Bracing For The Rape Apology

Sadly, this is probably only the first of several posts about the story of a fifteen year old who was gang-raped outside a school dance in Northern California.

I think we all know that an avalance of apologism, victim-blaming and concern trolling is coming. The only way to head that off would be to change the culture.

Since it will be practically impossible for the defendants and their defenders to deny that anything happened, I expect the most openly nasty response to be along the lines of the Haidl defense: straight-out slut baiting. (The defense said she wanted to be a porn star and therefore consented to get passed out drunk and repeatedly violated on video — some history here.) If we can’t even keep people from doing that to Polanski’s victim, who was 13, we are almost guaranteed to see it used against a fifteen year old.

I Am For Those Things

The State of Maine is near and dear to my heart. My mother’s family is from there, and I have spent more time there than in any state except the state of my birth and the one I live in now (with New Hampshire a close second. I have a tremendous affection for Northern New England).

Marriage equality is also near and dear to my heart. Not because marriage is a panacea for anything or even the most important right, but because the glaring inequality is a continuing and blatant symbol of exclusion and second-class citizenship. We do not extend civil rights to some of our people because it would offend the religious and social mores of the majority: that may be the way the Puritans did things in their theocratic monocultures* but it is not the system we codified in the Bill of Rights, where the First Amendment has an establishment clause that prohibits the state from taking a side in religious disputes and a free exercise clause that provides that my mother’s Unitarian church should be able to marry who it believes it should without the fear or favor of the State.**

All of Northern New England is there.*** They have marriage equality by legislation. Bigots in Maine are trying to reverse it at the polls. The excellent polling-and-quantitative-poli-sci blog Fivethirtyeight (were we not all glued to it last year about this time? Nate hasn’t quit) is
all over the story.

Nate, who is firmly on the pro-equality side of this, got an email to marriage equality opponents, and he summarized the talking points like this:

Everyone’s Fault

The Polanski arrest has everyone talking, and Lauren has again revisited her personal story, which can’t be easy.

Lauren’s a friend, and I’ll say publicly what I’ve said privately before.

What really matters about Chris Brown’s sentence.

I’ve got a piece up at Huffington Post today on Chris Brown’s sentencing:

…if there’s any silver lining to this whole awful incident, it’s the way it’s put relationship violence back in our public conversation. Given how infrequently that happens, we should be doing more than just be asking what kind of sentence Chris Brown deserves. We need to ask what kind of sentence will help ensure he — and men all over the country just like him — never beats another woman.

You should go check it out.

Reasons I Am Not Approving Your Post

Anyone who read my article in the Prospect yesterday can guess that this here very blog has attracted its share of sports misogyny apologists in the last few days. Which might make you wonder – how come I can’t see ‘em in the comments?

Well, here’s the thing. They have the rest of the interwebs to spout off, so I really don’t see why we have to give ‘em air here. Plus, WordPress (the free version, anyhow) has this weird thing where you can’t ban commenters. You can only approve or not approve them the FIRST time they post. Once you’ve approved one post, they’re free to run roughshod over your blog and there’s little you can do to stop them. Therefore I’m pretty cautious about approving even the posts that might be from jackholes, and might just be from dumb people who lack reading comprehension. I don’t want to find out the difference later when it’s too late.

That said, some people are downright IRATE that I haven’t approved their posts. Fortunately no one has accused me of iminging on their freedom of speech yet, but I thought I might clear some things up before it gets to that point.

So, without further ado, your (possible) trolls and my responses to them. Jump in in the comments section and add whatever I left out:

Isnt there two sides to every story? The fact that you used Ben rothlisberger, a story that all the facts are not known completely ruins your argument. There are girls out there who will use such accusations to get money from rich people. Im not saying that he did not rape her, I am saying that we do not know what happened. Doesn’t it make you wonder why the police are not bringing up charges? I’m sure police they would if there really was something that happened. Shit they dragged Michael Jackson into court for ever just because they thought he was molesting children. Sexism works both ways and you are promoting it.

This Is What Rape Culture Looks Like

I often get asked what the phrase “rape culture” means. And while, honestly, the answer is no further away than wikipedia, it’s sometimes easier to grasp a concept by observing it in the wild.

Ben Roethlisberger is the Super-Bowl-winning QB of the Pittsburgh Steelers. Last summer he was in Lake Tahoe for a celebrity golf tournament. While there, he flirted up a female host at Harrahs, the casino hotel where he was staying. Whether or not she voluntarlily flirted with him is unknowable – as a rich, high profile celebrity, he knew that it was her job to flirt with him, and so did she. That’s rape culture. When men make choices about what women do with their sexuality, that strengthens the idea that men can control women’s bodies.

The following night, he called her to say his TV wasn’t working – would she come take a look? She couldn’t find a tech person to do it, so she went herself, knowing that she had to do everything possible to keep her celeb guest happy. Once up there, she discovered a perfectly functioning TV. And then, allegedly, Roethlisberger blocked her exit and raped her. That’s rape.

When she reported the attack to Harrah’s security chief Guy Hyder, he declined to investiage and allegedly told her that she was “overreacting” and that “most girls would feel lucky to get to have sex with someone like Ben Roethlisberger.” He also told her to either keep it from their boss at Harrah’s, or to tell their boss they’d had sex voluntarily, in order to keep everybody happy. That’s rape culture. When people in power refuse to take women’s rape charges seriously, it means there are no consequences for rapists, which makes them more free to rape.

Later, while she was hospitalized for depression as a result of the assault, Hyder convinced her parents to give him the key to her house. He and other Harrah’s employees used it, allegedly, to enter her home without permission and erase information from her computer. That’s rape culture. When authorities use their power to deliberately silence rape victims instead of helping them find justice, it not only leaves rapists free but intimidates other victims from coming forward.

And now, as these details emerge, ESPN has instructed its entire team of reporters to not report any of this information. [Update: ESPN may be easing its ban, but it's still unclear how much and what will be reported.] Yes, the same network whose sideline reporter is currently being exploited all over the ‘net in a peeping tom video. You’d think that would make them more sympathetic to the sexual exploitation of women just trying to do their job, but they’re too focused on protecting access to the star athletes who are their cash cows to even do their basic job as journalists. That’s rape culture. When our media won’t talk about rape, people think it doesn’t happen, and the rapists face no consequences. That emboldens rapists.

Gossip blogger Perez Hilton is already suggesting she may be a lying golddigger. That’s rape culture. As this woman’s case proceeds, her body, her actions, her mental state, motives and her history will be put on public trial in a way that would never happen if she were accusing someone of kidnapping or attempted murder. That’s rape culture. When women are too afraid of being re-victimized by the courts and the media to come forward, and when the public gets the message that women who accuse men of rape are lying or did something to deserve it, the cycle continues.

There is only one rapist alleged here. But there are so, so many participants. That’s rape culture, and it has to stop. In this case, let’s start with holding the media accountable for their role. Contact ESPN here.

[UPDATE #2: Read NBC Sports' spot-on takedown of ESPN's excuses for their "do not report" policy here. h/t Anna Clark]

The Swedish Model and its discontents

This law is decidedly UNfeminist. One can’t watch this video and think the Swedes are progressive. It is so regressive! Imagine substituting “sex work” for “acting”. Or any other job. How dehumanizing and infantilizing. Is the answer really to shut women up? Honestly. Does anyone still believe that?

“We want to save you! And if you dont appreciate it you will be punished!”

Shut the Subaltern up! And if you can’t do that, deride her.

Partially cross-posted at community.feministing.com

I was appalled to read Donna Hughes’s opinion piece in the Providence Journal entitled “R.I.’s Carnival of Prostitution ,” where she resorts to ad hominem attacks on women who speak for themselves about their experiences in the sex industry. She is an endowed chair at the University of Rhode Island’s Women’s Studies Program, and I am forced to wonder what her students are learning. She condescendingly refers to one woman as “tattooed,” and derides another (while constantly mentioning her ethnicity) for referring to her profession as “it.” As one commenter pointed out,

That never ever ever happens with other professions, right? I mean who, when asked if they enjoyed teaching women’s studies for example, would say “oh yes, I love IT.”

It has been a long-standing issue with sex workers that we are silenced by the media and others; spoken for and about but never with . People even caution others to not listen to us, as we are under “false consciousness” about what we choose to do with our bodies. Now we are being derided by the very people who proclaim to wish to “rescue” us.

Sadly, both the RI house and senate have decided that it is a good thing to criminalize sex workers.

Someday, folks will realize that sex workers are people too, and that we have a voice. And they may just one day begin to listen to us.

Proposed Statutory Exemption

Yesterday, I crossposted the Destroy The Town To Save It post at Feministing Community, where the editors graciously front-paged it and discussion ensued. In the course of working through the issues, I scratched out a proposed statutory exemption to the federal child porn statute (18 U.S.C. 2252) that would prevent the travesty of a minor being charged with exploiting herself by possessing or circulating her own image. Harper Tobin at Polymorphous Perversity liked it, and put it up at her place.

Here’s the language:

(d) Notwithstanding the foregoing, no person shall have committed a criminal act within the meaning of this section solely by reason of having possessed, transported, shipped, or received a visual depiction wherein the person himself or herself is the only minor depicted.

This is not a complete solution, as Harper notes in her thread, in part because a similar exemption would have to exist for a whole lot of state statutes. But it would be a big move in the right direction.

It Became Necessary To Destroy The Town To Save It

This morning the New York Times reports that the ACLU has joined some courageous young women in a counterattack against a recent and disturbing moral panic. More than once recently, school and criminal justice authorities have threatened to use child pornography laws against teenagers for the distribution of photographs of their friends and classmates, including even against girls depicted in these pictures. A few have even been charged. Violet Blue had a rundown for the SF Gate. Atrios picked up the ACLU story yesterday, but this trend has been on Harper Tobin’s radar screen at polymorphous perversity for some time now.

(Harper is the source on this topic. While I’m a lawyer with good familiarity with these issues, I won’t engage on the legal analysis because I simply can’t improve on what Harper has done.)