No, I don’t mean Lady GaGa or this cover featuring her sporting a strapon. I am referring to the vast amount of truly venonmous comments I’ve heard and read about this talented lady. Ok, sure, her music might not be everyone’s preferred style, but I can’t help wondering why the hate?
At any rate, fan or not, I thought some of you might enjoy the image.
I finally located the Haven’s “Wake Up To Rape” Survey Report. A few excerpts:
There are many situations in which some people feel that a person should take responsibility for being raped. Over half (56%) of those surveyed think that there are some circumstances where a person should accept responsibility. Of those people the circumstances are:
- Performing another sexual act on them (73%)
- Getting into bed with a person (66%)
- Drinking to excess / blackout (64%)
- Going back to theirs for a drink (29%)
- Dressing provocatively (28%)
- Dancing in a sexy way with a man at a night club or bar (22%)
- Acting flirtatiously (21%)
- Kissing them (14%)
- Accepting a drink and engaging in a conversation at a bar (13%)
Women are less forgiving than men. They are more likely to think that a person should accept responsibility when:
- Performing another sexual act on them (75% vs. 70%)
- Getting into bed with a person (71% vs. 57%)
- Going back to theirs for a drink (35% vs. 19%)
- Dressing provocatively (31% vs. 23%)
- Dancing in a sexy way with a man at a night club or bar (23% vs. 19%)
- Accepting a drink and engaging in a conversation at a bar (15% vs. 11%)
Just curious – when you refer to “responsibility”, whether some or total, what do you mean? It’s her fault? She deserved it? She should have anticipated that she would be raped? She contributed to the situation?
When I was in my early thirties, I consulted for a company that inspected certain existing and new buildings to make sure they complied with applicable standards. During one such inspection, I accompanied a very, very attractive administrator to an almost-completed facility, “just to make certain there were no last minute things (they) needed to do”.
It seemed a reasonable request and being the somewhat innocent southern woman I was back then, it never occurred to me to be even slightly worried about going. I was a professional, he was a professional, no problem.
At one point during the walk-through, he made a pass. It wasn’t the first pass I had ever rebuffed and being the sort of person who hated hurting even a jerk’s feelings, I was sure I could very nicely put him in his place.
Not so.
Things eventually escalated and I left him lying on the floor gripping his crotch in sheer agony. Given how hard I kneed him, it’s a good possibility he’s still lying there. If he’s not, I suspect he never had an erection again. Either scenario is ok with me since he attempted to rape me.
I never reported that incident to anyone. I, a very average looking, chubby nurse had accompanied a very, very attractive doctor I did not know to a remote location. I was afraid at the time that either no one would believe someone like him would have to force someone like me, or they would think I deserved it.
Now, older, wiser, and more self-confident, I’m not sure it would be prudent to do anything different if I were alone and it was my word against his. Here’s why:
A majority of women believe some rape victims should take responsibility for what happened, a survey suggests.
Almost three quarters of the women who believed this said if a victim got into bed with the assailant before an attack they should accept some responsibility.
One-third blamed victims who had dressed provocatively or gone back to the attacker’s house for a drink.
According to Sky News:
Nearly a fifth (19%) of females said the victim should accept partial responsibility if they go back to their attacker’s house.
And one in eight thought a victim who dances in a provocative manner on a night out is also to blame for any consequences.
I do not even know how to respond to such thinking. How can anyone ever feel comfortable about reporting a rape if this many *women* believe it’s the fault of the victim?
This has been on my mind for a couple of days now, and yes, if it happened again, I would report it. It might not be wise but at the very least, I’d cast doubt on my attacker’s reputation. And, HE would know *I* didn’t let him win even if other people did.
~
*This is not a story I generally tell people and most certainly not strangers. I’m speaking up in the hopes that people will discuss this issue and perhaps, as a result, change their thinking. I prefer no comments on my personal situation but I would enjoy hearing your thoughts on the issue in general. Do you agree with the majority of British women? If you do, I won’t take it as a commentary on me or my situation, so please feel free to speak your mind.
I realize I’ve been posting a lot of “issues” pieces lately but these things are bearing on my mind quite a bit.
Just a few minutes ago I read something I wouldn’t have believed possible in 2010. According to Alternet.org:
New Orleans city police and the district attorney’s office are using a state law written for child molesters to charge hundreds of sex workers like Tabitha as sex offenders. The law, which dates back to 1805, declares it a crime against nature to engage in “unnatural copulation” — a term New Orleans cops and the district attorney’s office have interpreted to mean anal or oral sex. Sex workers convicted of breaking this law are charged with felonies, issued longer jail sentences and forced to register as sex offenders.
How can this be? Oral and anal sex are “unnatural copulation”? What’s next? Arresting people who are engaging in the same “unnatural” acts in their homes? So.. the DAs, the chief of police, the police officers – none of those people are participating in these heathen activities?
According to Alternet’s article, many of the convicted are among the poorest of the poor. Most cannot receive assistance or food stamps to aid with their plight because of these felony convitions. If these women are forced to evacuate to a shelter because of hurricane warnings, they are required to go to a special “sex offenders” shelter where there is no separate space provided to shield them from male sex offenders. I would assume this means they also may not stay in any shelter under normal conditions. Their driver’s licenses have a label affixed labeling them with this status, and they must send out cards to all the neighborhood notifying them of their presence in the community.
Many of these street workers have been turning tricks since they were young teenagers. Whatever their age or circumstance when they began, I cannot imagine many, if any, of these women are working the streets because they want to do so. How are they ever to walk away from prostitution if they not only have no help, but they are branded in a way that must make it almost impossible to get a job?
Surely there must be a better way – a hundred better ways – to deal with this issue. I can’t even imagine how this is Constitutional. I, for one, consider it cruel and unusual punishment.
Heartbreaking.
It sounds like a TV movie of the week. Four women – an adulterer’s wife, his two girlfriends, and one of their friends – meet and over the course of months discuss a plot to teach Romeo (Davis) a lesson. Eventually one of the ladies lures him to a motel where the four women tie him up, blindfold him, and verbally ridicule him. Then.. one of the ladies (Ziemann) is struck with the bright idea of gluing his penis to his stomach with nail glue (similar to Super-glue).
All four were originally charged with felony false-imprisonment but their charges were reduced to disorderly conduct as a result of plea bargains. Ziemann was also convicted of battery. Each received one year probation and community service.
Fair? Did the fella have it coming? Too lenient?
If the situation were reversed and the victim had been a female who was blindfolded, tied up, ridiculed, and well -I’m sure you follow. Would your answer remain the same?
Would the following information change your mind?
“Ziemann said after court that she behaved badly and the sentence was fair. She said she didn’t participate in the attack because Davis was cheating, but rather because her young daughter’s phone number was found in his telephone. Davis was acquitted this year of sexually assaulting a child after a mistrial in 2008.” – Postcrescent.com
According to an article on Cnews.Canoe.ca:
Texas Tech University’s study, which will be published in March in the Social Science Journal, says that people with two or more piercings or tattoos are more prone to deviant behaviour, which includes excess drinking, smoking pot, being promiscuous and being willing to cheat.
To draw such conclusions, researchers must have studied a diverse group of people.
Researchers asked 1,753 students from four American colleges — two state-supported public schools and two highly selective religious institutions — and found 37% reported at least one piercing and 14% were tattooed.
So instead of studying all ages, they focused on college kids. Are adults 25 and older conspicuously free of piercings and tattoos?
What they found was “sharp differences in the levels of deviant behaviour among those with just one tattoo versus those with four or more, and among those with just one to three piercings versus those with seven or more,” reports sociologist Jerome Koch, the paper’s lead author.
“Results indicate that respondents with four or more tattoos, seven or more body piercings, or piercings located in their nipples or genitals were substantially and significantly more likely to report regular marijuana use, occasional use of other drugs, and a history of being arrested for a crime.”
Perhaps the willingness to “report” these behaviors is the most important aspect to consider when interpreting these “scientific” findings? Is it possible college students in more conservative areas of the country*, especially those attending religious universities, are less likely to admit doing anything “deviant”? I drank quite a lot in my early 20s, but I wouldn’t have admitted it to anyone other than the people I drank with. At that age I was more concerned with what people think than I am now :)
Also, am I alone in my intense dislike for their use of the word “deviant”? I am aware of the technical meaning, but most people use that word as a way to make others sound terrible instead of different. Isn’t the occurrence of these acts in college age kids more about curiosity coupled with new-found freedom to explore?
What about you? Do you think there is any real link to tattoos and deviance in people of any age?
~ ~
Thanks to John, Manet, and Bill for sharing their observations about this study. It’s great to be surrounded by super smart people :)
*Another article I read indicated these colleges were in the South and the Midwest
According to CBC News, a parent’s complaint regarding “sexually explicit content” recently led to the removal of “Merriam Webster Collegiate Dictionary” from schoolrooms teaching fourth and fifth grade children.* The offensive content?
Oral sex – “oral stimulation of the genitals”
After review by a panel comprised of parents, teachers, and school administrators, the dictionaries have been returned to the classroom and students may access them only if their parents have signed a permission slip.
Does anyone else remember looking up the meaning of “dirty words” when you heard them? I remember giggling with my friends during library time when we tried to find as many as possible in the time we were allotted (or before the teacher caught us). I understand the urge to protect children, but by the time a child is in public school a few years, they’ve heard most “dirty words” countless times. Because of this, wouldn’t it be prudent to allow children to learn the correct meaning of terms they are already hearing (and probably using), should they wish to know?
In other book banning news, FOX News reports this week a middle school in Virginia removed, “The Diary of a Young Girl: The Definitive Edition” by Anne Frank, after a complaint by a parent that the book contains “sexual references”. The county’s Director of Instruction “didn’t want to make a big deal” out of the situation so he acted on the complaint by removing the book and replacing it with the originally published version, one censored by Anne’s father to remove the sexual content (among other things).
“The Diary of a Young Girl” has long been a reading assignment for many seventh or eighth grade students.** It’s written by a 13-15 year old girl who endured the horrors of hiding for two years from the Nazis in a confined attic and who later died in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.
I read the censored version of Anne’s diary when I was in school (although I didn’t know at the time it was censored). It was powerful, it was frightening, it was real. It’s true I didn’t suffer from the removal of Anne Frank’s innocent description of her vagina. (She describes it without being crass and remarks she doesn’t see how a man fits in that little hole and she certainly doesn’t understand how a baby comes out.) That said, I do not believe I would have been harmed by it either. In fact, I know I wouldn’t have.
The same year I read “The Diary of a Young Girl”, we (most of the girls in my class) were passing around copies of “smut” books some had either bought or swiped from their mothers, books like “Sweet Savage Love” by Rosemary Rogers. I assure you nothing an innocent girl could have written in her journal would have compared to the things described in books that fell open to all the naughty bits because the books had been opened to those pages so many times.
I will only add that I was a sheltered child. Seriously sheltered. My parental sex education consisted of a set of books from Time Life that addressed the biology of sex and sexual maturation, and one sentence from my father. “Yeah sex is good or everyone wouldn’t be doing it, but if you do it before you get married I’ll kill you.” Sheltering didn’t help me, it only led me to alternative sources to satisfy my curiosity.
I understand and respect the opinions of people who are concerned about protecting their children, but quite often I think they must not remember what they or their friends were like when they are children. Wouldn’t talking to your children be a much better way to address things we must all eventually learn?
~ ~
* Approximately ages 10-11
** Approximately ages 12-14
Loved (or at least ok by CBS standards):
An ad run by Focus on the Family, a Christian ministry whose purpose is “to strengthen, defend and celebrate the institution of the traditional family and to highlight the unique and irreplaceable role that it plays in God’s larger story of redemption”, will be aired during the Superbowl on February 7th.
Featuring “college football star Tim Tebow and his mother, Pam”, the ad “will share a personal story centered on the theme of ‘Celebrate Family, Celebrate Life.’ ”
I caught a glimpse of a portion of the ad on Headline News a few days ago, but could not as yet find it anywhere online. (If you do, please forward the URL.). Keeping it close til the day it airs may be a wise move by Focus as this will heighten the controversy and curiosity about the ad. The clip I saw was a pro life ad, telling of Tebow’s mother’s choice not to abort him and what a wonderful choice that turned out to be.
Not loved by CBS, the following two ads that won’t be aired because CBS refused to sell Godaddy and Mancrunch the air time:
CBS has deemed it acceptable to permit one controversial ad and deny two. Is it discrimination, a savvy business decision, their right to do whatever they want, or something else? Are the ads (or the concept of the ads) offensive in your opinion? Do you agree with those who say the two rejected ads are too racy? Have you seen other aired Superbowl ads that were similarly “racy” but not as controversial?
I do believe the execs at Mancrunch and Godaddy are geniuses. Thanks to the internet, vast numbers of people are seeing their ads and talking about these issues with NO money going into the pocket of CBS. I consider CBS’ decision to be discriminatory. Personally, I have no problem with any of the three ads being run as I don’t have to accept everyone’s point of view simply because it is presented to me.
Powerful aftershocks continue to strike the country of Haiti. As many as 200,000 people have died, while an estimated one million were injured. Many hospitals, homes, and vital services have been destroyed. An estimated total of 600,000 to 700,000 people are in need of food, water, shelter and medical care. (That’s approximately the size of the city of Baltimore proper.)
I’ve avoided blogging about this for a couple of reasons. It’s receiving world wide coverage so I thought, what can I say that would influence people more than the images being flashed across their screens? Also, it breaks my heart to think about all those poor people. I selfishly thought I would make a donation and leave the fundraising to celebrities and the media.
I received a request from a friend that reminded me we must all try to do our part. Perhaps you’ve already given. Can you give again? I’m going to skip some luxuries and give a little more, because I have things like a home, food, a soft bed, and medical care that so many Haitians – 40 percent of which are children under 15 years old – do not have.
I’m sure you have your charity of choice. If you need suggestions, here are a few of mine:
The Salvation Army International
UNICEF (United Nations International Children’s Fund)
Regardless if you can contribute monetarily, if you’re a praying person, please continue to remember these people. Long after the fickle attention of the media wanders, they will still be trying to sort out the broken pieces of their lives.
Thank you for listening and for any help you can offer.
Sunday, January 10, 2010 is “No Pants Day“. Can you envision yourself participating in something like this? :) I’d like to say I would, but I don’t think my very conservative town is quite ready.
