D'Izzy Words

How weird it is to say that...

Returning upperclassmen moved back onto Beloit College (barring RA's and OL's and other people like that) on Saturday, August 27th. I planned to visit from Saturday to Tuesday sometime. By a lucky coincidence Beth was flying into Midway, which is the closest Van Galder stop to where I was before Saturday. We planned to take the 4pm bus but we managed to meet up at the airport and take the 1:30pm bus because her flight arrived early. Joy!

I stayed with Beth the entire time. I wasn't much help with taking Beth's stuff out of storage. I am a little piddling thing. >_< And she was not on the first floor (and anyway that building had stairs leading up to the first floor). We waited until some of her other friends were free for their help with the other things. While Beth was unpacking I went to see the comedian. On the Saturday everybody else returns, there's a comedian or a hypnotist or something. They're usually college-friendly. People-friendly.

This one definitely was not. She was very crude. She was delayed and she started off with saying the Beloit downtown life was hopping, damn she got hung up on the strippers. >_< And she made fun of an international student because she didn't get a joke/looked blank. The int'l student was from Germany and the comedian said she couldn't think of a single good thing to come out of Germany, except bratwurst. She then asked the student from Germany if she liked bratwurst, but the student was vegetarian. She continued on with some jokes before she made one about CNN delays. You know, like how there's a lag between the on-site reporters and the anchorperson back on set. And she said it was like that, the lag, when she watched the German student. >_< Because it took her a while to get the joke.

I know the way I'm talking about it it doesn't sound offensive. Maybe the fact that I'm - was - an international student myself made me more sensitive to people making stereotypical jokes or those bordering on racism.

Did I mention she was okay making rape jokes? Sexist jokes? Racist jokes? I suppose I'd have to say the only thing she didn't do was make homophobic jokes. She was actually quite pro-homosexuality, being from Arkansas and getting a college degree in a university in the Chicago area. She made fun of other people in her family who were not completely okay with homosexuality.

( Mention of the rape joke )

A few guys left. What makes me proud is that the a few of the Phi Psi guys were the first to leave. When they left the comedian joked about that. She was like "Oh, wait! Why are you leaving? I mentioned a rape joke and suddenly you remember you had something to do!"

Anytime anybody left she said they were going off to have sex with hand gestures. Heterosexual -- a circle with her index and thumb on one hand and the other index poking in it. Homosexual males -- the index fingers poking at each other. Homosexual females -- her hands spread in V's and mushing them together. A few guys even ran because they didn't want her to see them and make jokes about them. She said, at one point, "This is why you don't want to leave!"

She made a lot of other horrible jokes. There were one or two that were a little funny - poking at Bush and Harry Potter references - but bleh. What a stupid, heinous, horrible, insensitive comedian. I was on my phone the entire time, texting with people, checking Facebook. I was between big groups of people. I couldn't leave easily. I was in a room later with Beth and some of her friends when the head of the Programming Board came in. She looked miserable and so sorry. People had written on posters advertising the comedian comments like "I've been to funnier funerals." I was a little flabbergasted the comedian wasn't screened as well on the Internet as she could have been. But this is also the same person who organized the I ♥ Female Orgasm in April that I enjoyed. *sigh*

But that was Saturday evening and afterwards I helped Beth put her clothes away in their proper place. It was very reassuring and comforting to have something routine and orderly to do to calm my mind down...

( Sunday, Monday, Tuesday )

I couldn't see Lindsay which is :-( Not nice.

9 minutes

Thanks... Nice to know I "don't seem like a slut."





If you want to read the rest of it here, cool. He does question this rationally. I don't know if he got heated up on his own end, and that he had better control over how he phrased words and and stuff than me.

I was upset from the first comment of his of me not seeming like a slut, and then, and then, him asking abut females wearing "unnecessarily tempting" clothes. I know, I know he agrees and states several times that it is the man's fault for assaulting the female and not hte victim's fault -- it seems we're generalizing about males assaulting females, at least until the end -- but that whole "temptation" thing just...reeks, still, implicitly of blaming the female. And it reminds me of how I was raised. How I had to watch what I wore in case I tempted men, in case I made them think thoughts.

I'd agree there are times where people can be blamed for the type of thoughts they cause others to think -- primarily emotional abuse comes to mind -- and a few times my answers were simplistic but still, just...to think that, say that, ask that...

( Rest of the chat )

And yeah, probably there are statistically more male rapists/sxual assauterls than female ones, but I got confused near the end if we were talking adult-adult or also cindluing children. I know i didn't end hte chat on arational note but...gah. I know it's likely others will read the chat and think I'm really overreacting and that he brings up good points or that he didn't raise his opniionions like an asshole douche and my feelings are blinding me to that. To be fair, he is a little on the conservative side, which is no surpsrised this reminded me of my aprents and how I was raised.

But I sitll feel even if a man's thoughts suddenly veer towards sexually thinking about a woman and that was her intent (because a lot of the times a woman wearing a sundress with a little cleavage doesn't want men to think of her that way or it doesn't even enter her mind but she just want st o dress lightly in the weather), why should that matter?

*could be triggering*

This was a comment Constable Michael Sanguinetti made during a York University safety forum at Osgoode in Canada way back in January. He has since apologized for the comment. But what he said... It's stupid and insluting and, obviously, victim-blaming.

The comment triggered Toronto's SlutWalk to emerge. While sparked off by one police officer's insensitivie, moronic, stupid, insulting comment, victim-blaming has a much, much longer history.

It's frustrating. It's annoying. It's not a march where women (or men) are all suppose to dress provocatively in low-cut tops and hot pants. Protestors can dress in whatever manner of dress they wish. It's a protest against societal victim-blaming for sexual assault and rape. It's a protest against people thinking how a person dresses makes them "okay" to assault and rape, that they're "asking" for it.

I found out about this while still in school and it's been simmering. This struck a nerve because, like I've mentioned before, I watched The Accused when I was 6 to 8 years old and the attackers in Jodie Foster's character's public gang-rape was not taken to court until she had to personally pursue it with a female lawyer. Because of how she was dressed and acted beforehand. A gray tank, a short skirt, dancing with strangers, was drinking...

I just hate it. I realize that there are some smarter and less smart decisions people can make to decrease the odds of being assaulted, mugged, raped - walking alone in a dark alley instead of lighted streets that may be available, not being aware of your surroundings - but ultimately it is not the victims' decision that makes assault or rape happen.

GOD DAMN IT, IT IS THE MOLESTERS, THE ASSAULTERS, THE RAPISTS WHO DECIDE TO MOLEST, ASSAULT AND RAPE OTHERS. The people are attacked and violated do not ask for it.

(I say "some" because I think most assaulted children believe their victimizers when they're told they have choice, it's the way things are, etc. They sometimes aren't in a position to be able to avoid such circumstances and situations.)

My concern and feelings about this has heightened since going to college. I suppose that makes sense, because my four high schools never really put up posters about assault or rape. Also, in college I had much more opportunity to go to parties. In high school my parents never let me go to any parties that weren't school-sanctioned or held at parents' residences. At college I had the option to go to college parties, even if I didn't go to many. The few times I went alone or with another girl and not my boyfriend (at the time) I always got hit on by other guys or they got handsy. *makes a disgusted face*

It in my final year that I realized the posters around campus were all about how to AVOID BEING A RAPE VICTIM. It was fulll of tips like "Don't leave your cup or drink alone" or "Don't accept a drink that wasn't opened by you" or "Have others with you to make sure nothing happens." There was NOTHING about how to avoid being A RAPIST OR A MOLESTER OR ASSAULTER. Okay, maybe the phrase "Don't rape" won't work well because it seems a lot of rapists don't think what they did was wrong, or it happened in alcohol-induced situations where there are conflicting feelings and stories about what was consensual and what wasn't and things get forgotten. But there has to be something...just something, posters or forums or something about RESPECTING OTHER PEOPLE AS HUMANS WHO HAVE THE RIGHT TO MAKE THEIR OWN DECISIONS ABOUT THEIR BODIES AND WHAT THEY WANT TO DO WITH IT.

I know several friends have been assaulted/raped on-campus, and I've heard of some of the things their assaulters/rapists have said about them/the situation. Before college, too, I didn't realize how much alcohol can affect the kind of interactions people have with each other. I remember one night where alcohol made things fearful for me.

I'm frustrated with some views I grew up with that made victim-blaming or victim-asking seem explicit or implicit. Don't wear shorts, don't wear sleeveless tops, don't wear shape-showing clothes, don't smile to males strangers, don't be friendly with male strangers, don't wear non full-length skirts, etc, you'll just make yourself seem more available to men and men can't control themselves. That's why we women have to protect ourselves and them from their horn dog tendencies by giving them less temptation. Yadda yadda yoo.

I find that so insulting. To males, females, non-female victims, other genders, everybody.

I'm still angry at myself for not being able to volunteer at SARP (Sexual Assault Recovery Program) back in my college town because I didn't have a license or car so I could drive to the hospital/any place I was needed to help someone advocate for themselves.

Slutwalk has spread around the world. Chicago is having theirs June 4th and I fully intend to go. Again, they don't say you have to dress like a "skank" or a "ho" or a "slut" in order to attend. I doubt I'd wear something much revealing, though I know some people think a tank top paired with jeans or shorts is revealing already. Since it's a lot of walking, sneakers! And maybe my hoodie if the weather will still be chilly then. I wrote a note about it on Facebook and tagged some people when in the library earlier this week. A lot of people can't/won't come because they're too far away from Chicago, busy, or not very interested, but I hope others will participated in the Slutwalks in their area, if there are any. I wish I could go to several others with some friends of mine around this country or world, such as Slutwalk Portland or Slutwalk Spokane. Over the past few weeks, talking about this on the phone with Matt, I've gotten so frustrated and verge of tears or teared up. I know there are other areas of society that some humans don't see other humans as humans - racism, homophobia, sexism, sexual trafficking, emotional manipulation and abuse, a whole lot of places. This is one place I feel passionate about.