The Vancouver Rape Relief website is gone.
Vancouver Rape Relief is a
supposed Rape Cris & Counseling service, but they have a LONG and
documented history of abusive treatment towards ANY woman who doesn't
fit what they define as a proper woman.
When I was going to WAVAW for counseling they had THREE FULL BINDERS of NOTHING but womens' complaints about being treated like shit at VRR.
- Punk rock girls who were slut-shamed
- Fat women accused of attention seeking
- Party girls told to dress like ladies
- Trans women outright told to get the fuck out.
- Ftms and butch lesbians told to come back when they learn how to be women.
I once called VRR for crisis counseling, before I knew their rep. The
woman I was talking to openly laughed at me, told me to clear the line
for "real" victims, and hung up on me.
I would normally never
gloat at the failing of a rape shelter crisis agency, but they have
NEVER been that. They were a professional RadFem breeding ground and
brainwashing centre.
If this means they've finally been shut down? HAPPY PENNY.
4/16/2013
4/12/2013
3/23/2013
A Musing On Combatting Rape Culture
I've... been debating posting this.
Since the Stuebenville Rapists were convicted 6 days ago, the internet has utterly exploded with outbursts of rape culture and apologism. Everywhere I bloody look, some idiot is whining how sad it is that those nice young men who RAPED AN UNCONSCIOUS GIRL are going to go to jail and how tragic it is that their football dreams have been dashed because of that drunk bitch, yadda yadda.
I've seen friends reduced to screaming rage fits by this stupidity. I've seen ugly things said in the name of victim-blaming by WOMEN, who should bloody KNOW better. I've seen countless articles trying to explain how this is an example of rape culture, and why it's wrong. And I've largely avoided wading into it myself because honestly, 22 years since MY rapes and rape culture has not only NOT been effectively stopped, it's gotten worse, and I can't cope with THAT much blatant stupidity.
Rape is rape and it should be up to the potential rapists to not rape, not the victims to stop someone FROM raping them. Period.
Yesterday I saw a link shared by a friend about a schoolteacher who accidentally ended up in a discussion about what rape IS with her class of 15 year old students, and realizing how many misconceptions they had about what counts as rape or what counts as consent. And how she taught her students how to not rape.
So I've been debating sharing a personal story. One I never have shared publicly before, only with a few trusted friends.
Let me make something perfectly clear. I do NOT believe I'm a strong or brave person just because I've survived some terrible things. I'm EXTREMELY uncomfortable with the praise and borderline hero worship I get solely because I was too stubborn to die. I speak openly about my juvey rapes and other traumas I've endured ONLY in the hope other survivors might take comfort in knowing they aren't alone. I don't like praise and I ask that anyone reading this please respect that and not make me uncomfortable as such.
When I was 22, and still not the bloated whale I am now, and had been living out as a woman all of 6 months, I was accosted in the laundry room of my then apartment building. A young man who I later learned was 17 at the time, started chatting me up, trying to put the moves on me. I tried to be as polite but firm as I could, telling him very clearly I was NOT interested in any way.
This answer wasn't good enough for him, and he started trying to kiss me and squeeze my breasts. I pushed him away forcefully and repeatedly my distinct lack of consent. It was an instinct move, not particularly thought through, and after doing so it only then occurred to me he might react violently to being rebuffed, and so I braced myself for an attack.
But he just looked at me in confusion, and asked me why I did that. I told him because I had clearly said NO.
Still confused he said "But girls only say no so they won't seem like sluts. My big bro said so."
I irritatedly replied telling him no, women say NO because they MEAN no, and his brother was a sexist prick. Then I told him to leave or I'd scream.
STILL looking terribly confused, he pleaded that we were having a nice conversation and I was so pretty and I'm supposed to want him to sweep me off my feet and ravish me like in the movies. You know, all romantic and shit.
I replied that rape is NOT romantic and movies lie.
When he heard rape he started to cry. "You thought I was trying to rape you?" he said, visibly hurt by the very thought. And that was when I truly fully realized what rape culture really means. That this 17 year old kid had gotten so confused and twisted up by the messages of Rape Culture in society that the thought he might be hurting me or committing rape had never once occurred to him, and he was horrified by the idea that this was how I saw his actions.
I don't know why I did what I did next. I really don't. I've wondered for years what the hell possessed me.
I held him until he stopped crying, and I took him to Starbucks to explain to him how consent works in the real world and why what he almost dd was wrong.
I learned his older sister had been raped when he was little but he never really understood what that meant, only that it screwed her up a lot. That he was kind of afraid of his older brother and was always trying to earn his approval. That he honestly believed the combination of his brother's macho BS and the way love and sex are portrayed in movies and believed that what he did was the way a man is supposed to seduce a woman. He apologized profusely and cried again, rather a lot, when I carefully and calmly explained to him what I'd endured in Juvey (without letting him in on my being trans/IS, I'm not THAT stupid), and how it affected me, and that his sister likely felt the same.
I explained to him that in the real world, a woman only means yes if she clearly SAYS yes, that anything else should be assumed to be NO unless explicitly stated. I explained why his brother's approval wasn't something worth striving for.
We talked there for two hours, and he was grateful for my educating him. The thought of his sister hating him had he gone through with it bothered him a LOT more than failing to meet his brother's standards.
That boy entered the police academy the next year, is currently with an RCMP sex crimes unit, and is married with three children. He named his daughter after me. He still calls me every year on the anniversary of that day to thank me for setting him straight.
So.... rape culture CAN be fought. It CAN be counteracted, even when it feels like nothing will ever change.
Sometimes all it takes is to just educate people while they're still young enough to get it.
So have a little faith. They CAN be taught.
(Note to James my Obsessed Whacko Stalker; Yes, it DID happen, NOTHING I say is bullshit, unlike you, and I will keep deleting everything you post to this blog and laugh at your sad impotent Gradschool crush on me. Toodlepip)
Since the Stuebenville Rapists were convicted 6 days ago, the internet has utterly exploded with outbursts of rape culture and apologism. Everywhere I bloody look, some idiot is whining how sad it is that those nice young men who RAPED AN UNCONSCIOUS GIRL are going to go to jail and how tragic it is that their football dreams have been dashed because of that drunk bitch, yadda yadda.
I've seen friends reduced to screaming rage fits by this stupidity. I've seen ugly things said in the name of victim-blaming by WOMEN, who should bloody KNOW better. I've seen countless articles trying to explain how this is an example of rape culture, and why it's wrong. And I've largely avoided wading into it myself because honestly, 22 years since MY rapes and rape culture has not only NOT been effectively stopped, it's gotten worse, and I can't cope with THAT much blatant stupidity.
Rape is rape and it should be up to the potential rapists to not rape, not the victims to stop someone FROM raping them. Period.
Yesterday I saw a link shared by a friend about a schoolteacher who accidentally ended up in a discussion about what rape IS with her class of 15 year old students, and realizing how many misconceptions they had about what counts as rape or what counts as consent. And how she taught her students how to not rape.
So I've been debating sharing a personal story. One I never have shared publicly before, only with a few trusted friends.
Let me make something perfectly clear. I do NOT believe I'm a strong or brave person just because I've survived some terrible things. I'm EXTREMELY uncomfortable with the praise and borderline hero worship I get solely because I was too stubborn to die. I speak openly about my juvey rapes and other traumas I've endured ONLY in the hope other survivors might take comfort in knowing they aren't alone. I don't like praise and I ask that anyone reading this please respect that and not make me uncomfortable as such.
When I was 22, and still not the bloated whale I am now, and had been living out as a woman all of 6 months, I was accosted in the laundry room of my then apartment building. A young man who I later learned was 17 at the time, started chatting me up, trying to put the moves on me. I tried to be as polite but firm as I could, telling him very clearly I was NOT interested in any way.
This answer wasn't good enough for him, and he started trying to kiss me and squeeze my breasts. I pushed him away forcefully and repeatedly my distinct lack of consent. It was an instinct move, not particularly thought through, and after doing so it only then occurred to me he might react violently to being rebuffed, and so I braced myself for an attack.
But he just looked at me in confusion, and asked me why I did that. I told him because I had clearly said NO.
Still confused he said "But girls only say no so they won't seem like sluts. My big bro said so."
I irritatedly replied telling him no, women say NO because they MEAN no, and his brother was a sexist prick. Then I told him to leave or I'd scream.
STILL looking terribly confused, he pleaded that we were having a nice conversation and I was so pretty and I'm supposed to want him to sweep me off my feet and ravish me like in the movies. You know, all romantic and shit.
I replied that rape is NOT romantic and movies lie.
When he heard rape he started to cry. "You thought I was trying to rape you?" he said, visibly hurt by the very thought. And that was when I truly fully realized what rape culture really means. That this 17 year old kid had gotten so confused and twisted up by the messages of Rape Culture in society that the thought he might be hurting me or committing rape had never once occurred to him, and he was horrified by the idea that this was how I saw his actions.
I don't know why I did what I did next. I really don't. I've wondered for years what the hell possessed me.
I held him until he stopped crying, and I took him to Starbucks to explain to him how consent works in the real world and why what he almost dd was wrong.
I learned his older sister had been raped when he was little but he never really understood what that meant, only that it screwed her up a lot. That he was kind of afraid of his older brother and was always trying to earn his approval. That he honestly believed the combination of his brother's macho BS and the way love and sex are portrayed in movies and believed that what he did was the way a man is supposed to seduce a woman. He apologized profusely and cried again, rather a lot, when I carefully and calmly explained to him what I'd endured in Juvey (without letting him in on my being trans/IS, I'm not THAT stupid), and how it affected me, and that his sister likely felt the same.
I explained to him that in the real world, a woman only means yes if she clearly SAYS yes, that anything else should be assumed to be NO unless explicitly stated. I explained why his brother's approval wasn't something worth striving for.
We talked there for two hours, and he was grateful for my educating him. The thought of his sister hating him had he gone through with it bothered him a LOT more than failing to meet his brother's standards.
That boy entered the police academy the next year, is currently with an RCMP sex crimes unit, and is married with three children. He named his daughter after me. He still calls me every year on the anniversary of that day to thank me for setting him straight.
So.... rape culture CAN be fought. It CAN be counteracted, even when it feels like nothing will ever change.
Sometimes all it takes is to just educate people while they're still young enough to get it.
So have a little faith. They CAN be taught.
(Note to James my Obsessed Whacko Stalker; Yes, it DID happen, NOTHING I say is bullshit, unlike you, and I will keep deleting everything you post to this blog and laugh at your sad impotent Gradschool crush on me. Toodlepip)
1/11/2013
A Note On The Sidebar III
Maury Povitch is a piece of shit. His show is a piece of shit. This is no secret. Anyone who knows me well knows I think this.
So imagine my surprise when Alvin McEwan, author of the blog Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters, cheerfully shared a link on Facebook to a trashy buzzfeed list of "The 45 greatest Maury Show" moments which declares it the best daytime talk show ever.
Maury, which offers free DNA testing to dirt poor black women in order to coax them into enduring public slut-shaming and humiliation to receive answers they otherwise could never afford.
Maury, which collects actual trans women, puts them onstage with a few token cis women and a few drag queens and crossdressers, and humiliates THEM by having the audience guess if they're really a man or a woman, often misgendering and ALWAYS abusive in their chanting.
Maury, a show that NO self-respecting LGBT person should watch or enjoy because it's dehumanizing transphobic trash. And while we're at it has never been super nice to gays or lesbians either.
There's a reason there are so very few gay men I can stand to interact with. Most I've met are self-absorbed misogynist assholes. One guy commented on Alvin's link that he laughs everytime Maury confirms a guy is NOT the father of a woman's baby and she runs offstage crying.
Get that folks?
This guy LAUGHS watching a hurting mother who just wants answers crying. Then thought I was kidding when I told him what a terrible person that makes him.
But then Alvin chimed in. And proved himself no different from the majority. He commented that "Any woman who hasn't found the father after 3 tries should stop embarassing herself".
And he thinks that's NOT slut-shaming.
Let's dissect here kids.
As I already pointed out, the Maury shows pays for DNA paternity tests. Why is this important? Because Maury almost UNIVERSALLY picks young poor black women from impoverished neighborhoods for his show.
The average price for a legal paternity test is $450 to $500, but there is a wide range in pricing. However, a properly conducted and accurate paternity test should not cost more than $550. The more rigorously controlled laboratories are likely to have higher internal costs that may subsequently be passed along to their clients. Naturally, it costs more to run a highly controlled, consistent testing laboratory than it does to perform inferior tests with poor processes and/or obsolete equipment.
How many dirt-poor inner city black single mothers do YOU think can afford that crap while trying to feed their babies?
So I repeat; these poor women, whose only crime is being poor and having *GASP!!!!* a sex life, agree to endure the humiliation so they can get answers they could otherwise NEVER FUCKING AFFORD!
And Alvin, not only a gay man but a black man, acts like any woman having had sex with three or more guys to require paternity tests for should give up their search for answers and "stop embarassing themselves".
And he doesn't think he's slut-shaming.
And that's why he's no longer on my Facebook. Or on this blog's Side Bar.
Rule 1; Slut-shaming? PENNY DON'T PLAY THAT!
So imagine my surprise when Alvin McEwan, author of the blog Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters, cheerfully shared a link on Facebook to a trashy buzzfeed list of "The 45 greatest Maury Show" moments which declares it the best daytime talk show ever.
Maury, which offers free DNA testing to dirt poor black women in order to coax them into enduring public slut-shaming and humiliation to receive answers they otherwise could never afford.
Maury, which collects actual trans women, puts them onstage with a few token cis women and a few drag queens and crossdressers, and humiliates THEM by having the audience guess if they're really a man or a woman, often misgendering and ALWAYS abusive in their chanting.
Maury, a show that NO self-respecting LGBT person should watch or enjoy because it's dehumanizing transphobic trash. And while we're at it has never been super nice to gays or lesbians either.
There's a reason there are so very few gay men I can stand to interact with. Most I've met are self-absorbed misogynist assholes. One guy commented on Alvin's link that he laughs everytime Maury confirms a guy is NOT the father of a woman's baby and she runs offstage crying.
Get that folks?
This guy LAUGHS watching a hurting mother who just wants answers crying. Then thought I was kidding when I told him what a terrible person that makes him.
But then Alvin chimed in. And proved himself no different from the majority. He commented that "Any woman who hasn't found the father after 3 tries should stop embarassing herself".
And he thinks that's NOT slut-shaming.
Let's dissect here kids.
As I already pointed out, the Maury shows pays for DNA paternity tests. Why is this important? Because Maury almost UNIVERSALLY picks young poor black women from impoverished neighborhoods for his show.
The average price for a legal paternity test is $450 to $500, but there is a wide range in pricing. However, a properly conducted and accurate paternity test should not cost more than $550. The more rigorously controlled laboratories are likely to have higher internal costs that may subsequently be passed along to their clients. Naturally, it costs more to run a highly controlled, consistent testing laboratory than it does to perform inferior tests with poor processes and/or obsolete equipment.
How many dirt-poor inner city black single mothers do YOU think can afford that crap while trying to feed their babies?
So I repeat; these poor women, whose only crime is being poor and having *GASP!!!!* a sex life, agree to endure the humiliation so they can get answers they could otherwise NEVER FUCKING AFFORD!
And Alvin, not only a gay man but a black man, acts like any woman having had sex with three or more guys to require paternity tests for should give up their search for answers and "stop embarassing themselves".
And he doesn't think he's slut-shaming.
And that's why he's no longer on my Facebook. Or on this blog's Side Bar.
Rule 1; Slut-shaming? PENNY DON'T PLAY THAT!
11/01/2012
A Hospital in Name Only
I would rather DIE than EVER go to Surrey Memorial Hospital here in Surrey BC Canada EVER again. That hospital is staffed mostly by self-absorbed bigoted incompetant assholes who don't care about their patients unless you're rich and/or cis & white.
I had to go to emergency last night because of ridiculously excruciating pain last night and it was a very bitter experience. Though given my history with SMH AND their already horrid reputation for racism and transphobia, I'm not at all surprised.
First, NO ONE would respect my wish to be called Penny. Staff would bellow my legal name in the waiting room extra loudly then make sad excuses why they somehow didn't see the big note that said "Refer to as Penny". Nurses gave me dirty looks all night. Of ALL the staff there last night, only 2 nurses and 1 volunteer were ANY help to me, or did their damn jobs.
The first doctor I saw tapped my arm twice and dismissed me as perfectly okay without doing ANY tests other than an X-Ray. He dismissed it as a pinched nerve in my NECK somehow, cutting me off, talking over me and ignoring everything I said to him about what hurt, where and why. Then despite knowing that I had already taken FOUR morphines yesterday because of the crippling pain, that those 4 morphines had ZERO effect on the wrist pain, which in fact was getting worse, and being clearly told I did NOT want ANY painkillers, just to have my wrist treated, he discharged me without telling me while calling me by male pronouns to his staff, probably assuming I couldn't hear him.
I stood my ground asking to be readmitted and see a different doctor while EVERYONE adamantly refused to give me the first Doctor's name so I could file a complaint. Apparently they fuck up so often at SMH now that it's officially policy to not give patients ANY names. No doctor introduced themselves by name, no nurses had nametags, and for two hours I was given the runaround until someone finally informed me of the No Names policy. One nurse got uppity with me for accusing them of giving me a runaround until I pointed out he himself had pretended he was trying to find me the first Doctor's name and stalling me hoping I'd drop it.
The second doctor tried the same crap as the first until I looked him in the eye and demanded to be actually listened to. He refused to drain my ganglion cyst, blatantly lying to my face claiming they don't drain cysts there, which I know for a FACT is bullshit because I have HAD cysts drained in their emergency department before.
He ordered bloodwork and an Anti-Inflammatory. Then while waiting for my bloodwork, I noticed a leather laptop case that an earlier patient had his Tablet in and forgotten, checked to find his tablet still in it, and turned it in to the Nurses telling them exactly which patient had forgotten it. I was VERY clear in telling them who it belonged to, describing the now discharged patient and explaining how I knew the case and tablet PC were his.
They just left it on their counter. 2 hours later a rich white man in a suit who'd been sitting there just walked right up and grabbed it over my shoulder when their backs were turned, and hid it under his coat. Sat there smugly in his tuxedo, and gave me a look practically daring me to say something.
So I reported him. To 3 nurses, a security guard an a doctor. NOT A FUCKING ONE OF THEM would go confront the guy. NONE of them were willing to do the right thing. I'm guessing the rich white guy was a hospital donor or something.
"Oh well WE didn't see it so we're not going to worry about it."
Even though I DID see it. Even though they admitted the tablet was no longer on the counter yet no one had spoken to them to claim it. Even though I was RIGHT there TELLING them what happened. Their attitude was hey it wasn't MY tablet so I should just shut up.
When I pushed them to do the right thing I was ejected from the hospital.
This is not the first abuse I've suffered at the hands of SMH. A few years back one of their male nurses threatened to beat me up in the parking lot for using the women's bathroom to get my pee test. IN FRONT of the other staff. The doctor I complained to then dismissed it as "Boys will be boys", including ME in that sentiment.
The staff of SMH are the reason Fran is going back to the US. Someone there ratted her out to immigration.
And they have a history of hurting people who aren't cis and white, including an elderly Sikh man some years ago who was told he just had a bad cold without any examination and sent home, only to be dead two days later of a burst appendix, something they could have caught had they cared to do their fucking jobs.
And somehow they always get off scot-free. They NEVER suffer any real consequence for this bullshit, and they keep on doing it.
Unless you're cis, white and rich, NEVER go to Surrey Memorial Hospital. They WILL NOT treat you properly and they WILL NOT give a fuck about you. They do not CARE about doing what's right, only about protecting their own asses.
Surrey Memorial hospital is the worst hospital in the Lower Mainland. If ever a hospital deserved to be shut down, it's this one.
I had to go to emergency last night because of ridiculously excruciating pain last night and it was a very bitter experience. Though given my history with SMH AND their already horrid reputation for racism and transphobia, I'm not at all surprised.
First, NO ONE would respect my wish to be called Penny. Staff would bellow my legal name in the waiting room extra loudly then make sad excuses why they somehow didn't see the big note that said "Refer to as Penny". Nurses gave me dirty looks all night. Of ALL the staff there last night, only 2 nurses and 1 volunteer were ANY help to me, or did their damn jobs.
The first doctor I saw tapped my arm twice and dismissed me as perfectly okay without doing ANY tests other than an X-Ray. He dismissed it as a pinched nerve in my NECK somehow, cutting me off, talking over me and ignoring everything I said to him about what hurt, where and why. Then despite knowing that I had already taken FOUR morphines yesterday because of the crippling pain, that those 4 morphines had ZERO effect on the wrist pain, which in fact was getting worse, and being clearly told I did NOT want ANY painkillers, just to have my wrist treated, he discharged me without telling me while calling me by male pronouns to his staff, probably assuming I couldn't hear him.
I stood my ground asking to be readmitted and see a different doctor while EVERYONE adamantly refused to give me the first Doctor's name so I could file a complaint. Apparently they fuck up so often at SMH now that it's officially policy to not give patients ANY names. No doctor introduced themselves by name, no nurses had nametags, and for two hours I was given the runaround until someone finally informed me of the No Names policy. One nurse got uppity with me for accusing them of giving me a runaround until I pointed out he himself had pretended he was trying to find me the first Doctor's name and stalling me hoping I'd drop it.
The second doctor tried the same crap as the first until I looked him in the eye and demanded to be actually listened to. He refused to drain my ganglion cyst, blatantly lying to my face claiming they don't drain cysts there, which I know for a FACT is bullshit because I have HAD cysts drained in their emergency department before.
He ordered bloodwork and an Anti-Inflammatory. Then while waiting for my bloodwork, I noticed a leather laptop case that an earlier patient had his Tablet in and forgotten, checked to find his tablet still in it, and turned it in to the Nurses telling them exactly which patient had forgotten it. I was VERY clear in telling them who it belonged to, describing the now discharged patient and explaining how I knew the case and tablet PC were his.
They just left it on their counter. 2 hours later a rich white man in a suit who'd been sitting there just walked right up and grabbed it over my shoulder when their backs were turned, and hid it under his coat. Sat there smugly in his tuxedo, and gave me a look practically daring me to say something.
So I reported him. To 3 nurses, a security guard an a doctor. NOT A FUCKING ONE OF THEM would go confront the guy. NONE of them were willing to do the right thing. I'm guessing the rich white guy was a hospital donor or something.
"Oh well WE didn't see it so we're not going to worry about it."
Even though I DID see it. Even though they admitted the tablet was no longer on the counter yet no one had spoken to them to claim it. Even though I was RIGHT there TELLING them what happened. Their attitude was hey it wasn't MY tablet so I should just shut up.
When I pushed them to do the right thing I was ejected from the hospital.
This is not the first abuse I've suffered at the hands of SMH. A few years back one of their male nurses threatened to beat me up in the parking lot for using the women's bathroom to get my pee test. IN FRONT of the other staff. The doctor I complained to then dismissed it as "Boys will be boys", including ME in that sentiment.
The staff of SMH are the reason Fran is going back to the US. Someone there ratted her out to immigration.
And they have a history of hurting people who aren't cis and white, including an elderly Sikh man some years ago who was told he just had a bad cold without any examination and sent home, only to be dead two days later of a burst appendix, something they could have caught had they cared to do their fucking jobs.
And somehow they always get off scot-free. They NEVER suffer any real consequence for this bullshit, and they keep on doing it.
Unless you're cis, white and rich, NEVER go to Surrey Memorial Hospital. They WILL NOT treat you properly and they WILL NOT give a fuck about you. They do not CARE about doing what's right, only about protecting their own asses.
Surrey Memorial hospital is the worst hospital in the Lower Mainland. If ever a hospital deserved to be shut down, it's this one.
9/29/2012
A Musing About Buffy The Rape Culture Slayer
TW; Rape, rape culture
Fran and I have been watching a marathon of the full series of Buffy The Vampire Slayer on Netflix. And we all know it's an excellent, well-written series often dismissed as schlocky sci-fi fantasy that is far better than it has any right to be. Hell, the season 5 episode "The Body" alone was some of the single best (and most heart-wrenching) TV ever. Incredible acting all around, emotional weight, gravitas that eclipsed some Shakespeare stories.
But after watching the entire series something very interesting has occurred to me. It's not a new theory that Buffy may be an allegory for rape. A lot of folks have posed that idea. But I think it's a lot more complex than that. I've come to the conclusion that it's an allegory for rape, rape culture, rape privilege, and how to fight back, stand up, be strong, and accept responsibility for rape culture being perpetuated. And it was a subtle allegory, and I never realized it until near the very end, and then I looked back over the series and it smacked me right in the face as if to say "Hello? I've been standing right here the whole time?"
It occurred to me when it reached near the end of Season 6. Spike, a vampire for those unfamiliar with the series, has spent a season and a half in a mutually
abusive sexual relationship with the show's titular lead. Near the end of the 6th season, he becomes so miserable, so lost in feeling hurt that Buffy just uses him for angry sex, that he feels entitled to just do the same thing and tries to rape her, and she fights him off, and he leaves the country and no one tells Dawn (Buffy's younger sister, sort of, who idolizes Spike), because they don't want her to think less of her friend Spike.
And that all makes a sad sort of sense, because that's how rape culture works right? Rapists feel entitled to rape and people want to protect the rapist from the repercussions. We see examples in real life all the time. Such as a case in a rural Texas town where a dozen men ages 15 to 28 gang-raped an 11 year old girl, and the general reaction among the town was A) The child was "asking for it" by dressing past her age and acting older than she was, and B) to fret about how the charges could ruin the lives of the men who raped a child.
Infuriating, sickening, sad fact of life. And of course TV shows frequently reinforce this stereotype. So I expected Buffy to do like most TV does in that regard.
So after the almost rape, Spike goes off to Africa, (while everyone else goes on about their lives like nothing happened), to undergo a horribly painful ritual to regain his soul so Buffy will love him, and goes insane from the guilt he can now feel over everyone he's ever hurt. At this point it seems like it's going to end up being the cliche romantic happy ending ala Luke And Laura where Hey! He feels really really extra bad about almost raping her so now everything's awesome again and she'll fall madly in love with him because OMG U GUYZ he's SOOO sensitive now! And they live happily ever after!
Except that wasn't what Joss Whedon was ACTUALLY doing. Whedon is the guy who created Buffy, and he had other plans here.
So season 7 begins and during the course of the episode, Buffy finds a disheveled Spike living in a high school boiler room, eating rats, self-harming and rambling incoherently. She leaves him alone.
In season 7 episode 2, Spike has cleaned himself up and tries to help Buffy and friends deal with the Monster Of The Week. After a lot of conflict, near the end of the episode, Spike starts acting loopy and erratic again and runs away, into a church. Wanting answers for his confusing behavior, Buffy chases him and finds him wandering around in the darkness inside. He's rambling and confused, and he misunderstands her thinking she wants to just use him for sex again, she pushes him away, he mumbles something about "No, right, she doesn't want that, she shouldn't be made to right right" and he starts wandering around again, rambling about his guilt. He talks as if there are other people in the room, ghosts of his past victims, and seeing death all around him. He talks about overwhelming guilt driving him insane.
It's at this point that Buffy remembers Angel, (another vampire with a soul who got a spin-off series and had left Buffy itself at the end of the fourth season), describing to her how he had spent a lot of time immediately following his soul being restored feeling overwhelmingly consumed with guilt, remembering all the people he'd hurt or killed. With a look at shock and almost revulsion at the thought, Buffy realizes what Spike has done and asks him incredulously, almost horrified, why he would do that, subject himself to that kind of torment. Why do that to himself?
Because of how TV reinforces Rape Culture, plus how Whedon's played this story arc so far, you'd be justified in assuming as I did that Spike is going to say something like "So you could love me" right? That's usually how these things work out on TV. On the soap opera General Hospital, the couple of Luke & Laura, (whom I previously alluded to) are still to this dy hailed as being among the greatest TV romances of all time. Except no one ever wants to remember that their story arc on that soap began with Luke RAPING her. Rape Cultures teaches people that rape is just a really passionate forceful expression of true love in these situations. It's ridiculously common in fiction for rape victims to fall in love with their rapists.
But Spike didn't say that. Whedon had other ideas. Whedon knows about Rape Culture, and he goes out of his way to write strong, 3-dimensional female characters who never just allow themselves to give up and be victimized.
So then what DID Spike say to make me realize what Whedon was really doing?
He said "To be the kind of man who would never.... to be a kind of man..."
An unfinished sentence yes, but you it was telling in what he WASN'T saying out loud. The point where he paused. "To be the kind of man who would never...." tells you, yes, he loves Buffy, he wants her to love him. But he didn't endure all that pain just so she would forget what he'd done and magically love him.
He did it to punish himself for assuming he was entitled to her body, for hurting her, and to forge himself into someone who could never again do THAT to a woman. To be a man who DESERVED her love rather than just take it, to be a man who could EARN her love rather than just believe she owed it to him. And to be a man who was better than the behavior that Rape Culture teaches men is okay.
And that was the moment it hit me, and I started going back over the whole series in my mind. Analyzing story arcs, themes, character evolutions, and realized that, yes, the underlying theme of Buffy is about rape, but not, as many believe, a straight up "Staking the vampires who maul her physically is a visual rape allegory" way. It's more subtle than that. Whedon's characters exist and survive in a world with creatures that want to hurt them in ways that would make them feel weak and powerless, just like a rapist wants to have power over his victim. But they survive by refusing to ever BE the victim, by standing up to the monsters and saying "No, this is NOT okay, you have no right to do this to me if I don't want you to and I WILL defend myself". And while dressed in anything ranging from "Borderline Hooker" to "Nun-In-Training", from various walks of life.
Buffy teaches it's audience that it's okay for a woman to decide for herself who my or may not touch her, no matter how she's dressed or how she acts or where she comes from.
I wish more TV would follow that example.
Fran and I have been watching a marathon of the full series of Buffy The Vampire Slayer on Netflix. And we all know it's an excellent, well-written series often dismissed as schlocky sci-fi fantasy that is far better than it has any right to be. Hell, the season 5 episode "The Body" alone was some of the single best (and most heart-wrenching) TV ever. Incredible acting all around, emotional weight, gravitas that eclipsed some Shakespeare stories.
But after watching the entire series something very interesting has occurred to me. It's not a new theory that Buffy may be an allegory for rape. A lot of folks have posed that idea. But I think it's a lot more complex than that. I've come to the conclusion that it's an allegory for rape, rape culture, rape privilege, and how to fight back, stand up, be strong, and accept responsibility for rape culture being perpetuated. And it was a subtle allegory, and I never realized it until near the very end, and then I looked back over the series and it smacked me right in the face as if to say "Hello? I've been standing right here the whole time?"
It occurred to me when it reached near the end of Season 6. Spike, a vampire for those unfamiliar with the series, has spent a season and a half in a mutually
abusive sexual relationship with the show's titular lead. Near the end of the 6th season, he becomes so miserable, so lost in feeling hurt that Buffy just uses him for angry sex, that he feels entitled to just do the same thing and tries to rape her, and she fights him off, and he leaves the country and no one tells Dawn (Buffy's younger sister, sort of, who idolizes Spike), because they don't want her to think less of her friend Spike.
And that all makes a sad sort of sense, because that's how rape culture works right? Rapists feel entitled to rape and people want to protect the rapist from the repercussions. We see examples in real life all the time. Such as a case in a rural Texas town where a dozen men ages 15 to 28 gang-raped an 11 year old girl, and the general reaction among the town was A) The child was "asking for it" by dressing past her age and acting older than she was, and B) to fret about how the charges could ruin the lives of the men who raped a child.
Infuriating, sickening, sad fact of life. And of course TV shows frequently reinforce this stereotype. So I expected Buffy to do like most TV does in that regard.
So after the almost rape, Spike goes off to Africa, (while everyone else goes on about their lives like nothing happened), to undergo a horribly painful ritual to regain his soul so Buffy will love him, and goes insane from the guilt he can now feel over everyone he's ever hurt. At this point it seems like it's going to end up being the cliche romantic happy ending ala Luke And Laura where Hey! He feels really really extra bad about almost raping her so now everything's awesome again and she'll fall madly in love with him because OMG U GUYZ he's SOOO sensitive now! And they live happily ever after!
Except that wasn't what Joss Whedon was ACTUALLY doing. Whedon is the guy who created Buffy, and he had other plans here.
So season 7 begins and during the course of the episode, Buffy finds a disheveled Spike living in a high school boiler room, eating rats, self-harming and rambling incoherently. She leaves him alone.
In season 7 episode 2, Spike has cleaned himself up and tries to help Buffy and friends deal with the Monster Of The Week. After a lot of conflict, near the end of the episode, Spike starts acting loopy and erratic again and runs away, into a church. Wanting answers for his confusing behavior, Buffy chases him and finds him wandering around in the darkness inside. He's rambling and confused, and he misunderstands her thinking she wants to just use him for sex again, she pushes him away, he mumbles something about "No, right, she doesn't want that, she shouldn't be made to right right" and he starts wandering around again, rambling about his guilt. He talks as if there are other people in the room, ghosts of his past victims, and seeing death all around him. He talks about overwhelming guilt driving him insane.
It's at this point that Buffy remembers Angel, (another vampire with a soul who got a spin-off series and had left Buffy itself at the end of the fourth season), describing to her how he had spent a lot of time immediately following his soul being restored feeling overwhelmingly consumed with guilt, remembering all the people he'd hurt or killed. With a look at shock and almost revulsion at the thought, Buffy realizes what Spike has done and asks him incredulously, almost horrified, why he would do that, subject himself to that kind of torment. Why do that to himself?
Because of how TV reinforces Rape Culture, plus how Whedon's played this story arc so far, you'd be justified in assuming as I did that Spike is going to say something like "So you could love me" right? That's usually how these things work out on TV. On the soap opera General Hospital, the couple of Luke & Laura, (whom I previously alluded to) are still to this dy hailed as being among the greatest TV romances of all time. Except no one ever wants to remember that their story arc on that soap began with Luke RAPING her. Rape Cultures teaches people that rape is just a really passionate forceful expression of true love in these situations. It's ridiculously common in fiction for rape victims to fall in love with their rapists.
But Spike didn't say that. Whedon had other ideas. Whedon knows about Rape Culture, and he goes out of his way to write strong, 3-dimensional female characters who never just allow themselves to give up and be victimized.
So then what DID Spike say to make me realize what Whedon was really doing?
He said "To be the kind of man who would never.... to be a kind of man..."
An unfinished sentence yes, but you it was telling in what he WASN'T saying out loud. The point where he paused. "To be the kind of man who would never...." tells you, yes, he loves Buffy, he wants her to love him. But he didn't endure all that pain just so she would forget what he'd done and magically love him.
He did it to punish himself for assuming he was entitled to her body, for hurting her, and to forge himself into someone who could never again do THAT to a woman. To be a man who DESERVED her love rather than just take it, to be a man who could EARN her love rather than just believe she owed it to him. And to be a man who was better than the behavior that Rape Culture teaches men is okay.
And that was the moment it hit me, and I started going back over the whole series in my mind. Analyzing story arcs, themes, character evolutions, and realized that, yes, the underlying theme of Buffy is about rape, but not, as many believe, a straight up "Staking the vampires who maul her physically is a visual rape allegory" way. It's more subtle than that. Whedon's characters exist and survive in a world with creatures that want to hurt them in ways that would make them feel weak and powerless, just like a rapist wants to have power over his victim. But they survive by refusing to ever BE the victim, by standing up to the monsters and saying "No, this is NOT okay, you have no right to do this to me if I don't want you to and I WILL defend myself". And while dressed in anything ranging from "Borderline Hooker" to "Nun-In-Training", from various walks of life.
Buffy teaches it's audience that it's okay for a woman to decide for herself who my or may not touch her, no matter how she's dressed or how she acts or where she comes from.
I wish more TV would follow that example.
9/07/2012
Drinking the Kool-Aid
I have.... I HAD a friend. Like a sister to me. A trans woman, who I loved like family.
Yesterday she told me to go fuck myself, and deleted and blocked me on Facebook. Why? Because we got into an argument about politics.
The Libertarian Party in the USA is Tea Party politics. Its adherents can whitewash or deny the nature of their party all they like, but this remains a documented fact. Ron Paul and his party are the same as the Republicans. His policies and platform are anti-woman, anti-choice, anti-gay, anti-trans, anti-equality, anti-union, anti-healthcare. He is virulently and publicly homophobic, and has proven irrefutable ties to White Supremist groups.
He is NOT a nice man.
My now ex-friend is a Libertarian. For the past few months as the US Presidential election heated up, she would frequently post a great deal of utter bullshit on her wall. Dishonest pictures showing false stats that were clearly anti-Obama for the sake of hating Obama, given how devoid of fact they were.
As I generally loathe discussing politics with loved ones, (unless you and they share nigh identical political ideologies, discussions about politics NEVER end well), I generally avoided commenting. At most I would politely correct her "factual errors" and provide a link to evidence proving it.
Yesterday she spent the bulk of the day attacking Obama and the Democratics convention, sharing blatant lies and thinly veiled racism.
She topped her party line hate-fest with a quote from the Goddess of the Tea Party, Ayn Rand;
This was enough to make me finally speak up directly. She's a trans woman, attacking the ONLY party in her country that gives a fuck about our kind, and blindly rabidly supporting a party that has confirmed it would implement anti-gay anti-trans policy into law if elected. Ron Paul signed NOM's bloody Marriage Pledge for fuck's sake! For reasons she herself could never adequately explain, she was pulling a GOProud; supporting politicians who would NEVER support her, defending men who would see her made lesser by law.
The Ayn Rand quote is a GREAT example of clueless irony, since Rand was herself very out of touch with reality. And a horrible author at that. She lived with a conspiracy theorist's sensibility and created a rigid philosophy of narrow contempt. Objectivism is NOT a philosophy that is at peace with the real world, and a government that followed it would do FAR more harm to its people than the Democratic leadership ever has or will. It's also an accidental trolling of the Tea Party, since that group in general is ALSO not deeply entrenched in reality.
So I told her that her support of a party that hates our kind made no sense and seemed self-loathing and destructive.
She immediately went walls up guns out release the hounds mode. She defended Ron Paul in the least sensible way imaginable; She said his homophobia doesn't matter because he's a neutral and wouldn't put his beliefs into policy, even though he completely HAS done so.
So I went A-Googlin'. I easily found several dozen links to new reports, blog entries, and documentation. I pasted her links to irrefutable evidence; The Libertarian Party's Official Platform, direct quotes from Ron Paul openly calling gays a sick filthy people, links to proof of his racist attitudes and his links to White Supremist groups, links to his signing NOM's hateful Marriage Pledge, in which he promises to, if ever elected President, put a nationwide constitutional amendment into law declaring only heterosexual marriage may ever be legal or recognized.
She replied that EVERY fact I showed her was a filthy lie concocted by the LIB'RUL MEDIA!!! (while of course refusing to link me to any documented proof of HER claims), and that because I wasn't a party member like her and thus had no "first hand" knowledge, I could not POSSIBLY know what I was talking about, because all MY info was third-hand media lies from liberal journalists with agendas.
I sighed, gave up trying and said fine, I give up, let's not argue anymore, I'll talk to you later. She replied with a FUCK YOU and blocked me.
So a 3 year friendship goes kaput because she drank the Kool-Aid. How an otherwise intelligent and proud trans woman could ever support a party who hates us while dishonestly attacking the one that would actually help make our lives better in her country is well beyond my ability to comprehend. Just like how I can't fathom how the quisling queers of GOProud and the Log-Cabin Republicans can publicly support the GOP as the best party for gay rights without spontaneously bursting into flames.
Seriously, the official Republican Party platform explicitly calls for not only vehement opposition to any recognition of same-sex marriages or families, it expressly calls for EXISTING protections to be stricken from Federal law. Any gay person supporting or defending the GOP is akin to a jewish man swearing the Nazis are the best party for Jewish rights. Same with Ron Paul.
ANY LTBG person who supports politicians who publicly and proudly advocate a platform that makes us LESSER under the law is a blind self-loathing Quisling.
The sad thing is when I first made friends with this woman, others who knew her warned me to avoid her, telling me what an aggressive psycho she was. I as always ignored such scuttlebutt and made my own decisions. In this case I'm realizing I should have perhaps given my friends' warnings some credence.
It's her loss. She proved herself a shallow frightened coward, disconnected from reality and self-loathing. And she chose to throw me away because I wouldn't support her lying.
To quote our own Katie LBT, (who REALLY needs to start posting some blogs here);
Yesterday she told me to go fuck myself, and deleted and blocked me on Facebook. Why? Because we got into an argument about politics.
The Libertarian Party in the USA is Tea Party politics. Its adherents can whitewash or deny the nature of their party all they like, but this remains a documented fact. Ron Paul and his party are the same as the Republicans. His policies and platform are anti-woman, anti-choice, anti-gay, anti-trans, anti-equality, anti-union, anti-healthcare. He is virulently and publicly homophobic, and has proven irrefutable ties to White Supremist groups.
He is NOT a nice man.
My now ex-friend is a Libertarian. For the past few months as the US Presidential election heated up, she would frequently post a great deal of utter bullshit on her wall. Dishonest pictures showing false stats that were clearly anti-Obama for the sake of hating Obama, given how devoid of fact they were.
As I generally loathe discussing politics with loved ones, (unless you and they share nigh identical political ideologies, discussions about politics NEVER end well), I generally avoided commenting. At most I would politely correct her "factual errors" and provide a link to evidence proving it.
Yesterday she spent the bulk of the day attacking Obama and the Democratics convention, sharing blatant lies and thinly veiled racism.
She topped her party line hate-fest with a quote from the Goddess of the Tea Party, Ayn Rand;
“We can ignore reality, but we cannot ignore the consequences of ignoring reality.”
This was enough to make me finally speak up directly. She's a trans woman, attacking the ONLY party in her country that gives a fuck about our kind, and blindly rabidly supporting a party that has confirmed it would implement anti-gay anti-trans policy into law if elected. Ron Paul signed NOM's bloody Marriage Pledge for fuck's sake! For reasons she herself could never adequately explain, she was pulling a GOProud; supporting politicians who would NEVER support her, defending men who would see her made lesser by law.
The Ayn Rand quote is a GREAT example of clueless irony, since Rand was herself very out of touch with reality. And a horrible author at that. She lived with a conspiracy theorist's sensibility and created a rigid philosophy of narrow contempt. Objectivism is NOT a philosophy that is at peace with the real world, and a government that followed it would do FAR more harm to its people than the Democratic leadership ever has or will. It's also an accidental trolling of the Tea Party, since that group in general is ALSO not deeply entrenched in reality.
So I told her that her support of a party that hates our kind made no sense and seemed self-loathing and destructive.
She immediately went walls up guns out release the hounds mode. She defended Ron Paul in the least sensible way imaginable; She said his homophobia doesn't matter because he's a neutral and wouldn't put his beliefs into policy, even though he completely HAS done so.
So I went A-Googlin'. I easily found several dozen links to new reports, blog entries, and documentation. I pasted her links to irrefutable evidence; The Libertarian Party's Official Platform, direct quotes from Ron Paul openly calling gays a sick filthy people, links to proof of his racist attitudes and his links to White Supremist groups, links to his signing NOM's hateful Marriage Pledge, in which he promises to, if ever elected President, put a nationwide constitutional amendment into law declaring only heterosexual marriage may ever be legal or recognized.
She replied that EVERY fact I showed her was a filthy lie concocted by the LIB'RUL MEDIA!!! (while of course refusing to link me to any documented proof of HER claims), and that because I wasn't a party member like her and thus had no "first hand" knowledge, I could not POSSIBLY know what I was talking about, because all MY info was third-hand media lies from liberal journalists with agendas.
I sighed, gave up trying and said fine, I give up, let's not argue anymore, I'll talk to you later. She replied with a FUCK YOU and blocked me.
So a 3 year friendship goes kaput because she drank the Kool-Aid. How an otherwise intelligent and proud trans woman could ever support a party who hates us while dishonestly attacking the one that would actually help make our lives better in her country is well beyond my ability to comprehend. Just like how I can't fathom how the quisling queers of GOProud and the Log-Cabin Republicans can publicly support the GOP as the best party for gay rights without spontaneously bursting into flames.
Seriously, the official Republican Party platform explicitly calls for not only vehement opposition to any recognition of same-sex marriages or families, it expressly calls for EXISTING protections to be stricken from Federal law. Any gay person supporting or defending the GOP is akin to a jewish man swearing the Nazis are the best party for Jewish rights. Same with Ron Paul.
ANY LTBG person who supports politicians who publicly and proudly advocate a platform that makes us LESSER under the law is a blind self-loathing Quisling.
The sad thing is when I first made friends with this woman, others who knew her warned me to avoid her, telling me what an aggressive psycho she was. I as always ignored such scuttlebutt and made my own decisions. In this case I'm realizing I should have perhaps given my friends' warnings some credence.
It's her loss. She proved herself a shallow frightened coward, disconnected from reality and self-loathing. And she chose to throw me away because I wouldn't support her lying.
To quote our own Katie LBT, (who REALLY needs to start posting some blogs here);
"Never throw over your friends for politics. Your political idols won't hold you when you cry - your friends will."
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