated the German media landscape over the past few months like the case of Marco W. The 17-year-old was detained in Turkey in April on the charge of statuatory rape. The charges had been brought force by the mother of the 13-year-old Britisn girl, Charlotte, who had apparently spent a night with Marco.

The story didn't make the news until around June, but then it hit with a vengeance. Though Marco was at that point charged with statuatory rape, it didn't come across that way on the news and in the papers. The reason for that is the relative ignorance of Germans regarding the concept of Age of Consent. Though we do have them, legally, few if any teens are aware of them and they are rarely enforced. Consequently, it soon became public opinion that Marco was charged with sexual abuse and attempted rape.

Ugh. I'm tired of Dr.Phil as it is. His show has turned from being about helping people, to having guest argue on the show about their pointless, often petty disputes. However, I got my period today (after months of not having it because I was breastfeeding my daughter 24-7, I guess taking a break away from her a few nights ago made it come back) so I am tired and don't feel like doing more then watching TV. So I was watching Dr.Phil...

Yesterday and today a show has been on about a man who "slept" with the nanny. The premise of the show is that a firefighter husband cheated on his wife who had a three month old daughter with a nanny they hired. Well on yesterday's show it came to light that the nanny in question said his guy gave her painkillers and then forced himself on her in a bedroom. The wife even watched him place painkillers in the girl's mouth. She was only 18. Then on today's show Dr. Phil says three other nannies complained about being sexually harrassed (although it's never phrased that way), once according to Dr.Phil and this nanny, he corned a woman in a pantry and told her if she wanted her paycheck she had to give him a oral sex and that he wanted to perform oral sex on her as well.

I gave up.

I threw my hands up and walked out.

I miss the cafeteria, the warm womens center, the library, and the teachers but you know what I don't miss? I don't miss the red tape.

I just came to the reality that no matter how much I want to go to school - I can't.

I was faced with a decision, so I made it in order to keep myself safe. I'm getting a second job, and hopefully its not waitressing as well because my wrists have been so sore lately I'm scared to death of carpel tunnel. So the plan is - get out of debt... keep a roof over my head... thats the plan anyway. I'm going to make another attempt to move out to Las Vegas where my sister is but I'm a bit scared about it. I don't know if someone with my kind of history can keep out of trouble there, I sure will try. They've got a good college for when I make another crack at it.

So, I've been researching various diseases. Some for school, others for my writing. (I like inflicting mental illnesses on them.) I noticed something about all the ones I was likely to use, and the ones I researched:

Most of the people who got them were female. Some of the stats were only in the fifties or sixties, but a couple went as high as 87% or so. These statistics are depressing in and of themselves-and half of them are connected to depression.

Let's follow the ropes here. So, here goes: first, we deal with depression. This disease can be deadly (suicide) if it isn't treated. It could be called 'chronic sadness', but I suspect that everyone who has ever been through it knows that it's more. It's a deep gnawing at your sould; like eternal torment. There are many reasons for depression. Most of them have to do with not being able to talk about something, with losing someone or something, or being hurt in other ways.

Burglary. Kidnapping. Embezzlement. Arson. These and other crimes. What do they all have in common?

When people come forward to report them, those reports are believed until evidence suggests otherwise.

So why is it that rape or sexual assault and charges related to domestic abuse are so suspected regardless of the geographic area where they are reported? What is it that they have in common?

Women are by far the victims and reporters of these crimes. The distrust of women, the malevolence of the female, the demonization of femininity are motifs through out the world and through out history. Are these the traditions that cause women around the globe to be undervalued and untrusted? Is it the fear of the status quo (read: old men in their respective cultures) that these allegations will lead to their hierarchical unseating?

[The article I am going to write about contains heart-wrenching accounts of rape and is fairly triggering. I was crying the first time I read it. So proceed with caution.]

In its current issue, the German magazine Stern tells the stories of women who were raped during the 1994 Rwandan genocide. It started in the night of April 6th, 1994 and lasted for 100 days, during which Hutu militias killed members of the Tutsi tribe and raped tens of thousdands of girls and women. Many of them contracted HIV and became pregnant. Stern journalistn Jonathan Torgovnik interviweved 10 of those women.

This is a pretty disconcerting entry regarding pornography and rape. Pass it up if you know it's not for you.

I am one of those who has no problem with the creation of images, videos, or stories about human sexuality with the intention of inspiring arousal. That inherent commonality in all pornography/erotica does not, in and of itself, strike any negative moral chords with me.

What can cause me to bare my fangs, however, is the sort of material one may encounter in the vast world of pornography. I think that any woman who has ever typed an X-rated search in Google will know how difficult it is to find any “erotic” material from which a woman can derive any pleasure, as most of the stuff out there is vapid, misogynistic crap that just barely borders on violence.

This past weekend, I found something that crossed the line… and worse.

Being a Northern Virginian at heart, I have always found the state of Maryland to be a little bit suspect, a little bit sketchy. Yesterday morning? They blew my mind.

Montgomery County is the affluent Maryland county bordering the District and also the site of a case that a Maryland appellate court overruled yesterday. Judge Kenney Davis in this appellate court overturned the conviction of a rapist because the trial judge should have answered "no" when the jury asked if a woman could withdraw her consent once sex had begun.

It speaks for itself, and I have very little to add to that travesty of justice. Apparrently this is not a crime under current Maryland law, which leads the legal-minded side of me to grudgingly agree with the ruling (a fact that I unabashedly despise); the law requires consent prior to penetration, and that's all. The judge concedes that refusal to stop could constitute assault. Wait, but not sexual assault? Ri-damn-diculous.

Saturday night my roommates and I went to a Halloween party, not realizing that it was about to turn into the party of the year. We had been invited by the host, a guy who I will refer to as E., who pays my roommate S to write some papers for him. E had been planning this party for months. By all accounts it was a success, over 200 people from the greater Toledo area showed up, crammed themselves into the small 3 bedroom apartment and took advantage of the extra hour in the day to engorge their appetite for drink, dance and general debauchery.

We ended up leaving at a time others would have considered early, at 2 am after a scary 20 minutes when we were stuck on the tiny basement stairs with 50 other people trying to get out. If someone had yelled “Fire!” it would have turned into a tragedy to read about in the paper over a bagel the next morning. Thankfully, we survived to see Sunday morning, to recap the craziness of the night before and make fun of my roommate M’s massive hangover. Sunday night E stops by to see S and brag about his party and how people would be talking about it for weeks. M asks E what was in the ‘juice’ that had flown freely the previous night. Gotti juice and Green Monster E had nicknamed it. Who nicknames their own alcoholic drink? I wonder. E talks about patenting the juice, I roll my eyes. “It goes down so easy, that’s the trick,” he continues. It’s true, it did not even taste like alcohol. “After two drinks girls are like “I can’t even taste it, I’m not even feeling it,” he says in a mimicking falsetto. “Three drinks:” Oh my God I’m so wasted,” four drinks: “What are you doing to me?”

Some of you might remember my post in the Rant&Rave section of the boards from a while ago, where I wrote about a German movie called "Der Freie Wille" (Free Will). The movie tells the story of a serial rapist and illustrates his struggles to make a life for himself after 9 years in jail. He tries to overcome his desire to hurt and overpower women and even falls in love with a woman who is as broken as he is - due to the fact that she was abused throughout her childhood. In the end, the rapist fails with his endevaour to be 'normal' when he turns against his own lover. Eventually he committs suicide.

Last Saturday night, I planned on driving to my boyfriends place, for a surprise visit. But after I couldn’t find a parking spot, I gave into the fact that I had to walk. I don’t usually feel unsafe in the area where I live – I walk to school pretty much every day. But at night, the confidence that I feel walking alone in West Campus changes.

As I was walking the mile or so to his place, I passed by the porches of fraternities and other homes with groups of loud, drunk boys. Sometimes I would see other people, walking alone and in groups. Some people were waiting for the bus. Vans and SUVs drove near me, sometimes slower than I would have liked. The streets were darker and more empty than I would prefer. Several things that I remember while I’m walking don’t help this overwhelming anxiety that I’m feeling.

It has been such a long time since I could go to bed feeling so safe, that now that I have that security, that knowledge that I am safe, I don’t know what to do with it. How, after all that time do I just close my eyes and know no one will be waiting for me to do so. For me to be so stupid, so lazy in protecting myself, closing both of my eyes and letting my guard down for even a second, feels not only luxurious, but also very very dangerous. I trained myself to be constantly aware of what is going on around me at all times of the day and night. I hear every little noise, I hear the sea, I hear car doors shutting quietly, I hear the wind pick up ever so slightly and each time it does, I look toward my bedroom door.