Really Great Piece About Male Sexual Entitlement

At Role Reboot.

Christmas Rape Songs

Ever actually listen to "Baby, It's Cold Outside"? Check it out on Funny or Die.

Amazing Photo Essay on Consent

"Face Value is a series of photographs, taken by staff photographer Aubrey Schuring, that showcase the emotions of various human beings as they discuss moments of consent, assault, and their feelings of worth with Project Consent."

See it on Project Consent.

Sexual Assault, Memory, and Trauma

This article for Think Progress, by Sacha Feinman, describes how he was sexually assaulted at the age of twelve, but didn't remember a thing about it until he was fifteen. He uses it as a window onto the chaos emanating from the Rolling Stone story about rape at the University of Virginia. Whatever the facts of that case, however—and I, anyway, think it very unlikely that "Jackie" completely invented her story—it would definitely be worth people's understanding how such traumatic events are processed and why interrogating the "accuracy" of people's memories of them is not just cruel and re-traumatizing but counter-productive, if your interest is really in the truth.

When we call Jackie or any other potential survivor a "liar", we accuse them of intentional obfuscation. And yet, the reality of our biological and neurological makeup is such that, in spite of our best efforts, victims of sexual abuse may sometimes be incapable of telling their stories accurately, if at all. In fact, contradictory details or head-scratching gaps in the narrative might be demonstrative that the violation was all too real.

Even under the best of circumstances, memory simply isn't the sort of photographic storehouse people seem to think it is. We know this not just from all the scientific research that has been done on memory but also from studies that have been done on eyewitness testimony. And when you add trauma into the mix, memories get repressed and reshaped in all kinds of ways. The question isn't then whether the memory is "accurate". Of course it's not "accurate". The question is what traumatic event actually caused it: what event it is we are seeing through a glass darkly. Dismissing the memory because it isn't "accurate" is simply refusing even to try to hear the message it is sending us.

Open Letters to Camille and Evin Cosby

Wherein the authors let Bill Cosby's wife and daughter know (i) that they believe then when they say that Bill Cosby has been a wonderful husband and father but also (ii) that they believe the women who have accused him of raping them.

Lynn Beismer's letter, on Role Reboot, is a wonderful, sensitive statement, full of sadness for these two women. Rebecca Vipond Brink's, on XO Jane, is a bit more angry, but expresses similar ideas in the end.

Both attitudes are, of course, reasonable. Far be it from me to tell victims how they ought to feel or react when such things happen to others.

Rape By Fraud?

There's a myth out there that no law, program, or action designed to counter rape can be too extreme for feminists. Well, here's proof to the contrary, an article by Amanda Marcotte decrying a bill introduced in New Jersey by Assemblyman Troy Singleton that would criminalize "sexual assault by fraud". Which means, as Marcotte puts it, "[lying] your way into someone's pants".

As Marcotte notes, this a terrible idea:

...[T]his law is so vague and wide-reaching that it's easy to see how pretty much everyone could be considered a rapist, because, as any quick perusing of OkCupid can tell you, representing yourself as someone you are not is a universal behavior. All of us are claiming we woke up like this, and we are all lying.

But at least the dude's heart is in the right place.

Collection of Articles on Bill Cosby and The Like

Deeply disturbing.

• "The Cosby Show" (Ta-Neishi Coates, The Atlantic)
• "Publicly Shaming Bill Cosby Is the Best We Can Do" (Hanna Rosin, Slate XX)
• "Therese Serignese, Florida Nurse, Says Bill Cosby Drugged And Raped Her In 1976" (Emma Gray, HuffPo)
• "Model Janice Dickinson Says Bill Cosby Sexually Assaulted Her" (Elliot Hannon, Slate)
• "Why Does Alleged Sexual Predator R. Kelly Still Have a Career?" (Josh Levin, Slate XX)

But what's most disturbing, or so my wife tells me, is that there were extensive reports on these accusations, by reputable news organizations, years ago. Or, as Barbara Bowman asked: "Bill Cosby raped me. Why did it take 30 years for people to believe my story?" Is the answer the one she gives? "Only after a man, Hannibal Buress, called Bill Cosby a rapist in a comedy act last month did the public outcry begin in earnest." God help us if so.

Do You Know About Jian?

Somehow, I totally failed to link to this amazing article by the extent to which people surrounding Jian Ghomeshi knew that he was "weird" about women. I meant to include it with these links (and now have).

I have since found another article in a similar vein, by Carl Wilson on Slate XX. And another, by Emma Healey, on The Hairpin.

Alcohol and Consent

I post a lot of links to what Thomas MacAulay Millar writes about consent, because so much of it is so sensible. And his recent piece "Draining the Swamp: Alcohol and Agency" is no exception.

Street Harrassment

There's alot I'd change about this piece on Good Men Project trying to explain to men what's wrong with street harassment. But it makes one very important point.

Are there ways to tell a strange woman that you think that she’s attractive without harassing her? Of course there is. But this is one of the many times where you need to examine your motivations in the first place. For many people it’s not just about paying the compliment—it's about her reaction to the compliment as well. They say they want to make a stranger feel good but if she ignores then or—worse—gets annoyed by it? Many of those "gentlemen" will get their backs up—"It’s just a compliment! I’m trying to tell you that you're pretty. You should say 'thank you'!" ...

That reproach for not acknowledging [the] compliment underscores the real motivation: he wants her attention and acknowledgement. Her presence out in public means that her time and attention is now a public resource, available for any and all to demand at will.

 There's other good stuff there, as well.

More on Consent, Assault, and the Like

Just to be clear: I couldn't care less about Jian Ghomeshi. I'd never heard of the guy until a week or so ago. But when these sorts of things happen, and you see and hear the kinds of reactions we have seen and heard, it's a teachable moment. And it's an especially good moment for men to shut the fuck up for one freaking moment and listen to what the women around us are saying about their lives and their experience.

Good Reads: Consent, Ghomeshi, BDSM

This is an oldie but a goodie. The basic point is that people rarely refuse an invitation of any kind by saying "No". To the contrary, refusals are usually hedged in various ways, to soften the blow. The lesson is that people who violate consent don't "not understand". They don't want to understand.

• "Mythcommunication" (Yes Means Yes)

Another oldie about how communities "work around" the knowledge that one of their own is "sketchy on consent".

• "The Missing Stair" (The Pervocracy)

And this is a wonderful piece on a much older case explaining the fundamental difference between BDSM and abuse:

• "Not What We Do" (Yes Means Yes)

All of which brings us back to Jian Ghomeshi:

• "Ghomeshi: The Developing Story, And Predator Theory Observations" (Yes Means Yes)
• "Jian Ghomeshi Isn’t the First Alleged Abuser to Cite the Right to BDSM Sexuality" (The Cut)
• "Do You Know About Jian?" (Nothing in Winnipeg)
• "I Knew About Jian Ghomeshi" (Slate XX)

One of the really important reminders here is that "innocent until proven guilty" is a legal standard that applies to criminal prosecutions and not even e.g. to arrest.

While we're at it: Here's a nice cartoon that explains what the real objection is to affirmative consent.

(Via Everyday Feminism).

Good Reads: Sex, Gender, and Feminism

Some good recent articles on sex, gender, and feminism:

• "Frat Brothers Rape 300% More" (Jessica Valenti, AlterNet)
• "Why It Matters That Lena Dunham Wrote About Being Raped In College" (Tara Culp-Ressler, Think Progress)
• "The Smartest Constitutional Argument for Marriage Equality That No One Is Making" (Susannah W. Pollvogt and Catherine E. Smith, Slate Outward)
• "Ladies Come First: Why Every Secondary School Needs a Lesson on the Clitoris" (Alice Holloway, Vagenda)
• "What Do We Really Mean When We Say Women Are Sexually 'Fluid'?" (Vanessa Vitiello Urquhart, Slate Double X)
• "St Louis Study Confirms That  IUDs Are the Key to Lowering Teen Pregnancy Rates" (Amanda Marcotte, Slate XX)
• "Please Stop Saying That Trans Women Were 'Born Boys'" (Mari Brighe, Autostraddle)

I'll be posting these sorts of lists periodically, once I've collected enough articles.

Two Great Pieces on California's New Affirmative Consent Law

A couple days ago, Gov. Jerry Brown signed a new law in California establishing "yes means yes" as the standard by which sexual consent must be judged by colleges in California, rather than "no means no". Feminists, and other decent people, too, have been pushing for this sort of change for years, and it is important. Symbolically, it recognizes in the law that women are sexual agents and subjects of desire, not just passive objects of male sexual desire whose only choice point is to say "NO!!"