Silencing Survivors, or, "I Need To Screen Cap More Often" (Content Warning: Rape/Sex Abuse)

So I grew up in a wee village that was, at one point, a thriving logging town. So, lots of history and such. The Book of the Face, being what it is, of course has a few groups and pages dedicated to this history. I happened to come across one such group through my newsfeed and stumbled onto an interesting thread where an old, early 50's class picture with as many names as could be identified captioned below.

One of the comments on the photograph was from a gentleman who spoke of suffering sexual abuse at the hands of the teacher in said picture. A few other commenters alluded to hearing of this particular teachers proclivities and many on the thread commiserated on the oft-used, especially in previous generations, method of shuffling teachers around to different schools when allegations of abuse came to light.

The commenter who had experienced the abuse himself notified the rest of the thread that an admin had contacted him and asked him not to post "defamatory" comments in the group. Later, the photo had been deleted and the thread was gone.

Now first off, don't get me wrong. Group admins get to moderate as they see fit and if one doesn't like how they choose to moderate, there are other places on the Internet to be. Do they have the right to delete comments and pull photos? Sure they do. Just like bloggers have the right to moderate comments and social platforms have a right to enforce their terms of service. Not giving someone a platform is not the same as actively suppressing someone's right to speak.

However, silencing is a tactic that gets used against rape survivors and childhood sex abuse survivors all too often. In this case, the gentleman's comments were described as "defamatory" when what they were were fucking brave. It takes a lot of guts to speak openly about sex abuse, given the way survivors tend to be doubted, or victim-blamed or have their abuse minimized in a "I'm sure it wasn't that bad" head-patty kind of way.

Calling the comments "defamatory" would have been fitting if this guy was repeating a rumour he had heard, rather than speaking of his own experiences. Referring to someone speaking of their lived experiences as "defamatory" implies that the survivor is to be doubted and that protecting the name of the abuser is more important than the need for the survivor to speak openly about abuse they have suffered.

Which is, to put it succinctly, bullshit. It's silencing and it's fucking Wrong. It takes guts to speak up about abuse, when often there is much more to lose than to gain, personally, from speaking up. When someone does speak up, we owe it to them to listen, not silence.

Oh, Fuck No.

Today in sexist fuckwittery, a school in New jersey has had it's female students take a "no swearing" pledge. You read that right, folks. Just the girls.

Look, in spite of my own potty mouth, I'm not a fan of swearing and have even made (valiant, but failed) attempts at keeping my own expletives to a minimum.  It can make people sound ignorant and uneducated.  In some contexts though, a well-placed expletive can place emphasis on a phrase, really hit a point home.  That's neither here nor there.  Because it seems much more than a little fucked up to me that only the girls are being asked to take this pledge. Am I alone here?

The school denies a double standard is at play. Of course not. I mean, yeah, none of the boys had to take the pledge but they were asked kindly to not swear around the girls, so that's gotta count for something, right?

FYI.

It counts for making this pledge doubly insulting, because it gives the message that swearing is in appropriate for "ladies" but fairly innocuous when guys do it, unless of course they do it around d us girls and our delicate sensibilities.

What the fuck?

Tumblr user Afroboheme noted that it was telling that the pledge pin was a pair of lips with a red slash through them:

It really got me that they’re promising pins with a ‘red slash through pink lips’. Cause that’s what they actually want. Ladies should keep their fucking mouths shut, amiright? Try and tell me this isn’t what this is actually about? Getting women to shut the fuck up.

Does that seem hyperbolic to you?  Maybe, except that tone arguments and admonishments to be ladylike and not make waves have been used for years to suppress and derail women, who when expressing dissatisfaction and yes, even anger are told they are being hysterical.

So color me fucking unimpressed by this one-sided attempt to teach civility.   If you run a school and you have rules of conduct, then enforce those standards across board.  Don't hold the girls to a different standard than the boys and then claim that you are not upholding a plainly sexist double-standard.  Otherwise, I say, fuck that double-standard bullshit.

*special thanks to Kate for bringing this to my dashboard

Daniel Tosh is not being censored.

A day late, a buck short, I know.  This is all old news by now.  Whatevs, brah.

But I couldn't let this one pass.

Daniel Tosh, the so-called 'comedian' that I fully admit I hadn't really known of or paid any attention until this week, got called out at one of his shows for saying rape jokes are funny.

For the record, they're not.

He responded by making what have has been interpreted by some as a not-so-veiled threat and by others as a joke.  I'm kind of in the threat camp on this one.

After I called out to him, Tosh paused for a moment. Then, he says, “Wouldn’t it be funny if that girl got raped by like, 5 guys right now? Like right now? What if a bunch of guys just raped her…”

I've laughed at some pretty wrong and fucked up stuff in my time, and this didn't even make me giggle a bit. Not even in that "omigod-i-so-shouldn't-be-laughing-at-this-I'm-a-bad-person-and-obviously-going-to-hell" way.

So as it happens, this girls post has gone viral and a bunch of people have called Tosh an asshole, and a bunch of people have come to his defence, claiming free speech etc etc.

People, I cannot stress this enough.

Criticism is not Censorship.
Saying "Don't be an asshole," is not Censorship.

Saying "This thing you said, it's shitty and hurts people" is not Censorship.

Criticism is not Censorship.

Saying "I'm not coming to your performances or watching your show any more, you rape-apologizing, unfunny assbag." is not censorship.

Telling sponsors and advertisers "Hey, I'm going to stop using your services or buying your products if you keep giving money to this rape-apologizing, unfunny assbag," is not censorship.

Bringing attention to the actions of an unfunny, rape-apologizing assbags through various medium and suggesting that "Hey, maybe supporting unfunny rape-apologizing assbags is bullshit really fucking hurtful and erases victims and perpetuates a culture where rape is normalized and acceptable and seen as a joke," is not censorship.

Criticism is not Censorship.


To the best of my knowledge, no one is advocating jailing, deporting or otherwise sanctioning Daniel Tosh.  Governing bodies have not stepped in and taken away his show.  If I'm wrong, then yes, that is censorship.

But the same people who are saying that we are taking away Daniel Tosh's right to be an asshole free speech are silencing the victims, or potential victims who are trying to say "Hey, that shit is not funny."

....and we're back.

So as some of you who ventured over to my little bit of the universe may have noticed yesterday, I did eventually manage to get my site blacked out.  Once I got to work, it took me all of five minutes.  Additionally, I've managed to get back to my original template without tearing a hole in the time-space continuum, so that's cool.

I'd say the blackout yesterday was fairly successful, and it was heartening as the day went on to see how many sites were, if not participating, at least drawing attention to the issue and and saying "Hey, this is bullshit."

The fight is not over yet.  There's still the vote to be had on January 24th, so I urge you, if you are in the U.S. to write your congressman.  You can follow the link I've put in the top right-hand corner, and that will stay there until the vote.  If you're outside of the U.S. then be sure to familiarize yourself with any similar legislation that may be in the works.

NOW Toronto has a link with some of the legislation in the works for Canada.  Check it out here.

Amazon is trying to make me out to be a Nazi.

It's pouring down rain today so I'm taking advantage of wanting to go nowhere on my break to do a quick blog-post about censorship, as I think I may have inadvertently been the victim of it in a small, small way.

Earlier today I was checking Amazon and adding various things to my Wishlist (yes, I've linked it so if anyone wants to buy me something pretty..) and found myself caught rather off-guard by the 'People who bought this..' feature.

Apparently there's some kind of weird link between scatalogical humour and a sociopathic desire to commit genocide.  Turns out that that people who bought Superbad: The Drawings (which yes, is a book of dick drawings inspired by the film.  If you haven't seen it, this will not make sense to you.  Consider yourself lucky) also bought Mein Kampf?

What the Fuck?  Why do I need to know this, Amazon?

Look. I'm not even kidding.  And it's the Uncensored version?

So as I do whenever something strikes me funny, odd or downright abhorrent, I took to Twitter to express my disbelief thusly:

Really #amazon? I'm disturbed to know that people who bought "Superbad: The Drawings" also bought "Mein Kampf"? #WTFF

The reason I didn't screen shot the actual tweet itself is that it has disappeared.  Folks, this is why programs that scan for 'questionable' words or phrases are bullshit.  Crawlers cannot account for context.  Someone who mentions Mein Kampf in a Tweet may not actually be trying to spread Nazi propaganda.. some of us are just trying to express a little bit of disbelief at this world.

I'm probably on some kind of government watch list now.  FANTASTIC.

Got about 20 minutes before the work whistle blows..

So let's talk about censorship.  Well, an part of censorship that is often not talked about:  Radio edits of popular songs.

Ever listen to a song on the radio, find it really catchy, then get the album and go "Whoa, wasn't expecting THAT!"  Maybe it was hearing Thom Yorke sing "You're so fucking special" for the first time in Radiohead's  Creep.  When I first bought Hawksley Workman's Lover/Fighter (well, actually my friend bought it and burned it for me, and burned herself a copy of Between the Beautifuls that I had bought after his show at the Danforth Music Hall back in 2007, but I digress) and popped in my car stereo, I *may* have nearly driven off the road when the first line of We Will Still Need a Song chimed in with a resounding "Fuck you, you're drunk and acting tough...".  Up until then, I had heard only the radio-friendly lyrics "Baby, you're drunk etc etc"

On occasion I find the radio edit preferable to the uncensored version.  For years, I loved the innocent first-gushing-mooshy-puppy love feel of Liz Phair's Why Can't I with lines like:

Here we are, we're at the beginning
We haven't kissed yet but my head is swimming


When I heard the unedited version that replaced 'kissed' with 'fucked' I just felt kind of... bleh.  Like some of the uncynical, unjaded innocence I had always read into the song was lost.  Of course, I wasn't totally aware at the time that Liz Phair was all about jaded cynicism.  To this day, when I play this song, I refused to sing the original lyrics.

The album version of Eminem's breakout hit Hi, My Name Is was another one that left me cold.  I found the radio edit fun and mischevious.. Eminem was a troublemaker, a bit of a miscreant but in a likeable way, kind of like a grown-up fucked up Dennis the Menace.  Of course the album version is a lot closer to what we were to expect from Eminem.. violent, mysogynistic etc.  Meh.

The latest one to get my goat is Enrique Iglesias' Tonight I'm Loving (Fucking) You (depending on the edit). The radio edit is irritating at best, but the album edit is creepy and downright rapey.  Come on, Enrique.  What happened to you?  Once upon a time you were all "Oh, I could be your hero, baby" and now this?  I guess the bloom is off the rose and all attempts at romance have gone right out the door.  Now you just sound like the asshole boyfriend who was all nice and sensitive and on his best game in the beginning but now his idea of foreplay is "Hey, wanna screw?"

What would your dad say, Enrique?

Source

Addenendum:  In response to this piece, I got the following string of text messages from The Danno and I felt I should share:

"Oh poor, sweet, innocent 'Drea - if only you'd heard the original cut to "Hero" it may not have come as such an ugly revelation... I can be your hero baby (with my cock) I can kiss away the pain (with my cock)"

"Enrique has always been a rapey pig and a disappointment to his father-soft core conservative radio edits only masked it from us for the last few years ;-)"