Here's another nail in the coffin: as someone pointed out at Gawker, an 'official, sanctioned, scheduled event' would require the frat to abide by the chapter's rules. The national chapter's rules. Events where people just happen to gather? Not official. Not sanctioned. No rules.
"I was in a sorority in college as well, and a couple of things:
1) Most of the times when we were going over to a frat house, it was just to drink and hang out. It wasn't an official party.
2) Also, an "officially sanctioned event" means the fraternity would have to abide by national rules. Get venues approved, card people for drinking, etc. So no, just hanging out in a frat house would not be an official event by any means.
3) Often times guys who live in a house or are affiliated with a fraternity aren't officially affiliated. Say, they didn't make grades or they got behind on dues. They still get to hang out, but they wouldn't be on the official roster. So yeah, the guy accused might have been a Phi Psi, and he might have been a lifeguard. But it's very possible he wasn't listed on the roster.
All this is to say, I agree with what you're saying. Fraternities deny things using this kind of language all the time. This is the frat boy mentality."
Two months ago, four people---three women and a man----were hospitalized after being overcome at a UW Madison frat house party. The women were given color-coded hand stamps and not allowed to see their drinks mixed. Frat brothers stood at the door and stamped everyone's hands. Men got one stamp. Pretty girls another. The male victim had taken a drink from one of the young women's drinks.
These are our bright young men, putting all their brains into making date rape that much more efficient.
http://www.jsonline.com/news/crime/uw-m ilwaukee-fraternity-probed-over-drugs-sl ipped-into-party-drinks-b99354529z1-2756 64681.html
"I was in a sorority in college as well, and a couple of things:
1) Most of the times when we were going over to a frat house, it was just to drink and hang out. It wasn't an official party.
2) Also, an "officially sanctioned event" means the fraternity would have to abide by national rules. Get venues approved, card people for drinking, etc. So no, just hanging out in a frat house would not be an official event by any means.
3) Often times guys who live in a house or are affiliated with a fraternity aren't officially affiliated. Say, they didn't make grades or they got behind on dues. They still get to hang out, but they wouldn't be on the official roster. So yeah, the guy accused might have been a Phi Psi, and he might have been a lifeguard. But it's very possible he wasn't listed on the roster.
All this is to say, I agree with what you're saying. Fraternities deny things using this kind of language all the time. This is the frat boy mentality."
Two months ago, four people---three women and a man----were hospitalized after being overcome at a UW Madison frat house party. The women were given color-coded hand stamps and not allowed to see their drinks mixed. Frat brothers stood at the door and stamped everyone's hands. Men got one stamp. Pretty girls another. The male victim had taken a drink from one of the young women's drinks.
These are our bright young men, putting all their brains into making date rape that much more efficient.
http://www.jsonline.com/news/crime/uw-m
Over the past two weeks the Virginia Alpha Chapter of Phi Kappa Psi has been working tirelessly and openly with the Charlottesville Police Department as they investigate the allegations detailed in the November 19, 2012 Rolling Stone article. We continue to be shocked by the allegations and saddened by this story.
1. We have no knowledge of these alleged acts being committed at our house or by our members. Anyone who commits any form of sexual assault, wherever or whenever, should be identified and brought to justice.
1.'In tandem with the Charlottesville Police Department's investigation, the Chapter's undergraduate members have made efforts to contribute with internal fact-finding. Our initial doubts as to the accuracy of the article have only been strengthened as alumni and undergraduate members have delved deeper.
'Given the ongoing nature of the criminal investigation, which we fully support, we do not feel it would be appropriate at this time to provide more than the following:
2.'First, the 2012 roster of employees at the Aquatic and Fitness Center does not list a Phi Kappa Psi as a lifeguard. As far as we have determined, no member of our fraternity worked there in any capacity during this time period.
3.'Second, the Chapter did not have a date function or a social event during the weekend of September 28th, 2012.
4.'Third, our Chapter's pledging and initiation periods, as required by the University and Inter-Fraternity Council, take place solely in the spring semester and not in the fall semester.
5.'We document the initiation of new members at the end of each spring.
6.Moreover, no ritualized sexual assault is part of our pledging or initiation process. This notion is vile, and we vehemently refute this claim.
7.'It is our hope that this information will encourage people who may know anything relevant to this case to contact the Charlottesville Police Department as soon as possible. In the meantime, we will continue to assist investigators in whatever way we can.
1. Blah blah blah.
2. So? This is nonsensical. Somebody told the victim this.
3. A weekend at a frat without an event? Does that mean the house was emtpy or just full of earnestly-studying young monks?
4. How hard would it be for a new student to mistake chaotic events such as a gang rape for the bustle of rush week? Especially if somebody told her that was what it was in the hope of deceiving her? Look how awesomely this has paid off.
5. Suuuuuuuuuure.
6. Yeah, does anybody expect they'd say, "Sure do! It's really fun, too!" ?
7. "Information"----we have only the frat's words for any of this, which everybody appears to be accepted as gospel. It sure looks like this is intended to shut down the whole thing, and it looks like somebody applied some pressure to Rolling Stone.
1. We have no knowledge of these alleged acts being committed at our house or by our members. Anyone who commits any form of sexual assault, wherever or whenever, should be identified and brought to justice.
1.'In tandem with the Charlottesville Police Department's investigation, the Chapter's undergraduate members have made efforts to contribute with internal fact-finding. Our initial doubts as to the accuracy of the article have only been strengthened as alumni and undergraduate members have delved deeper.
'Given the ongoing nature of the criminal investigation, which we fully support, we do not feel it would be appropriate at this time to provide more than the following:
2.'First, the 2012 roster of employees at the Aquatic and Fitness Center does not list a Phi Kappa Psi as a lifeguard. As far as we have determined, no member of our fraternity worked there in any capacity during this time period.
3.'Second, the Chapter did not have a date function or a social event during the weekend of September 28th, 2012.
4.'Third, our Chapter's pledging and initiation periods, as required by the University and Inter-Fraternity Council, take place solely in the spring semester and not in the fall semester.
5.'We document the initiation of new members at the end of each spring.
6.Moreover, no ritualized sexual assault is part of our pledging or initiation process. This notion is vile, and we vehemently refute this claim.
7.'It is our hope that this information will encourage people who may know anything relevant to this case to contact the Charlottesville Police Department as soon as possible. In the meantime, we will continue to assist investigators in whatever way we can.
1. Blah blah blah.
2. So? This is nonsensical. Somebody told the victim this.
3. A weekend at a frat without an event? Does that mean the house was emtpy or just full of earnestly-studying young monks?
4. How hard would it be for a new student to mistake chaotic events such as a gang rape for the bustle of rush week? Especially if somebody told her that was what it was in the hope of deceiving her? Look how awesomely this has paid off.
5. Suuuuuuuuuure.
6. Yeah, does anybody expect they'd say, "Sure do! It's really fun, too!" ?
7. "Information"----we have only the frat's words for any of this, which everybody appears to be accepted as gospel. It sure looks like this is intended to shut down the whole thing, and it looks like somebody applied some pressure to Rolling Stone.
So Rolling Stone has partially retracted its story about a UVA gang rape case. Excuse me while I point out that this is at least partially bullshit.
*The frat claimed they didn't have an event scheduled there that night. My, what terribly precise language that is. Was the place empty? Deserted? Tumbleweeds blowing through? It's hard to imagine a frat being a ghost town. Was it possible that there was, perhaps, just a shot in the dark here, an unscheduled event that night? Just get it straight, ladies; if you can't tell the difference between scheduleda and unscheduled, you're a lying whore.
*The frat claims that the name Jackie says is that of one of the rapists does not match that of any member. Huh. Again. Well, that means that there could not have been anyone there by that name. I'm sure men who rape women never do anything so dishonest as to use fake names. I'm also sure that because there was no scheduled event that day, there was nobody there, period, so no one by any name could have been present on the site. Also, the victim should have taken notes. Otherwise, she's a lying whore.
*Something about someone being a lifeguard not being a member of the frat? So....if there was a lifeguard there who Jackie mistakenly thought was a member of the frat she's still a lying whore?
Notice something? Aside from the curiously precise language used by the frat----what, was there anyunscheduled events going on?---- all of these things are being presented as facts, as lapses in the victim's credibility.
It's a curious thing that if someone tells a person a lie, and the second person repeats it as the truth because it never occurs to them to assume automatically that people are liars, the second person is regarded as the liar. Especially if they're female.
We're taking the frat's word for it. That's all the proof that Rolling Stone needed.
Jackie's friends, reportedly sexual assault counselors, supposedly had doubts. But they're not quoted directly, so we have to take Rolling Stone's word for it.
But, again, thus far we've been given the accused frat's claims as gospel. Rolling Stone doesn't have a problem fact checking when it's a bunch of rich white boys.
The most devastating claim made---that the house doesn't have a staircase in whatever location----isn't that devastating when you consider that the victim was either drugged or drunk when the incident happened. DAmmit, why didn't she bring an architect with her to draw the floor plan? Lying bitch.
This is where it gets positively hilarious.
*The frat claims that they have never conducted ritualized sexual activities as part of its rush week. Or whatever.
Oh, yeah, sure, I'm sure they're telling the truth.
*The frat claims that they only conduct rushing/pledging/whatever activities at certain parts of the year. (Only at scheduled parties, perhaps?) No one who was drugged, or drunk, and then raped could possibly have gotten some of her facts wrong regarding.....whatever. And I'm sure nobody would ever wrongly inform her of something like this.
And that's it. That's all they've got. We're accepting their unsupported word as fact. We're accepting the word of guys who have everything to lie by telling the truth, and everything to gain by lying. Funny how nobody ever talks about how men lie about women---and get believed. Women tell the truth and get called liars.
Think about that. "Oh, it's rush week." If a rapist was very clever, they could create their own reasonable doubt by feeding the victim all kinds of bullshit----not that criminals would ever give fake names, for example------and then just asserting otherwise. Because people will believe white men. No matter how many white men lie, it's either the bitch's fault, and he's just one, unique, special, extraordinary white guy. White men never get lumped together in a suspicious group.
Women almost never lie about rape, but you know who does lie about rape? (Or worse yet, tell what they really, really, REALLY, hope is the truth?)
Rapists.
Because we listen to them. We like them. Nobody likes whiners. Nobody likes victims. Nobody likes the reality that rapists aren't guys in dark alleys, but nice neighborhood boys who just somewhere got really poisonous beliefs about women.
It never ceases to amaze me that people refuse to grasp just how much trauma affects memory. I'm still having memories come back today, ten years after the war. There's some stuff I've given up on. My CO swears that there's a guy in federal prison thanks to me confronting him over suspicious activity, but I have no memory of it at all.
Obviously, rape victims should wave their hands at their rapists so the rape can stop while they poll for names, personal details, and addresses to note down on the handy notebook they have of course brought with them before getting back to being raped. And don't forget the architectural drawings!
There is no Ferguson for women. Americans like their morals tidy and oppositional and unambiguous, and one of the ugliest truths about rape is that men who've been oppressed themselves often see rape not as another form of oppression practiced against a fellow sufferer, a sister, but a form of male privilege which they've been denied. Because if there's one thing guys can agree on: it's lying whores. Only women are dismissed as liars as a group. Women are assumed to be lying, to be menstruating, to being evil and calculating, because we're all whores who know we have to pretend to be virgins to entrap men. The belief that women lie is always there, ready to be deployed by any vengeful, scorned, man, any loser who sees a woman climb higher than he can, despite twice the work and half the pay. That belief comforts men with its promise of effortless predation against the one victim that society always thinks needs some checking: women. There will be no marches. Men can be defended because no man deserves this or that, but every woman is asking for it or probably got away with it before and what's the perfect punishment? That wonderful old combination of what Eldredge Cleaver once called "business and pleasure." You guessed it.
Rolling Stone, for whatever reason, decided to believe a bunch of frat boys with nothing more than their word. Far from being jeered at the way the Ferguson DA was, they're being lauded for at last calling out the lying whore.
Nobody's marching.
*The frat claimed they didn't have an event scheduled there that night. My, what terribly precise language that is. Was the place empty? Deserted? Tumbleweeds blowing through? It's hard to imagine a frat being a ghost town. Was it possible that there was, perhaps, just a shot in the dark here, an unscheduled event that night? Just get it straight, ladies; if you can't tell the difference between scheduleda and unscheduled, you're a lying whore.
*The frat claims that the name Jackie says is that of one of the rapists does not match that of any member. Huh. Again. Well, that means that there could not have been anyone there by that name. I'm sure men who rape women never do anything so dishonest as to use fake names. I'm also sure that because there was no scheduled event that day, there was nobody there, period, so no one by any name could have been present on the site. Also, the victim should have taken notes. Otherwise, she's a lying whore.
*Something about someone being a lifeguard not being a member of the frat? So....if there was a lifeguard there who Jackie mistakenly thought was a member of the frat she's still a lying whore?
Notice something? Aside from the curiously precise language used by the frat----what, was there anyunscheduled events going on?---- all of these things are being presented as facts, as lapses in the victim's credibility.
It's a curious thing that if someone tells a person a lie, and the second person repeats it as the truth because it never occurs to them to assume automatically that people are liars, the second person is regarded as the liar. Especially if they're female.
We're taking the frat's word for it. That's all the proof that Rolling Stone needed.
Jackie's friends, reportedly sexual assault counselors, supposedly had doubts. But they're not quoted directly, so we have to take Rolling Stone's word for it.
But, again, thus far we've been given the accused frat's claims as gospel. Rolling Stone doesn't have a problem fact checking when it's a bunch of rich white boys.
The most devastating claim made---that the house doesn't have a staircase in whatever location----isn't that devastating when you consider that the victim was either drugged or drunk when the incident happened. DAmmit, why didn't she bring an architect with her to draw the floor plan? Lying bitch.
This is where it gets positively hilarious.
*The frat claims that they have never conducted ritualized sexual activities as part of its rush week. Or whatever.
Oh, yeah, sure, I'm sure they're telling the truth.
*The frat claims that they only conduct rushing/pledging/whatever activities at certain parts of the year. (Only at scheduled parties, perhaps?) No one who was drugged, or drunk, and then raped could possibly have gotten some of her facts wrong regarding.....whatever. And I'm sure nobody would ever wrongly inform her of something like this.
And that's it. That's all they've got. We're accepting their unsupported word as fact. We're accepting the word of guys who have everything to lie by telling the truth, and everything to gain by lying. Funny how nobody ever talks about how men lie about women---and get believed. Women tell the truth and get called liars.
Think about that. "Oh, it's rush week." If a rapist was very clever, they could create their own reasonable doubt by feeding the victim all kinds of bullshit----not that criminals would ever give fake names, for example------and then just asserting otherwise. Because people will believe white men. No matter how many white men lie, it's either the bitch's fault, and he's just one, unique, special, extraordinary white guy. White men never get lumped together in a suspicious group.
Women almost never lie about rape, but you know who does lie about rape? (Or worse yet, tell what they really, really, REALLY, hope is the truth?)
Rapists.
Because we listen to them. We like them. Nobody likes whiners. Nobody likes victims. Nobody likes the reality that rapists aren't guys in dark alleys, but nice neighborhood boys who just somewhere got really poisonous beliefs about women.
It never ceases to amaze me that people refuse to grasp just how much trauma affects memory. I'm still having memories come back today, ten years after the war. There's some stuff I've given up on. My CO swears that there's a guy in federal prison thanks to me confronting him over suspicious activity, but I have no memory of it at all.
Obviously, rape victims should wave their hands at their rapists so the rape can stop while they poll for names, personal details, and addresses to note down on the handy notebook they have of course brought with them before getting back to being raped. And don't forget the architectural drawings!
There is no Ferguson for women. Americans like their morals tidy and oppositional and unambiguous, and one of the ugliest truths about rape is that men who've been oppressed themselves often see rape not as another form of oppression practiced against a fellow sufferer, a sister, but a form of male privilege which they've been denied. Because if there's one thing guys can agree on: it's lying whores. Only women are dismissed as liars as a group. Women are assumed to be lying, to be menstruating, to being evil and calculating, because we're all whores who know we have to pretend to be virgins to entrap men. The belief that women lie is always there, ready to be deployed by any vengeful, scorned, man, any loser who sees a woman climb higher than he can, despite twice the work and half the pay. That belief comforts men with its promise of effortless predation against the one victim that society always thinks needs some checking: women. There will be no marches. Men can be defended because no man deserves this or that, but every woman is asking for it or probably got away with it before and what's the perfect punishment? That wonderful old combination of what Eldredge Cleaver once called "business and pleasure." You guessed it.
Rolling Stone, for whatever reason, decided to believe a bunch of frat boys with nothing more than their word. Far from being jeered at the way the Ferguson DA was, they're being lauded for at last calling out the lying whore.
Nobody's marching.
So.....when the discussion is about rape, one finds tons of offended guys proclaiming self-righteously, "Let a hundred guilty men go free lest a single innocent man be convicted."
When the topic is catcalling and street harassment, it's, "You're just one woman, you're wrong, I get to bug a thousand women till I find
that one unicorn who LOVES catcalling, thinks NICE TITS is poetry, and eats cheeseburgers five times a day but never exercises!"
And on top of all that I bet these are the same guys who believe in
"That Lady Who Wouldn't Let Me Hold The Door Open", (about whom they often tell triumphant yeah-that-TOTALLY-happened-dude" stories, along with believing that false rape accusations are ubiquitous and that their buddies just all happened to have crazy exes who are lying.
Plus I bet these dudes all protest they like "strong" women. Really?
That's like saying, "I like oxygen." High standards for men cannot be too high, while women should be willing to have such low standards that lowering them would require excavation equipment. "My hobbies are
breathing, walking, (upright!) and digestion." What are the multiple
choices? "I like drug-addicted, shiftless, lazy, crazy, slovenly, and
malicious. Republicans a plus!"
And even then, somebody will still call you a fat bitch.
When the topic is catcalling and street harassment, it's, "You're just one woman, you're wrong, I get to bug a thousand women till I find
that one unicorn who LOVES catcalling, thinks NICE TITS is poetry, and eats cheeseburgers five times a day but never exercises!"
And on top of all that I bet these are the same guys who believe in
"That Lady Who Wouldn't Let Me Hold The Door Open", (about whom they often tell triumphant yeah-that-TOTALLY-happened-dude" stories, along with believing that false rape accusations are ubiquitous and that their buddies just all happened to have crazy exes who are lying.
Plus I bet these dudes all protest they like "strong" women. Really?
That's like saying, "I like oxygen." High standards for men cannot be too high, while women should be willing to have such low standards that lowering them would require excavation equipment. "My hobbies are
breathing, walking, (upright!) and digestion." What are the multiple
choices? "I like drug-addicted, shiftless, lazy, crazy, slovenly, and
malicious. Republicans a plus!"
And even then, somebody will still call you a fat bitch.
Actor Shia LaBoeuf has been acting kind of weird for a while; he did a movie in which he went seriously Method, which reportedly is what Heath Ledger was doing when he played the Joker so frighteningly in Batman. What has stuck out for me has been the lack of personal care and grooming. That's what you do when you are severely depressed, and if you're depressed, nothing is going to make it worse like being told you're a weirdo. This just confirms that your opinion of yourself is the same as everyone else's opinion of you.
This is why mentally ill people make perfect crime victims, if you know what I mean. People still jeer at the mentally ill, especially if they're afflicted by the kind of illness that affects behavior or perception of reality. People don't understand mental illness. It's a frightening topic, because as a general rule, mental illness remains a taboo subject. Many symptoms cannot be truly contained or eliminated in some sufferers, leaving them in the grip of their illness.
Plus, our culture loves the idea of the mentally-ill super criminal. In reality, mentally ill people get victimized far more often then they victimize others, but hey, why waste a good stigma? You want villains that are weird, am I right? Let's ignore the fact that master criminals are a rare breed and most criminals (depending on what sort of crime they choose) tend to be, well, kind of losers. Ted Bundy, often cited as some kind of master predator, picked his nose and had a foot fetish. His grades were middling and he was never a great thinker. He was not original. He was not especially good looking. His very mediocrity was his cover. He didn't stand out. That was why he could submerge in a crowd and then only briefly surface now and then, with his crutches and ordinaryness. The perfect villain isn't an impeccably-suited Eurotrash doctor or intellectual; he's some loser whose middle name is Wayne, and he probably thinks bitches ask for it.
Why do we believe this crap? Because it keeps the reality of crime away from us. The guy who robs you didn't target you for your amazing collection of Faberge eggs and Cellini sculptures; he's looking for some half decent jewelry among the Elvis paintings and Beanie Babies. He might live on your block.
When it comes to more intimate crimes, the fact is, you're likely to be targeted by somebody close to you. Rape, murder, these crimes are not committed by master criminals. Kevin Coe, of the Pacific Northwest, was a serial rapist and flasher who happened to match everybody's dream idea of a serial rapist, but according to David Lisak, actual rapists tend to commit an average of six rapes and they use booze more often than masterfully-concocted exotic drugs. Their biggest weapon is not rare substances, but common sexism; they exploit our desire to trust men and vilify women. If I had to guess, I'd say your average rapist isn't so much hateful as utterly indifferent to women, and has little more than contempt for their prey. How dare you think you're a human being.
And those guys are ordinary guys. Alex Kelly was a nice white bread Connecticut boy whose mistake was attacking girls of his class. If only he'd branched out to the lower orders, we'd probably be arguing about him to this day. I'm still amazed a rich white boy got convicted of rape during the era of William Kennedy Smith. Kelly overpowered his victims because men have more upper body strength than women, which sexists only mention when it makes it possible to bar women from well-paying jobs that would enable women to tell losers to fuck off. No questions about how women should be allowed to be afraid and alert in a world where men get all the benefit of the doubt, despite repeatedly misusing their physical advantages against women.
Shia LaBoeuf gave a bizarre interview this week (during which he was silent but the interview was conducted via email) in which he said a woman came into his "I'm Sorry" performance art piece and raped him. His description of her------strolling out confidently with her lipstick smeared------certainly struck a chord, because it matches the contemptuous words Lisak and others have quoted as coming from rapists. (For all the talk of rape victims' clothing being provocative, Linda Fairstein describes rapists eyeing their former victims at court and saying, "I did her?! Really?"
The whole point of LaBoeuf's performance piece was silence.
This is why affirmative consent matters, people.
It used to be that women and others assumed to be appropriate victims existed in a condition of consent; that they were there to be used by their superiors, and it was their job to justify their refusal. This is why, "She didn't say no," is what rapists used to say. Still do, frankly, in a lot of cases.
Affirmative consent assumes that people exist in a condition of neutrality, neither assenting nor refusing, till influenced by another or their own wishes. This is simply fair and just. It considers the victims' wishes and stops the viewing of them as owing anybody any type of sexual activity or anything.
Assuming that victims are there for the rapists' pleasure and that it's their job to prove otherwise is why we demand that rape victims 'prove' they resisted. We assume that women are there to please men, because women have no other worth, and that their value goes down if they have sex with lots of men. Ergo, rape victims lie because they don't want people to know how much sex they've had. (Of course, this means that if people were serious about eliminating false accusations, they'd be going after the sexual double standard that labels women whores and men players, but in fact the people shouting the most about false accusations are guys who appear incredibly devoted to slamming women for sexual activity. Kind of like how anti-abortion people, if they truly wished to reduce abortion, would be handing out condoms and sex ed every chance they get but....they don't.)
To demand that a rape victim (and it's only rape victims) "prove" that they resisted is to demand that victims risk serious injury because we ourselves have issues, especially given the size and strength differential between men and women. To say that false accusations are a serious enough problem that all rape victims can be dismissed is to say that hundreds of women being raped is less serious a problem than a handful of men being questioned by police.
It's not a victim's job to say "No." It's the other partner's job not to assume "Yes." This requires that people talk to one another, and of course, for certain groups of men in this country, talking to women is the worst possible fate you can imagine. They can't or don't want to get consent; their argument is that if you eliminate their excuses for fucking women who are silent, crying, unconscious, checked out, unmoving, and/or avoiding eye contact, you'd eliminate all chances for them to do.....well, they're not actually having sex. They're masturbating with a woman's body is what they're doing.
Shia LaBoeuf was raped. It was not his job to say. It was the rapist's job to recognize that "yes" is no longer the default. Given the circumstances-----his previous difficulties, the conditions of his performance art piece, his gender, his culture-----he reacted like a lot of people do when someone encroaches on their boundaries. It sounds like he froze. Anyone who says he's trivializing rape knows nothing about it.
If I had to guess, I'd bet the rapist thinks highly of herself and very little of men, perhaps believing in the "Men are always up for sex." (Stereotypes of men often serve to defend and condemn men simultaneously, though they're meant to function as a kind of weather report in which men are treated as mighty forces of nature that other people have to maneuver around.) It's always women like this----often conservative though not all the time-----who say the things feminists get blamed for me. Show me a woman who boasts are her pure gender roles marriage or relationship and I'll show you a woman who has utter contempt for men.
All rape victims deserve sympathy. And justice. I hope that woman gets busted. Based on what's available right now, I have no reason to doubt the victim's story.
This is why mentally ill people make perfect crime victims, if you know what I mean. People still jeer at the mentally ill, especially if they're afflicted by the kind of illness that affects behavior or perception of reality. People don't understand mental illness. It's a frightening topic, because as a general rule, mental illness remains a taboo subject. Many symptoms cannot be truly contained or eliminated in some sufferers, leaving them in the grip of their illness.
Plus, our culture loves the idea of the mentally-ill super criminal. In reality, mentally ill people get victimized far more often then they victimize others, but hey, why waste a good stigma? You want villains that are weird, am I right? Let's ignore the fact that master criminals are a rare breed and most criminals (depending on what sort of crime they choose) tend to be, well, kind of losers. Ted Bundy, often cited as some kind of master predator, picked his nose and had a foot fetish. His grades were middling and he was never a great thinker. He was not original. He was not especially good looking. His very mediocrity was his cover. He didn't stand out. That was why he could submerge in a crowd and then only briefly surface now and then, with his crutches and ordinaryness. The perfect villain isn't an impeccably-suited Eurotrash doctor or intellectual; he's some loser whose middle name is Wayne, and he probably thinks bitches ask for it.
Why do we believe this crap? Because it keeps the reality of crime away from us. The guy who robs you didn't target you for your amazing collection of Faberge eggs and Cellini sculptures; he's looking for some half decent jewelry among the Elvis paintings and Beanie Babies. He might live on your block.
When it comes to more intimate crimes, the fact is, you're likely to be targeted by somebody close to you. Rape, murder, these crimes are not committed by master criminals. Kevin Coe, of the Pacific Northwest, was a serial rapist and flasher who happened to match everybody's dream idea of a serial rapist, but according to David Lisak, actual rapists tend to commit an average of six rapes and they use booze more often than masterfully-concocted exotic drugs. Their biggest weapon is not rare substances, but common sexism; they exploit our desire to trust men and vilify women. If I had to guess, I'd say your average rapist isn't so much hateful as utterly indifferent to women, and has little more than contempt for their prey. How dare you think you're a human being.
And those guys are ordinary guys. Alex Kelly was a nice white bread Connecticut boy whose mistake was attacking girls of his class. If only he'd branched out to the lower orders, we'd probably be arguing about him to this day. I'm still amazed a rich white boy got convicted of rape during the era of William Kennedy Smith. Kelly overpowered his victims because men have more upper body strength than women, which sexists only mention when it makes it possible to bar women from well-paying jobs that would enable women to tell losers to fuck off. No questions about how women should be allowed to be afraid and alert in a world where men get all the benefit of the doubt, despite repeatedly misusing their physical advantages against women.
Shia LaBoeuf gave a bizarre interview this week (during which he was silent but the interview was conducted via email) in which he said a woman came into his "I'm Sorry" performance art piece and raped him. His description of her------strolling out confidently with her lipstick smeared------certainly struck a chord, because it matches the contemptuous words Lisak and others have quoted as coming from rapists. (For all the talk of rape victims' clothing being provocative, Linda Fairstein describes rapists eyeing their former victims at court and saying, "I did her?! Really?"
The whole point of LaBoeuf's performance piece was silence.
This is why affirmative consent matters, people.
It used to be that women and others assumed to be appropriate victims existed in a condition of consent; that they were there to be used by their superiors, and it was their job to justify their refusal. This is why, "She didn't say no," is what rapists used to say. Still do, frankly, in a lot of cases.
Affirmative consent assumes that people exist in a condition of neutrality, neither assenting nor refusing, till influenced by another or their own wishes. This is simply fair and just. It considers the victims' wishes and stops the viewing of them as owing anybody any type of sexual activity or anything.
Assuming that victims are there for the rapists' pleasure and that it's their job to prove otherwise is why we demand that rape victims 'prove' they resisted. We assume that women are there to please men, because women have no other worth, and that their value goes down if they have sex with lots of men. Ergo, rape victims lie because they don't want people to know how much sex they've had. (Of course, this means that if people were serious about eliminating false accusations, they'd be going after the sexual double standard that labels women whores and men players, but in fact the people shouting the most about false accusations are guys who appear incredibly devoted to slamming women for sexual activity. Kind of like how anti-abortion people, if they truly wished to reduce abortion, would be handing out condoms and sex ed every chance they get but....they don't.)
To demand that a rape victim (and it's only rape victims) "prove" that they resisted is to demand that victims risk serious injury because we ourselves have issues, especially given the size and strength differential between men and women. To say that false accusations are a serious enough problem that all rape victims can be dismissed is to say that hundreds of women being raped is less serious a problem than a handful of men being questioned by police.
It's not a victim's job to say "No." It's the other partner's job not to assume "Yes." This requires that people talk to one another, and of course, for certain groups of men in this country, talking to women is the worst possible fate you can imagine. They can't or don't want to get consent; their argument is that if you eliminate their excuses for fucking women who are silent, crying, unconscious, checked out, unmoving, and/or avoiding eye contact, you'd eliminate all chances for them to do.....well, they're not actually having sex. They're masturbating with a woman's body is what they're doing.
Shia LaBoeuf was raped. It was not his job to say. It was the rapist's job to recognize that "yes" is no longer the default. Given the circumstances-----his previous difficulties, the conditions of his performance art piece, his gender, his culture-----he reacted like a lot of people do when someone encroaches on their boundaries. It sounds like he froze. Anyone who says he's trivializing rape knows nothing about it.
If I had to guess, I'd bet the rapist thinks highly of herself and very little of men, perhaps believing in the "Men are always up for sex." (Stereotypes of men often serve to defend and condemn men simultaneously, though they're meant to function as a kind of weather report in which men are treated as mighty forces of nature that other people have to maneuver around.) It's always women like this----often conservative though not all the time-----who say the things feminists get blamed for me. Show me a woman who boasts are her pure gender roles marriage or relationship and I'll show you a woman who has utter contempt for men.
All rape victims deserve sympathy. And justice. I hope that woman gets busted. Based on what's available right now, I have no reason to doubt the victim's story.
Well, for one brief shining moment I had Fred curled up on one side of me
and Shadow on the other. I still haven't figured out if Fred is just a
doofus or a sly little shit. If he doesn't get his way that coy tail slap
he does can demolish the tops of whole tables, flinging soda cans,
hardcover books, and stray earrings in all directions. Then he bats his
eyelashes at you guilelessly.
Shadow can best be described as "grumpily affectionate." He has a hoarse
croak of a voice, so he squawks rather than meows. When I had the vet pull
out broken teeth (probably from a fight) it left him with a lopsided sneer
that really only goes away when I rub his cheek------and he grabs my whole
arm and rubs his face on it.
When he plays with his bouncy balls he turns into a total kitten,
scrabbling frantically across wood floors with his tail sticking straight
up like an exclamation point. Then he throws the balls down the stairs so
he can skid after them. When he's done, he brings at least one ball to me,
panting and croaking out that hoarse meow of his. Then he snuggles into my
hand and that rusty loud purr starts. It's like the sound of an old boat
motor, long neglected but finally repaired.
Oh, God, Fred found the nip. We're doomed.
and Shadow on the other. I still haven't figured out if Fred is just a
doofus or a sly little shit. If he doesn't get his way that coy tail slap
he does can demolish the tops of whole tables, flinging soda cans,
hardcover books, and stray earrings in all directions. Then he bats his
eyelashes at you guilelessly.
Shadow can best be described as "grumpily affectionate." He has a hoarse
croak of a voice, so he squawks rather than meows. When I had the vet pull
out broken teeth (probably from a fight) it left him with a lopsided sneer
that really only goes away when I rub his cheek------and he grabs my whole
arm and rubs his face on it.
When he plays with his bouncy balls he turns into a total kitten,
scrabbling frantically across wood floors with his tail sticking straight
up like an exclamation point. Then he throws the balls down the stairs so
he can skid after them. When he's done, he brings at least one ball to me,
panting and croaking out that hoarse meow of his. Then he snuggles into my
hand and that rusty loud purr starts. It's like the sound of an old boat
motor, long neglected but finally repaired.
Oh, God, Fred found the nip. We're doomed.
A commenter on MSNBC just called Ferguson "an Anerican travesty." Yeah. That's it, right there.
We have a truce of sorts.

It's gotten to the point where Morgie and Shadow can sleep together. Even Fred comes upstairs and behaves. Cats are so soothing when the world is crazy.
Three buildings are on fire in Ferguson. Do you blame them? Were there suicide bombers and ambushes, that Darryl Wilson over-reacted so extraordinarily? No. So. People are human. How many Michael Browns and Trayvon Martins will there be? And how can anybody not look at this and feel it?
I should shut up now.

It's gotten to the point where Morgie and Shadow can sleep together. Even Fred comes upstairs and behaves. Cats are so soothing when the world is crazy.
Three buildings are on fire in Ferguson. Do you blame them? Were there suicide bombers and ambushes, that Darryl Wilson over-reacted so extraordinarily? No. So. People are human. How many Michael Browns and Trayvon Martins will there be? And how can anybody not look at this and feel it?
I should shut up now.
Anybody surprised? Yeah, me either.
I like cosy spaces. I sat on this daybed and marveled at the perfect
proportions of it. There's just enough space between the foot of the day
bed and the closet to comfortably open the closet door; there's just
enough space between the daybed and the opposite wall to fit a desk under
the windows, and so on.
You can breathe enough and stretch enough.....but not too much. The
comforting touch of an embracing wall is just far enough away....or just
close enough.
I need to re-roll the little blue futon, though. It makes a nice little bolster thingie. I love the stark black against the walls, which look lavender but are actually pink.
I still can't figure out why no one snapped up this house instantly.

proportions of it. There's just enough space between the foot of the day
bed and the closet to comfortably open the closet door; there's just
enough space between the daybed and the opposite wall to fit a desk under
the windows, and so on.
You can breathe enough and stretch enough.....but not too much. The
comforting touch of an embracing wall is just far enough away....or just
close enough.
I need to re-roll the little blue futon, though. It makes a nice little bolster thingie. I love the stark black against the walls, which look lavender but are actually pink.
I still can't figure out why no one snapped up this house instantly.

Hey, does anybody know anybody who'd like a little spanish-keyboard laptop? It's netbook sized, but it's fast and has a nice hard drive and ram.
So I got approved for a visa with an obscenely high limit, which will enable me to finally complete this move and treat the volunteers who helped move the heavy stuff. This means I can hire people to move my beloved huge washer and dryer to the new house, where I can then switch out the washer and drier there, which are nice and new but not quite as huge as my front loaders. I love those things. They use almost no water and they get things so clean it's kind of frightening.
Professional movers means I can also have them move furniture up and down stairs, so I can get a head start on arranging the house the way I want. The volunteer guys already set up my little black Ikea day bed in the pink front bedroom, where in the incredible sunlight of four windows it looks absolutely stark and stunning. I think I'm going to put my Twenties bankers desk in front of the front two windows as a combination night stand and, well, desk, because writing in front of a sunny window is an amazing thing. I know full well Shadow will take it over but at least this way there's theoretically room for both of us.
I had a set of keys made for various reasons and gave it and my phone number to my new neighbor, with whom gardening, dog- and cat-related conversations are apt to spring up with the slightest encouragement. I hope this isn't sort of like a crush; I'm so excited about everything I hope there's not a crash waiting. If it does happen, it'll probably happen fifteen years from now or something.
Winter isn't an easy season to move, but for me it's the perfect time. That's because it bears so resemblance whatsoever to anything that might set a panic attack off. Winters for the past couple of years are when my symptoms typically abate so much for so long that spring can be a horrible crash. I'm hoping this year will be different.
The visa means I can buy a new door and stove for the old house, and pay for the placement of the old doors in the new house. This way I can sequester cats as need be. My Gawd, the cats will lose their frickin' minds. I AM going to find a way to take the screens off at least one front window so I can toss bird seed out on the roof of the front porch. Shadow will lose his mind. I can hardly wait.
The sunlight of the house is incredible. Partly this is because the neighbors aren't raging assholes who scream all the time, but also because the house has a huge yard that provides lots of privacy--and sun. At one point, there had to have been another house there, meaning my house must have been pretty dark except at sunrise and sunset. (Sing it with me!) Now the whole house is flooded with light as long as the sun's up. Even on cloudy days, there's light coming in. I'm tempted to flop down on the dining room table and just soak up a sunbeam the first day I have the house to myself.
The movers can also move the "old" fridge to the basement. That will open up a window over the stove and give me an excuse to run up and down the basement stairs. It's not an elaborate kitchen, which is why I love it. This is for cooking, and lots of it.
I'll be able to integrate Shadow into the family better. Fred was frankly odd about it; he backed Shadow around the attic till I had to spray him to leave him alone, and even that didn't work. He acted like I wasn't there so I had to boot him out, but ever since then he's whined pitifully to be allowed back up. Morgie and Shadow slap at each other with big fluffy paws and spend of a lot of time fluffy up at one another if they're not chasing each other back and forth, but it's Ebony that truly scares Shadow. She curls up on the bed and Shadow goes and hides. With Morgie, though, they sleep a few feet part on the bed.
By this time next week, it should be all done.
Professional movers means I can also have them move furniture up and down stairs, so I can get a head start on arranging the house the way I want. The volunteer guys already set up my little black Ikea day bed in the pink front bedroom, where in the incredible sunlight of four windows it looks absolutely stark and stunning. I think I'm going to put my Twenties bankers desk in front of the front two windows as a combination night stand and, well, desk, because writing in front of a sunny window is an amazing thing. I know full well Shadow will take it over but at least this way there's theoretically room for both of us.
I had a set of keys made for various reasons and gave it and my phone number to my new neighbor, with whom gardening, dog- and cat-related conversations are apt to spring up with the slightest encouragement. I hope this isn't sort of like a crush; I'm so excited about everything I hope there's not a crash waiting. If it does happen, it'll probably happen fifteen years from now or something.
Winter isn't an easy season to move, but for me it's the perfect time. That's because it bears so resemblance whatsoever to anything that might set a panic attack off. Winters for the past couple of years are when my symptoms typically abate so much for so long that spring can be a horrible crash. I'm hoping this year will be different.
The visa means I can buy a new door and stove for the old house, and pay for the placement of the old doors in the new house. This way I can sequester cats as need be. My Gawd, the cats will lose their frickin' minds. I AM going to find a way to take the screens off at least one front window so I can toss bird seed out on the roof of the front porch. Shadow will lose his mind. I can hardly wait.
The sunlight of the house is incredible. Partly this is because the neighbors aren't raging assholes who scream all the time, but also because the house has a huge yard that provides lots of privacy--and sun. At one point, there had to have been another house there, meaning my house must have been pretty dark except at sunrise and sunset. (Sing it with me!) Now the whole house is flooded with light as long as the sun's up. Even on cloudy days, there's light coming in. I'm tempted to flop down on the dining room table and just soak up a sunbeam the first day I have the house to myself.
The movers can also move the "old" fridge to the basement. That will open up a window over the stove and give me an excuse to run up and down the basement stairs. It's not an elaborate kitchen, which is why I love it. This is for cooking, and lots of it.
I'll be able to integrate Shadow into the family better. Fred was frankly odd about it; he backed Shadow around the attic till I had to spray him to leave him alone, and even that didn't work. He acted like I wasn't there so I had to boot him out, but ever since then he's whined pitifully to be allowed back up. Morgie and Shadow slap at each other with big fluffy paws and spend of a lot of time fluffy up at one another if they're not chasing each other back and forth, but it's Ebony that truly scares Shadow. She curls up on the bed and Shadow goes and hides. With Morgie, though, they sleep a few feet part on the bed.
By this time next week, it should be all done.
It's no secret I like programs which save both animals and people. This one
is just cruel.
Alley cat allies
Action Alert
Bayside State Prison is Intentionally Withholding Food from Cats
[image: Email_Sidebar_BaysideStateCommisioner.jp g]
Dear Gina,
Cats at Bayside State Prison in New Jersey have been under a feeding ban
for over a month. After years living on prison grounds, being fed and cared
for as part of a Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR) program, these cats’ lives are in
danger. The prison’s administration has imposed a feeding ban, and is
refusing to lift it.
*Help us save these cats—contact the Commissioner of New Jersey’s
Department of Corrections.*
The feeding ban has been in place for 36 days now, and cats are at risk of
starvation. Alley Cat Allies has continuously reached out to the prison’s
administration and the New Jersey Department of Corrections Commissioner
Gary Lanigan, offering assistance. We have reported the cruelty, but no
agencies are investigating. Alley Cat Allies is deeply concerned about the
cats—last weekend we took a van of cat food to the prison, but were turned
away.
*Act now—request that the Department of Corrections lift the feeding ban
immediately.*
Along with several groups in New Jersey, we can help set up clean,
organized feeding stations, spay/neuter, vaccinations, and other colony
care best practices that are essential to a successful TNR program—if
Bayside State Prison lifts the feeding ban. These cats don’t have much time
left.
Like you, we cannot and will not sit idly by while this cruelty takes
place. This policy cannot be allowed to stand—it is quite simply a mockery
of the fine principles that bind us together as a humane and caring society.
*Ask Commissioner Lanigan to lift the feeding ban, feed the cats, and work
with Alley Cat Allies*
*.*
[image: Becky Robinson]
Sincerely,
[image: Becky Robinson]
Becky Robinson
President, Alley Cat Allies
P.S. Please forward this email to your friends and ask them to take action.
Copyright 2014 Alley Cat Allies | 7920 Norfolk Avenue, Suite
is just cruel.
Alley cat allies
Action Alert
Bayside State Prison is Intentionally Withholding Food from Cats
[image: Email_Sidebar_BaysideStateCommisioner.jp
Dear Gina,
Cats at Bayside State Prison in New Jersey have been under a feeding ban
for over a month. After years living on prison grounds, being fed and cared
for as part of a Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR) program, these cats’ lives are in
danger. The prison’s administration has imposed a feeding ban, and is
refusing to lift it.
*Help us save these cats—contact the Commissioner of New Jersey’s
Department of Corrections.*
The feeding ban has been in place for 36 days now, and cats are at risk of
starvation. Alley Cat Allies has continuously reached out to the prison’s
administration and the New Jersey Department of Corrections Commissioner
Gary Lanigan, offering assistance. We have reported the cruelty, but no
agencies are investigating. Alley Cat Allies is deeply concerned about the
cats—last weekend we took a van of cat food to the prison, but were turned
away.
*Act now—request that the Department of Corrections lift the feeding ban
immediately.*
Along with several groups in New Jersey, we can help set up clean,
organized feeding stations, spay/neuter, vaccinations, and other colony
care best practices that are essential to a successful TNR program—if
Bayside State Prison lifts the feeding ban. These cats don’t have much time
left.
Like you, we cannot and will not sit idly by while this cruelty takes
place. This policy cannot be allowed to stand—it is quite simply a mockery
of the fine principles that bind us together as a humane and caring society.
*Ask Commissioner Lanigan to lift the feeding ban, feed the cats, and work
with Alley Cat Allies*
*.*
[image: Becky Robinson]
Sincerely,
[image: Becky Robinson]
Becky Robinson
President, Alley Cat Allies
P.S. Please forward this email to your friends and ask them to take action.
Copyright 2014 Alley Cat Allies | 7920 Norfolk Avenue, Suite
Still at old house. Uhaul totally screwed up truck, not once, not twice but three times. The volunteers were amazing. It occurred to me that I never had a chance to make this place mine. It was infected by tge tenant, who never paid rent, and the D., who made it his showplace.
I finally saw the back of the buffet that he paid his friend $9,960 to "repair." It looked like he used popsicle sticks and Elmer's glue. Nearly ten thousand dollars, and the top part with the windows nearly fell apart when moved. That's on top if the two grand he was paid to fix the garage.....that he never fixed. Wonder how much if that money the D pocketed?
More later. Still making phone calls.
I finally saw the back of the buffet that he paid his friend $9,960 to "repair." It looked like he used popsicle sticks and Elmer's glue. Nearly ten thousand dollars, and the top part with the windows nearly fell apart when moved. That's on top if the two grand he was paid to fix the garage.....that he never fixed. Wonder how much if that money the D pocketed?
More later. Still making phone calls.
Is there a curse?
Because the truck company just called to tell me the truck I reserved broke
down. But hey, for the same price they'd offer me a truck that was six
feet smaller and way the fuck out of my way! What a bargain. I actually
pulled the phone away and looked at it.
Because the truck company just called to tell me the truck I reserved broke
down. But hey, for the same price they'd offer me a truck that was six
feet smaller and way the fuck out of my way! What a bargain. I actually
pulled the phone away and looked at it.
I think I'm just going to set fire to everything.
Today marks day one of: Omen: the Movening. I have reached the stage of
packing where I haven't packed enough, but I have packed so much that I
can't wedge anything else anywhere without somehow moving stuff. I don't
know where I'm sleeping tonight. At least three daybeds have to be
disassembled. U need to get stuff out of the way to get more stuff out of
the way. And the furnace is making scary noises, and not....furnacing. Gas
appliances make me nervous.
And I still have books to pack and cats to jam into carriers. Ulp. God,
I fucking hate moving.
My realtor is helping me. The moving guy is Russian. I think it would be an
excellent idea if we only speak Russian today if my neighbor is around.
Today marks day one of: Omen: the Movening. I have reached the stage of
packing where I haven't packed enough, but I have packed so much that I
can't wedge anything else anywhere without somehow moving stuff. I don't
know where I'm sleeping tonight. At least three daybeds have to be
disassembled. U need to get stuff out of the way to get more stuff out of
the way. And the furnace is making scary noises, and not....furnacing. Gas
appliances make me nervous.
And I still have books to pack and cats to jam into carriers. Ulp. God,
I fucking hate moving.
My realtor is helping me. The moving guy is Russian. I think it would be an
excellent idea if we only speak Russian today if my neighbor is around.
My not-soon-enough-EX-neighbors lasted more than a week without loud
stereos and screaming, early morning figh-----oh. Wait. One out of two
ain't....great, actually, but at least they managed not to make my
windows rattle for more than a week.
Today, well.....and damn, I got THIS on tape, too: so loud you could
clearly gear the vehicle rattling.....and parked in a handicapped spot.
They're all class.
stereos and screaming, early morning figh-----oh. Wait. One out of two
ain't....great, actually, but at least they managed not to make my
windows rattle for more than a week.
Today, well.....and damn, I got THIS on tape, too: so loud you could
clearly gear the vehicle rattling.....and parked in a handicapped spot.
They're all class.
Before anyone asks: no, I won't put this behind a cut.
Remember how Repubs claimed they were somethingsomething jobs jobs jobs and then they did nothing but try and pass HUNDREDS of anti-abortion bills? And how they talked about "job creators" who, apparently, are sleazy autocrats like Mitt Romney, who actually in effect DESTROYED jobs by firing hundreds of workers to make sure other sleazy white dudes got to make even MORE money?
Yeah, let's pause for a minute and contemplate how guys who fire people are job creators (and AWESOME) but raising the minimum wage for those actual workers (who pay their bills and rent and buy things and actually support OTHER peasants) is BAD. Because job creators are important (white) men who deserve blowjobs (economic and political) at all times while everybody else is an obvious loser who would be rich if they had any gumption.
And there are few people the Rapepublicans hate more than women------and women who dare to claim to be raped.
1. “Rape is terrible. Rape is awful. Is it made any better by killing an innocent child? Does it solve the problvictim the woman that’s been raped? We need to protect innocent life. Period.”
-Kansas Governor Sam Brownback, declaring that raped women must be additionally forced to carry and give birth to their rapist’s baby against their will in front of an all male crowd at the National Catholic Men’s Conference, June 2007.
2. “Nobody plans to have an accident in a car accident, nobody plans to have their homes flooded. You have to buy extra insurance for those two.”
-Barbara Listing, leader of Right To Life, comparing rape to a car accident, May 2013.
3. “In the emergency room they have what’s called rape kits where a woman can get cleaned out.”
-Texas State Senator Jodie Laubenberg, absurdly claiming that rape kits are used to abort a pregnancy,June 2013.
4. “Tampering with evidence shall include procuring or facilitating an abortion, or compelling or coercing another to obtain an abortion, of a fetus that is the result of criminal sexual penetration or incest with the intent to destroy evidence of the crime.”
-New Mexico State Rep. Cathrynn Brown, HB 206 language stating that rape victims would be charged and arrested for getting an abortion, January 2013.
5. “Granted, the percentage of pregnancies due to rape is small because it’s an act of violence, because the body is traumatized. I don’t know what percentage of pregnancies are due to the violence of rape. Because of the trauma the body goes through, I don’t know what percentage of pregnancy results from the act.”
-California GOP assembly President Celeste Greig, saying rape victims don’t get pregnant because it’s a traumatic act, March 2013.
6. “Well, you can make the argument that if she doesn’t have this baby, if she kills her child, that that, too, could ruin her life. And this is not an easy choice. I understand that. As horrible as the way that that son or daughter and son was created, it still is her child. And whether she has that child or doesn’t, it will always be her child. And she will always know that. And so to embrace her and to love her and to support her and get her through this very difficult time, I’ve always, you know, I believe and I think the right approach is to accept this horribly created — in the sense of rape — but nevertheless a gift in a very broken way, the gift of human life, and accept what God has given to you. As you know, we have to, in lots of different aspects of our life. We have horrible things happen. I can’t think of anything more horrible. But, nevertheless, we have to make the best out of a bad situation.”
-Rick Santorum, stating that God sanctions rape to give women the “gift” of pregnancy, January 2012.
7. “I’ve struggled with it myself for a long time, but I came to realize that life is that gift from God. And even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen.”
-Indiana Senate candidate Richard Mourdock, repeating Rick Santorum’s belief that rape is sanctioned by God,October 2012.
8. “It seems to be, first of all, from what I understand from doctors, it’s really rare. If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut the whole thing down.”
-Missouri Senate candidate Todd Akin, claiming that women can shut down the reproductive process during rape to prevent pregnancy, August 2012.
9. “Before, when my friends on the left side of the aisle here tried to make rape and incest the subject — because, you know, the incidence of rape resulting in pregnancy are very low. But when you make that exception, there’s usually a requirement to report the rape within 48 hours. And in this case that’s impossible because this is in the sixth month of gestation. And that’s what completely negates and vitiates the purpose for such an amendment.”
-Arizona Rep. Trent Franks, claiming that getting pregnant via rape is rare therefore there shouldn’t be any exceptions for rape victims in anti-abortion bills,June 2013.
10. “Well I just haven’t heard of that being a circumstance that’s been brought to me in any personal way and I’d be open to hearing discussion about that subject matter. Generally speaking it’s this: that there millions of abortions in this country every year. Millions of them are paid for at least in part by taxpayers. I think it’s immoral for us to compel conscientious objecting taxpayers to fund abortion through the federal government, or any other government for that matter. So that’s my stand. And if there are exceptions there, then bring me those exceptions let’s talk about it. In the meantime it’s wrong for us to compel pro-life people to pay taxes to fund abortion.”
-Iowa Rep. Steve King, saying he’s never heard of a child becoming pregnant by rape and that he won’t support abortion under any circumstance until proof of such a thing is presented to him, August 2012.
11. “What Todd Akin is talking about is when you’ve got a real, genuine rape. A case of forcible rape, a case of assault, where a woman has been violated against her will through the use of physical force where it is physically traumatic for her, under those circumstances, the woman’s body — because of the trauma that has been inflicted on her — it may interfere with the normal function processes of her body that lead to conception and pregnancy.”
-AFA’s Bryan Fischer, agreeing with Todd Akin’s “legitimate rape” comment, August 2012.
12. “Ethel Waters, for example, was the result of a forcible rape. I used to work for James Robison back in the 1970s, he leads a large Christian organization. He, himself, was the result of a forcible rape. And so I know it happens, and yet even from those horrible, horrible tragedies of rape, which are inexcusable and indefensible, life has come and sometimes, you know, those people are able to do extraordinary things.”
-Mike Huckabee, defending Todd Akin’s rape comments and zero exceptions for rape victims by talking about how much of a positive gift rape is, August 2012.
13. “Abortion is never an option. At that point, if God has chosen to bless this person with a life, you don’t kill it.”
-Missouri Republican central committee member Sharon Barnes, echoing Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock that rape is God’s way of blessing women with children, August 2012.
14. “I’m very proud of my pro-life record, and I’ve always adopted the idea that, the position that the method of conception doesn’t change the definition of life.”
-Paul Ryan, referring to rape as a method of conception after being asked about Todd Akin’s rape comment,August 2012.
15. “He also told me one thing, ‘If you do (have premarital sex), just remember, consensual sex can turn into rape in an awful hurry. Because all of a sudden a young lady gets pregnant and the parents are madder than a wet hen and she’s not going to say, ‘Oh, yeah, I was part of the program.’ All that she has to say or the parents have to say is it was rape because she’s underage. And he just said, ‘Remember, Roger, if you go down that road, some girls,’ he said, ‘they rape so easy.’ What the whole genesis of it was, it was advice to me, telling me, ‘If you’re going to go down that road, you may have consensual sex that night and then the next morning it may be rape.’ So the way he said it was, ‘Just remember, Roger, some girls, they rape so easy. It may be rape the next morning.’
-Wisconsin State Rep. Roger Rivard, claiming that some girls are just easy to rape, October 2012.
16. “I lived something similar to that with my own family. She chose life, and I commend her for that. She knew my views. But, fortunately for me, I didn’t have to.. she chose they way I thought. No don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t rape… Uh, having a baby out of wedlock… put yourself in a father’s situation, yes. It is similar. But, back to the original, I’m pro-life, period.”
-Pennsylvania Rep. Tom Smith, comparing rape pregnancy to getting pregnant out of wedlock, August 2012.
17. “A life is a life, and it needs protected. Who’s going to protect it? We have to. I mean that’s, I believe life begins at conception. I’m not going to argue about the method of conception. It’s a life, and I’m pro-life. It’s that simple.”
-Pennsylvania Rep. Tom Smith, saying that rape is just another method of conception, August 2012.
18. “You know, I’m a Christian and I believe that God has a plan and a purpose for each one of our lives and that he can intercede in all kinds of situations and we need to have a little faith in many things.”
-Nevada Senate candidate Sharon Angle, claiming that God plans rapes, June 2010.
19. “I think that two wrongs don’t make a right. And I have been in the situation of counseling young girls, not 13 but 15, who have had very at-risk, difficult pregnancies. And my counsel was to look for some alternatives, which they did. And they found that they had made what was really a lemon situation into lemonade.”
-Sharon Angle, saying that a 13 year old who gets pregnant by her father should get over it and have the baby, July 2010.
20. “I’ve delivered lots of babies, and I know about these things. It is true. We tell infertile couples all the time that are having trouble conceiving because of the woman not ovulating, ‘Just relax. Drink a glass of wine. And don’t be so tense and uptight because all that adrenaline can cause you not to ovulate.’ So he was partially right wasn’t he? But the fact that a woman may have already ovulated 12 hours before she is raped, you’re not going to prevent a pregnancy there by a woman’s body shutting anything down because the horse has already left the barn, so to speak.”
-Georgia Rep. Phil Gingrey, claiming that Todd Akin’s rape comments were “partly right,” January 2013.
21. “If you listen to what Mourdock actually said, he said what virtually every catholic and every fundamentalist in the country believes, life begins at conception… and he also immediately issued a clarification saying that he was referring to the act of conception and he condemned rape. Romney has condemned rape. One part of this is nonsense. Every candidate I know, every decent american i know condemns rape. Okay so, why can’t people like Stephanie Cutter get over it?”
-Newt Gingrich, defending Richard Mourdock’s rape comment by telling women to get over it, October 2012.
22. “There are very few pregnancies as a result of rape, fortunately, and incest — compared to the usual abortion, what is the percentage of abortions for rape? It is tiny. It is a tiny, tiny percentage… Most abortions, most abortions are for what purpose? They just don’t want to have a baby!”
-Maryland congressman Roscoe Bartlett, falsely claiming that rape pregnancy is rare, September 2012.
23. “Each of these lines attempts to serve a portion of our population for which we extend our sympathy and encouragement. But nevertheless, it is only a small portion of South Carolina’s chronically ill or abused. Overall, these special add-on lines distract from the agency’s broader mission of protecting South Carolina’s public health.”
-South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, referring to raped and battered women as ‘distractions’ after vetoing funding to prevent rape and abuse, July 2012.
24. “Rape and incest was used as a reason to oppose this. I would hope that when a woman goes in to a physician with a rape issue, that physician will indeed ask her about perhaps her marriage, was this pregnancy caused by normal relations in a marriage or was it truly caused by a rape. I assume that’s part of the counseling that goes on.”
-Idaho State Rep. Chuck Winder, saying women don’t even know what rape is, August 2012.
25. “We do need to plan ahead, don’t we, in life? I have spare tire on my car. I also have life insurance. I have a lot of things that I plan ahead for.”
-Kansas State Rep. Pete De Graaf, saying that women should plan ahead to be raped, August 2011.
26. “If I thought that the man’s signature was required… required, in order for a woman to have an abortion, I’d have a little more peace about it…”
-Alaska State Rep. Alan Dick, suggesting that all women, including rape victims, should have to get permission from men to get an abortion, March 2012.
27. “If it’s an honest rape, that individual should go immediately to the emergency room, and I would give them a shot of estrogen.”
-Ron Paul, echoing Todd Akin’s “legitimate rape” comment 7 months before Akin actually said it,February 2012.
28. “A jury could very well conclude that this is a case of buyer’s remorse.”
-Former Colorado Senate Candidate Ken Buck, claiming that the victim may not have really been raped even though the perpetrator admitted that he committed the crime, March 2006.
29. “Through our conversations, I’ve heard, ‘what if somebody has a sincerely held religious conviction about dispensing the emergency contraception medication? What about their rights? How do we address those… It’s not about the victim.”
-Scott Brown, putting religious belief above the needs of rape victims, 2005.
30. “When you enter into a marriage, you enter into a contract for all sorts of different things with your spouse. Why should we take it to a Class 2 felony and put a husband away who’s been a good husband for however many years … based off of something that was OK in a marriage up until that point?”
-Arizona State Rep. Warde Nichols, equating spousal rape to consensual sex, March 2005.
31. “The facts show that people who are raped — who are truly raped — the juices don’t flow, the body functions don’t work and they don’t get pregnant.”
-North Carolina Rep. Henry Aldridge, making the Todd Akin “legitimate rape” claim over a decade earlier, April 1995.
32. “Rape is kinda like the weather. If it’s inevitable, just relax and enjoy it.”
-Texas Gubernatorial candidate Clayton Williams, March 1990.
33. “The odds are one in millions and millions and millions. And there is a physical reason for that. Rape, obviously, is a traumatic experience. When that traumatic experience is undergone, a woman secretes a certain secretion, which has a tendency to kill sperm.”
-Pennsylvania State Rep. Stephen Freind, ignoring medical science, March 1988.
34. “Fear-induced hormonal changes could block a rape victim’s ability to conceive.”
-Arkansas Republican Fay Boozman, making the Todd Akin claim, he also allegedly called this “block” “God’s little shield,” 1998.
35. “Sometimes we’re actually right when we go with our gut and stand on principle in supporting underdog candidates.”
-Sarah Palin, responding to Todd Akin’s rape quote,August 2012.
36. “Now Moore, Jennifer Moore, 18, on her way to college. She was 5-foot-2, 105 pounds, wearing a miniskirt and a halter top with a bare midriff. Now, again, there you go. So every predator in the world is gonna pick that up at two in the morning. She’s walking by herself on the West Side Highway, and she gets picked up by a thug. All right. Now she’s out of her mind, drunk.”
-Bill O’ Reilly, claiming that a murdered rape victim was asking to be raped because of the way she dressed,August 2006.
37. “I think that when you get married you have consented to sex. That’s what marriage is all about, I don’t know if maybe these girls missed sex ed.”
-Eagle Forum President Phyllis Schlafly, saying that men can force their wives to have sex against their will,March 2007.
38. “Concern for rape victims is a red herring because conceptions from rape occur with approximately the same frequency as snowfall in Miami.”
-Judge James Leon Holmes, Bush appointee, in a 1980 letter.
39. “Richard and I, along with millions of Americans – including even Joe Donnelly – believe that life is a gift from God. To try and construe his words as anything other than a restatement of that belief is irresponsible and ridiculous.”
-John Cornyn, standing by Richard Mourdock’s rape comments, October 2012.
40. “The young folks that are coming into each of your services are anywhere from 17 to 22 or 23. Gee whiz, the hormone level created by nature sets in place the possibility for these types of things to occur. So we’ve got to be very careful how we address it on our side.”
-Georgia Senator Saxby Chambliss, blaming the outrageous number of rapes in the military on hormones, June 2013.
Then there's THIS guy, who issued a curiously vague.....apology when a remark he made twenty years ago came to light. The sad thing is that it reveals that the Repubs' views on rape haven't changed in twenty years. In fact, you might argue that they've gotten worse. The hundreds of anti abortion bills they're trying to get passed all over the country now would force rape victims to carry a rapist's pregnancy for nine months. Repubs, of course, don't think women are actually getting raped, though. People either forget or missed the way Repubs tried to strip the word "victim" from rape victims-----and ONLY rape victims-----whose rapists had not been convicted. Over 90% of rapists get away with it, but Rapepublicans don't give a shit. In fact....they almost seem to get a certain amount of glee out of bashing rape victims.....like they do other victims.
“If a woman has (the right to an abortion), why shouldn’t a man be free to use his superior strength to force himself on a woman?” Lockman said in a press statement. “At least the rapist’s pursuit of sexual freedom doesn’t (in most cases) result in anyone’s death.”
Yeah, you read that right. Lockman actually said that men should legally be allowed to rape women as some sort of sick and twisted notion of reproductive rights. The offensive statement was discovered by blogger Mike Tipping, who then posted the comment and others to the Bangor Daily News website .
Upon realizing that his statement had been revealed, Lockman issued a long overdue apology.
“I have always been passionate about my beliefs, and years ago I said things that I regret,” Lockman claimed. “I hold no animosity toward anyone by virtue of their gender or sexual orientation, and today I am focused on ensuring freedom and economic prosperity for all Mainers.”
Yeah, what does THAT have to do with rape? Absolutely nothing. Sounds to me like he's still "passionate" about a man's "right" to rape women. He didn't say one single word detailing that he thinks rape is wrong. Nope. He's "passionate".....about men having the right to rape women.
He has "no animosity"? Sounds like he has plenty.....toward women. He can't even bring himself to outright deny the exact statement.
The Rapepublican Party, people. This is what your Rapepublican friends and neighbors are voting for.
Remember how Repubs claimed they were somethingsomething jobs jobs jobs and then they did nothing but try and pass HUNDREDS of anti-abortion bills? And how they talked about "job creators" who, apparently, are sleazy autocrats like Mitt Romney, who actually in effect DESTROYED jobs by firing hundreds of workers to make sure other sleazy white dudes got to make even MORE money?
Yeah, let's pause for a minute and contemplate how guys who fire people are job creators (and AWESOME) but raising the minimum wage for those actual workers (who pay their bills and rent and buy things and actually support OTHER peasants) is BAD. Because job creators are important (white) men who deserve blowjobs (economic and political) at all times while everybody else is an obvious loser who would be rich if they had any gumption.
And there are few people the Rapepublicans hate more than women------and women who dare to claim to be raped.
1. “Rape is terrible. Rape is awful. Is it made any better by killing an innocent child? Does it solve the problvictim the woman that’s been raped? We need to protect innocent life. Period.”
-Kansas Governor Sam Brownback, declaring that raped women must be additionally forced to carry and give birth to their rapist’s baby against their will in front of an all male crowd at the National Catholic Men’s Conference, June 2007.
2. “Nobody plans to have an accident in a car accident, nobody plans to have their homes flooded. You have to buy extra insurance for those two.”
-Barbara Listing, leader of Right To Life, comparing rape to a car accident, May 2013.
3. “In the emergency room they have what’s called rape kits where a woman can get cleaned out.”
-Texas State Senator Jodie Laubenberg, absurdly claiming that rape kits are used to abort a pregnancy,June 2013.
4. “Tampering with evidence shall include procuring or facilitating an abortion, or compelling or coercing another to obtain an abortion, of a fetus that is the result of criminal sexual penetration or incest with the intent to destroy evidence of the crime.”
-New Mexico State Rep. Cathrynn Brown, HB 206 language stating that rape victims would be charged and arrested for getting an abortion, January 2013.
5. “Granted, the percentage of pregnancies due to rape is small because it’s an act of violence, because the body is traumatized. I don’t know what percentage of pregnancies are due to the violence of rape. Because of the trauma the body goes through, I don’t know what percentage of pregnancy results from the act.”
-California GOP assembly President Celeste Greig, saying rape victims don’t get pregnant because it’s a traumatic act, March 2013.
6. “Well, you can make the argument that if she doesn’t have this baby, if she kills her child, that that, too, could ruin her life. And this is not an easy choice. I understand that. As horrible as the way that that son or daughter and son was created, it still is her child. And whether she has that child or doesn’t, it will always be her child. And she will always know that. And so to embrace her and to love her and to support her and get her through this very difficult time, I’ve always, you know, I believe and I think the right approach is to accept this horribly created — in the sense of rape — but nevertheless a gift in a very broken way, the gift of human life, and accept what God has given to you. As you know, we have to, in lots of different aspects of our life. We have horrible things happen. I can’t think of anything more horrible. But, nevertheless, we have to make the best out of a bad situation.”
-Rick Santorum, stating that God sanctions rape to give women the “gift” of pregnancy, January 2012.
7. “I’ve struggled with it myself for a long time, but I came to realize that life is that gift from God. And even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen.”
-Indiana Senate candidate Richard Mourdock, repeating Rick Santorum’s belief that rape is sanctioned by God,October 2012.
8. “It seems to be, first of all, from what I understand from doctors, it’s really rare. If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut the whole thing down.”
-Missouri Senate candidate Todd Akin, claiming that women can shut down the reproductive process during rape to prevent pregnancy, August 2012.
9. “Before, when my friends on the left side of the aisle here tried to make rape and incest the subject — because, you know, the incidence of rape resulting in pregnancy are very low. But when you make that exception, there’s usually a requirement to report the rape within 48 hours. And in this case that’s impossible because this is in the sixth month of gestation. And that’s what completely negates and vitiates the purpose for such an amendment.”
-Arizona Rep. Trent Franks, claiming that getting pregnant via rape is rare therefore there shouldn’t be any exceptions for rape victims in anti-abortion bills,June 2013.
10. “Well I just haven’t heard of that being a circumstance that’s been brought to me in any personal way and I’d be open to hearing discussion about that subject matter. Generally speaking it’s this: that there millions of abortions in this country every year. Millions of them are paid for at least in part by taxpayers. I think it’s immoral for us to compel conscientious objecting taxpayers to fund abortion through the federal government, or any other government for that matter. So that’s my stand. And if there are exceptions there, then bring me those exceptions let’s talk about it. In the meantime it’s wrong for us to compel pro-life people to pay taxes to fund abortion.”
-Iowa Rep. Steve King, saying he’s never heard of a child becoming pregnant by rape and that he won’t support abortion under any circumstance until proof of such a thing is presented to him, August 2012.
11. “What Todd Akin is talking about is when you’ve got a real, genuine rape. A case of forcible rape, a case of assault, where a woman has been violated against her will through the use of physical force where it is physically traumatic for her, under those circumstances, the woman’s body — because of the trauma that has been inflicted on her — it may interfere with the normal function processes of her body that lead to conception and pregnancy.”
-AFA’s Bryan Fischer, agreeing with Todd Akin’s “legitimate rape” comment, August 2012.
12. “Ethel Waters, for example, was the result of a forcible rape. I used to work for James Robison back in the 1970s, he leads a large Christian organization. He, himself, was the result of a forcible rape. And so I know it happens, and yet even from those horrible, horrible tragedies of rape, which are inexcusable and indefensible, life has come and sometimes, you know, those people are able to do extraordinary things.”
-Mike Huckabee, defending Todd Akin’s rape comments and zero exceptions for rape victims by talking about how much of a positive gift rape is, August 2012.
13. “Abortion is never an option. At that point, if God has chosen to bless this person with a life, you don’t kill it.”
-Missouri Republican central committee member Sharon Barnes, echoing Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock that rape is God’s way of blessing women with children, August 2012.
14. “I’m very proud of my pro-life record, and I’ve always adopted the idea that, the position that the method of conception doesn’t change the definition of life.”
-Paul Ryan, referring to rape as a method of conception after being asked about Todd Akin’s rape comment,August 2012.
15. “He also told me one thing, ‘If you do (have premarital sex), just remember, consensual sex can turn into rape in an awful hurry. Because all of a sudden a young lady gets pregnant and the parents are madder than a wet hen and she’s not going to say, ‘Oh, yeah, I was part of the program.’ All that she has to say or the parents have to say is it was rape because she’s underage. And he just said, ‘Remember, Roger, if you go down that road, some girls,’ he said, ‘they rape so easy.’ What the whole genesis of it was, it was advice to me, telling me, ‘If you’re going to go down that road, you may have consensual sex that night and then the next morning it may be rape.’ So the way he said it was, ‘Just remember, Roger, some girls, they rape so easy. It may be rape the next morning.’
-Wisconsin State Rep. Roger Rivard, claiming that some girls are just easy to rape, October 2012.
16. “I lived something similar to that with my own family. She chose life, and I commend her for that. She knew my views. But, fortunately for me, I didn’t have to.. she chose they way I thought. No don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t rape… Uh, having a baby out of wedlock… put yourself in a father’s situation, yes. It is similar. But, back to the original, I’m pro-life, period.”
-Pennsylvania Rep. Tom Smith, comparing rape pregnancy to getting pregnant out of wedlock, August 2012.
17. “A life is a life, and it needs protected. Who’s going to protect it? We have to. I mean that’s, I believe life begins at conception. I’m not going to argue about the method of conception. It’s a life, and I’m pro-life. It’s that simple.”
-Pennsylvania Rep. Tom Smith, saying that rape is just another method of conception, August 2012.
18. “You know, I’m a Christian and I believe that God has a plan and a purpose for each one of our lives and that he can intercede in all kinds of situations and we need to have a little faith in many things.”
-Nevada Senate candidate Sharon Angle, claiming that God plans rapes, June 2010.
19. “I think that two wrongs don’t make a right. And I have been in the situation of counseling young girls, not 13 but 15, who have had very at-risk, difficult pregnancies. And my counsel was to look for some alternatives, which they did. And they found that they had made what was really a lemon situation into lemonade.”
-Sharon Angle, saying that a 13 year old who gets pregnant by her father should get over it and have the baby, July 2010.
20. “I’ve delivered lots of babies, and I know about these things. It is true. We tell infertile couples all the time that are having trouble conceiving because of the woman not ovulating, ‘Just relax. Drink a glass of wine. And don’t be so tense and uptight because all that adrenaline can cause you not to ovulate.’ So he was partially right wasn’t he? But the fact that a woman may have already ovulated 12 hours before she is raped, you’re not going to prevent a pregnancy there by a woman’s body shutting anything down because the horse has already left the barn, so to speak.”
-Georgia Rep. Phil Gingrey, claiming that Todd Akin’s rape comments were “partly right,” January 2013.
21. “If you listen to what Mourdock actually said, he said what virtually every catholic and every fundamentalist in the country believes, life begins at conception… and he also immediately issued a clarification saying that he was referring to the act of conception and he condemned rape. Romney has condemned rape. One part of this is nonsense. Every candidate I know, every decent american i know condemns rape. Okay so, why can’t people like Stephanie Cutter get over it?”
-Newt Gingrich, defending Richard Mourdock’s rape comment by telling women to get over it, October 2012.
22. “There are very few pregnancies as a result of rape, fortunately, and incest — compared to the usual abortion, what is the percentage of abortions for rape? It is tiny. It is a tiny, tiny percentage… Most abortions, most abortions are for what purpose? They just don’t want to have a baby!”
-Maryland congressman Roscoe Bartlett, falsely claiming that rape pregnancy is rare, September 2012.
23. “Each of these lines attempts to serve a portion of our population for which we extend our sympathy and encouragement. But nevertheless, it is only a small portion of South Carolina’s chronically ill or abused. Overall, these special add-on lines distract from the agency’s broader mission of protecting South Carolina’s public health.”
-South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, referring to raped and battered women as ‘distractions’ after vetoing funding to prevent rape and abuse, July 2012.
24. “Rape and incest was used as a reason to oppose this. I would hope that when a woman goes in to a physician with a rape issue, that physician will indeed ask her about perhaps her marriage, was this pregnancy caused by normal relations in a marriage or was it truly caused by a rape. I assume that’s part of the counseling that goes on.”
-Idaho State Rep. Chuck Winder, saying women don’t even know what rape is, August 2012.
25. “We do need to plan ahead, don’t we, in life? I have spare tire on my car. I also have life insurance. I have a lot of things that I plan ahead for.”
-Kansas State Rep. Pete De Graaf, saying that women should plan ahead to be raped, August 2011.
26. “If I thought that the man’s signature was required… required, in order for a woman to have an abortion, I’d have a little more peace about it…”
-Alaska State Rep. Alan Dick, suggesting that all women, including rape victims, should have to get permission from men to get an abortion, March 2012.
27. “If it’s an honest rape, that individual should go immediately to the emergency room, and I would give them a shot of estrogen.”
-Ron Paul, echoing Todd Akin’s “legitimate rape” comment 7 months before Akin actually said it,February 2012.
28. “A jury could very well conclude that this is a case of buyer’s remorse.”
-Former Colorado Senate Candidate Ken Buck, claiming that the victim may not have really been raped even though the perpetrator admitted that he committed the crime, March 2006.
29. “Through our conversations, I’ve heard, ‘what if somebody has a sincerely held religious conviction about dispensing the emergency contraception medication? What about their rights? How do we address those… It’s not about the victim.”
-Scott Brown, putting religious belief above the needs of rape victims, 2005.
30. “When you enter into a marriage, you enter into a contract for all sorts of different things with your spouse. Why should we take it to a Class 2 felony and put a husband away who’s been a good husband for however many years … based off of something that was OK in a marriage up until that point?”
-Arizona State Rep. Warde Nichols, equating spousal rape to consensual sex, March 2005.
31. “The facts show that people who are raped — who are truly raped — the juices don’t flow, the body functions don’t work and they don’t get pregnant.”
-North Carolina Rep. Henry Aldridge, making the Todd Akin “legitimate rape” claim over a decade earlier, April 1995.
32. “Rape is kinda like the weather. If it’s inevitable, just relax and enjoy it.”
-Texas Gubernatorial candidate Clayton Williams, March 1990.
33. “The odds are one in millions and millions and millions. And there is a physical reason for that. Rape, obviously, is a traumatic experience. When that traumatic experience is undergone, a woman secretes a certain secretion, which has a tendency to kill sperm.”
-Pennsylvania State Rep. Stephen Freind, ignoring medical science, March 1988.
34. “Fear-induced hormonal changes could block a rape victim’s ability to conceive.”
-Arkansas Republican Fay Boozman, making the Todd Akin claim, he also allegedly called this “block” “God’s little shield,” 1998.
35. “Sometimes we’re actually right when we go with our gut and stand on principle in supporting underdog candidates.”
-Sarah Palin, responding to Todd Akin’s rape quote,August 2012.
36. “Now Moore, Jennifer Moore, 18, on her way to college. She was 5-foot-2, 105 pounds, wearing a miniskirt and a halter top with a bare midriff. Now, again, there you go. So every predator in the world is gonna pick that up at two in the morning. She’s walking by herself on the West Side Highway, and she gets picked up by a thug. All right. Now she’s out of her mind, drunk.”
-Bill O’ Reilly, claiming that a murdered rape victim was asking to be raped because of the way she dressed,August 2006.
37. “I think that when you get married you have consented to sex. That’s what marriage is all about, I don’t know if maybe these girls missed sex ed.”
-Eagle Forum President Phyllis Schlafly, saying that men can force their wives to have sex against their will,March 2007.
38. “Concern for rape victims is a red herring because conceptions from rape occur with approximately the same frequency as snowfall in Miami.”
-Judge James Leon Holmes, Bush appointee, in a 1980 letter.
39. “Richard and I, along with millions of Americans – including even Joe Donnelly – believe that life is a gift from God. To try and construe his words as anything other than a restatement of that belief is irresponsible and ridiculous.”
-John Cornyn, standing by Richard Mourdock’s rape comments, October 2012.
40. “The young folks that are coming into each of your services are anywhere from 17 to 22 or 23. Gee whiz, the hormone level created by nature sets in place the possibility for these types of things to occur. So we’ve got to be very careful how we address it on our side.”
-Georgia Senator Saxby Chambliss, blaming the outrageous number of rapes in the military on hormones, June 2013.
Then there's THIS guy, who issued a curiously vague.....apology when a remark he made twenty years ago came to light. The sad thing is that it reveals that the Repubs' views on rape haven't changed in twenty years. In fact, you might argue that they've gotten worse. The hundreds of anti abortion bills they're trying to get passed all over the country now would force rape victims to carry a rapist's pregnancy for nine months. Repubs, of course, don't think women are actually getting raped, though. People either forget or missed the way Repubs tried to strip the word "victim" from rape victims-----and ONLY rape victims-----whose rapists had not been convicted. Over 90% of rapists get away with it, but Rapepublicans don't give a shit. In fact....they almost seem to get a certain amount of glee out of bashing rape victims.....like they do other victims.
“If a woman has (the right to an abortion), why shouldn’t a man be free to use his superior strength to force himself on a woman?” Lockman said in a press statement. “At least the rapist’s pursuit of sexual freedom doesn’t (in most cases) result in anyone’s death.”
Yeah, you read that right. Lockman actually said that men should legally be allowed to rape women as some sort of sick and twisted notion of reproductive rights. The offensive statement was discovered by blogger Mike Tipping, who then posted the comment and others to the Bangor Daily News website .
Upon realizing that his statement had been revealed, Lockman issued a long overdue apology.
“I have always been passionate about my beliefs, and years ago I said things that I regret,” Lockman claimed. “I hold no animosity toward anyone by virtue of their gender or sexual orientation, and today I am focused on ensuring freedom and economic prosperity for all Mainers.”
Yeah, what does THAT have to do with rape? Absolutely nothing. Sounds to me like he's still "passionate" about a man's "right" to rape women. He didn't say one single word detailing that he thinks rape is wrong. Nope. He's "passionate".....about men having the right to rape women.
He has "no animosity"? Sounds like he has plenty.....toward women. He can't even bring himself to outright deny the exact statement.
The Rapepublican Party, people. This is what your Rapepublican friends and neighbors are voting for.







