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my hottest take is that i genuinely don’t believe it’s possible to have a healthy social attitude toward sexual education/consent/rape culture/etc until we systematically eliminate the idea that ‘sexual violence’ is A Sex Act That Is Violent, rather than A Violent Act That Is Sexual

to clarify the distinction a little, it’s the difference between motive and means.

there’s an idea that sexual attraction is the motive for sexual assault, and violence is the means of fulfilling that attraction. this is not the case. violence is the motive. sexual contact is the means used to enact violence.

that’s why sexual predators often don’t discriminate by gender, regardless of their orientation. that’s why many child abusers don’t express any attraction to children. that’s why rapists don’t care how sexy a persons clothes are.

I don’t believe pearl-clutching about Sex Perverts will ever go away until this goes away. it’ll just keep getting rebranded and passed around like it always has.

^^^

I once heard sexual violence described as a violent crime using sex as the weapon and honestly, I think that may be the best description of it I've ever heard.

See it’s very convenient to have sexual perverts as an out group that every person who doesn’t happen to be incidentally a part of that group can quickly say “well that ain’t me.” If you are disgusted by rape, nothing you do can be rape, right? If you know you’re not a pedophile you couldn’t be contributing to child sexual abuse, can you? But what you can do is point at people and incidentally you can also make shit up about people you don’t like who then have their humanity taken away. And all without ever examining the social structures that enable abuse and how you perpetuate them in your day to day life. By framing violence as sexual you get an incredibly flexible group to other and weaponize against anyone while also absolving yourself of responsibility.

listen up.

Men have the right to say no

Men have the right to deny a woman (or another man) sex

Men have the right to say they’ve been raped if they have been

Men can opt not to consent

Men can, in fact, be raped (stop saying men are never raped)

Men have the right to not be in the mood for sex

Men and Women and all others are supposed to be equal. no one is supposed to be cared about more than the other, but there is a constant where men’s issues are over looked in favor of womens, and yes, this can be switches around. often womens issues are overlooked in favor of mens

society quit your shit and get your act together, okay sweetie

Honestly if you’re female and you’re called for jury duty and during the elimination process you’re asked if you’ve ever had any adverse experience with a man (harrassment or rape or any other male violence) just fuckin lie and say no. Then vote that fucker guilty

Women survivors are barred from serving on a jury but rapists are not even questioned. There can be no doubt that this is a major reason rapists walk free. Men have never played fair. It is time for women to start beating them at their own game. Our lives depend on it.

As someone who wants to be a prosecutor one day… I agree.

OK NO.  NO NO NO NO NO.  I am a defense attorney. I am a woman. I am also a sexual assault survivor.   THAT BEING SAID I HAVE BEEN THINKING ABOUT THIS POST ALL WEEK AND IT’S  SOOOOO FUCKING WRONG ON SO MANY LEVELS. 

It’s wrong not for any bullshit rape apologist shit, btw, it’s wrong BECAUSE THIS SHIT WILL LITERALLY FUCK YOU OVER AND FUCK OVER ANY RAPE VICTIMS TOO. Here’s why: 

(bear in mind this advice is gonna be MD specific since that’s where I practice)

1) FIRST THINGS FIRST. Don’t fucking lie. Don’t you dare fucking lie when you’re being questioned at jury duty.  Why? OK well first: you’re swearing to tell the truth under penalty of perjury.  What that means is yes, you will face criminal charges.  Criminal charges which, btw, will keep you off of any juries in the future.

Here’s the thing, people (the law enforcement authorities and the defense counsel) WILL be able to find this out especially if you have ever filed a formal police report and/or spoken publicly about it.  Yes, even on facebook.  This ALSO means that if the fact that you lied about this is found out mid-trial it’s grounds for a mistrial with prejudice, if not a straight dismissal.  Which means that hey, look, EVERYTHING HAS TO START ALL OVER AGAIN, THIS TIME WITH NEW JURORS. 

2) The second thing is this: in many states, you don’t just get dismissed after answering affirmatively.  The voir dire process in MD works like this:

A) prosecutors and the defense come up with a list of questions to ask potential jurors.  These are typically a combination of blanket questions you would ask at any trial (ex: have you ever been convicted of a crime in this jurisdiction) and specific questions tailored to the hearing in particular (like the question above).  Both attorneys get the chance to view each other’s questions and object to any particular questions that the other team may have. 

B)  So we’re at jury selection.  Both attorneys argue preliminary whether or not questions get to be asked or not, submit the questions to the judge, and decide how to do the striking. (all at once submitted on paper, or alternating). 

C) The questions are now done.  The attorneys then go through their strikes.  Like I said, they have a limited number of the peremptory ones.  And there are other limits too.  You can’t strike jurors on the basis of a “protected class” (i.e.: race, gender, religion etc.) and anything that SHOWS that an attorney is doing so a can be objected to by the other attorney.  There doesn’t have to be a “pattern” but that helps (i.e. striking three women in a row).  Every time a juror gets called and somebody requests a strike, the other attorney can either object or not.  So it’s up to each attorney to protect the jurors they want (and btw other than the questions, in MD, the info you get as an attorney is the juror’s name, age, job, and where they live, and their spouse’s  job).  If there’s a disagreement then the judge will hear arguments either way.  If it’s a protected class argument, the attorney who has been striking has to come up with a different reason to justify and that’s got to be something UNRELATED to the protected class (ex: if you struck two Black guys in a row you can’t say “oh well I didn’t want THESE Black guys I wanted the other ones” because that’s still BASED ON RACE). 

————

3) SO HERE’S WHY IT’S SO FUCKED UP TO EVEN SUGGEST THIS SHIT AS A WAY TO “SOLVE THE PROBLEM” 

A)  as I said above, you don’t want to fucking lie. 

B) also BEING A CONVICTED FELON, BTW, AND OTHER TYPES OF CONVICTIONS, DISQUALIFIES YOU FROM BEING ON THE JURY. So…convicted rapists? yeah, they can’t actually serve. THIS IS LITERALLY A QUESTION ON THE JURY DUTY FORM AND IS A QUESTION ASKED AT EVERY STAGE OF SELECTION. 

C) ALSO, in a couple of the posts I’ve seen they’ve mentioned this question was only asked for women. I’m not sure really if I, as an attorney, would have phrased a question in a gendered way like this SINCE IT’S BASICALLY BEGGING FOR A CHALLENGE AS A PROTECTED CLASS OBJECTION.  So fine, if it’s asked gender neutral? That’s OK, but as I said, you won’t get dismissed instantaneously (at least not in MD) as it’s not one of those automatic questions the court asks (i.e.: are you a citizen etc.).  And so (again, in Md, Idk about other states) If you say “yes I can be impartial” then fine. Sit your ass down and wait for an attorney to strike you. 

D) so if you DO have an attorney striking you, I would ABSOLUTELY object to any attorney who systematically struck ALL THE WOMEN from a jury panel.  Because fuck that that’s a protected class that fucking SO DEMONSTRATIVE of a violation of the law.  IT’S GENDER BASED. Whoever the prosecutor was who allowed a defense attorney to get away with that shit just wasn’t doing their fucking job. 

E) And in terms of this post? about nobody caring? Fuck that if I was a prosecutor I would absolutely ask if any person (”PERSON” DAMN IT NOT JUST MEN BECAUSE THE WIVES/SISTERS/MOTHERS etc. OF MEN WHO ARE ACCUSED OF RAPE ARE ALSO FUCKING BIASED) had ever been accused of rape or sexual assault or knew somebody who did etc. That’s just good lawyering. It’s sloppy not to do so. 

F) And as a defense attorney, NGL, I would want to know the answer too, in order to make sure to challenge those strikes.  

——-

I get it. I fucking get it. And some of these things will depend on how fucked up your judge is and how good the other side is.  But this shit about “OH HEY JUST LIE” FUCK ME NO. DO NOT FUCKING DO THIS.  

I’m so fucking furious that people are spreading this like it’s a good damn idea and something that will work.  Honestly this is so fucking stupid and dangerous to me that I’m suspicious–is this for real? Or is this somebody trying to false information troll people? 

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DO NOT DO THIS. Answer your questions truthfully and let the lawyers do their damn job.  Yes, it sucks, but at the end of the day, people in this country are INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY.  And your job, as a juror, is to ASSESS ONLY THE FACTS AND ARGUMENTS PRESENTED TO YOU, AND TO SEE IF THE STATE WAS ABLE TO PROVE THAT THIS PARTICULAR SUSPECT DID IT. AND THEY DID IT BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT. 

THe fact is, not all rape cases go to trial.  And the ones that do, DISPROPORTIONATELY charge men of color (in particular, Black and Latino men).  You cannot believe in equality, fight against racism, protect the constitution AND ALSo try to do this shit.  It’s fucked up and completely inconsistent and yet another way to fuck with the justice system.  doing this will probably allow more alleged rapists to go free than it will allow for equality in jury selection. 

TL;DR: this shit is really fucking bad advice and not the way to actually go about doing things.  stop giving people legal advice IF YOU AREN’T A LAWYER. ESPECIALLY IF THAT LEGAL ADVICE that will actually put them in jail, people.

TBC since tumblr’s posting methods changed

Linked article URLs, in order of appearance:

1. Exploiting harassment claims

2. Bob Livingston admits claim is true

3. Truth about false allegations

4. Coming forward is traumatic

5. Accusational statistics

6. Assault victims’ memory reliability

7. Truck stop killer

8. Not worth the book deal

9. Percentage of women who have experienced sexual harassment.

Anyone else think something is fucked up about the fact that of a group of 12 randomly selected women, all 12 have been assaulted by men?

Which isn’t to say that having your boundaries violated and your consent ignored and often being physically hurt may not make someone feel degraded and powerless but there’s no need to add a moral/integrity aspect to compound those injuries with the rhetoric and values that Christians and radfems seem to, and then muddling and fucking the issue up further by equating all consensual sex work with sexual assault.

I absolutely know by now when my boundaries are being violated and when I’m being assaulted and when I am not. I promise you. It was more confusing when I was a kid but I’m clear on it now and when I work—and it IS work, it’s absolutely as much work as child care, and uses the same skillsets, catering to and managing people with underdeveloped communication skills who want what they want and don’t like taking no for an answer—I am not being assaulted.

I have been assaulted AT work, in the club, but only rarely by customers!

I know the difference.

And it really denies the violations of the actual assaults to treat payment or non as the deciding factor.

   It seems that alot of attackers use some tactic to get away with violence. Not many people know how to take care of themselves when faced with such a situation. Everyone should read this especially each n every girl in this world. THOUGHT THIS WAS GOOD INFO TO PASS ALONG… FYI - Through a rapist’s eyes! A group of rapists and date rapists in prison were interviewed on what they look for in a potential victim and here are some interesting facts: 1] The first thing men look for in a potential victim is hairstyle. They are most likely to go after a woman with a ponytail, bun! , braid, or other hairstyle that can easily be grabbed. They are also likely to go after a woman with long hair. Women with short hair are not common targets. 2] The second thing men look for is clothing. They will look for women who’s clothing is easy to remove quickly. Many of them carry scissors around to cut clothing. 3] They also look for women using their cell phone, searching through their purse or doing other activities while walking because they are off guard and can be easily overpowered. 4] The number one place women are abducted from / attacked at is grocery store parking lots. 5] Number two is office parking lots/garages. 6] Number three is public restrooms. 7] The thing about these men is that they are looking to grab a woman and quickly move her to a second location where they don’t have to worry about getting caught. 8] If you put up any kind of a fight at all, they get discouraged because it only takes a minute or two for them to realize that going after you isn’t worth it because it will be time-consuming. 9] These men said they would not pick on women who have umbrellas,or other similar objects that can be used from a distance, in their hands. 10] Keys are not a deterrent because you have to get really close to the attacker to use them as a weapon. So, the idea is to convince these guys you’re not worth it. ———————————————————————————————————————————- POINTS THAT WE SHOULD REMEMBER: 1] If someone is following behind you on a street or in a garage or with you in an elevator or stairwell, look them in the face and ask them a question, like what time is it, or make general small talk: can’t believe it is so cold out here, we’re in for a bad winter. Now that you’ve seen their faces and could identify them in a line- up, you lose appeal as a target.

  2] If someone is coming toward you, hold out your hands in front of you and yell Stop or Stay back! Most of the rapists this man talked to said they’d leave a woman alone if she yelled or showed that she would  not be afraid to fight back. Again, they are looking for an EASY target. 3] If you carry pepper spray (this instructor was a huge advocate of it and carries it with him wherever he goes,) yelling I HAVE PEPPER SPRAY and holding it out will be a deterrent. 4] If someone grabs you, you can’t beat them with strength but you can do it by outsmarting them. If you are grabbed around the waist from behind, pinch the attacker either under the arm between the elbow and armpit or in the upper inner thigh - HARD. One woman in a class this guy taught told him she used the underarm pinch on a guy who was trying to date rape her and was so upset she broke through the skin and tore out muscle strands the guy needed stitches. Try pinching yourself in those places as hard as you can stand it; it really hurts. 5] After the initial hit, always go for the groin. I know from a particularly unfortunate experience that if you slap a guy’s parts it is extremely painful. You might think that you’ll anger the guy and make him want to hurt you more, but the thing these rapists told our instructor is that they want a woman who will not cause him a lot of trouble. Start causing trouble, and he’s out of there. 6] When the guy puts his hands up to you, grab his first two fingers and bend them back as far as possible with as much pressure pushing down on them as possible. The instructor did it to me without using much pressure, and I ended up on my knees and both knuckles cracked audibly. 7] Of course the things we always hear still apply. Always be aware of your surroundings, take someone with you if you can and if you see any odd behavior, don’t dismiss it, go with your instincts. You may feel little silly at the time, but you’d feel much worse if the guy really was trouble. ——————————————————————————————————————————- FINALLY, PLEASE REMEMBER THESE AS WELL …. I know you are smart enough to know these pointers but there will be some, where you will go “hmm I must remember that” After reading forward it to someone you care about, never hurts to be careful in this crazy world we live in. 1. Tip from Tae Kwon Do: The elbow is the strongest point on your body. If you are close enough to use it, do it. 2. Learned this from a tourist guide to New Orleans : if a robber asks for your wallet and/or purse, DO NOT HAND IT TO HIM. Toss it away from you…. chances are that he is more interested in your wallet and/or purse than you and he will go for the wallet/purse. RUN LIKE MAD IN THE OTHER DIRECTION! 3. If you are ever thrown into the trunk of a car: Kick out the back tail lights and stick your arm out the hole and start waving like crazy. The driver won’t see you but everybody else will. This has saved lives. 4. Women have a tendency to get into their cars after shopping,eating, working, etc., and just sit (doing their checkbook, or making a list, etc. DON’T DO THIS! The predator will be watching you, and this is the perfect opportunity for him to get in on the passenger side,put a gun to your head, and tell you where to go. AS SOON AS YOU CLOSE the DOORS , LEAVE.  

5. A few notes about getting into your car in a parking lot, or parking garage: a. Be aware: look around your car as someone may be hiding at the passenger side , peek into your car, inside the passenger side floor, and in the back seat. ( DO THIS TOO BEFORE RIDING A TAXI CAB) . b. If you are parked next to a big van, enter your car from the passenger door. Most serial killers attack their victims by pulling them into their vans while the women are attempting to get into their cars. c. Look at the car parked on the driver’s side of your vehicle, and the passenger side. If a male is sitting alone in the seat nearest your car, you may want to walk back into the mall, or work, and get a guard/policeman to walk you back out. IT IS ALWAYS BETTER TO BE SAFE THAN SORRY. (And better paranoid than dead.)  

6. ALWAYS take the elevator instead of the stairs. (Stairwells are horrible places to be alone and the perfect crime spot). 7. If the predator has a gun and you are not under his control, ALWAYS RUN! The predator will only hit you (a running target) 4 in 100 times; And even then, it most likely WILL NOT be a vital organ. RUN! 8. As women, we are always trying to be sympathetic: STOP IT! It may get you raped, or killed. Ted Bundy, the serial killer, was a good-looking, well educated man, who ALWAYS played on the sympathies of unsuspecting women. He walked with a cane, or a limp, and often asked “for help” into his vehicle or with his vehicle, which is when he abducted his next victim.   

Send this to any woman you know that may need to be reminded that the world we live in has a lot of crazies in it and it’s better safe than sorry.

DON’T EVEN THINK ABOUT NOT REBLOGGING THIS! IT COULD ACTUALLY SAVE A LIFE.

Reblog this. Only the picture will appear on your blog.

Will never not reblog this. Saving this forever. There were so many things on here that are lincredibly useful. It doesn’t matter if it doesn’t match your theme!! Is that worth not saving someone’s life?? This is amazing.

Resources for Male Survivors

I posted last week asking people if they knew of some good resources for male victims of sexual assault. Here is the list people came up with:

www.malesurvivor.org

www.violenceunsilenced.com

www.rainn.org

www.pandys.org

www.1in6.org

www.soulspeakout.org

Thanks everyone.