All rape is "Corrective Rape."
If we follow the notion that rape isn't really about sex, but is in actuality, about power, then all rape, is corrective rape.
The first time I had this idea, I saw a story written by a gay woman, about how she was raped by men, for being a lesbian. The men were attempting [in a most brutal and unlawful fashion] to correct what was considered her aberrant sexual deviance.
I want you to let that sink in for a moment. Because corrective rape is something that a lot of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transexual people have had to cope with, perpetrated by people who feel the need to mockingly simulate what sexual activity might be like inside their twisted minds, while they violate the sanctity of another's human body, and mind.
These are the most glaring examples of Rape as a Corrective Act. Now I want to you to understand that this is what happens to women who are raped as well. I read this woman's account, around the same time I was reading books on Girl Bullying. Odd Girl Out. And she recounts the Sin of being "All That".
It was in that moment that I realized two things: All Rapes are Corrective Rapes. And this notion of women needing to be kept in their place to avoid being candidates for rape is also an underlying mechanism of female on female bullying.
What is the sin of pride in a girl or woman's world? Standing out to such a degree, that one might be considered competition with her male counterparts. By doing this, "Not Knowing Her Place" in this act of standing out, a woman becomes a sexual deviant, much like homosexuals, or transexuals. This is why it is so easy for a highly skilled, visible woman to be labeled some sort of sexual deviant.
Because no "normal" woman would presume so much, or even be capable of such competition, therefore such a woman cannot be simply more than her male counterparts without being some kind of medically, sexual deviant. Something must be wrong with her! Something that cannot be "fixed" but surely that wrongness can be silenced in order to make her comply with the expectations of polite society.
Every act of rape is meant to instill fear within a woman to avoid committing the sin of being too visible, or too competitive.
Too Smart, Too Pretty, Too Uppity, Too Athletic, Too competitive, Too Skilled, Too Bitchy, Too Slutty, Too Sexy, Too Educated, Too Ugly, Too Angry, Too Different! Too much of anything means bringing attention to one's self [and that includes race and sexual orientation], Too Confident! ---Whatever it is that a woman does that makes a man feel threatened and small. Or that makes the women around her feel like collateral targets.
And this lesson has been so ingrained into women, that they will punish each other for committing this *Sin as well. Maybe if they do it to each other, then the male enforcers will skip them. Though mostly I posit that women and girls do this to each other more out of unthinking habit, though in some male dominated careers, the older, original form might still be easily visible.
The landscape that women negotiate daily is entirely different. Men never have to step out their front door and peer out into the darkness, and wonder if someone is lying in wait for them. They don't have to carry their car or house keys inbetween their fingers like weapons should someone suddenly be upon them in the parking garage.
Men don't have to worry about the message their clothes send to others. If a man looks hot, then whoopee! If a woman looks hot, better grow eyes in the back of your head honey!
In a woman's reality, the simple act of making accidental eye contact with the wrong person on the street could culminate in rape or some other form of sexual harassment. You don't even have to say anything, you only have to glance up at the wrong time.
In a woman's reality, just the act of being kind or polite to the wrong person could culminate in rape. Because for some people, being nice to them is the same as taking off all of your clothes and giving them a come-hither look with your ankles over your head.
And Men, males who are not absolutely out of their mind, have difficulties understanding this other reality that they rarely see. Because such a nutcase has no interest in other males, and so do not necessarily put on their display where other males can see him. Women reporting such things might as well be reporting UFOs or other paranormal experiences, because our credibility is so traditionally low when our hysterical uterus is taken into account.
So this notion that Todd Akin is pushing about "Legitimate Rape" is really just his attempt, being backed by people of a similar mindset, to remind all of us females that Rape is a legitimate means to keep us from excelling too much, from being too free [like a man]. If we were really free and equal in society, we wouldn't have to worry so much about making eye contact with random people on the street. It would be okay to walk upright and exude confidence, and speak our minds without fear of retribution or harassment.
But we have female CEOs now and high ranking politicians and military commanders!
Oh sure some women might burst through the glass ceiling, the laws of rapid-fire indicate that some women will get through relatively unscathed. And those are the perfect examples used by our detractors, to undermine the entire premise that there is a problem.
But for the rest of us, who don't win that game of chance, we will have to contend with attempts to correct our visibility, and the pride that this visibility is perceived to reflect, whether that be through sexual harassment, institutional sexism, or rape.
The fanatics that so hate women, always pretend that they are only targeting Radical Feminists! But really, any woman who doesn't scuttle about like a hermit crab in a snowsuit, who can confidently speak, who projects some surety of self, simply as a person, or worse yet, as a professional is a target, regardless of whether she adopts the "Other F-Bomb" as a descriptive label or not.
Saying that they only target Feminists and Sluts, are just tactical moves to convince the rest of our female population, that they are safe. Only the bad, angry women are being singled out for correction, the rest of you can go about your business without cause to worry. That is until you learn otherwise.
This is the idea underlying this female's stance in the video above, that Women in the Military should be expected to be raped. We are the interlopers here, invading "sacred," "male," space of [her] fantasy of violence and war. It seems to have escaped her notice that Rape of the enemy is considered a War Crime, and rape against another citizen is a felony. In her world, all violence is uncontrolled and entirely male. Any woman that wanders into that world or who is caught up by it, gets what she deserves. Such a female, is not a proper woman anyhow--and so her deviance must be corrected, and who better to do that than the proud men of the United States Military? What could be a more patriotic act than putting a slutty-know-it-all, in her place?
[Note Snark--I am a female Vet and I find her stance Disgusting in the extreme]
I know that a lot of people are in denial about the depth of this ugliness. Many still will be after reading this diary, or hearing about it. This is is a very difficult kind of ugliness to outright own. Even for those, who, in their heart of hearts feel this way, will have difficulties embracing their own internal horror. The words make this so stark in comparison to the secretive nature of the reality of rape and survivors of rape.
You blend in to avoid being raped, then you hide because you were raped. Mission accomplished!
All Rape, is Corrective Rape. It is meant to keep women fearful and off kilter, and at each other's throats. Also why do you think that people immediately go for the "reasons" that might have driven a rape? They are looking for the "reason" the woman NEEDED to be corrected--Was she dressed enticingly? Was she alone? Did she pick a fight? Or Have the wrong kind of job? Or the Wrong Kind of Attitude?
So let's revisit this: Women are interlopers in a male dominated culture. We have invaded their "sacred," "male," space of dominance.
We have been doing this so long that we have made great headway, and many men have been entirely desensitized to our presence [everywhere], many have learned that we do good work, but that serious problems still exist.
Otherwise we, [Women] wouldn't be constantly having to fight for all that we have won over the last century: Birth Control, Family Planning Knowledge, Sexual Freedoms, the right to Divorce and Inherit, Education, the right to declare head of the household on taxes, the right to have casual or serious relationships without our homes being declared brothels, or being fired from jobs, the right to run for public office and of course THE RIGHT TO VOTE! And Religious Freedom.
Never, ever forget, that the entire root of this attack on American Women's Rights is based entirely in Christianity. Our First Freedoms guarantee us the right of Freedom from Religion and Freedom of Religion. And this group is angry. The nerve of any woman, to reject the tenets of this faith, while simultaneously rejecting our place in their sacred cosmology. Oh we are a prideful bunch to resist being their silent, helpmates and their broodmares. The original first woman, Lillith has nothing on us!
Because any woman who exists outside of those proscribed, religious-gender roles, needs to be corrected. That way she will learn her place, but also serve as an example to other women in the vicinity, that if you want to benefit from the protection of the law, and society, you best toe their line.
Or Else.
You can be raped, impregnanted, lied to, spit upon, fired, and sent out to wander in the wilderness so that you can reflect upon why you need to repent.
And if you think that your membership in that religion will protect you, keep thinking. They will only forgive you if you are legitimately raped. But what they don't tell you is that the system is rigged. No one is ever "legitimately raped" in their world, that would defeat the whole purpose of the existence of the implied, constant, threat of "Corrective Rape".
To give you an idea of what women could loose, and how short a time we have had these freedoms:
1960-61: Birth Control Pills approved in 1960, and made available in 1961. It's only been 52 years that this technology has been available.
1961: Patricia McGinnis and Lana Phelan start the society for human abortion in California to demand access to abortion as a woman's right.
1965: Griswold v. Connecticut, the Supreme Court declares that married couples have a right to birth control based on their right to privacy. 47 years ago, the same fight. Married women need a court to declare that they can have access to a medication proscribed by a doctor. And that no one has a say in this exchange except for [wait for it] the husband, wife and the doctor. Well I guess that is better than nothing. In many cases it's better than what we have today.
1966: Pat McGinnis sets up the Association to Repeal Abortion Law in California, which provides lists of Abortion doctors and offers free classes in self-abortion. 46 years later, those doctors likenesses would be placed on wanted lists for fanatics, and live in constant fear of snipers and clinic bombings, or even being shot while attending church.
1969: Members of Redstockings disrupt a hearing on abortion laws of the New York State legislature, when the panel of witnesses turns out to be 14 men and 1 nun. They demand repeal, not reform of abortion laws. Who knew that 43 years later this would be repeated on a federal level?
1971: New York Radical Feminists hold a speak out on Rape in which women disclose their personal experiences. 41 years ago, no one spoke of such things, because to do so, would be to permanently ruin your reputation. Rape is always your fault.
1973: First battered women's shelters open in U.S. 39 years ago, there was no where to run.
1973: Roe V. Wade establishes a woman's right to choose an abortion.
39 years ago, your only solutions: Back Alley, Coat Hanger, Trip Overseas, or Maternity home and coerced adoption.
1974: After a three year campaign by women's Groups, New York no longer requires a rape victim to give independent corroboration from witnesses of the crime.
38 years ago, if a rape happened and you had no witnesses to corroborate your statement; did it really happen? Back then rape wasn't really rape unless someone else said it was.
1974 Joanne Little, who was raped by a guard while in jail, is acquitted of murdering her offender. This case establishes a precedent for killing as self defense against rape.
But what if her rape wasn't seen as legitimate?
38 years ago, use of deadly force to avoid being raped might have put you in jail to be raped again with no right to defend your bodily integrity.
1978: Congress passes a bill prohibiting the introduction of the victim's reputation in cases of rape or attempted rape.
But if it's not considered "legitimate rape" then how might that change this law? What would be the prerequisites of "legitimate rape"? 34 years ago, anything you might have done [real or imagined] that could have labeled you as *wanting it, could have been admissible in a court of law to impugn your character.
1994: The Supreme Court passes the Violence Against Women Act, which provides funds for services for victims of rape and domestic violence, allows women to seek civil rights remedies for gender-related crimes and trains police and judiciary.
It has only been 18 years since the passage of the Violence Against Women Act.
1996: Rape is declared a war crime.
Rape has only been a war crime for 16 years.
This segment of a timeline was taken from Ruth Rosen, the World Split Open. And this portion only spans 36 years from 1960 to 1996. If you factor in the time from 1960 to 2012, 52 years have passed.
The attack on the definition of Rape is really an attack on self-ownership. First of all it undermines a woman's ability to own her body--A woman who owns her own body has the right to say NO and the laws will back her up and make it stick. And secondly it undermines her ability to decide whether or not she has to or wants to be pregnant and by whom.
If rape is not a crime, then saying NO to sex or rape is not a right, nor is saying NO to a pregnancy.
Why should any woman have to be raped in order to have a choice? And if legitimate rape can only happen between strangers, then how does that redefine or negate date rape, acquaintance rape or rape in domestic violence?
The attack on women is much deeper than just rape, birth control and abortion. It is our very freedom to be informed and to have the ability to be proactive about our lives and health.
To give you an idea of how far we have come--back in the 1970s, Self Help Gynecology emerged to help women understand [finally] their own bodies. Women were being kept in ignorance of their own bodies to such a degree, that organized attempts to overcome this void in women's knowledge of their own bodies, sometimes resulted in law suits and arrests.
You thought that went out with Margaret Sanger right?
In 1914 she coined the term "birth control" and soon began to provide women with information and contraceptives. Indicted in 1915 for sending diaphragms through the mail and arrested in 1916 for opening the first birth control clinic in the country, Sanger would not be deterred. PBS-Margaret Sanger
Sanger was violating the Comstock Laws:
As late as 1960, the American legal system was not hospitable to the idea of birth control. Thirty states had statutes on the books prohibiting or restricting the sale and advertisement of contraception. These laws stretched back almost a century, reflecting an underlying American belief that contraception was lewd, immoral and promoted promiscuity. PBS-Comstock
Think about it, Giswold v. Connecticut ended the Comstock Laws in the 1960s. If you don't know what Comstockery is, you need to. Because this is what the religious troglodytes want to return us to: The era of
Anthony Comstock--where even showing a woman a picture of her own reproductive organs from a scientific or medical manual would constitute a lewd act with federal, legal consequences. You could not legally mail birth control devices or information across state lines, to do so would be to violate lewdness and chastity laws.
Women were kept in total medical ignorance of their bodies. And honestly, this is the real reason behind American hostility towards Midwives. Men wanted NO women possessing such knowledge-EVER. When women in the 1960s and 1970s began to organize privately to teach themselves about their own genitals, there was a backlash.
Seriously, this isn't the first backlask against feminists and sexual self-education. Margaret Sanger published Rebel Woman in March of 1914. Woman Rebel: No Gods No Master. This first edition speaks of women's first sexual experiences, and all the baggage that brings with it in a sexually repressed culture incapable of owning it's own ideological shit.
What a fascinating concept! From 1914-to 1960s! Even after Margaret Sanger, women were being kept in ignorance of their own bodies by the medical profession!
Thats how the book, Our Bodies, Ourselves came about! Women were being kept in abject ignorance about their own anatomies, venereal diseases, birth control, pregnancy and childbirth [for starters]. It has only been in the last 30 years that women have been educated or at least had access to such an education, so that they could understand their own bodily processes and participate in self-care as well as become proactive patients!
I am not writing about some backwater village in some third world country. This was in America, but 30 years ago, and with Ignorance Only training, we are on our way to that place again! Will we be forced to revisit the days of Menstrual Extraction?
And if we go by the notions reflected by values voter-dittobots--only sluts would have any need for information regarding any of these things. In their world, if you know, it's because you are bad! Ignorance is good, knowledge is bad!
Is there any reason why women should not receive clean, harmless, scientific knowledge on how to prevent conception? Everybody is aware that the old, stupid, fallacy that such knowledge will cause a girl to enter prostitution has long been shattered. Margaret Sanger, the Prevention of Conception. The Woman Rebel, Vol. 1. No.1. pp 8.
I don't believe that people realize in this country, how many times we have re-invented this wheel, or had these discussions.
The defenders of authority dread the advent of free motherhood lest it rob them of their prey. Who would fight the wars? Who would create the wealth? Who would create the policeman, the jailer, if women were to refuse indiscriminate breeding of children. The Race, the race! shouts the king, the president, the capitalist, the priest. The race must be preserved, though women be degraded to a mere machine, -- and the marriage institution the only safety valve against the sex awakening of woman!
-Emma Goldman. Sex and Marriage, The Rebel Vol. 1, No. 1 pp 3.
I know I am tired of repeating myself, and it's only been a couple of decades. Obviously this argument has been going on for at least 98 years.
It is amazing to me that in 1914, these magazines not only address women's rights, but also big oil, and worker's rights. Themes that could be yanked off the headlines today. There are just so many parallels that it is a bit unnerving to read, right down to the slogan/headline: Blood and Oil!
I am going to on a tangent here: I didn't know that Sanger had a magazine. I didn't know that she used the word Feminist. I was under the mistaken notion that women activists would have referred to themselves as Suffragettes exclusively during that time. I came across this publication quite by accident, and it is an amazing collection, that I hope many Kossacks will explore the documents on this site.
The rich practice birth control while they encourage the poor [the worker to reproduce] like rabbits. Cheap Labor!
Back to the topic of this diary: Rape as a Corrective Act. The redefinition of rape is also the re-construction of the ideal of femininity as sexual purity. This objectifies the female condition, and transforms us [women] into two classes of vaginas: Those that are clean and those that should be corrected. I want the reader to understand that rape isn't just about the body. That when a woman has been so-stigmatized, that society often follows through with it's own versions of judgement and punishment. And this is never ending.
Even now, with some laws on our side, with some protections, women struggle with this in ways that few can imagine without having gone through it themselves. As a survivor, I want to push forward. I refuse to go backward even an inch, much less back into the cages reserved for my great grandmothers.
"Not Suppressed." That is what this column reads. It was pulled from the New York Evening Mail of April 16, 1914.
Mrs. Katherine Vogel sixty one years old, committed suicide in her apartment at 34 First Avenue to-day by drinking carbolic acid. "In the next room lay the body of a girl about 20 years old, the victim of an operation alleged to have been performed by Mrs. Vogel. The identity of the girl is not known. It is believed she was a professional dancer. qtd by Margaret Sanger. Not Suppressed. The Woman Rebel. Vol 1. No. 4. pp 8.
At this point, this issue of Rebel Woman, contained copies of complaints from the Postal System declaring their magazine undeliverable. Could we get to that point again? Censorship of valid, health advice for men and women regarding reproduction and sexual hygiene? How many schools filter out sex education sites as pornography?
I long for the day when we women can collectively bark, ENOUGH ALREADY! DISCUSSION OVER!
I have had enough of this bullshit about "legitimate" rape, what I really want is a legitimate, elected representative. Preferably one that doesn't have a head full of air and rocks, who will do his or her best to represent ALL of us, and not just vocal religious fanatics and their dark-money backers.
If we allow the redefinition of rape, this will effect more than just rape survivors. This will redefine women's freedom in this country across the board.
5:15 PM PT: Being pregnant due to rape, the same as having a baby out of wedlock according to PA GOP Senator, Tom Smith.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
5:38 PM PT: Mojo: Men Defining Rape: A history.
http://www.motherjones.com/...
A very interesting read!
Wed Aug 29, 2012 at 11:46 AM PT: Women's Rights are not Special Rights:
http://shine.yahoo.com/...
Sandra Fluke is right. Women are not a special interest group, we are over half of the US population!