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Jan. 27th, 2015 10:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkat1. Link to a NY Times article regarding the new Sundance documentary film The Hunting Game. This is a film about the current rape culture across US college campuses. Actually this is a problem that goes back to the 1980s, possibly further. I still have a black whistle on my key chain that I received in 1985 - in case of an assault. I keep it - to remember the issue. I'll remove it, when the issue is no longer present.
While I've never been raped, thankfully, I've known people who were. 3 out of 5 of the women I knew in college were date-raped at frat parties. Many were drunk, passed out in a dorm room, and had sex...with little memory of it and no consent. They remembered saying no, felt ashamed, and did not report it - because they feared no one would believe them and weren't sure it qualified as rape. I know I sat and listened to their stories.
Sexual violence is represented as almost a given in romance novels, action stories on television, paranormal series, and various detective procedurals. Name one procedural in which one of the lead female characters wasn't raped or an attempted rape - to further a male storyline. Just one. I can't think of one. For that matter - how many dramas can we name in which this hasn't happened? Historical and new adult contemporary romance novels - also either contain rape or rape disguised as forced seduction.
It's a problem. Recently it came out that not one, but two male actors/celebrities had raped or molested people. One of the two, recently joked about it and the audience laughed.
Awareness is key, I think. Realizing the pain and horror of it - and not excusing it.
I'm not sure how to punish someone for it - I'm thinking they need to be made aware of the horror of the crime, how disgusting it is, how shameful. Not the victim. The victim has nothing to be ashamed of, the perpetuator does. And maybe figure out why - why they do it. Is it power? Is it prestige? Is it rage? And how to counter act that as a society? Besides merely being a whistle blower. I've looked at the situation from multiple angles, and still don't know how best to resolve and end it.
2. Justified - it was good. But you can sense this is the end game. And I have a sinking feeling it is going to end in tragedy for all the main players.
Boyd Crowder is a sexy and deadly guy, well-played by Walter Goggins. His performance continues to blow me away. As does the former chief of police.
3. The Most Dangerous Book: The Battle Over James Joyce's Ulysses feels, oddly, like the perfect companion to my reading of Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues.
Both are about the beauty of the human body. Both are about advocacy. Both are poetic masterpieces. And both have fierce women behind their publication and production.
The Most Dangerous Book - is more about the fierce and courageous women who advocated that the book be published and more importantly they be allowed to read it - and men not be allowed to dictate what they should or should not read or how they should think. Just because you were born with a penis does not mean you are smarter or better or wiser or more mature than someone born with vagina. (I always found that view odd. Vagina's squeeze out a baby. It's an amazingly powerful muscle. A penis? Well, not all that powerful. It just plows in, plants it's seed in ten minutes, done.
Plus? Sort of vulnerable...I mean think about it? So is all this posturing and power-mongering a complicated defense mechanism built up over the ages to protect that vulnerability? I don't know. But it seems to me, if you have a sensitive body part exposed like that - you might not want to piss off people who don't have it well that exposed and can disable you with one quick kick to the gonads. I'm amazed to see that James Joyce more or less shares my point of view in this respect. Although we've come a long way since Joyce's time (1910-1920s), we really still have a long way to go regarding how we view gender as a culture, don't we? I mean it shouldn't matter whether you are born with a penis or a vagina, what you do or who you are. That shouldn't define you solely. Or dictate what you read, think or do or for that matter even who you love or who you have sex with. Why can't people get that? It's not exactly rocket science. Seems pretty frigging obvious to me.)
While I've never been raped, thankfully, I've known people who were. 3 out of 5 of the women I knew in college were date-raped at frat parties. Many were drunk, passed out in a dorm room, and had sex...with little memory of it and no consent. They remembered saying no, felt ashamed, and did not report it - because they feared no one would believe them and weren't sure it qualified as rape. I know I sat and listened to their stories.
Sexual violence is represented as almost a given in romance novels, action stories on television, paranormal series, and various detective procedurals. Name one procedural in which one of the lead female characters wasn't raped or an attempted rape - to further a male storyline. Just one. I can't think of one. For that matter - how many dramas can we name in which this hasn't happened? Historical and new adult contemporary romance novels - also either contain rape or rape disguised as forced seduction.
It's a problem. Recently it came out that not one, but two male actors/celebrities had raped or molested people. One of the two, recently joked about it and the audience laughed.
Awareness is key, I think. Realizing the pain and horror of it - and not excusing it.
I'm not sure how to punish someone for it - I'm thinking they need to be made aware of the horror of the crime, how disgusting it is, how shameful. Not the victim. The victim has nothing to be ashamed of, the perpetuator does. And maybe figure out why - why they do it. Is it power? Is it prestige? Is it rage? And how to counter act that as a society? Besides merely being a whistle blower. I've looked at the situation from multiple angles, and still don't know how best to resolve and end it.
2. Justified - it was good. But you can sense this is the end game. And I have a sinking feeling it is going to end in tragedy for all the main players.
Boyd Crowder is a sexy and deadly guy, well-played by Walter Goggins. His performance continues to blow me away. As does the former chief of police.
3. The Most Dangerous Book: The Battle Over James Joyce's Ulysses feels, oddly, like the perfect companion to my reading of Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues.
Both are about the beauty of the human body. Both are about advocacy. Both are poetic masterpieces. And both have fierce women behind their publication and production.
The Most Dangerous Book - is more about the fierce and courageous women who advocated that the book be published and more importantly they be allowed to read it - and men not be allowed to dictate what they should or should not read or how they should think. Just because you were born with a penis does not mean you are smarter or better or wiser or more mature than someone born with vagina. (I always found that view odd. Vagina's squeeze out a baby. It's an amazingly powerful muscle. A penis? Well, not all that powerful. It just plows in, plants it's seed in ten minutes, done.
Plus? Sort of vulnerable...I mean think about it? So is all this posturing and power-mongering a complicated defense mechanism built up over the ages to protect that vulnerability? I don't know. But it seems to me, if you have a sensitive body part exposed like that - you might not want to piss off people who don't have it well that exposed and can disable you with one quick kick to the gonads. I'm amazed to see that James Joyce more or less shares my point of view in this respect. Although we've come a long way since Joyce's time (1910-1920s), we really still have a long way to go regarding how we view gender as a culture, don't we? I mean it shouldn't matter whether you are born with a penis or a vagina, what you do or who you are. That shouldn't define you solely. Or dictate what you read, think or do or for that matter even who you love or who you have sex with. Why can't people get that? It's not exactly rocket science. Seems pretty frigging obvious to me.)
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Date: 2015-02-08 06:02 am (UTC)Индивидуальность - превыше всего. Мартин.