My vagina is mine to sell.

Isn’t it very anti-feminist to encourage free female promiscuity, but discourage women from gaining profit from it? Slut walks for free female sexuality are cool – they are in my book – but all the so-called feminists come rushing out screeching that you’re raping yourself when you bill your partner for the same damn thing plus, perhaps, prioritizing his desires as a customer to the degree you are comfortable with. But isn’t accommodating a partner to the extent of your comfort, the basis for any consensual fuck?

What prompted this? Well, I just found an image pop up on my newsfeed from an anti-rape apologist page. The image read:

“Sex doesn’t sell. Erosion of female self-esteem does. The feeling of superiority over women does. Turning women into things to be studied, scrutinized, judged, and then calling it ‘sex’, does. Objectification sells.”

Uh, well, no, I disagree as I disagree with “Dogs bark” – some do indeed, and some do so much that they need a good gob smack. Fuck, I hate noisy dogs. But many also do not. My dogs do not bark unless there is someone at the door or the dog who attacked us repeatedly, walks by the house. The above is a blanket statement, a gross generalization, and those never benefit anyone.

First of all, this is made exclusively about female sex appeal. Then why do male escorts, porn actors, and strippers make good money, too? And are they not objectified? And is there a globally valid and proven difference in how a man values his sexuality as opposed to a woman? Do fuck-happy cishet men always overstate their importance, while fuck-happy cishet females always meekly bow to male desire? Cishet males are just the biggest market for the sex industry because they’re the loudest about their desires. I bet if women weren’t as meek about our desires, we would have more porn produced to our taste, because it’s all about money, and money is where there is demand. Yes, our sexuality is judged more harshly than cishet males’, but no, in the West, we are not stopped from living it. Our sexuality is treated unfairly, but it is still ours to practice, and many things we do sexually, are of our own desire.

Back to objectification of women and men… Let’s be honest here, do all women really get wet for his personality, never for the nice ass? “Sex sells” when I replay Game of Thrones episodes for the scenes of Ser Loras and whoever he had in bed (other MEN). Sex sells when I watch any kind of porn. Hell, I objectify men all the time. I have half a dozen numbers in my phone whose messages I ignore unless I want them over for Netflix & Chill. I won’t even answer when they’re worried about me if I’m not currently falling apart with lust. I remember their parts better than their faces, and I get annoyed when their lips are moving rather than their hips. First thing I care about at a new workplace, is if the men are worth flirting with, and if they’re not, I find myself pissed at having to work at all. I might actually have been objectified by males in my entourage less than the other way around.

The only difference is that as women, we have not established the social and physical power to enforce our views of men and shape sex culture accordingly. But are we any more “deep” about how we view men, than vice-versa? PLEASE! The power dynamic is the only thing that makes female objectification more powerful and damaging than male objectification, but it does NOT define us as women, and our self-esteem does NOT depend on whether or not we willingly partake in objectification in order to get our libido or wallet satiated. I actually hold myself in too high esteem as to willingly work 48 hours of a boring job for minimum wage when I can work 10 hours for as much as others earn in a month and get laid in the process. And I mean, is selling your body for physical labour such as scrubbing toilets or building walls, not objectification? Simply of the non-sexual kind? We are all whores, we are all exploited, and we are all objectified, as long as our money depends on someone else’s satisfaction, be it with our typing skills or paving work, or sex. Making sex a special case, is only right on the condition that it be applied exclusively to those individuals who feel that way. Objectively speaking, there is no valid reason why everyone of us would feel the same. I get to view my cunt as a toy, as a temple, or as a golden goose. It is my cunt. And I am no victim if I happen to enjoy a man enjoying himself more than a man making a joke of himself trying way too hard to give me an orgasm.

 

 

And making the commodification of sex about flaws of a woman’s character (low self-esteem etc.) is also unfair and degrades women more than any porn flick they willingly signed up for, because it denies us agency. I can say Nope to a degrading script, I can’t say Nope to reading that I have low self-esteem for being commercially promiscuous. The statement is basically slut-shaming because it links character flaws to sex. But what about our hands when we’re dish washers at restaurants, or our feet when we deliver mail? But yet, there’s a distinction between that and our genitalia, and we’re all supposed to feel the same about it? Isn’t that an oppressive notion? Except victims of crime, we can choose whether or not to work in the sex industry, but we can’t choose what is said about us, and this pic quoted above says things many of us rightly take offense in. This statement turns all women who commodify sex, into a commodity, into victims with no say in their sexuality. It dictates an aspect of our sexuality on our behalf by making blanket assumptions about our self-image vs. our sexual behaviour – and to that, I say fuck you. We have a say. This isn’t an issue of self-esteem, it doesn’t need to be an issue bigger than what to order at Starbuck’s, depending on the individual’s attitude. To some women, sex is sacred, to some women, any sex not prioritizing the female pleasure is rape, and to some women, sex is a sport, a hobby, or a currency – and none of that has to have anything to do with our self-esteem, and none of it necessarily determines our roles as victims or agents.

 

Yes, objectification both exists and sells, and yes, we are helplessly objectified and sexualized because we cannot dictate how someone else sees us, but as long as no action is imposed on us, we are still the bosses of what we do with our sexuality or how to deal with objectification, consequences notwithstanding.

The statement could be wonderfully correct if it weren’t presumed dependant on low self-esteem and exclusive victimization of women. As yes, sex and objectification can overlap and sell. But in reality, there are confident, proud women who happily commodify their sexuality, and they should not be demeaned into victim roles by blanket statements such as this. Not all women who respect themselves consider sex something sacred. Personally, I consider it a sport, and I feel stupid every time I play without getting paid when I could, even though I enjoy it. I’m basically just another athlete who sucks at marketing, the only reason I’m not going pro.

 

“Sex sells” only inherently victimizes women if the assumption is true that all women and their sexuality is something they have no say over, and is linked in one way only to self-esteem: the more liberal and accommodating the sexuality, the lower the self-esteem. But many of us do willingly sign up for sex work, do willingly indulge in promiscuity, do willingly submit to male desires because it happens to turn us on to please, we do not all throw our sexuality around just because we feel we owe it to the patriarchy. Some of us do because it’s fun or good money, and we have no problem with it. Declaring us victims through blanket statements just because the statements are true in some or even many cases, is inherently violent.

 

Isn’t it basically very anti-feminist to encourage free female promiscuity, but discourage women from gaining profit from it? Liberating female sexuality includes losing the assumption that something has to be wrong with us (such as low self-esteem) or that we are victims (the opposite of people with agency and authority) for us to commodify our vaginas the way other people commodify their feet to toss news papers over fences. Liberating female sexuality means accepting and supporting that some women enjoy themselves in the sex industry and act of their own accord.

Feminism means to shout “Yay for prudes” as loudly as “Yay for whores”. It means to let us be individual about our bodies and sex, not collective.

Oy, Feminism. Keep it real.

I am a feminist in that I believe that the war on women, and our oppression, discrimination, exploitation, and underappreciation, is real. I am a feminist because I believe that there is no reason why genders, binary and beyond, should experience differences in how they are valued or treated.

As such, I enjoy reading Everyday Feminism because it struck me as a non-misandric, non-angry-rape-victim-lashing out, forum where feminism was promoted and represented in an intelligent way that is beneficial to all. Not like some “feminists” who hurt all of feminism for overtly trying to “get back” at men, declaring all men pigs, all coarse language “rape culture,” and…. oh wait. Did I just say I liked Everyday Feminism because it’s not one of those whiny excessive victim forums where even coarse language is accused of glorifying rape culture?

Well, Everyday Feminism just screwed the pooch here if you ask me. I know you don’t, but I’ll explain anyway because I don’t care about your opinion or appreciation of mine. I don’t even know who I am addressing, so screw your pooch, too. Which is, by the way, contrary to what the author of said article claims, not a threat of sexual violence. I am not announcing to screw your pooch. I am telling you to do that, and not expecting you to obey. Seriously, please don’t go beastiality on your poor goggie.

I just woke up from a late afternoon nap and to force my eyes open, I checked the glaring screen that holds Facebook on my phone. First thing I see? Everyday Feminism making Everyday Swearing all about rape. Now calling someone to go fuck themselves, or saying we had to force ourselves to get a job done, perpetuates rape culture. Ooooooooooookay?

Let me get this straight. By the same logic, am I proselytyzing for Christianity by saying “Jesus Christ, that’s expensive!”? Am I promoting Satanism by saying “Oooh you’re such a cheeky li’l devil!”? Am I a Nazi supporter for telling someone who decided to pig out on beans that he’s gassing me? Do I abuse my dogs just because sometimes I call them stinking curs?
But I am perpetuating rape culture by not watching my tongue with sexually-tinted swearing?

And let’s take a look at the exact examples, shall we?

“Go fuck yourself/Fuck you” – Fucking oneself can’t be rape. You can’t really do something to yourself that you don’t consent to. Mental illness is another issue I’m not getting into. Also, I would fuck myself all day long if I could.

“Force yourself to do something” – And since when has forcing someone or oneself, become exclusively sexual? This is where their article lost my respect. I read all of it because I can’t really respond to something I didn’t study, but this part is where I decided that the writer is being ridiculous and I no longer wish to write or otherwise work for that blog as I had once hoped to. I have to force the door open – am I raping it? I had to force myself to cram math. Was I raping myself? I had to force the poop out of my constipated kitten, let’s not go there. It’s like making the term “to cook” all about meth. What the..?

“Hit on someone” – Oh. And I guess calling a popular song a hit is also rape culture now. And hitting people is also all about sexual violence, I suppose. Even when it’s in self-defense. Don’t hit that ball, you’re raping it! And when you start spanking – aka hitting – my ass while fucking me, stop, because that’d be rape. Oh wait, I want you to spank me. But don’t, that’s rape. Anything with “hit” in it, is rape culture now.

“Suck it” – Okay, this is probably exclusively referring to sucking dick. Penises have long been a symbol of manliness which in turn was/is a symbol of power. I can see where this could make sense but it’s still reaching to make this comeback about perpetuating and normalizing “rape culture”. After all, any sex and gender can suck dick, not just women, and many if not most people, suck dick willingly. Sucking dick is still regarded as kinda dirty and low, and I guess that is where the comeback stems from – do something icky to yourself. It in no way implies to have that dick forced down your throat against your will, which would be rape. It’s the same meaning as “Go to hell” – wishing discomfort or lowliness upon someone without really meaning the literal thing as anyone with half a brain knows Hell doesn’t exist and nobody can be reasonably expected to go seek a dick to suck just for being told to in anger. Even a woman with a man in a bed doesn’t have to suck it – and hence experiences no sexual violence – when her partner tells her to. Is she committing sexual violence by telling him to do something in bed? So why is he? She can also tell him to suck it himself, with little to no consequence in most cases, because in most cases, it is another shallow, meaningless profanity. If you’re like the author of that article, you can find disturbing meanings in everything, really. Maybe even disturbing origins. But just because the Jews originated from the Middle East, doesn’t mean that the mass emigration of Russian Jewish converts to Israel makes much sense. Just because medication was created by torturing human and animal, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be using it today. Origins and their deeper meanings fade. Deal with it.

None of these profanities, contrary to what the article claims, represent “threats of sexual assault”. The article further says that using such language desensitizes us to sexual violence and shapes the way we see our world, ie. tolerant of sexual violence. What the fuck. If it were up to me, all sex offenders would be shot in the throat and left to bleed out just slowly enough to think about why they deserve it. Most people I know harshly condemn sexual violence, including a distant relative of mine who is constantly heard saying things like:
“Who wanna suck me off?”
“If I do that, they gon rape me.”
“If you don’t stop that, imma fuck you.”
Now, the difference between a woman and a whiny little bitch, is how this is perceived. I am a woman and have experienced sexual violence in abundance. I got the fuck over it. How? By not making everything that even remotely involves “dick” or “fuck” about sexual trauma. And this guy’s vulgar language. Does. Not. Bother. Me. I find it funny, to be honest. Means I don’t need to watch my tongue, and he says it with the biggest grin. I love coming up with just as vulgar comebacks. Rape culture? First of all, things like “Who wanna blow me?” indicate he’s looking for volunteers, not victims, and secondly, does any sane adult around here think for a second that he means any of it? When I say “Shit”, am I referring to actual faeces? When I say “Oh my God!”, am I a theist? When I say “Asshole”, do I honestly believe that the target of the insult is a smelly brown little bodily orifce that excretes shit? I never even knew what a “douchebag” literally is when I started calling people that.

And as for “shaping our world”… Intelligent people (unintelligent ones I refuse to take into account as I believe that what sets us apart from beasts and makes us human, is our superior intelligence that earned us our species’ name) should realize and internalize that our language does NOT determine our views. Just because I’m usually polite doesn’t mean I don’t have a lot of disdain for the largely primitive and simpleton people around me. Neither does my using sexual foul language indicate that I am tolerant of sexual violence. It’s like saying that playing violent video games makes you a mass shooter. I say “Sieg Heil!” or “Heil Hitler” for fun. I’m Jewish. I am against genocide. I’ve alienated many friends protesting the war in Gaza and Israel’s treatment of Arabs. I even went vegan in a protest against violence and slaughter.
If one leads to the other, then something has always been wrong with you and it’s not your language/video games. If you grow tolerant of rape (culture) because of sexually tinted coarse language, then the language is only the final straw and you have always been seeking excuses to tolerate rape or rape culture. Language alone never shapes us, ever. It also rarely reflects our attitudes. Being polite doesn’t make you nice, using soccer mom speak (“Oh gosh that is adorable, amazing!”) doesn’t make you truly loving, and using sexual swear words doesn’t make you an Apostle of Rape. I have experienced most sexual violence or harassment from very sweet and smooth tongues.

Also, while males can obviously be victims of sexual violence, it’s most often male-on-female. Yet things like “Fuck you” or “I’m gonna fuck you up” is most often heard in male-on-male exchanges. And being “prompted” to “suck it” is quite far removed from rape – after all, a prompt is of no consequence since you can usually turn it down. You are not given that option when raped. “Oh, please don’t rape me today.” – “Okay, bye”. Nope.

And if – if – any of the sexually infused coarse language were indeed referring to rape (although after making “forcing oneself” about rape, I’m so done with that whole argument) then one would not have to make a bigger deal out of it than of asshole, bitch, idiot, moron, retard, or…

“How ignorant you gotta be to believe any of this? You need to slit your wrists, skip this, and go jump off a bridge.”

-Hollywood Undead

Now, let’s look at a couple of selected claims.

Notice certain people that tend to trigger this language? Revaluate your relationship, or at the very least, ask them to hold you accountable for what you say.

LOL wut? Other than their actions, no, there is no pattern. And the only pattern in their actions is that they’re fucking annoying and I will happily interchange “Fuck you” with “Go to hell” or “Go make snow angels in a mine field” or even “May Hamas slit your mother’s throat”. Where’s the sexual violence in that? It’s all merely a brief expression of anger with no consequence unless you choose to dwell on it.
Traffic participants scream “Fuck you” at the driver who ran a red light, I tell my dog to “suck my dick” for chewing up my shoes, and I’m not thinking sex, much less rape, when “forcing myself” to clean the litter boxes. Unless you’re from a very apple pie society, it doesn’t take certain feelings or people to trigger coarse language of ANY kind. I’m in the Middle East. People here have no patience and little class (sorry guys, it’s true). If I were to take all those curses seriously, I’d have to wear iron knickers with a 12 digit lock and put my mother under 24/7 police protection because everyone is constantly cursing someone’s mother(‘s vagina). And I’m pretty sure most of those people who scream abuse about fucking, peoples’ mothers’ vaginas, and dicks, would enjoy seeing rapists dangling from what little trees we have.

Along with changing yourself, you also probably want to change other people’s use of sexually violent language, too. After all, isn’t that what activism is all about?

And don’t forget to tell them to accept the lord and savior Jesus Christ into your life. Sexual violence isn’t gonna end by swearing fuck-lessly. Ever had a good look at Japanese porn and Japan’s overall depiction of women in the media? And do they sex-swear? Don’t be silly.

Think about a time when someone said or did something that was problematic and you did nothing. How did it make you feel and why didn’t you intervene?

If it was just dirty language, I GOT THE FUCK OVER IT. If I didn’t, it was more than coarse language or I was PMSing and everything upset me. If you don’t get over “problematic” language that does not specifically and deliberately push your personal buttons (“Nigger” to a black person, “Faggot to a gay one, or “Whale” to a fat person, or even “shitty mother” to someone who had a miscarriage, for example), then you’re the one with a problem. You think I’m gonna dwell on all the times I have been told to go fuck myself, suck some dick, or get bent? Psycho much? Dwell on your real problems. The ones that really hold you down. Seriously, I am extremely sensitive and thin-skinned, but “Fuck yourself”/”Suck my dick”? Really? Such boring profanities are supposed to bother me? Go kill some actual rapists and their “What was she wearing”-advocates!

It’s likely that you were taken off guard and didn’t know how to react. I know I’ve been in plenty of situations like this myself, and I would spend days thinking of witty responses that I shouldhave used.

What, is this article specifically targeted at “special” kids? Off guard? Cute! Someone tells you to fuck yourself? Tell them to provide the tools! Someone tells you to suck it? Tell them you wish they had something to suck! How does that take days? And why would you even be upset and dwelling on it for days just because of a garden variety curse phrase? Come on! Get a life. You dwell on “Fuck you” and your regret for not having had a witty comeback ready? You have 99 problems, and all of them is you. You’re a strong, liberated woman, ey? So be strong and free and allow yourself to move the fuck on from a curse word. Nobody’s stopping you. Oh wait. You are.

You could pull the responsible person aside after a group conversation and explain to them why that kind of language makes you uncomfortable. You could even Facebook message with the person about it, if you don’t want to speak face-to-face.

Grrrmpf hahaha oh god, that’s embarassing. “Listen, you used a garden variety, boringly typical, and over-used swearing phrase that has lost its impact decades ago; this upsets me very much. We need to talk.” Quite the insult to people who have been exposed to the very tangible difference between sexual swearing, and real sexual violence. How about you also go and stage an intervention, bake some apple pie too, because someone said “Fuck you”, and tell them all about the history of correctional rape, witch burning, and doctor Mengele? GTFO.

If you want to avoid this altogether, maybe consider telling your close friends and/or family about your quest to eliminate sexually violent language from your speech and ask them not to use it in your presence.

So now everyone has to bend over backwards to accomodate your individual sensitivities, yes? Okay, I hereby demand my friends and family no longer assume I love and accept them just the way they are including the perhaps offensive, yet not actually, tangibly harmful way they talk, and stop mentioning God in any shape, form, or fashion, because I think religion is bullshit and a mental illness and I don’t want that unintelligent, unmodern, anti-progress shit around me! So guys, no more talking about God in my presence! Oh wait, does that mean I’ll no longer be invited for Passover dinner? Shit. Fuck me.
No. You don’t get to dictate how others get to express themselves. You get to choose whether or not you wish to remain around them. If they bother you, get the fuck off their case and go look for an entourage that suits you better. That shit is like telling your overweight partner to lose some weight because you don’t find them attractive fat. Leave them the fuck alone to be who they have always had a right to be regardless of your highness’ preferences.
Language may offend, but this thoughtless, shallow cursing has killed nobody. Rape does harm. Rape is hands-on, real, tangible, dangerous, and rightly considered a horrific crime. Coarse language is nothing other than unclassy speech unless you’re a whiny little bitch with no real issues to focus on.

When she has sex, her worth decreases. When he has sex, his worth increases.

This model is obviously sexist.

It also enforces stereotypes and defines sexuality based on propriety. This is precisely where“he’s a stud and she’s a slut” originates.

I agree with all of this, yet not within the context of sexual swearing. Sexual swearing doesn’t discriminate between men and women when it’s about things like “Fuck you”, “Suck it”, etc. They are sexist when one specific gender is the butt of the joke. But two buddies telling each other to suck it?

Since women’s sexuality is based on a value judgment of her worth, and certain types of women are worth more than others, victims of rape are often blamed for the crimes committed against them.

Since men are encouraged to have many partners, and are thought to have uncontrollable“urges,” they are often given a free pass for the crimes that they commit.

This is also the basis of the cause of the erasure of people of other identities experiencing rape; victims come from all identities, although the majority of rapists are men.

Yes, yes, that is true, but again… how does “Fuck you” come into this? Especially since fucking oneself is fun… Or would be, if feasible… Sex is seen as a vulgar and icky thing by many, to be discussed and practiced in private, and hence it’s used in negative context such as swearing. “Fuck you” et al don’t come with connotations of gender dominance. They simply do not. Same for violence beyond verbal abuse which also includes “Drop dead” or “Retard”.

And this leads us back to language: We threaten rape and sexual violation so often because of this stigma.

Language like “f*ck you” and “suck my d*ck” is rape-permitting and normalizes sexual violence. It creates a society that is full of rape myths and rape, even though we never talk about it. It creates rape culture.

Oh please. That’s like accepting the lord and savior Jesus Christ by saying “Jesus, I can’t with this!” and I am saying this over and over reading that absurd, reaching, overdramatic article. “Fuck you” or “Suck my dick” also aren’t threats. They are prompts that can usually be ignored without consequence. A threat is “I’ll fuck you”, or “I’ll feed you my dick”. Yes, phrasing matters. A lot.

And finally but importantly, context. It’s always all about context. There is a difference between saying “Suck my dick” just as you are about to rape someone, and saying “Suck my dick” to dismiss a dumb encounter. There is a difference between making a blonde joke among people who can laugh about it, and in front of a blonde girl who is insecure about her stereotype. There is a difference between a disgruntled shopper saying “That merchant is greedy like a Jew” and a Gestapo officer saying that to reinforce his “reasons” for executing a Jewish business owner. It’s like the difference between saying “Shit!” to point out where the dog pooped so nobody steps in it, and saying “Shit!” when you tell your friend what you think about their new look.

I’m really disappointed to see Everyday Feminism frantically reach for discussion fodder by making everything about victims and people taking their sensitivities too seriously. It’s like HuffPost Gay Voices turning every time someone says “Fag” into a headline with 2 pages worth of naming and shaming and invoking absolute drama and apocalyptic fears of persecution and hanging and Holocaust and Nazis riding dinosaurs. LGBT discrimination is as real as rape culture, but neither is fought by tearing into everyone with a foul mouth.

Calm the fuck down.

No trigger warnings.

I hate this self-absorbed me-me-me-and-my-feelings complaining that there is no trigger warning on content published on a website that is geared towards general population, or in a place where trigger material could be expected. Also, what is trigger material? For all I know, your child recently drowned in the sea; now I have to feel bad about not putting a trigger warning above my sunset-above-the-waves photography…

I refuse. I am counting down the seconds to the first comment complaining that this post was triggering. LOL.

Requests for trigger warnings on platforms not geared towards trauma “survivors”, the mentally ill, or the emotionally unstable, are something I HATE and consider rude, selfish, and very, very, weak, infantile and whiny. I know better than to make rape jokes on sexual abuse self-help forums. But Facebook? My blog? DeviantART? LOG OFF if you can’t deal with people saying or showing whatever they like. General population areas of the internet are to be entered at one’s own risk. If you know you have triggers or other issues, use your better judgment. Don’t ask the internet to babysit you.
Hell, I once saw someone posting suicidal thoughts on a suicide self-help forum… “PUT A TRIGGER WARNING OMG!!!” Hello? You came to a suicide forum. What did you expect? Puppies and rainbows? Moron. Yes, I just called a victim of emotional instability (which is the determining factor in how we deal with traumatic experience, even more so than the experience itself) a moron. How insensitive. Just as insensitive as demanding people self-censor in order to spare the irrational emotional reactions of strangers on the web. What if what I have to say is extremely important to me? Now whose extremely important issues matter more – my extremely important desire/need to express myself, or your extremely important emotional safety?

I refuse to tiptoe or to put trigger warnings everywhere. Hell, the multiple choice question where I had to rephrase the sentence “He did not live up to his promises” which was repeated and rubbed in my face in 4 more ways, almost triggered renewed heartbreak in me; I was sitting there trying to keep the tears from falling – should I go cry to the ministry of education for exposing me to such a phrase on my Hebrew proficiency test without a trigger warning?

No.

As someone who has “survived” a lot of traumatic things, I understand why trigger warnings exist. Let me just say, I hate the term “survivor” when it comes to non-potentially-lethal-physical trauma… none of those things kill you unless you kill yourself because you can’t cope so stop being dramatic. You survive wars. You survive life-threatening disease. You survive attempts on your life.
Am I being insensitive, again? Well, let’s see. If 100 people respond to a similar experience in 80 different ways, then I guess we really can’t label anything as definitely very traumatic. Otherwise everyone would respond similarly. If different people respond differently to the same thing, it’s obviously strictly subjective. I’m not downplaying any crimes or horrible experiences. Hell, death penalty to any violent criminal such as rapists, armed robbers, etc. I’m just saying, trauma and triggers are subjective which makes potentially anything traumatic or triggering.

I just don’t think that someone’s responsibility to cope with their own experiences should be dumped on the public. I’ve had pretty much everything happen to me, and honestly, bleh. Some things “trigger” me but it’s my own responsibility to deal with that. So many things trigger me. I can still feel the cold fur and blood of my puppy after a car pressed his brains out his ears. I can still smell the nose breath of one of many sexual assaillants. God I hate bad nose breath. I can still remember the shape of my miscarriage. The laughter of my bullies as they kicked me deeper and deeper into the creek. And so on. So fucking what. It sucks, it hurts, I get up, I move on. If a thin-skinned crybaby like me can do it, then maybe you can’t, but I can’t cater to that by changing my routine, including how I express myself on the net. Triggers are not a real problem. They are in your head. Some people have cancer. Cancer is real. Triggers are memories flaring up unpleasantly. Sit down. Look at kittens. Leave me alone.

Here, have Hitler making out with a Jewess.

Obviously, I would never make a dead baby joke in a mothers’ group, a Holocaust joke among European Jews, or a rape joke in a self-help group of sexual abuse victims. But in general or unrelated settings, I think people need to simply suck it up that their trauma is their business. I hate being made to feel like I need to tiptoe around people. If you expose yourself to the risk, you can’t blame others for triggering you by using their right to free speech. They are not actually hurting you. It is not about you. It’s really not my problem that someone else is likely to lose control over their emotions over topics people should be free to discuss whenever, wherever, except in totally inappropriate or specific settings. Demanding so is actually rude in my opinion. I deliberately never, ever use trigger warnings. I don’t wish to cater to this. I have a million triggers, and the job to keep control over them, is mine alone.

Here, have some soldiers shooting shit or getting shot.

Really, what’s a trigger? Hell, a blog post about my beautiful dogs once triggered a woman who saw her child mauled by a dog of the same breed. You can’t even declare some topics as obvious triggers, because some people deal with their trauma better than others and may not see the point in a warning. For example, I have so far dismissed any sexual abuse I’ve personally suffered, as bad sex, a shitty encounter, or no worse than a fist fight. This other woman was triggered by my blog post explaining why I love the Akita breed. You might as well put a trigger warning above anything. European Jews may get triggered every time someone says something about Hitler. Dog bite victims may be triggered by the sight of dogs. Burn victims by a tasty stew on the fire. Let’s all starve, a burn victim might not like that roast.

What’s black and blue and hates sex?
A rape victim.

I’m sorry something bad happened to you, but I will not self-censor under 80% of circumstances. Like phobias, trigger responses are irrational and can’t be blamed on the surroundings or the trigger unless the trigger is the actual, original, cause of the response like YOUR rapist, and not just some random guy talking about sex. I can’t demand zoos cover their tarantula displays for my visit because spiders drive me out of my skin. I can choose to walk past spider displays without looking. I can choose to stay out of the spider and snake house altogether. I also cannot be asked to put warnings on all my art and writing just because my work spares no one.

Here, have a decapitated kitten.

Sometimes triggers cannot be avoided, but if you’re gonna go to a platform with a specific topic, you can assume to be triggered and have the choice to not visit that site or view its content.

This post sums it up perfectly how I feel about trigger warnings: http://mic.com/articles/87283/9-feminist-arguments-against-using-trigger-warnings-in-academia

I am empathic to trauma. This post may not sound like it, but I feel sad for anyone who has been hurt without deserving it. But how you deal with it, is up to you.

The Ethics of the Underworld

 I love the Israeli TV show “The Arbitrator”. It’s about a family of organized criminals. There seems to be more justice there than among law-abiding society.

You betray them? You die.
You collaborate with the enemy? You die.
You cheat on them? You die.
You kill their child/parent/spouse? They kill yours.
You break your word? They break your spine.
You beat a pregnant woman to the point she loses her baby and can’t have any more? You die.
Breakers of words get broken, destroyers of life get destroyed.

Law never seems to cover nearly enough on one end, but too much on the other. You liberate a tortured animal, you go to prison. You share the crimes of your government with your fellow citizens, you go to prison. You make love to a consenting minor who regrets nothing, you go to prison. But you cheat and betray, you cause hurt and even suicide, and that’s fine by law. You order a genocide (america’s war on Iraq), you get re-elected.
Law makes little sense that way. A traitor can do as much damage as a rapist. One violates trust, the other violates intimacy, but both violate a deeply precious, vital, and vulnerable element of a person’s soul that they need in order to be strong in their personal integrity. So why should one be punished, while the other one gets away with it? Same with school bullies. Victims of real crimes can be utterly devastated, and for that the perpetrator is punished. Yet bullying victims can sustain just as much damage, and are left to cope alone while their tormentors are rewarded by lack of consequence? Makes no sense.

I don’t think it’s right that the victim has to deal with the damage done while the pereptrator gets to get on with their life. It doesn’t matter to me how a victim responds. I don’t think there is responsibility in sustaining or dealing with something you didn’t choose to happen to you, but that was forced upon you needlessly and deliberately by a third party. It is not blameless misfortune like an earthquake or disease. It is a choice action that has been forced upon the victim. And so, any and all responsibility should lie with the perpetrator. Which is why it’s nice that in the Arbitrator, the person who started it when they did not need to, ends up dead, in a wheelchair, or worse.

You can’t spell reaction without re-, which means it’s a REsult, a REsponse to what has been done to you. Would I tell anyone to fuck off if they didn’t deliberately offend me first? Would a person be in prison if they hadn’t committed a crime first? So why should the response/ibility to any other type of transgression be anyone but the perpetrator’s problem? You can always, without exception, choose to not be the initiator of evil. The choice is yours and with it, the consequence. Victims have limited options – the most important limit being the inability to not have transgression happen to them. You get the stone rolling = it’s your fault and yours alone if someone doesn’t make it out of its path in time. Just as not everyone can outrun a rolling stone, not everyone can heal from a non-criminal transgression. A victim hasn’t got 100% control over the degree of damage done to them, a perpetrator always has 100% control over whether or not to initiate transgression. This should relieve the victim of any and all responsibility. A soul can be broken like a bone. One can have as little control over how fast the soul heals, as one has over the bone.

After all, when a crime is one by law, the perpetrator gets punished no matter if and how much damage was done to the victim. Some rape victims brush it off easily, others kill themselves, but the rapist still gets the same punishment and nobody tells the victim it’s their job to suck it up and move on. The perpetrator is still punished, the victim defended. Why not in the case of liars, cheaters, traitors etc.? Morally, they are no better than legal criminals. The underworld/organized crime is cruel, but at least people reap what they sow. Law-abiding citizens? One does something that kills the other’s soul, but the body remains intact, so he gets away with it.

One of my favorites on that show was when Nomie Spoonie ordered her lover killed. He pretended to love her to get in her pants, then promised to marry her with no intention of doing so, so he got what he deserved: his best friend was ordered to kill him, but only severed his spine and put him in a wheelchair, to be forever the captive of Nomie Spoonie, now legally married as promised, and miserable as deserved. That is justice. That needs to be legalized.

Reality makes no sense.

Is rape not bad enough?

The case is reported on here:

Rape victim asks State to recognize crime as terror act

 and

Tel Aviv rape: Palestinian arrested near crime scene

In all fairness to the victim, I hope this is not going through. While I am absolutely in favor of public executions for rapists and even those who enabled them, and while I think 20 years aren’t enough, as long as Benny Jaber wasn’t screaming “Allahu akhbar!”, this is not an act of terrorism. Prove his intentions qualify as such, and I’ll shut up.

If her request is granted, she will be considered a victim of a terror attack, thereby eligible to disability benefits by the Defense Ministry.

I’m sorry, but this is ludicrous. Yes, every rape victim, no, every victim of any form and degree of violent crime, should get the maximum support. But disability benefits for rape victims who are not suffering from Aids or permanent injury sustained during the rape? I sympathize, I do. I’ve known sexual abuse myself. But I’m sick of rape victims wallowing and indulging in their self-pity to a point where they use this as an excuse to depend on benefits. I had a friend once who tells everyone of how she got raped, and she does so with a winner’s smile. Well, she did win. She is now able to get disability benefits in addition to unemployment, so she gets to sit at home all day dressing up her daughter, or getting her nails done. She pretends she would like to work and be part of society, but “I can’t, because since the rape I can’t be around people anymore, it’s too distressing”. So why can she go to crowded restaurants, parties, pubs, clubs, etc. just fine and why has she got no problem cheating on her boyfriend with 4 members of his family? I thought she can’t be around people? Or is this only the case when it isn’t fun?

Rape victims should get all the therapy and support they need as long as they need it. But while they are not responsible for what happened to them, they are partially responsible for how they decide to deal with it. They can wallow and languish, but they can also get their act together. I’ve personally been through all kinds of traumatic experiences, not only sexually. I’ve known the horrific fear of incarceration in a foreign country with a brutal jail system, with nobody telling me why or how long for. So what? This was 3 years ago; why should I mooch unemployment and disability now?

I’m sorry, but the way she expresses herself – “He murdered my soul” – is way too poetic to be sincere. When you’re truly in shock, you blurt, you don’t write deep poetry.

It’s as if rape in itself, isn’t horrific enough. No, escalate to its recognition as terrorism. This girl’s behavior is a punch to the gut of every victim of actual acts of terrorism, and every victim of rape. “Yeah, I was raped, but honestly, there’s nothing to gain from that. I think I’m gonna throw in terrorism, too so I can get better benefits”.

But while this attitude offends me, something else deeply worries me. If her request goes through and they proceed to label this as an act of terrorism without any proof that this was indeed the motive behind the deed, this will have tremendous repercussions for all Israeli Arabs and/or Palestinians. Israeli Arabs are, as it is, in a similar position as African Americans: accuse them, and they’re arrested. Suspect them, and people will believe you.
If this girl gets her way, where will it end? If Benny Jaber did not indeed mean to commit an antisemitic hate crime, he is a regular rapist. Doesn’t that make him enough of a subhuman scumbag? If his being Palestinian and the victim being Jewish, is enough to call his crime an act of terrorism, then somewhere down the line, every crime or offense committed by an Arab against a Jew, may go down the same road. Some Arab stealing a candy bar from a Jewish store, may find himself accused of terrorism and handled accordingly. An Arab pulling out of a parking space and accidentally making a dent in a Jew’s car, may find himself fucked and done for terrorism; all it takes is a good argument and the Arab’s inability to prove that it was an accident.

In the long run, this would mean that every single Arab in Israel would have to be scared of being seen as a potential terrorist or indicted as such. And since most Israeli Arabs are no better or no worse people than Israeli Jews, one has to wonder whether this one girl’s comfort is worth such a price.

I wish the victim healing, and that she gets the support she qualifies for. I wish death upon Benny Jaber as I do upon any rapist. And I wish people could stop escalating the situation between Jews and Arabs on purpose.

Rape is never okay.

Unless you’re a violent criminal or a rapist yourself. Then you deserve it.

Do read on.

Browsing [a forum], I just came across a thread discussing a news event in Zimbabwe. A 19-year-old man had been abducted and his sperm had been forcibly “sucked” from him through a machine, 3 times a day for 7 days. Several adult women were involved in this. Basically, the man, or rather, the boy, was being sexually abused and held captive, for a week.
The vast majority of commenters on the news item were female, and they were making jokes. Some expressed disgust for the messy practice of forcible semen extraction rather than the fact of violent sexual abuse. The general feeling seemed to be that abducting and raping a man is funny. Especially when the culprits are females. Oh, so naughty. Not “vicious”, no, “naughty”.

Well, it’s not. I will now make a lot of enemies but I’ll say it anyway. While it must be noted that I am fervently against the sexual abuse of any gender or age, it is simply a fact that the younger you are, the more likely you are to grow out of all kinds of emotional memories. I am not remotely implying that it’s preferable to abuse a toddler rather than an adult. Never. All rapists should be tortured to death, and I will back this statement if push came to shove. However, the farther back an event lies, the more the memory of it is likely to fade. I don’t remember my 3rd birthday as well as I do my 27th. My first beating lies farther back temporally and emotionally, than does the last one. Time does heal wounds unless they are kept open in some way. That’s all I’m saying, realizing full well that there is no non-shocking way of saying it.
I was abused once when I was 7. I can’t say it traumatized me; I thought we were playing doctor and I didn’t really see the big difference between his penis and his hands. He inflicted no degree of pain on me, and there was no possibility of physical damage. Actually he had been the one to beg me to bite him “there” and I loved being allowed to bite someone. If my mother hadn’t brought it up 7 years later, I would not even have remembered it – let alone care about it. Obviously, this doesn’t make it okay. No violation of anybody’s physical or mental indemnity, is ever okay. But since the incident was isolated and is now 23 years in the past, I cannot say I have issues with or for it.

Now imagine any degree of abuse happening to a grown man. Not only are you old enough for your memory to store and categorize everything and brood it ten times over, you are a man. Society expects you to be strong and dominating. You rule, you are responsible. You are at  the top of the social food chain because you are physically stronger than women, and mentally riper than children. Or at least, so they say. So they demand.
What is sexual abuse? It doesn’t really matter. What matters, is what law, culture, and society make it. To me personally, it is no worse than other physical abuse – actually I’d rather be raped than have my face cut up or my skull bashed in. That’s just me though. And law, culture, and society make it something that is only horrible when it happens to children and females. Because children are classically associated with innocence and helplessness, and women with weakness and an inherent lack of responsibility. Women, like children, have gone through history being taken care of either by men, or by other women. Men are the caregivers, women are culturally assumed to be on the receiving end of such care, or authority, unless the care is directed at children, the elderly, or animals – basically anything that needs nursing is okay for a woman to care for. But who is the provider of food, shelter, and safety for the woman? The man.

How dare you, man, to get into a situation where you claim the innocence that was assigned to the child, or the weakness that was assigned to the woman? Here’s the problem, I think. Men are expected to be the do-ers, the strong ones, the ones who make force happen rather than have it happen to them. It’s absurd in the eyes of a man-run society, and the absurd is laughable. This is especially predominant in sexual force, since sex is typically associated with gender and gender roles – the male on top. What happens when a female turns the tables, or when a man is on top of a man? Even in consensual sexual relations, this is seen as “different”. Men are not expected to be submissive to women, and men are not expected to sexually submit other men.

To make things worse, men are assumed to be in the mood for any kind of sex at any given time, as long as homophobic men are spared homosexual encounters. So why would any heterosexual man complain about having his penis aggressed by females? Shouldn’t he enjoy it and tweet about it? “Getting gang-raped by hot black nymphos, lol”.
While this often works in womens’ disadvantage, social sexual expectations of women give them one advantage over men: women are expected to use their sexuality sparingly and deny sex to as many as possible. So if a woman is forced to give what she is not supposed to give, of course society will harshly condemns her rapist. And so it should.
But men? Society cares little for male virginity or “purity”, so a man being forced to give his body to a sexual encounter, is not viewed as as much of a victim as is the woman. Men are expected to stick it in everything, so they might as well have it stuck for them.

To sexually abuse a woman or a child is already a horrible crime and I would not protest public executions of rapists. But we women are raised with warnings and expectations of being sexually abused. Sexual abuse of women by men, is an integral part of our belief system, whether it happens to us or whether the media tell us about yet another case. As women, we know how real and likely it is to become a victim of sexual abuse. Similar conditions are true for children, though children are handled more carefully.
Men? Rape an adult man whose world views have been established and which he believes in. Rape a man who has grown out of the innocence of childhood, and into a big, strong testosterone silo men are made to believe they are, and often rightly so. Rape a man who has been led to believe by his culture, that he is a ruler for no more than being male.
Unlike a woman who has grown up being brainwashed into “knowing” that she, for being female, is a subject to this man’s world, and a potential victim of sexual abuse, the man’s world collapses far beyond the feeling of having been violated or betrayed. The man is confronted with something he was not prepared for – being a victim of sexual aggression, something much more typical for women and children. This atypical experiences may lead him to question his gender identity. His biological position. His whole world that was never once about men being sexual victims. Despite being a man, he was overpowered physically, and forced into what is “typically” the position of a female – getting fucked rather than fucking. Hebrew language distinguishes this very clearly. Women fuck in English just like men do, they fuck in German just like men do, but in Hebrew, women get fucked while men fuck and I have been corrected for saying “I fuck” many times.

Call me a sexist all you want, I am presenting things from a cultural point of view rather than my own. Women are supposed to get fucked, by men who are supposed to fuck. A man unwillingly getting fucked, “worse” even, by the typical get-fuckedster, a woman, is turning the world (as it is, perhaps not as it should be) upside-down. It does more than inflict physical pain/injury, and create the trauma of having had your sexual intimacy invaded. It un-creates your established mental manlihood. It un-creates your biological, sexual belief system. It un-creates your understanding of the world.

Yes, the understanding that women and children are the typical rape victims, is unfair. Nobody should be a victim, much less inherently categorized as such. But children, for their innocence and helplessness, for their inability to give informed consent or refusal, and women, for their physical weakness and their inherent biological “task” of being penetrated by the male, are “accepted” victims. This is not right, this is not ethical, but this is our culture. We sadly and desperately expect women and children to be abused, which is why we tell women and children to steer clear of male strangers, while we do not tell this to teenage boys or adult men. It hardly occurs to us that men, too, should be warned of this danger. We inherently expect them to either be off the menu of the sex predator, or to be strong enough, “man enough” to either defend against, end up enjoying, or get over it. This, to me, is just as sad as looking at a woman in a dark street and hoping she won’t be raped. This, to me, is just as sad as worrying that your child, on his way home from school, may be assaulted. Society has little worry for a male’s sexual safety if he is too big to be a “sweet, innocent child” – and a man becomes too big for this very quickly.

I’ve been sexually assaulted to various degrees at various ages. Mostly in my early 20s, only by males, not counting a disturbed 9-year-old girl who enjoyed dry-humping people. But while I find it awkward to talk about, and while I prefer not to recall any incident, I manage to shrug it off. Maybe I’m more hardened than other women, or maybe it is because I have grown up being warned of, and prepared for, the abuse for being a helpless female in a man’s world. With all the warnings to women and children, how can I not grow to expect and shrug at it when it happens to me? All of society keeps telling me: as a female, I can expect to get assaulted.

Since this predictability is not the case for men, for men not having been raised with the fear/expectation of being sexually abused, men lack the mental preparation that is latently present in women. For this lack of preparation, men have jolly little coping mechanisms, no ready-made phrases like “It’s not my fault” or “He’s just a woman hater”. Women have these phrases, women in most cultures and legal systems, have a support system that condemns their assaillants and defends their own innocence in the matter. Men have society tell them to be strong, man up, and stop being a whiny little bitch. Men have society belittle them and call them “homos” for “letting” another man assault them, men have society tell them to be grateful if a woman forces herself on them because hey, at least he got some…

Even children have better coping mechanisms. Since adults are an absolute authority in the minds of most children, a group of adults repeatedly telling them that they are not to blame, and that they will be okay, and that their assaillant was just a bad person, is likely to help tremendously. This can be parents, this can be therapists. Even if such support is offered to men, culture has taught them to feel much more awkward and ashamed about accepting or reaching out for help, than women or children.

For who doesn’t snort at the thought of sitting down with a grown man who got raped, hold his hand, wipe his tears, and tell him what they would tell a female or underage victim? I don’t snort, many other people don’t either, but I think we all know that as a whole, men get a lot less sympathy for being victims of sexual assault.

Yes, most victims are females and children, yes, most perpetrators are male. But gender or age should not determine how much of a victim you are or how much support or sympathy you get, or how horrible your assailant is. Personally, I don’t want to be beat up any more than I want to be raped; personally, I am no more disturbed by the incident when I was 7, than by the incident when I was 24, and personally I think a violent criminal, sexual or non-sexual, should hang from every street lamp.

I am not saying raping a woman or a child is preferable to raping a man. I am however saying that the latter is being downplayed unjustly when, due to cultural attitudes, the impact can actually be more severe for male victims. But how about not raping anyone? I think that would be good.