Can we please get off this loop…
January 20, 2008 by sparklematrix
don’t look now Alice but I’ve just seen one of those…disembodied penises…
It’s okay I’ve only had a mineral water…hissed Doris…
Again.
It’s Those pesky drunken sluts getting themselves raped – yet again – by disembodied penises marauding around town and just waiting to pounce on a ‘under the influence of alcohol’ female. 1 in 3 women are raped while under this ‘influence’ so what ‘influence’ is the rapist under? It’s called The-privileged-I-can-get-away-with-this ’influence’ also known as male supremacy and All-women-are sluts-especially-when-they-have-had-a-drink ‘influence‘. 1 in 3, that’s 33 per cent which means 66 per cent are raped, wait for it – when they are sober!
Look, just pack it in! women already have smothering curfews and rigid dress codes without saying we can’t drink and socialise in public. Maybe we should have single sex pyjama parties in the garden shed or if we are willing to risk the other 66 per cent of the ‘1 in 3’ just stick to a coke with a twist of lemon please.
“You not drinking?”
“Noo I might ‘get’ raped - it’s those disembodied roaming penises you see”
Bunty spies an incognito disembodied roaming penis…
Alcohol does not rape - men do.
So really, what HMguv are telling us wimms with all this ’sound’ advice, is that we are actually LESS likely to be raped whilst drunk… therefore should be drunk most of the time — only half the risk of rape in that state. Woo hoo!
Good one HMguv. Did you boyz think long and hard before coming up with that choice bit of wisdom?
Might just be a tad more helpful to tell men to stop raping, and perhaps throw more than the odd rapist in jail. Less than 6% of reported rapes end up in conviction. Of course that figure is far more pathetic when unreported rapes are included. If the conviction rates drop much below that, may as well call it legal.
Anyway, *chin chin*, I’m here preventing rape with some red wine. And I’ll be on the look out for those marauding penises.
You know stormy men in particular are so critical of Muslim countries where women have to ‘cover up’ and act ‘respectable‘, but it’s no different here. It’s the same shared fundamental traits - they portray that rape is our fault.
Anyways *chin chin* I’m having a voddie and orange (escaped the soya this time)
Help help! Marauding penises — there’s no-one at the wheel !!!
Yep, the red wine has worked a treat. I remain in an unraped state. (Nothing to do with the separatist lifestyle and healthy distrust of male humans).
Thanks HMguv!
As a taxpayer, I feel so terribly happy that you have spent our tax pounds on such vital, useful, information! (May I have a wine/beer allowance to keep this plan effective?)
Kind of reminds the helpful advice they gave to wimms when Sutcliffe was mutilating wimmin, and Ipswich just over 12 months ago. Never occurs to them to put a curfew on the potential perps?
Yes it is indeed curious that with the amount of beer I consume I have never fallen foul of one of these supernatural phallii. It couldn’t be to do with the fact that I usually consume said beverage in the company of groups of women could it? Surely not….
PS sparks - you should do stand up….
“Never occurs to them to put a curfew on the potential perps?”
Yeah - they didn’t think ‘hmmm women working in the sex trade, earning money, this is their livelihood, best not prevent them from working as that’s government induced deprivation and old blightly don’t do things like that do it’. If you ask me it was them taking advantage of a good excuse to keep prostitutes of the streets for a bit. Effing spin as per.
I love that second pic Sparkle, it’s perfect!
Stormy - I think I may have to break out my coat with the lights down the arms don’t you? Draw attention to myself to prevent myself from falling into the clutches of rapist-of-the-drains. Then surely my flapping arms would create such a strobe effect as to alert passers by. If only this country/world wasn’t so riddled with bystander apathy!
Debs at the Burning Times has just said…
Spot on.
Hehe I love that second picture - I snorted in a very unladylike fashion when I saw that
Stormy bringing up the Sutcliffe-era warnings really struck home. I was about 7 or 8 at the time, and even at that tender age remember watching the announcements (”Women are warned not to go out alone at night”, that sort of thing) and thinking, but why don’t they just stop the murderer, then women can do what they like? It was very scary, as a child, watching a stern man on the telly saying to women, stay at home, lock your doors etc.
Sorry, I wondered off topic a bit then! x
I could understand if it was some escaped crazy axe man from Bramton Hospital or something. I just don’t understand what’s so incredible about warning males (including adolescences here) to get their shit together and stop acting like predatory little cretins.
It’s one of the first things that you learn in counsellor training - nobody *makes* you do anything. It’s called owning your words / feelings / behaviour and so forth.
Men dumping blame onto women is so historically ingrained, it needs some serious conciseness raising and fast.
During the witch trials if the torturer became sexually aroused during inquisition (which often happened because lets face it they were sadists who felt an ‘attraction’ to the job description) then it was taken as proof that the woman was in cahoots with Satan, because she *made* the sadistic torturer sexually aroused.
Wow - beam me up Scotty
Is personal development taught in schools? Because it needs to be and it needs to start with challenging sexism.
No wait - that would mean denying men’s divine right to women’s bodies…
I found these pictures (and many more) on a retro knitting site. Honestly I *snorted* for a good couple of hours.
Thanks for making me laugh, coz I was feeling very depressed by constant blaming of women for men chosing to be b-ards.
For much of my life, I felt I to blame for the abuses that happened to me. One thing that made blame myself, was that I was drinking so much.
Now, I can see my life clearer, I see I was not to blame for having male violence and hate pour into me. For me, drinking was a way of surviving living in hell.
When the men who raped or tortured me did their violence, they assume I was so unimportant that no-one would care or see. For them, the fact I had was drinking was not of interest, although it would help them to get away with their crime.
Many men that choose to raped use the excuse of alcohol, knowing that our culture will see drunk women as “up for it”. Of course this is nonsense. But, then rapists use every excuse in the book to get away with it. And whilst most get off, they will carry on giving stupid excuses.
Yes, and maybe in order to get round all of this nonsense of male culpability we need to suggest raising the age for male criminal responsibility (rape, D.V. or anywhere else females are concerned) to, Oh - 85?
Quite honestly I would be embarrassed in belonging to a sex that was viewed as so infantile and blameless on the one hand yet so hyper-swagger-masculine on the other.
Oh but I forgot, men like their dichotomies.
Ha! see Maia’s post http://touchinglynaive.wordpress.com/2008/01/20/drink-and-rape/
http://www.alligator.org/articles/2008/01/17/the_avenue/sex/sex.txt
“A study published in the Journal of Sex Education & Therapy found that almost 70 percent of sexually assaulted women reported that their assailant had been drinking.”
Something has always puzzled me since men are supposedly rational and always always in control why then do we constantly hear the refrain ‘but men must not be expected to control their sexual desires.’ Likewise women are supposedly passive, emotional and irrational yet when it comes to male on female rape suddenly women are expected to control men’s sexual aggression and coercion.
Something odd going on here. Same when we hear men claim they don’t understand sexual harassment - odd how the male brain take a nap when it is about male sexual violence against women. Do I really need to say I am not saying all men are like this? What I am saying is these are the dominant myths which continue to circulate and serve to excuse, justify and exonerate male accountability and responsibilty.
Oh Sparkle men as a group are taught to never, never own their behaviour instead there is the well-worn mantra ’she caused me to do it.’ Or, it is women who are responsible for provoking men.’ Etc. etc. Women, however are taught to take responsibility for everyone else’s behaviour especially males.
Remember the patriarchy is a very tricky little ‘devil’ it adapts every time it looks as though women just might have a little more power. Which explains the on-going campaigns blaming women for male sexual violence and the campaign to reduce time limit on abortions. It is all about bringing women back into line and firmly underneath men.
Yes, I’ve gave quite a lot of thought to this lately. So many men pride how ‘logical’ ‘rational’ and ‘in control’ they are except when it comes to violence, sexual or otherwise against women. Where does the ‘logical rational and in control’ go?
And yes, there is a backlash going on - no doubt about that.
The last 6-8 years has seen a gain in momentum for the backlash. Probably also co-incides with the rise of the LM’s somewhat?
Yeah, the double standard (men are so controlled, but not their sex drives!) has pissed me off for something like the last quarter century or so. Possibly longer, but I was erring on the side of caution.
‘Quite honestly I would be embarrassed in belonging to a sex that was viewed as so infantile and blameless on the one hand yet so hyper-swagger-masculine on the other.’
errr yes - goes even redder…
still, if a bit of embarassment is the worst we have to put up with, we can’t quite claim to be oppressed yet. (not even by bad feminists like sparks).
What I feel really sad about is that I have never come across one of these posters IRL (which kind of makes me doubt their existence, like TV detector vans). Imagine the subvertising opportunities. “66% of rapes happen while sober - stay drunk!” or pace Debs - “100% of rapes happen in the presence of a rapist”
Hey guess what people. I’ve just been checking out the website the dreaded poster comes from and there’s a form where you can send in stories of ‘when a few too many drinks turned into a nightmare’. This is far too good to resist…..
http://www.knowyourlimits.gov.uk/case_studies/tell_us.php
Hi, Polly styrene you would not believe this but my cat has decided to send in her own account of what happened when she had a drink in a public bar. Now of course my cat is a very clever feminist cat and she used this opportunity to subvert (or whatever it is called) this ongoing misogynstic campaign. My cat was sitting happily alone in a bar having a drink when an obnoxious man came over and proceeded to attempt sexual coercion. My cat ended her story by telling this website their campaign was to blame for this man’s behaviour because he claimed no one would believe any woman who had been drinking. Now of course all of the above is ‘fantasy’ - my cat did not write this story and it was never submited to this website. Read into this what you will!!
My (non feline) story was a 1oo% true account of last Saturday - I drank some beer, had fun and didn’t get raped. I added that alchohol didn’t rape women, men do and that men not women are to blame for rape and asked for this sexist misogynist campaign to be dropped (dunno if sexist and misogynist is tautology but who cares). Sadly I don’t have a cat or I’m sure she could send in her story as well. Ladies and gentlemen over to you - I’m sure you or your cats, dogs, or other companion animals have some experiences you could add.
My hamster has just shared how she likes to go out for a bevy and a bag of nuts every Saturday night. She never gets any problems with males or rape because she goes to WimHam only bars! So even though she’s pretty legless she always takes her Trundle Ball ™ for that “I’m safe in a bubble” feeling for her journey to and from The Hamster’s Arms.
Who thinks I should post the following:
Units drunk: 1 (because you can’t put none)
I was out socialising on my own when I saw your Know Your Limits poster about rape. I couldn’t believe my eyes and concluded that I must be completely wasted to have misread something so badly. That completely ruined my night because I had always thought of myself as a ‘heavy weight’ when it comes to drinking. Then I woke up the next day, confused, and looked up the poster on the internet. To my horror I had read it correctly - the government IS blaming 33% of rape in the UK on women not drinking responsibly.
Admittedly, since less than 6% of rapes result in conviction, and only 20% of rapes are reported, thus making the conviction rate more like <1%, you are only blaming <0.33% of rape victims (of convicted rape because that’s all you know about) for the abuse that they suffered, but that’s still far too many.
On a positive note my confidence in my ability to consume large amounts of alcohol has been restored.
***
?
Too much?
Grace, I think that is brill!! I’ve had a good snigger reading everyone’s ’stories’ and who said radical feminists don’t have a sense of humour?
Gleefully posted
I can’t help feeling that they don’t normally get many posts on that site and wonder how long it will take the person who checks the inbox to twig what is going on. They will probably think they should have drunk less last night……
[...] However, it serves to fit nicely with the other ‘invisible’ incidents of male violence; where disembodied penises, alcohol, gender ambiguous language and now these ferocious kitchen cabinets continue their vicious [...]
This is an example of what happens when you make women feel they’re responsible for being raped - a student who killed herself because she felt she was ‘to blame’ after being raped on a night out…
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=510422&in_page_id=1770
Thanks Polly - this is horrible. It’s bad enough living in this rape culture of ours without the blame been laid at women’s feet. This is not an individual, unusual response solely particular to this young woman alone, it lies within the very fabric of our culture. Women are the gate keepers of sex, which is very handy when you happen to be male which as we know absolves the male of any personal accountability. When it’s a crime against females - that is. I’ve had a couple of conversations in the past week with really intelligent women who at first could not see how the messages in campaigns such this most recent one ‘invisablises’ men who rape. Anyway, it sure got them thinking.
I remember talking to an intelligent woman just over a year ago when these campaigns first came out who also couldn’t initially see what was wrong with them. People think it is just a campaign against binge drinking. But all the ’statistic’ says is that one in three women who are raped have been drinking. Now if you think about it, most ‘date rapes’ take place after meetings in social situations such as clubs and parties, where -surprise surprise - people, including women, drink. ‘Have been drinking’ does not necessarily equal lying unconscious in the gutter, or even drunk, or even mildly tipsy. But even if you do get blind drunk (and when I was young I did on at least one occasion drink enough to pass out, we probably all have), that doesn’t mean you invited rape. And you only will be raped if you are unlucky enough to be in the company of a rapist. I’ve been quite drunk loads of times, very drunk on a number of occasions, thrown up, had hangovers (this was before I discovered the joys of proper beer which doesn’t make you ill) walked home alone etc etc yet here I am unraped. I think going to gay bars, or hanging around with large groups of lesbians could be something to do with this. Maybe the government should start a campaign about the dangers of heterosexuality.
I’ve just found this over at Velvet Verbosity who was peeved when I missed out the some when talking of male violence.
http://velvetverbosity2.blogspot.com/2008/01/why.html
Has this to say of this post.
‘Lighten up’ and ‘overkill’ what? Not from where I’m standing, this is called feminist analysis.
Oh Nooo… please.
Hey there Sparkle,
Don’t take it out of context. If you read on, and I’m sure you did, I ALSO said, and I quote, “The thing is, Sparkle Matrix and others are right on this issue, and I see that now.”
Blink blink.
Well to be fair sparks, having read the whole of her post VV does, as I read it, go on to discuss why women, even aware women don’t necessarily see why the poster is victim blaming to begin with. But I’ve said it once and it bears repeating:
The slogan is ‘one in three rapes happens when the victim has been drinking’. Note NOT when you are lying face down passed out in the gutter in a pool of your own vomit but when you have had as little as a single sweet sherry. VV interprets this to mean ‘drunk’ as do most people reading the poster but that isn’t what it says. You might as well say ‘one in three rapes happens when the victim has been to a nightclub or a party’ and advise women to avoid nightclubs or parties. People seeing the posters assume the ‘drinking’ bit causes the ‘rape’ bit, as we are meant to, this being an anti drinking campaign - they are trying to frighten people into drinking less. If I was a cynic (perish the thought) I’d think they don’t give a flying fuck about rape, or women who are raped. But this is a complete non sequitur. Because two events tend to happen together this does not mean one causes the other.
You’re actually most likely to be raped, from the anecdotal evidence I’ve heard in your own home, or someone else’s home by a friend, acquaintance, partner or ex partner. So don’t go home then women, or if you do make sure all the windows and doors are locked tightly and there are no men in the house.
And a note on ’some’ men. When we are talking about racist violence we don’t feel the need to add that of course not all white people are racist. Thus with taking about male violence against women. The ’some’ bit is implied, and doesn’t need to be added.
Oh and PS. IT HASN’T WORKED. Every time I see something like this I think my liver be damned - I’m having a drink, fuck you. When I get cirrhosis, I’ll be able to blame NHS sexism for driving me to it.
Also, for the record, I was never “peeved” either. I think I’ve said that I’m on your side, etc. Why do you keep perceiving me as attacking you or being angry when I’m NOT?
And THAT is what I was bringing up before. Sometimes getting too swallowed up in anger disallows us from having constructive conversations. As a woman, I’m angry too, but I know that I have to keep my wits about me, and try to approach as many of these issues as possible with a relentless educating of myself and others, and be able to discern the difference between someone who just doesn’t have enough information yet, and someone who is willfully ignorant.
That’s how I came to see that your opinion on the posters was in line with the truth. Not because of sarcastic barbs, but because you and others that link here kept putting up information, and I kept reading. First it was the poster, then Harriet McCormick, then the guy buried with full military honors after raping a 9-year old, and the puzzle pieces just came together.
What I was laying out in my post was the process it took me to get there. This invites others to “get there” too. It takes multiple voices and multiple tones to get the same message across to the masses. Th
VV I’m not ‘swallowed up’ in anger that is your perception.
What is irksome is your use of MRA type accusations such as ‘swallowed up in anger’ I need to ‘lighten up’ ‘over kill’ these are tactics used by men’s rights activists.
Ah, I see where you are coming from. I read the post this morning very early before work but I’m still not sure it’s all that clear o.O
Sparkle, I used those very terms PURPOSEFULLY. You were completely misreading my message. What happened to the part where I said, the thing is, you’re RIGHT?
I used terms like that to pull the reader in before they could turn off, or tune it out. Before they could turn away and dismiss it. I was saying, even I can be fooled into thinking these things.
I might be a little confused in perceiving anger because you keep jumping on what I said that you didn’t like instead of hearing the actual message, which, let me repeat, is that you were right. And did I say you were right?
So to clarify so that there is absolutely no ambiguity here. You, and others, were right. Also? Now I’m a tad angry. That’s kind of what happens when someone isn’t listening to you, no?
I wonder how much this would please the misogynists to have two women on the SAME side bickering it out over semantics? Still, after I cool down, I still plan to keep visiting. After all, however you say it, there’s good information over here.
p.s. I didn’t see the comment on you now seeing where I was coming from before posting my last comment. But geeeeeez! Frustrating! Stop decking me out girl!
Yeah, point taken. I make no apologies that I am nippy at times when I feel slighted (real or imagined) all 5’2” and 8 and a half stone of me.
VV we cross posted. I didn’t see the comment. I do apologise.
Hold on.
How am I decking you? I agree I got it wrong and apologised.
Sparkle,
We were just getting wires crossed there at the end. I think we were typing comments simultaneously.
Okay dokay.
eta: memo to self, do not read posts at 7am with one eye and inadequate caffine intake.