Radical CUNTS

(trigger warning for rape)

“It is doubtless many of these women took advantage too, congregating near U.S. military bases and choosing attach themselves to U.S. soldiers. The dynamic was, however, inherently and overwhelmingly unequal. On the one hand, a woman at the mercy of an unstable government in a war-torn country, facing starvation, forced prostitution and possibly death as a casualty of war. On the other hand, an American service man with a gun, a steady paycheck and the promise of protection, liberation and a better life.

[…] Modern American culture has added insult to this widespread injury by not only failing to chastise American men for this behavior, but celebrating it as suggestive of American virility and perpetuating the meme of the exotic, sexually permissive Asian woman in pop culture. From Miss Saigon to Memoirs of a Geisha to Lucy Liu dressed as a masseuse in Charlie’s Angels, Asian women are rarely represented as having any agency or choice. Their willingness – even eagerness – to be sexualized and sexually dominated is continually portrayed as their most common and most admirable characteristic. It’s as though they spent 40 years raping us and the last 30 talking about how much we enjoyed it. This particular form of racism has myriad consequences for Asian-American women. A significant amount of the attention we receive from non-Asian men is in the form of creepy, excessive enthusiasm.

[…] Then there is the offensive assumption that anyone who is half Asian is the product of an American GI and an Asian woman he met standing on the corner saying “me love you long time.” And then of course there is the fact of being overwhelmingly underrepresented in every single industry except porn.”

— Asian Women, American GIs, and Modern Rape Culture | Persephone Magazine (via hidden-midden)

(via twitterpatedlyyours)

projectunbreakable:

Photographed last week in NYC. I think this image helps combat the belief that others have the right to ask the insensitive question “How much did you have to drink?” Doesn’t matter. Doesn’t matter what you drank.. or what you didn’t. You still didn’t deserve it.

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(via feminisminapapercup)

Lemme say this again for those who didn’t catch it before:

ethiopienne:

SURVIVORS. DO. NOT. NEED. YOUR. INPUT.

[TW: sexual assault, domestic violence]

I cannot tell you how many times I’ve found the courage to speak about what happened to me when I was younger only to hear “…you know you should’ve reported that, right?” or “so you didn’t say anything? what’s wrong with you?” or “well maybe if you had done X or Y or Z he’d be in jail right now and you wouldn’t even be talking about it.”

Do you not realize how vile it is to criticize someone for the way they respond to one of the most heinous events they’ll ever live through? Do you not understand that most survivors (and most people period) already blame the survivors for what happened to them? Do you not understand that policing how they respond to an unwarranted act of physical, mental, psychological, emotional violence does nothing but further encroach upon the survivor’s rights?

It is up to that person—and that person alone—to decide how to go about healing. And if that means therapy, so be it. If that means cussing out the perpetrator on their Facebook wall, so be it. If it means collaborating with the perpetrator on a song, then SO. FUCKING. BE. IT.

Maybe that’s not the path you think you would have chosen, but unless you are that particular survivor, you will never know for a fact what you would have done because you will never be in that same position.

Until it is your body that has been violated, your psyche that has been damaged, you have absolutely no place to speak on what victims/survivors should do in response to the events that change their lives forever.

It is rude, arrogant, self-serving, patronizing, condescending, and just plain wrong.

(via wildormildlyfree)

When we complain about men raping, abusing, harassing, and refusing us our human rights, and you come back angrily with “But some men aren’t like that! How dare you imply that I might be like that.” Do you not think that the problem might come from the very fact that you are angry at … us for complaining, rather than angry at your fellow boys and men for this enduring misogyny? Instead of being furious that we point out that many men do act this way - including men these women trust completely - be angry that there are men that will treat your mother, sister, daughter, friend, girlfriend badly purely because they are female. Not only that but they are giving you a bad name, not us.

Unknown.

vale repetir.

(via baddominicana, inherhipstheresrevolutions)

(via rain-queen)

(via ronronnement)

8 Women File Lawsuit, Accuse Military Of Having 'High Tolerance For Sexual Predators In Their Ranks' →

Being triggered does not mean “being upset” or “being offended” or “being angry,” or any other euphemism people who roll their eyes long-sufferingly in the direction of trigger warnings tend to imagine it to mean. Being triggered has a very specific meaning that relates to evoking a physical and/or emotional response to a survived trauma. To say, “I was triggered” is not to say, “I got my delicate fee-fees hurt.” It is to say, “I had a significantly mood-altering experience of anxiety.” Someone who is triggered may experience anything from a brief moment of dizziness, to a shortness of breath and a racing pulse, to a full-blown panic attack. A survivor of sexual violence who experiences a trigger is experiencing the same thing as a soldier who experiences a trigger, potentially even including flashbacks. Like many soldiers who return from war, many survivors of sexual violence are left with post-traumatic stress disorder. Unlike soldiers, however, they are not likely to receive much sympathy, or benefit from attempts to understand, when they are triggered. Instead, triggered survivors of sexual violence are dismissed as oversensitive, as hysterics, as humorless, as weak. Well. Trivializing the concerns of a person whose traumatic experience of sexual violence has been triggered is a legitimate response. But it’s not a very kind or decent one. I will never understand why anyone wants to be the total jerk who evokes someone’s memories of being assaulted by blindsiding hir with a rape joke (or image, or metaphor, or whatever), in the guise of “humor.” No “joke” is worth triggering someone. Not if you understand what triggering someone really means.

“Survivors Are So Sensitive” (via transformfeminism, toranseisstrong) (via thechocolatebrigade) (via saltxwater) (via safercampus, superherotoranse) (via thatneedstogo)

The LGBT Community & Sexual Assault →

sexpositive:

I wrote this presentation for an internship at a Sexual Assault Counseling Center, and adapted it for a Take Back the Night event that I was a part of in college. If you’d like the actual presentation, let me know and I’d be happy to send it along!

The LGBT Community and Sexual Assault

Sexual Assault Awareness is important to the LGBT community because sexual assault and domestic violence are important, and often time silent, problems in the LGBTQ community. Being lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender does not exclude you from sexual assault and domestic violence.

Definition of Sexual Assault and Rape

Sexual assault is any sexual contact that is against a person’s will or without consent. This includes situations where force, violence or weapons are used as well as situations where the victim is too intoxicated or scared to give consent.

Rape is defined as penetration against a person’s will or without consent and chiefly by force or deception. The rapist can be a man or a woman, and the victim can be a man or a woman as well.

Rape is About Power

Myth: Only gay men sexually assault other men.

Reality: Most men who sexually assault other men identify themselves as heterosexual. This fact helps to highlight another reality — that sexual assault is about violence, anger and control over another person, not lust or sexual attraction.

Consent

Consent is an agreement that two people must make if they want to have sex. The issue of consent can be a complicated and ambiguous area that needs to be addressed with clear, open and honest communication.

Both partners needs to be fully conscious and aware.

Both partners are equally free to act.

Both partners should clearly communicate their willingness and permission.

Both partners are positive and sincere in their desires.

Communication and Consent

Keep in mind that communicating about sex is a skill that takes practice.

Remember that better communication means better sex.

Be honest and open about feeling nervous to talk about sex with your partner.

Ask your partner about his/her boundaries and desires first.

Don’t wait until you are already in the action. Plan ahead and bring it up at a different time.

Same Sex Sexual Assault

LGBT victims are even less likely than straight survivors to report the assault. There is often a tendency to blame their victimization on their sexual orientation or gender orientation.

Why It’s Hard to Seek Support After Sexual Assault

Reporting is deterred by lack of competent “queer-friendly” helpers who are sensitive to same-sex assault or violence.

There could be a reporting process which “outs” the survivor, or may “out” the community.

Woman to Woman Assault

Survivors often experience a sense of betrayal and disbelief that a woman could assault another woman.

Woman-to-woman assaults are often trivialized or viewed as harmless “cat fights” with no real victim and no injury. This is an inaccurate misconception.

Woman-to-woman assaults are rarely perpetrated by strangers, or by heterosexual women.

Although there is typically no concern for pregnancy, there is the possibility of internal injuries and sexually transmitted infections.

Man to Man Assault

Men hesitate to report a sexual assault due to fears of blame, disbelief or intolerance by police or medical personnel.

The most common male-to-male assault is the rape of a man who is perceived to be gay by a heterosexual man.

As assault of a heterosexual man sometimes leads him to question his sexual orientation. Male-to-male assaults also occur between gay men.

Male victims often react with more overt anger than women do.

Sexual Assault Statistics and Facts

1 in 4 girls and 1 in 6 boys will have been assaulted by age 18, regardless of sexual orientation.

60% of male rapes were perpetrated by their partners.

600,000 rapes are reported to the police in the US each year.

An estimated 6,000,000 rapes occur each year.

31% of lesbians and 12% of gay men have been sexually assaulted. (Psychological Reports, 1990)

Victims or sexual assault are 26 more times likely to abuse drugs.

LGBT people are more likely than heterosexual individuals to be sexually assaulted by strangers. This would be motivated by fear and hatred of homosexuality.

It is NEVER the Survivor’s Fault

Even if…

Your attacker was an acquaintance, date, friend or partner.

You have been sexually intimate with that person or others before.

You were drinking or using drugs.

You froze and did not or could not say “no”, or were unable to fight back physically.

How to Help a Survivor

Listen, don’t judge. Just try to understand the survivor’s feelings.

Offer to have them stay with you, or you with them.

Give comfort and support.

Encourage your friend to seek professional help.

Accept the person’s choices about what to do regarding the assault.

Be patient.

Help and Support Are Available

The 24 HR National Sexual Assault Hotline by RAINN: 800-656-HOPE (4673)

Gay & Lesbian National Hotline: 1-888-843-4564

National Domestic Violence Helpline: 1-800-799-7233

La red (ending abuse in same-sex relationships): 617-742-4911

National Gay and Lesbian Youth Hotline, 1-800-347-TEEN

Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender (GLBT) Youth Support Line : 800-850-8078

The Trevor Helpline: 866-4-U-TREVOR

Rainbow Youth Hotline: 877-LGBT-YTH (1-877-542-8984)

nova-bright:

yellowcars:

Men Can Stop Rape’s new College Bystander Intervention campaign.

Actual good anti rape campaign posters! They don’t shame victims, they ask people to examine their own actions and inactions and protect their friends. And not in a gross excuse for chivalry either, just as people keeping people safe.

I like this.

(via stfuconservatives)

[TW: Rape] Fat women are treated as utterly undesirable in our culture [and] are often turned into a ‘bizarre’ fetish object. The result is that fat women are told to be grateful for any sexual attention they receive from anyone, whether they themselves find that person sexually appealing or not. In other words, even more than your average women, fat women are only allowed to be occasional objects of desire and are regularly denied their right to have and pursue sexual desires of their own.

That way of thinking becomes very dangerous when sexual violence is mixed in. When fat women are raped, they’re often told they should be grateful that anyone wanted them, or, alternatively, disbelieved because it doesn’t seem plausible that anyone would want them ‘enough to rape them.’ These arguments not only rely on the dangerous myth that rape is about uncontrollable sexual desire (it’s not), but also propagate the message that fat women’s bodies aren’t valuable enough to the culture for their violation to be taken seriously.

Jaclyn Friedman, What You Really Really Want: The Smart Girl’s Shame-Free Guide to Sex and Safety (via lavender-labia)

This is accurate. Sadly so. Believe me, I have experienced the first bit first-hand.

(via evrythingsmagic)

(via hairyprincess)