Category Archives: rape

Humanity, I Love You

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After the horror of the Boston bombing I didn’t think I could ever believe that humanity was worth it. Really, I just don’t understand how blowing up innocents makes sense to anyone, but then all the stories of people opening their homes to those stranded came out. London had their marathon and they ran with American Flags and with signs that said, “Finish for Boston.” Syria, which has been ravaged by booms and genocides, took a moment to send condolences to Boston.
I saw window washers dress up as Spiderman, Captain America, Batman and the like to clean the windows of a children’s hospital. I was taken aback by how in the face of such tragedy I saw the best of humanity. Instead of breaking me—I was lifted up by the generosity and kindness of the human spirit.
Naturally, it didn’t last long. Bombs went off in Pakistan, earthquakes ruined cities, and a five-year old girl was raped in Indian. She’s not the first child raped, she’s not even the youngest child raped. But this five-year-old gets an article written about her because finally, finally something is going to be done about it.
Last week she was abducted and raped by a neighbor who kept her for three days and then left her for dead. India, like America, has a rape culture. They blame the women, they blame the victim…but how can you blame a five-year-old? What suggestive clothing was she wearing? How did she drink too much? How was her sexual history to blame for this?

The Guardian took aim at the Indian police force, “[O]fficers allegedly initially refused to investigate after the girl, from a working class family, disappeared while playing early in the evening outside her home. She was eventually found by neighbours. When the case was picked up by the local media, the parents were offered 2,000 rupees (£25) to drop the case, relatives of the victim have said.”
By the weekend hundreds of protesters were outside the police headquarters demand that the police chief, that wanted this dropped, be fired. India’s Home Minister has vowed that the officers on duty will be punished.
Once again, in darkness there is light. People will surprise you if you just let them. I don’t know why it takes horrible circumstances for people to take a stand—but maybe one day we’ll all realize that you don’t have to wait for something bad to do some good.



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“She Wasn’t Conscious So She Technically Didn’t Say No” Is The New Defense In Rape Cases

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I’ve tried to be quiet about the Steubenville rape case but I can no longer keep my mouth shut. A sixteen-year-old girl found out she was raped, multiple times, when she went on to her social media and saw pictures of her unconscious body being carted by two boys. She texted the boys and others from the party and was met with ‘you wanted it’ type responses. In fact one of her rapists told her he looked out for her and if she told anyone what happened he, “would never do anything nice for you again.” It was so nice to put your fingers inside her while she was unconscious in the backseat of a car while someone else filmed it. Good looking out, bro. Or wait, maybe he was referring to the time he tried to make her give him a blowjob in the basement while others watched and testified she “wasn’t into it”.

The boys took her from party to party where they (and others) raped her. I’m not putting “allegedly” in there because they did it. There is photographic evidence of it and recently someone has testified that they even recorded some it on their cellphone.
This case has gotten a lot of attention because Anonymous, the hacktivist group, hacked into some social accounts and uncovered a video in which a few football players, including both suspects, were joking about the incident. Here are some choice quotes:

“He’s puttin’ a wang in the butthole, dude.”

“They peed on her. That’s how you know she’s dead, because someone pissed on her.”

“They raped her harder than that cop raped Marcellus Wallace in Pulp Fiction.”

“They raped her quicker than Mike Tyson raped that one girl.”

“They raped her more than the Duke Lacrosse team.”

“Her puss is about as dry as the sun right now.”

“It isn’t really rape because you don’t know if she wanted to or not.”

As disgusting as that is, what’s worse is the defense for these cocksuckers. The defense is, “it was not rape because she was unconscious therefore she didn’t SAY no.” ARE YOU KIDDING ME!?!? That’s the defense? That’s what we’re calling a “defense”?!!? Those lawyers should be brought up on charges of their own. Half the people in that town are SUPPORTING the rapists. I don’t care if she was a “party girl” I don’t care if they play football THEY RAPED SOMEONE.

It’s disgusting, it’s frustrating, it’s infuriating and I hope those boys find themselves in jail where they meet a lovely cell mate that will be “puttin’ a wang in a the butthole, dude”. I hope those lawyers have daughters that drink too much at a party one night and they see pictures of her unconscious with two men dragging her to the back room where they will “rape her harder than that cop raped Marcellus Wallace in Pulp Fiction”. I hope that half of that town find themselves at a party with the Duke Lacrosse team.

When will it stop? When will men learn that women are not their property? When will men learn DO NOT RAPE?

On Sunday, March 17th 2013 these two men were found guilty of rape. They were tried as juveniles and received minimum 1 and 2 year sentences, respectfully the maximum time they will spend in a juvenile detention center is 5 years. It will be up to the center to decided their release and they will get credit for all time served. The only punishment that they received that I found fitting to the crime is: they will have to register as sex offenders for the rest of their life. Good, because that is exactly what they are.



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Kym Worthy Is Freaking Awesome

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Kym Worthy is the prosecutor in Wayne County, Michigan (where Detroit is located). If you are on Tumblr, then you have probably read about her. If you read “prosecutor” as just whichever attorney is prosecuting someone in court, I do not blame you. The position is known as district attorney in most counties (who head departments of assistant district attorneys or deputy district attorneys). In Illinois, the title is state’s attorney. It’s kind of silly how some states wanted to be hipsters and come up with their own names for these things, but whatever.

Kym Worthy is, well, awesome. One might even say that she is giving that wretched county the prosecutor it deserves.

I’m not praising her for prosecuting Detroit’s absurdly corrupt mayor a few years ago. I’m not even praising her, specifically, for being a strong black woman doing a difficult job in a difficult place.

I am praising her for being vocally outraged and calling attention to the fact that thousands upon thousands of genetic samples gathered after rapes are simply kept in storage rather than being processed in a timely manner.

This is not a problem specific to Detroit. Federal crime labs and, well, basically every other crime lab in the country has this problem. The genetic material gathered in rape kits by those few rape survivors (or, even more tragically, from those who did not survive their sexual assault) is not given priority and is not processed. Over time, genetic material degrades when not properly stored. Over time, evidence storage buildings flood.

Women (and men) who come to the police and undergo invasive medical exams immediately after suffering, in most cases, the worst traumas of their lives do so because they want justice and because they want to stop their attacker from attacking anyone else (there aren’t “one-time rapists,” you guys. There are rapists who are stopped or, better yet, die after their first rape. That’s all that keeps them from continuing to rape).

When a rape kit is put on a shelf, a rapist remains free. And finds other victims.

Kym Worthy (herself a rape-survivor) is making processing rape evidence a priority (as it should be). We may not, at the moment, live in a civilization that is particularly good at deterring rape or supporting rape-survivors or giving rapists what they deserve, but even a prosecution and a few years of incarceration (along with the “sex-offender” label) is better than letting these sickening monsters run free.

Kym Worthy’s efforts have already put a spotlight on the systematic failure to move forward in rape investigations. And they have, of course, already identified serial rapists—at least one of whom has also committed murder since original samples were taken from someone whom he had raped.

Kym Worthy’s cause is just. We need more people who are willing to get things done.



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Anonymous In 2013: Expect Them

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Anonymous is not an organization. It is a hacktivist movement. Anonymous is an idea—or, more accurately, a group of ideas—and anyone on the internet can be a part of the movement and a part of that idea. In some ways, most people who use the internet are a part of that idea. And there’s more to it than Guy Fawkes masks (which, by the way, are a reference to V For Vendetta and not directly to Guy Fawkes, who was actually a lunatic).

Different spokespeople within Anonymous talk about different things. There’s no hierarchy or chain of command or leaders—just people and ideas and group efforts. I do not agree with all of those ideas. Sometimes, there are statements against capitalism, arguments against the existence of government, or statements against the use of predator drones overseas or the domestic use of surveillance drones (I’m fine with surveillance drones so long as they are used within certain ethical parameters—just like wiretaps). I love capitalism. I think that anyone willing to submit to anarchy is merely romanticizing what would actually be a deplorable abandonment of all moral and social responsibility—particularly towards those who cannot protect themselves and their property. Some members of Anonymous are anti-police. I am so not anti-police. Sometimes police officers do terrible things, yes. Sometimes teachers or electricians do terrible things.

Every now and then, there’s even a crazy statement about secret societies and the Illuminati (the kind of nonsense that I just live for when it shows up in comments on Evil Beet Gossip. I mean, have you read those comments? People analyze music videos and Madonna’s half-time show and find little things and then make up the most outlandish theories about Illuminati ritual, which apparently encompasses anything and everything). Again, Anonymous has no one official mouthpiece. There are going to be a few crazies in any group—but it just stands out more when that group is a minority or otherwise cloaked in mystery.

But, you know what? Anonymous gives hell to “White Power” and Neo-Nazi groups. Anonymous reminds powerful government organizations (not just in the US and Europe, by the way) that they are not all-powerful when those governments and organizations do something bad. Anonymous members work to protect ecosystems. Anonymous did an awesome job as one of the many, many groups that worked tirelessly to make the Westboro Baptist Church hate-group’s attempts to protest at the Sandy Hook funerals into a miserable and unrewarding venture. Anonymous is a collection of global …

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