Notes on Predation and Affection: When is a Hug not Just a Hug?

image is from here

I've been dealing a lot lately with this matter of how we communicate, physically and emotionally, and whether it is meaningfully loving or respectful to the recipient. How words or other actions are received does matter--it's not just the intentions (if good) that matter. And if my actions are received as abusive or hurtful when they are, to me, intended to be loving, then something is off somewhere. It may mean the recipient isn't capable of receiving love. Or it could be that they are so triggered when approached, due to past aggression and assault, that any kindness if physically initiated by someone else, can feel like another threat or an impending assault. Or it may be that I'm doing something I'm not aware of--subconsciously; I might be callously and selfishly disregarding someone's body language that is not welcoming me to come closer. Or it may be that the other person has a structural political relationship to me, with me in a position of power over them, that I'm unwilling to be appropriately away of. Breaches of safety and consent can happen in many different ways.

I know a woman, a white woman who is many years my senior, who likes to hug me. She comes right up when she sees me and hugs me. What is she intending to communicate? Probably some degree of affection. How do I receive it? As a kind of violation. Why?

Because I grew up feeling like my body wasn't really mine. I grew up feeling like it existed for others to use, to do with what they wanted for their own satisfactions. By age eight I had been molested. By age thirteen I had been sexually assaulted. And in my adult life I gave myself to a relationship with a very sexually selfish man who contacted me when he wanted sex--and that's the only time he would contact me, generally. He'd call from motel rooms and request my presence, which is to say, my absence. He didn't want me, really. He wanted my body to function to please him. To bring him to orgasm. That's what he wanted and that's what he requested. He never kissed me--not once. He never expressed love for me. He only thanked me for coming by when he was done with me.

I grew up in a generation where children were taught to obey adults; to do as they say. To hug if asked to hug. To let adults pick me up if they wished to. Whatever they wanted to do, the message to me and most children of my era was "adults get to decide how and when they have physical access to you". "To say no is to be rude and spoiled and selfish."

I grew up letting people have access to me. "Consensually". Except with the assault. That was in no way consensual, although the predator probably got to think it was because I was petrified and silent during the entire assault. Well, I did manage to say I had to go. I had to leave. He ignored me. So it was like I was silent. I was also afraid if I angered him he'd kill me. Or do something worse than killing me. But he kind of did that anyway.

There are different social rules depending on where one lives. Things are very different in Japan, for example, than in many parts of the U.S. And while I may send out hugs to many people in Japan right now, as they find out who among their friends and loved ones, relatives, neighbors, have died from the tsunami or earthquake, they may not welcome my hug. Men especially. But I'm a huggy kind of person. Unless I get clear messages from someone that they don't wish to be hugged, I'll assume they welcome one.

That's exactly how that white woman is. She is a very affectionate person. Very warm. Not predatory. Except when she was getting to know me she shared with me some things that made me uncomfortable. She shared things that I felt were inappropriate for me to know. She also touched me in ways that didn't feel okay to me.

I tried to express to her that I wasn't comfortable with some of what had happened between us. She seemed to understand. She had worked as a psychotherapist, so I didn't think it would take too much explanation on my part. But, whenever she sees me, which is not often as I don't go out much, she comes over and hugs me, no matter my body language. Is she being insensitive? Probably. Is she being predatory? No. But it feels a bit scary to me to see her coming towards me, whenever I see her. And it's partly because she was inappropriate with me, to me, in some ways in our past. I won't go into the details, but to me she crossed some lines and I was left feeling uncomfortable and unsafe. This doesn't mean she is an unsafe person to be around. These distinctions are tricky.

I am faced with having to write to her to ask her not to do that. I will ask her not to hug me because lately I am dealing with this whole issue of who gets to have access to me. To my body. And the answer is no one does unless I welcome it, explicitly. But I live in a society, in a particular collection of cultures--and there are several I live in--where people having access to me is assumed to be okay. For example, among many middle aged white gay men, kissing on the cheek or the lips when meeting is acceptable behavior for many. Not for me. I don't want anyone kissing me unless we are intimate friends. But culturally it is part of "what happens" that is supposed to be okay.

Men at a gathering, at a party, who feel free with their kisses, are not free to kiss me--which hasn't stopped them. I don't want to be kissed or hugged unless... unless I want to be. And honestly that can be welcomed by me one day and not on another. That's how it goes with me. I try not to go outside if I'm not feeling like being touched at all, because when I do, let's say to go grocery shopping, and someone--anyone at all--bumps into me, I feel physically violated and emotionally triggered. So rather than inflict that on myself and give others the sense that they've committed some great offence when all they did was sway too far in a supermarket aisle, I'll stay home.

On the macro scale, adults feel entitled to have physical (and sexual) access to children; men feel entitled to have physical and sexual access to women; whites feel entitled to have people of color meet their needs in various ways--for example to have people of color do most of the hard labor in the world so that whites can purchase inexpensive clothes and eat food from far away. There are whole systems--economic, social, and sexual--that are built on these entitlements and which operate with these assumptions of who should have access to whom, and in what ways.

On the micro level, it can be hard to see the larger patterns and the political imperatives that underlie them. I feel threatened by a very warm woman who probably means me no harm. And I don't mean my friends in Japan harm when I see them and hug them. But there it is: invasion of people's bodies happens regardless of anyone' intentions to not be harmful. I'd say it is my responsibility to find out what someone else is comfortable with. Because the Japanese woman I know who is married to a Japanese man might be comfortable with me hugging her, but he may not be comfortable receiving my hug of him. So when I communicate to her, I might say that I'm sending a hug. But I won't say that to him. There is likely to be a lot of grief happening in the next days in Japan, as many people find out friends and relatives and loved ones perished in the earthquake and subsequent tsunami. I hope on the non-material level, I send what is useful and requested. Too often, I think, we send what occurs to us to send--materially and emotionally--because it makes us feel better to do so, or because it is what we are accustomed to doing.

It is for me, I think, to write to the white woman who likes to hug me, here in the U.S. and to let her know that unless I open my arms to welcome an embrace, I'd prefer she not do so. It's about the best I can do, for now. If she asks why, I'll try and explain that it is because I need to have more control over who has access to me physically, if and when it is possible. And that because she is someone who does respect boundaries that are established, I know I am safe to express this need to her. That wasn't the case when I was a child. But it is now. I'm male, after all. And my body isn't targeted, usually, for others to touch and violate. The white woman's body is targeted, however. So even while I may be uncomfortable with her hugs, she more than likely has to contend with being physically approached and violated far more than I do.

On the macro level, girls and women worldwide are being physically and sexually violated often. Daily. Hourly. Minute by minute. This is acceptable to many men; it is wanted by many men; it is desirable by many men. If it weren't, many men would stop it. Many men do not stop it. So it continues, because it meets the needs of those men.

What is tricky is that for those people--people such as children, people such as women--who are structurally, politically expected to do what others ask of them, how do we approach and answer this question: When does acceptance of a seemingly consensual hug or other physical or sexual act, become a way of appeasing someone who might reject you, insult you, hurt you, or kill you if you refused? What if the current person won't kill you, but you're triggered when hugged into a time when someone might have killed you, or where you felt paralysed and unable to speak out to say "No!"? And if someone shows no objection to contact, should we assume no harm or invasion is ever occurring? Should we assume that those macro political patterns aren't being reinforced when men behave as men are socialised to behave--too often taking what is wanted and not bothering to find out what is genuinely welcomed and wanted?

The Spiritual Ethics and Social Politics of Sudden Disengagement: a few cases in point

image from the Trans Youth Support Network is from here

I've had the experience in my life of disengaging from people and of them disengaging from me. When this happens abruptly, often enough this is due to one or both people being triggered into some old, deep well of pain, and when one is dropped by unresolved associations into that lonely well, isolating from what appears to be (or is) the current source of pain may seem like the best route to getting out of the well. But the more alone one is, the fewer hands there are to offer a lift up and out to a better emotional-spiritual place.

But no single person is responsible for someone else's well of pain, unless they have inflicted gross pain across one's whole lifetime. And such things do happen. They happen not just interpersonally, among and between people; they also happen institutionally. So, for example, I've heard many people with health care, with access to health care, state, defiantly, "I will not go to see a doctor! I don't trust the medical establishment."

The point of this post isn't to make a case for going to see people who consistently hurt, exploit, or dismiss or disrespect you. Or for staying engaged with institutions and systems of harm, degradation, and atrocity. But the point here is to note that only some of us have the option to leave places of discomfort, wounding, and disregard.

I have the privilege to do this: to leave places I don't feel comfortable in. People with less privilege than me have pointed this out to me--how when I don't feel welcome or safe in an environment, I leave and don't return. Or I wait a long time to return.

Considering the fact that most people have no means with which to travel anywhere, including out of one's village, away from one's family, or even the social resources with which to end friendships and acquaintanceships with a swiftly sent email, I think it is worth exploring other ways to find respect in places where one is often hurt.

I'm going to give as an example my own reactions and responses to men. And I'm speaking here as a male person, not as a female or intersex person. I'm speaking here as someone raised to be a boy and then a man. This ought not be generalised outside of this political realm, to, say, apply to women who seek permanent refuge from abusive men.

I'll hone down the group more: I'm speaking here, at this moment, about white men who are not overtly abusive, who do not intend to do harm, and who are generally skilled enough, emotionally, to communicate feelings as well as thoughts. Because these members of society are also skilled at appearing to survive by "going it alone", they can pretend they can do without human connection. Or, they will invest too much in one particular connection, burdening that relationship and often crushing it under the weight of great expectation.

That's my pattern with men, generally. I'll invest a lot, emotionally, and when disappointed or hurt, if it happens enough or triggers me sufficiently, I'll end things. Or, when they feel too burdened by my expectations, they'll end things. This ending can be done with more or less grace; with more or less compassion; with more or less concern, care, and regard for the humanity of the other person.

I've had men in the last year decide they don't want to stay friends with me because they were either triggered by something I said, or because I placed too heavy a burden of expectation upon them.

Within that population, I see tendencies for us males to cut each other out of our lives without much consideration for the effect on the other person. And if we've come to see someone as "THE ENEMY", we're not likely to want to find ways back into a relationship. Including with institutions that seem like "the enemy". Or, even, those that are the enemy. And when males cut one another out of their lives, this generally means a burder of care is put more intensely on the women in the lives of those males.

Structures of enemyhood abound, in places where destructive hostilities are reigning--whether in a home or a country--or within oppressed populations where self-hatred is deep and alliances and trust are hard to find.

In my experience, many friendships can appear momentarily, or longer, to be dangerous. Friendship, after all, is dangerous. As are all relationships. And the more traumatised and betrayed one has been in friendship and relationship, as well as by institutions, the more difficult it can become to maintain them.

I elect to not establish many relationships with men because my loading from the past is so great, and wounds can be accessed so easily, that I'd rather not inflict the pain of my own triggering onto myself and other males, if I can help it. But how many of us have this luxury--to cut out all men? To separate from all males? Or, pick the oppressor group: all whites? All people with power who use their bigotry to hurt others? I will, necessarily, bring more of my needs for care to women if I have few to no relationships of care with men. And what does that do for the women who also wish to limit their contact with males?

I'll shift gears to another population: queer folks across gender. This is also a site of great loading for me. I've been hurt and have felt rejected a lot from people within this population. And, no doubt, there are many people who are queer who have felt judged, rejected, or hurt by me. The issue is, "What do we do about that?" Do we mend and repair when possible and when it is humane to everyone concerned to do so? Or do we simply cut others out and try and leave no traces of ever having known someone.

I shouldn't make it seem like cutting people out of one's life is simple. For those of us who have stayed in abusive or grossly exploitive relationships for far too long, ending a relationship may be the healthiest thing someone can do. And, for example,  choosing to live without men in one's life may be exceptionally difficult, while also greatly spiritually and personally beneficial.

I'm not promoting a single ethic here. I'm discussing conditions in which we break or mend relationships. I've been militantly all for women seeking shelter from men who harm them. Interpersonally and institutionally. To whatever extent women can manage to accomplish it, I support women removing men from their lives if those men demonstrate chronic and direct disrespect--as named by the women, or misogynistic exploitation or abuse--as named by the women.

Different personal or social contexts call for different approaches. One has to decide when to flee one's home, if being abused. One also has to know whether fleeing is really possible. Something that stands out for me is Andrea Dworkin's discussion--I'm not sure where or if it exists online--of women being battered by men in intimate relationship. She spoke of how, for a time, the battered women's (shelter from men) movement used to advocate a single approach: leave him. As soon as you physically can, leave him. And what many women being battered by men reported to those activists--including to activists like Andrea who had, herself, been battered--was that leaving him would be very dangerous to her life. And the response, for a time was, "Woman, staying with him is very dangerous to your life!" And what Andrea discusses was what happened when it was discovered that women who left male batterers were far more likely to be killed by the terrorist-abuser than if they stayed in the home of the terrorist.

Clearly there ought to be far more options for women than that. Because in either case, she is being destroyed. But time and again we have people advising other people to do things that "make sense" and seem to be principled, and yet "don't work" in reality. And Andrea has spoken in her work of the need to always re-assesss one's own stance, to adjust one's politics, to adjust the course of action, given new information. And new information could be this: "Women battered by men, intimately, in their homes, know far better than anyone else what is best for them to do to survive."

Which brings me back to queer community. I disagree with so much that I see going on in my own queer community. I see flagrant expressions of misogyny among gay males, for example. And levels of racism among the whites that stun me, even while I shouldn't be shocked at all at this point. I see willful refusal to be aware of class and region privilege. For example, this shows up with mandates to "come out, come out, wherever you are!" Well, that's easy to demand of lesbians and gay males when they have a place to go once kicked out of their home-of-origin. And, yes, such homes are not safe places for queer youth if they are virulently lesbophobic, homophobic, and transphobic. But, more often than not, those very out-and-proud queer people promoting the ethic of "come out, come out, wherever you are!" are offering safe shelter to the youth who decide to do so. And where, really, are those truly safe places for women battered and sadistically controlled by men to go, where their terrorist-husbands can't find them?

So many times women, and queer youth, either find ways to stay in abusive homes and survive, biding time, or they flee and end up on the streets, which are no less friendly to anyone who is queer or female, or anyone younger than seventeen. Male predators abound on the streets. And some of them appear to be friendly--very friendly. And many of those "friends" turn out to be pimps or procurers, or slavers or traffickers. Or boyfriends or future husbands who will also turn out to be abusers, if not also woman-hating terrorists.

What I can ask of myself and others is this: when you are about to end a relationship, are there genuinely no options for repair and rebuilding, or does it feel like there aren't any? And determining one from the other--reality beyond but inclusive of feeling, from the inner realm of feeling only one's most triggered emotions, isn't at all easy. And those are waters for each person to negotiate and find buoyancy in.

But one thing I learned and keep learning from Audre Lorde's essays and speeches is this: we are not one another. And we ought not expect others to become ourselves. And the conditions under which friendship, relationship, and political alliance occur ought not be "falling in line" with one set of rules of behavior or one code of conduct. What I've learned from Audre is that for radical communities to exist--and here I specifically mean communities of revolutionary resistance to oppressive institutionalised forces of human and other destruction--the communities must accept differences as a welcomed requirement, not as something to endure or only fear.

At the beginning and end of a speech to women in an academic setting, Audre Lorde spoke these words:

I agreed to take part in a New York University Institute for the Humanities conference a year ago, with the understanding that I would be commenting upon papers dealing with the role of difference within the lives of American women: difference of race, sexuality, class, and age. The absence of these considerations weakens any feminist discussion of the personal and the political.

It is a particular academic arrogance to assume any discussion of feminist theory without examining our many differences, and without a significant input from poor women, Black and Third World women, and lesbians. And yet, I stand here as a Black lesbian feminist, having been invited to comment within the only panel at this conference where the input of Black feminists and lesbians is represented. What this says about the vision of this conference is sad, in a country where racism, sexism, and homophobia are inseparable.  [...]

Women of today are still being called upon to stretch across the gap of male ignorance and to educate men as to our existence and our needs. This is an old and primary tool of all oppressors to keep the oppressed occupied with the master's concerns. Now we hear that it is the task of women of Color to educate white women -- in the face of tremendous resistance -- as to our existence, our differences, our relative roles in our joint survival. This is a diversion of energies and a tragic repetition of racist patriarchal thought.

Simone de Beauvoir once said: "It is in the knowledge of the genuine conditions of our lives that we must draw our strength to live and our reasons for acting."

Racism and homophobia are real conditions of all our lives in this place and time. I urge each one of us here to reach down into that deep place of knowledge inside herself and touch that terror and loathing of any difference that lives there. See whose face it wears. Then the personal as the political can begin to illuminate all our choices.  -- Audre Lorde, "The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House" [source: *here*]

Three things have happened to me in the last week: I received a death threat by email. It was from a man who, based on whatever allegedly "misandrist" posts of mine here that he'd read, decided I was "a monster" who needed to be shot and killed. (I know that many feminist activists and non-feminist radical activists do get these, on far too regular a basis. So I don't think there's anything special about me for having received this message.) Since this person threatening me--or whoever he thinks I am--is not part of my life and has demonstrated a gross lack of regard for my humanity, I feel no obligation to engage with him in any way. In fact, to engage with him is to acknowledge him too much. It would mean giving him too much credit for being human, when all he's shown me is that he's inhumane. So that one is easy: I don't respond. I don't engage. I don't seek out connection across difference.

And, there's a white feminist blogger who wrote to me privately that she no longer welcomed contact with me. She's never indicated any disagreement with me in the past. She's never brought any complaints, any charges, any expressions of anger, hurt, or anything else that would let me know that she's been dissatisfied with our connection. It was never a close connection, but it was one that lasted for a few years--at least two, I think. And it was friendly, at least to me it was. And, she's not obliged to communicate with me. But the point is this: to just end something the way she did, with words that appear to be intended to hurt or humiliate, does what, exactly? Does it make her safer in the world? Does it make her feel less isolated?

I have not demonstrated myself to be someone who can't listen. Or who won't listen. So if she instead wrote to me to say "I've got some strong disagreements with some of what you're expressing on your blog!" I'd be interested to know what those are. Instead, she linked me to one post--one post of hundreds that I've put up over the last couple of years--and gave that as the reason why she doesn't wish to hear from me ever again. As if I shouldn't be using this blog as a place to explore my own political and emotional positions on things. Or, as if me doing so is reason enough for someone who criss-crosses me in privileges and power to decide that the time has come for no further interaction. (As far as I know, she is not Jewish, is not lesbian, is not disabled, and is not transgender; I obviously have male privilege and power that can be used to hurt and oppress her.)

And, well, of course she gets to do that. She gets to take care of herself as she sees fit. My ethical practice isn't that people ought not take care of themselves, even while it is my personal practice too often. But was that, truly, her only option? Only she can answer that question. And as I'm not sending her a link to this post, she'll not likely ever read it.

In relationship with many other feminists, we express concern, disagreement, and hurt, and we move through it, building stronger connections that feel safer and enrich our lives, making each of us feel less isolated, not more so.

Also this week a man contacted me by email with care and support. And some criticism too--of a particularly U.S. American way I have of communicating here--but not the kind of criticism that was expressed outside a context of regard and respect. And, really, love. So I'm engaging with him. And maybe we'll be friends. I've had other men arrive via my email box. And I've befriended some of them. And one time one many was hurt by something I said to him about his own behavior. I probably could have found a more gracious way to express myself, but I was, admittedly, a bit triggered by something he wrote to me that sounded very misogynistic.

He, in turn, was triggered by my sloppiness and felt very confused and misunderstood--not seen and invalidated--by what I brought to him. This was not a white man. In some ways that doesn't matter, but the dynamics of people who aren't white being unseen or invalidated by someone who is white carries its own institutional, experiential loading. I think--or hope--that I acknowledged at some point that I might have been wrong in my assessments of his behavior. And he, months later, after his wound healed up and his capacity to trust me and be vulnerable to me was internally/spiritually re-established by him, he reconnected with me. We are on good terms again. I'm glad for that. And so it goes.

When it is emotionally, spiritually possible, I recommend that as a way to proceed: working across differences and disagreements if they are not loaded with gross disregard and disrespect--or with hostility or terrorism as a strategy of control and destruction. I recommend this approach to myself, so that when some parts of the revolution are occurring, we are not all fighting these battles alone. And, when it is time to celebrate, we have a room full of people with whom to share the joy.

Charlie Sheen was caught with his procuring PANTS ON THE GROUND and his racist mouth wide open: How Much Will Hollywood Pay this WHM Who Yells N**ger, N**ger, N**ger! Answer: $2 Million for a 1/2 Hour of Broadcast Time a Week, in "Two and a Half Men"

this "black and white" image of the criminal spewer of hate speech, exploiter of women, and addict dad, Charlie Sheen, is from here

Q: What should you do when you find a white guy screaming the n word repeatedly?
A: Throw a white sheet over him.

You think I'm joking. (Read on, ARPers, read on.)

Charlie Sheen is the highest paid crack/coke addict in Hollywood, and not even him yelling the n word

repeatedly is likely to get him tossed off his hit program. And why is that? Because Hollywood values money more than it values sobriety and ending white male supremacy. That's why. And because serial procurers of prostitutes don't count as predators, as exploiters, as rapists. They're just "normal guys" who "man up" by paying women for sexist sex. And because he has Hollywood-rich white het male privileges and entitlements to do whatever the fuck he wants to do, however destructive, however self-destructive, and get away with it.

How many poor Black men get caught with crack and are put in jail? How much time in prison is Charlie Sheen going to see for having cocaine all over his face, high out of his mind? This isn't a crime in what sense? Either it's a crime for poor Black men AND rich white men or it's not a crime for anyone. Isn't that what the U.S. allegedly stands for: equality for all and such? Or if you're rich, white, het, male, and famous, is there a very, very different standard of justice for you than for everyone else? According to dominant media and dominant society, if you're Black you're a no-good criminal; if you're white you're a poor addict. Got it.

If a woman of color is poor, is a cocaine addict, is found naked in hotels with people engaged in systems of prostitution, and has coke all over her face, is she regarded as "a good mother"? Why is Charlie Sheen regarded as "a good father"? What about him being a procurer of trafficked women and women who are rape survivors, and a rampant drug addict, and a spewer of racist epithets makes him "a good father"?

Quintuple standards, not double standards, are operative here: fame, class, race, sex, and gender.

[Please also see this A.R.P. post titled "Two and a Half Misogynist Men", about Charlie Sheen's sexist TV show.]

From the Huffington Post. Please click on the title below to link back.

Charlie Sheen Found Nude In Restaurant, Screaming
N-Word: Report

Posted: 10-29-10 10:12 AM

Radaronline.com is reporting some lurid details about Charlie Sheen's wild Monday night in NYC.

Before police were called to his suite in the Plaza, Charlie was out to dinner at Daniel with a group of friends and their escorts including porn star Capri Anderson, who charged him $12,000 for the night, according to Radar.

"At one point he convinced Capri to go to the bathroom with him. When they got into the bathroom he started snorting cocaine and then took off his pants," a source told the website. "Charlie wanted to have sex with Capri and tried but she stopped him and demanded her $12,000. He didn't have the money on him so she left him in the bathroom!"

When Charlie failed to return to the table, his assistant went into the bathroom looking for him.

"When the assistant opened the door, there was Charlie standing there naked with cocaine all over his face!" the source said. "He was delusional and just completely lost. Totally out of it."

The assistant reportedly helped Sheen get dressed and got him out of the restaurant and back to the hotel. This likely happened after Denise Richards stopped by and posed for a photo with Capri.

Back at the Plaza, a delusional and high Charlie went off his rocker and started spewing the n-word, Radar reports.

"He was punching the walls of the hotel room and going crazy and shouting 'n**ger, n**ger, n**ger for no reason at all," a source said. "It was absolutely bizarre."

Charlie reportedly tried once more to have sex with Capri, but she demanded her money first. When he couldn't find his wallet he began throwing furniture around and screaming violently and she locked herself in the bathroom. Police were called, and when they arrived Charlie was nude, disoriented and screaming the n-word. They threw a sheet over him and tackled him, the source said.

The Alleged and Actual "Bad Parenting" That Results in Children Living Out On Streets that are Not Home

photograph of Ruchira Gupta of Apne Aap is from here

It annoys the shit out of me when non-Third World and non-impoverished people propose that the solution to things like prostitution abuse is "better parenting" as if incest and battery of children, and lesbophobia, homophobia, and transphobia in families, aren't big ol' glaring factors in why many children in the West/North run away from home. And as if poor parents anywhere in the world are, intrinsically, bad parents. As if pimps, procurers, war-mongers, drug-dealers, corporate polluters, capitalistic greedy bastards, selfish, callous, and inhumane jerks, and other predators aren't THE problem with regard to children being out in the street. There are so many obnoxious "First World" assumptions about life and complete ignorance about realities that some of us in the U.S. and the Global Northwest simply do not face--and that some of us in North America, for example, DO face but are not reported about because the rich white het male-controlled media doesn't give a flying fuck about poor children and women of color on or beyond this continent.

For those of us living in great denial with equally great arrogance and significant structural and social supports, we assume that everyone has the same options, the same freedoms, and the same levels of privilege and entitlement, to do what we want, including to work in sexxxism industries, or not. So the line between "choosing to work there" and "being enslaved there" is made blurry only by those who have enough privilege and/or denial to believe everyone "chooses to work there".

So let's be clear: if you're not living in abject poverty, earning less than three dollars a day income, shut the fuck up about what bad parents some parents are for letting their children out into the street to be picked up by pimps. Because, really, you have no fucking idea what's going on. None at all. You have no idea how pimps are, necessarily, smooth operators, lying bastards, who approach poor parents sometimes and pretend to represent educational institutions in the West/North and propose that their child will actually thrive in the Global North/West if only they can get to a good academic institution located in that far off place.

Maybe a parent (inside or beyond North America, South Asia, Eastern Europe, or Central America) wants something likes this for their child, something other than abject poverty and hunger. Maybe the pimp is very good at what he does: lying and stealing, including stealing children from parents through deception and the manipulation of powerful love so many parents have for their own children--a love so strong one would be willing to not see one's own child for years just to know s/he has a better life as defined and delineated by the pimp. And, then, most tragically, the pimp brings the child into a life far worse than any imagined hell. And the parents are betrayed and may not get to know this for some time. So, that's not bad parenting, to be clear. That's called "effective pimping and trafficking and slaving". Just for the record.

Please click on the title of the article to link back to the source website and watch the short video that goes with the text if it doesn't play below.

Promise of better life: tricked into India’s sex-slave trade

Campaigners in India are demanding that authorities step-up efforts to battle what has become a real plague for the country - sex-trafficking.

With little value placed on girls from poor families, it is thought more than a quarter of a million women are trafficked in India each year. Some are as young as nine, and come from the rural areas of neighboring Nepal.

The parents of the victims do not always realize what the world outside their home is like, says Ruchira Gupta, the president of an anti-trafficking NGO called Apne Aap (which means self-help in Hindi).

”The parents may know a little bit about what Bombay [Mumbai] is if there is television in the village. To them Bombay represents a lifestyle rather than a brothel, and the difference between hunger and food and a job,” she explains.

It is easy to cross the border between India and Nepal. There are well established routes for trafficking.

“India is the epicenter of the sex trafficking industry right now in the world. The reason is that there is low enforcement of laws against traffickers, pimps and johns,” says Ruchira Gupta.

In the northern state of Bihar, rescue groups keep an eye on the trains passing through.

”It's not easy,” confesses Sita, one of the social workers. “When we ask youngsters where they are going, they say they are going to study. If a girl is traveling with a boy, she says he is her brother. But when we demand their identity cards, we see they aren't related.”

“We have no work in our village. I have two young children and when I was promised a job in Mumbai, I decided to take up the offer,” one of the rescued women says.

It is an easy to convince young girls in a village hundreds of kilometers away that they can make it big in Mumbai.

“Girls are misled by people offering them jobs in big cities,” says Bihar Police Inspector A.K. Gupta. “Some are convinced that they can be a part of a dance group, and are conned into coming to India.”

Taking into account the gravity and the sheer size of the problem, campaigners want to see villagers in Nepal given more warnings of the dangers, and the police more active in clamping down on traffickers.

"Domestic Violence Awareness Month" ought to be renamed "Heterosexual Husbands and Boyfriends Beating The Shit Out of Women and Their Children Awareness Millennium"

image is from here

It is Domestic Violence Awareness Month in the U.S. and here is a website devoted to publicising that.

1. Domestic Violence is, it seems to me, the violence done by the U.S. government and corporations and individual oppressors to the oppressed who live within the U.S. and its "territories". Or to it's "territories" and the land and the air and the water. Poverty, for example, is a form of Domestic Violence. So is institutionalised racism, heterosexism, and misogyny.

2. Domestic violence is distinguished from Off-shore Violence. And in looking at the latter what we may note is how warfare is part of each: warfare against women by men who seek patriarchal/male supremacist control of women and girls, and also to regulate and restrict the behavior of boys so that they grow up to be "good patriarchs", meaning mass murders, serial rapists, and batterers of anyone in punching range.

3. Domestic Violence was the name chosen when discussions about the many ways men dominate women through intimate violence because too specific for contemplation, let alone resistance work and activism to stop men's violence against women. It is the generic term for something that isn't at all generic or ungendered. Yes, we need to acknowledge that there is such a thing as battery in lesbian and gay relationships. And of course there are many ways adults in families do violence to children. But the most common form of gendered-sexual violence in families is fathers and father figures incesting/raping/molesting their own daughters or girls they are supposed to be parenting, not preying on.

4. Why doesn't the Anti-Woman Revengelical Fundamentalist Christian White Right [Wrong) acknowledge that their unwritten and unspoken moral code is this: "The Family That Preys Against Female Family Members, Stays Together Due to Stockholm Syndrome and other effects of Dominance and Control"? And realise that feminism is only anti-family if your idea of family includes men dominating women, heterosexism, and violence against women and children, including sexual violence?

5. Why doesn't the Anti-Woman Libertarian Liberal "Left" acknowledge that their unwritten and unspoken code is this: men should have as much freedom of access and rights to violate girls and women as men desire to have, to do whatever it is men wish to do to girls and women that men learn from predatory men and pornographers and pimps. What is are the liberals and libertarians doing to stop incest and rape? Not a whole helluva lot. Why is that? Because rape and incest aren't worth stopping? Or because liberal men believe that in a liberal society incest and rape are part of the price paid for "freedom"? Too fucking high a price, I say.

6. Why isn't homophobic and anti-girl bullying and battery understood as part of Domestic Violence? How many girls and boys have to take their own lives before conservatives and liberals wake up to the fact that children hurting, degrading, humiliating, and terrorising other children isn't socially good or socially necessary. Clearly anti-bullying and anti-battery policies and education programs could be in place in every school system. Sure, there'd have to be less military massacres going on non-domestically, to liberate funds to pay school systems to implement such policies and programs. But the problem with that would be what? Less profit in Dick Cheney's, Donald Rumsfeld's, and David Petraeus's pockets? Those "poor" men will just have to get along with the millions they already have acquired through mass rape and mass murder of "foreign" people of color.

7. Why isn't the violence boys do to girls in school systems and outside school systems discussed? I sporadically hear about is anti-gay bullying, usually by boys against boys, or anti-girl bullying, usually by girls against girls. I'm not suggesting each isn't a serious social problem--both are, as is anti-lesbian violence against girls, which I hear little to nothing at all about. But we also need to focus on the problem of boys sexually harassing, stalking, physically and sexually violating girls, throughout grade school and on into adulthood. And anti-lesbian violence among children too.

8. There's a simple way to end married het men battering women in their home. It is to remove forever from the home any man who is found to have beaten up a woman in the home. And to prevent him from ever having contact with his female spouse or his children, as beating up a child's mother is or ought to be grounds for losing all rights to ever see your child or your spouse again. Sound harsh? To the men who think that's too harsh: Try not beating up women and avoid the harsh consequence. Any man that terrorises or systematically dominates and controls a woman in their home has no right to raise their children, to have custody of them, or to visit them. Sound harsh? To them men who think that's too harsh: systematically demonstrate regard and respecting for women and children; don't terrorising or ridicule anyone; don't dominate and bully anyone; and don't demean and controlling anyone systematically. Try being non-abusive, compassionate, and caring, not vengeful and vindictive and then, guess what? You get to raise your own children! See how easy that can be? It's all, quite literally, in your hands, fellas.

9. As for the men who declare the "equal" problem of women beating men, show me the thousands of x-rays of those men's broken bones, please. Show me the thousands of photos of their badly battered faces. Show me the shelters. Because it's not that class-privileged men aren't economically posititioned to purchase and set up "safe homes" for men abused by women. No. Straight men can do that if need be, what with all those allegedly advanced construction skills (to compliment all the destruction skills). The reality is that there is no need. Meanwhile, men down-play the violence men do to women and up-play the violence women do to men. (Yes, women can and do hurt men (and women) in a variety of ways. I've seen women who have been abused and neglected by men lash out in frustration and pain and say hurtful things to men, sometimes even to their faces. What I haven't ever seen or heard about is this: a woman abuse a man who was never been abused by a man. Not once. I accept that it is often the case that men who batter women witnessed men beating up women somewhere earlier in their lives. But not that they witnessed women beating up men earlier in their lives. So no matter how you look at it, the source problem here is men's violence against women, not women's against men.

10. Funny (not ha-ha funny, and not ta-ta funny) how the major media might mention something about Breast Cancer Awareness Month--never enough, while generally ignoring Heterosexual Husbands and Boyfriends Beating The Shit Out of Women and Their Children Awareness Month. I know queer battery happens too; I'm gay. But I'm all for naming what the endemic problem is that's part of an overall systemic reality of men subordinating women, which is men battering (and raping) women, intimately. And anyone beaten, even in lesbian and gay relationships, is called misogynistic names, which tells you a whole lot about the gendered foundations of domestic violence. The problem is not, as too many abusive het men proclaim the problem to be: "spouses hitting each other". I raised the issue in a recent post: why it is that anti-abortionists don't seem to give a shit that men beat up pregnant women causing untold miscarriages? I mean even if they only care about unborn female foetuses and don't give a damn about out-of-the-womb girls and women, you'd think they'd be overtly anti-battery and anti-rape (including anti-incest): two reasons for unwanted pregnancy and unwanted loss of pregnancy. Two main methods of terrorising and dominating women through force and violation. How about Pernicious and Predatory Patriarchal Privileges Awareness Month? Let's see the morning shows and evening news deal with that issue honestly in town hall meetings.

Dr. Laura, Dr. Oz, and Dr. Phil: one of the three "get it" about White Het Male Supremacist Abuse and Terrorism: can you guess which one?

photo of Dr. Mehmet Oz is from here

photo of Dr. Phil McGraw is from here

These are two white het male doctors who owe their fame and great financial success to Oprah Winfrey: Dr. Phil and Dr. Oz. (We get to Dr. Laura shortly.)

The first man, who has a PhD in Clinical Psychology, supported her during a trial the commercial/atrocity-protecting meat industry put her through for simply stating her own point of view on the subject of burgers. The second is am M.D. who is a heart surgeon and is a proponent of complimentary medicine, to promote several less invasive methods of treating heart disease. He's also more infamously known for showing Oprah's audiences deceased humans' diseased organs and talking about healthy pooping. He's got some very good things to say--generally I like him and his style, and he's got a good bed-side manner, unless you're a battered woman in a hospital bed, that is. I also sometimes like Dr. Phil, when he isn't using his television series to exploit conditions and people and instead sincerely tries to alleviate human suffering, usually in the context of personal relationships. While I've seen Dr. Phil hold men accountable for the violence they do to women, I've never seen Dr. Oz do this.

I realise he didn't study sociology, social psychology, or the sexual politics of psychopathology, but Dr. Oz couldn't be more clueless about the reality and dynamics of men's war against women. He actually discusses inner brain structure to explain why it may be that some women kill their terrorist husbands or battering boyfriends. He doesn't seem to get that women who are terrorised and sadistically abused do not usually kill anyone, while the terrorists often kill a whole lot of people: most commonly the women in their lives, the women who leave them, and their children, in disgustingly horrid ways. But Dr. Oz's brain structure discussion isn't about THE TERRORISTS. He's concerned about the brain structures of the TERRORISED WOMEN who [usually don't] kill. What are the sexual politics of THAT?

In a case linked to below, he tries to explain to the audience why a woman guest may have killed the male terrorist in her life. He is wrong at every turn, and fortunately he has another "expert" guest on to set the audience clear on what is really going on. Unfortunately, it is yet another white man. (To be clear: Dr. Oz's family's background is Eastern European and Turkish. Dr. Phil is all white.) How it is that white and light-skinned het men have become the people women should turn to for expert advice on anything and everything, is a trick of the trades called WHM supremacist media and education. What undermines feminist knowledge and activists, scholars and doctors, is the owners and producers of mass media talk shows refusing to make women of any color the experts in matters that impact women--and men.

Well, there IS Dr. Laura, who has a PhD in physiology--which is not at all why she's on the air. At least Dr. Oz and Dr. Phil are discussing matters that usually fall within their own educational areas of study. She gives anti-woman, overtly racist, anti-gay relationship advice. She's way more WHM supremacist than Dr. Phil or Dr. Oz in her public advice. She should be removed from the airwaves. Immediately, as she should have been years ago for calling "homosexuals" deviant.

photo of Dr. Laura Schlessinger is from here

She is in the news this week for her arrogantly privileged racist-misogynist assault against a Black woman caller who wanted wise counsel on how to deal with a white husband who, along with his friends, makes racist remarks in front of her. He obviously enjoys trying to humiliate her. Would Dr. Laura pick up on that? Well...

Dr. Laura used the question--while berating and abusing the questioner--as an opportunity to pretend that THE ISSUE is African Americans who are the problem population who uses the n-word and COMPLAIN when whites do the same. Dr. Laura managed to work the word into her radio show eleven times in way fewer minutes than that. The caller, understandably, was totally taken aback and very respectfully attempted to call Dr. Laura's attention to the problem of turning this problem back on a Black woman, which only led Dr. Laura to intensify her own vitriolic volume, utterly silencing the woman seeking wise counsel. Dr. Laura understood the caller's predicament about as well as Dr. Oz understands why [very few] women kill terroristic men. NOT. AT. ALL.

While I think Dr. Phil makes mistakes many times with regard to appropriate forms of advocacy for women-in-patriarchy, too often presuming a kind of level playing field that patriarchal societies will never let exist, I'll say this: he's way ahead of where Dr. Oz and Dr. Laura will probably ever be on the matter of understanding that far too many men terrorise and grotesquely abuse women--and that men's use of physical violence is NEVER the women's fault! Proof of this difference between the two male doctors is in very intense (and potentially very triggering) programs each recently did about the subject of domestic violence leading to murder.

Dr. Oz's show wasn't about patriarchal abuse. It was about how the brain sometimes doesn't work right so some people cannot moderate their violent impulses. And he means women's violent impusles, not men's!

Dr. Phil's program was a VERY good program, if also deeply disturbing and triggering, about the FAILURE of FAMILY COURTS across the U.S. when it comes to adequately protecting children and women from adult male terrorists. His show centered around one case, in which a woman's baby was murdered by her ex- and the baby's father, after she repeatedly went to the court for orders of protection for herself and the baby--each time she was told by the white het male misogynistic judge that she was lying and had no evidence, even when she brought evidence. But there was another interview he did with a teenaged young woman who is a survivor of incest and witnessed a court give custody of her little sister to the incest perpetrator, after she testified about his abuse of her. Yes. It happened. The audience was also filled with women who had similar stories to tell, which appeared to have a VERY supportive effect on anyone who spoke out on this horrendous issue of VIRULENT PATRIARCHAL PREDATION PROTECTIONISM in family courts across the country.

What gets revealed is that the terrorists and their attorneys, along with generally misogynistic society, have effectively convinced the courts to not believe mothers if they raise "domestic violence" as a factor in why those mothers should get custody of their children, not the fathers. Even the women's attorneys are counseling women to not bring up the fact that the ex-husband is a batterer or incest perpetrator because too many judges hear that as a big ol' lie--an allegedly sure sign that the woman is trying to manipulate the court against the interests of the fathers' "right" to have more access to their children. When it comes to court manipulation, however, look no further than the battering, raping, incesting men and their attorneys, who convince the courts that the lack of evidence presented means they aren't sadistic brutes. In this case, the rule "presumed innocent until proven guilty" cannot apply, because no one's attorney will let the proof into the courtroom to begin with.

This is the case across the white het male supremacist globe, from the U.S., to the UK, to Australia. That there are WHM organising to undermine women's credibility in the courtroom even more is despicable and evil. There's nothing loving or just about such efforts by these misogynazis (fascistic, terrorising woman-haters) at all.

To note how this impacts U.S. women, compare these two episodes of programs that, one would hope, are supporting both physical/emotional health and human rights:

Dr. Oz: http://www.doctoroz.com/videos/tuesday-dr-oz

vs.

Dr. Phil: http://www.drphil.com/shows/show/1442/ 

But I cannot write about Dr. Phil without noting this CLEAR FORM OF MISOGYNY he regularly engages in. HE REFUSES TO STOP SAYING THE B WORD WHEN REFERRING TO WOMEN, and as an adjective (b-word with a y at the end). He a conservative guy, socially-politically, in many ways, and doesn't welcome cursing on his show, generally. I'm not sure you can get away with saying ASS on his show without it being bleeped! But he says the b word like it's going out of style, which of course it won't while he and other major media personalities keep legitimising it on TV. Please write to him and ask him why that's the only derogatory curse term he allows on his show.

And visit *here* for more on the Dr. Laura story of the week. TRIGGER WARNING for OVERTLY RACIST LANGUAGE AND GROSS MISTREATMENT OF A BLACK WOMAN BY A WHITE WOMAN.

To All My Aussie Friends: HELP Needed to Assist a Battered Woman Trying to Regain Custody of her Battered Child, from the Abuser-Father

[image is from here]

6 June UPDATE:

Here is a similar story, not hers, but one that has been published which raises similar issues of atrocity and lack of justice for women and children of men who are terrorists in their homes:

http://mamaliberty.wordpress.com/2010/05/30/how-far-abusers-will-go/

Could anyone in Australia, or anyone who is very familiar with resources for women in Australia, please post here the names and contact information for ANY and ALL Feminist and Women's Organisations, Groups, Support and Legal Resources for Women dealing with custody, immigration, domestic violence, and racism and misogyny in the white male supremacist court system.

A white Australian man who is a batterer/abuser of a woman and child has custody of the battered woman of color's child, "their" child. She is working to get this child safely out of his custody, into hers. She is safely away from him, but the courts, so far, have placed the abused girl in his control.

THANK YOU. The sooner you can get this to me, the sooner I can get the information to her. Any information would be GREATLY appreciated.

Yes, Men CAN Organise AS FATHERS against MEN'S Sexual Violence Against WOMEN!

[this image of a poster for a production about family violence is from here]

 [I believe this photo is of a group of young men from a Men Can Stop Rape group, found here]

Politically unaffiliated, as far as I know, to these gentlemen above, is this gentle-man below:

(I'm happy to post this here, from a good guy named Ben...)

We just posted our May Bulletin which is below, and so please forward this to all men and especially fathers that you may know!

The link for the cause is http://www.causes.com/causes/411929.  You must have Facebook to join and donate. Please join the cause if you are on Facebook and thank you all in advance.  May is also my birthday, and I’ve made it my “Birthday Wish” that lots of folks join the group and donate to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence – they are the recipient of our fundraising efforts for these next few months. 

Please get in touch with any questions!

Thanks, Ben. 

May 2010 Bulletin (by Joe Samalin from Men Can Stop Rape)

With this May 2010 bulletin we are thrilled to announce a new plan for 10Kmen going forward. At different times we will focus on a different local women’s organization to highlight, as well as a new group of men we would particularly like to engage in being a part of this cause.

The goal of 10Kmen is to garner support from men who are not regular members of the anti-violence movement for organizations that support survivors of violence against women. Towards that end, starting this month – in honor of the soon approaching Father’s Day – the group of men we will focus on is:

FATHERS EVERYWHERE
(step-fathers and father figures included!)

And the organization we will be highlighting is:

The National Coalition Against Domestic Violence
http://ncadv.org/

We know these times are economically hard for most people, and so we are asking for people to give what they can comfortably (from $5 to $500,000!!) to a local women’s organization and/or to our highlighted organization. To find your local rape crisis center or domestic violence shelter, please follow the links in our April Bulletin.

We ask you all to repost this bulletin and help us spread the word. We want to get the word out to fathers everywhere to take a step in supporting women’s organizations. Some simple things fathers (and all men!) can do:

* Forward this cause and bulletin to any and all fathers you know!
* Fathers, donate to your local women’s organization or our highlighted organization and post about your action on our Facebook Cause page
* Donate in honor of Mother's Day, in order to help end violence against women and mothers, and post about your action on our Facebook Cause page
* Donate in the name of a father or father figure who might no longer be with us and post about your action on our Facebook Cause page
* Donate in the name of your sons and daughters and a future free from violence against women and post about your action on our Facebook Cause page
* Get together with other father’s on your block, in your community, at your place of worship, place of business, and hold a fundraiser to raise money to donate money and post about your action on our Facebook Cause page
* Donate cars, used cell phones, in-kind services or other necessary items to women’s organizations

Aaaaaaaaaand

* POST POST POST on our cause page about what you did so we can celebrate the actions of fathers and men to help address the issue of violence against women!

We ask you all to repost this bulletin and help us spread the word, especially to fathers. Thank you in advance for helping us support NCADV and other local anti-violence women's organizations!

Until the violence stops, Ben.  

Ben Atherton-Zeman, Maynard, MA USA
Actor, Comedian, Feminist and Husband
Presenting a One-Man Play: "Voices of Men," Educational Theatre for Sexual/Domestic Violence Prevention - video excerpts at http://www.voicesofmen.org

Booking information: 978-897-3619

Quote of the Month, April 2010: “No Room for Rape Apologists" - Signs posted at American University protesting an article in the school paper that blamed victims of rape.  April is National Sexual Assault Awareness Month - support your local rape crisis center!

Child Molestation: How to Help Prevent It, Hopefully, and Knowing Who To Watch Out For: Clue--Men who are around your children

 

[image is from here]

I haven't read either book, and if anyone has, I'd be interested to know how helpful they are. I am always dubious about things like this, after watching an Oprah show. As you may know, Oprah Winfrey is a survivor of child molestation and incest and has worked to make sure predators are caught and arrested.

The program featured mom's who had done all the right things in teaching their daughters about child sexual abuse and came to find out that their daughters were survivors, because the perps had threatened, shamed, humiliated, controlled, and terrorised the girls.

And I HATE the term "pedophile" as much as I'd hate the term "gynophile" for "serial rapist". The term, if we're going that route, is "misopedist". But "child molester" or "incest perpetrator" or "raper of children" suffices. Information on two books follows. I'm not linking to the site where I found this because it's weird. What comes next is all from *here*, as is the image above.

Child Molesters

Predators and Child Molesters: What Every Parent Needs to Know to Keep Kids Safe

robinsax.com
Predators and Child Molesters by Robin Sax is the first book to be awarded Amber Alert Book of the Year Award.
There is no crime not even murder that worries and sickens parents more than child sexual abuse. Parents wonder how to protect their children when almost every day the news reports another incident of someone in authority arrested on suspicion of child abuse from clergy and teachers to family members themselves. Even law enforcement has had trouble defining the problem and only recently has the Department of Justice begun recording statistics of sexual assault against children. Amid the confusion generated by sensational news reports and uncertainty regarding the nature and extent of child sexual abuse, what can parents do?
In this straightforward, clearly written guidebook, veteran sex-crimes prosecutor and Los Angeles deputy district attorney Robin Sax answers one hundred questions that she has most often encountered in her fifteen years of experience. From the definition of abuse to the profiles of a predator to how to report an incident and to whom, Sax provides practical, reassuring, and appropriate information.
For ease of use, the book is organized into six major sections:
-Recognizing predators: molesters, pedophiles, and opportunists

-Talking to kids about risks and identifying potential problems

-Recognizing abuse

-Reporting sexual abuse

-Going to court

-Healing and moving on
Sax makes it clear that protecting children begins with every parent in the home. Parents must view protecting children from the potential of sexual assault as a priority. Teaching children preventive measures should be viewed as important as teaching kids how to dial 9-1-1.
Sax concludes by emphasizing that the best defense against sexual offenders is information. Her book provides realistic answers to empower parents and educators, even in the face of one of life's scariest threats.

Author: Robin Sax
Paperback:  179 pages ISBN13: 9781591027126, Condition: NEW, Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Company: Prometheus Books  (2009-04-21)
ISBN: 1591027128
List Price: $17.98
Amazon Price: $6.11
Used Price: $5.10

---

Predators: Pedophiles, Rapists, And Other Sex Offenders

A world-renowned expert provides a psychological profile of serial sex offenders-how they think, how they deceive their victims, and how they elude the law. What motivates sexual abusers? Why are so few caught? Drawing on the stories of abusers, Anna C. Salter shows that sexual predators use sophisticated deception techniques and rely on misconceptions surrounding them to evade discovery. Arguing that even the most knowledgeable among us can be fooled, Salter dispels the myths about sexual predators and gives us the tools to protect our families and ourselves.

Author: Anna Salter
Paperback:  288 pages ISBN13: 9780465071739, Condition: NEW, Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Company: Basic Books  (2004-03) (2004-03-30)
ISBN: 0465071732
List Price: $17.95
Amazon Price: $8.10
Used Price: $7.01

The Father As Rapist of Girl Children: a nerve has been struck. This means that fathers ARE raping their daughters...

... and many are making pornography of the abuse. And white heterosexual men, among other het men, would like it very much if we all would please stop talking about it ASAP. And, especially, not call on other het men to hold one another accountable to these crimes against humanity. Fathers holding each other accountable. Imagine THAT.

Imagine men untwisting their pants long enough to not be so upset by what one man writes, and instead be MORE upset that fathers rape their daughters and het men do not organise around this issue.

WHM will find any discussion about fathers raping their daughters far more horrifying than the fact that daddies do it. They will be MORE offended by a couple of blog posts on the subject, than the fact that fathers won't do jack shit to stop other men from committing rape of girl children (and of women).

Here are the stats for the traffic to this blog over the last seven days. See which day's traffic is not like the others.

What this means is that I've hit a nerve. Or I ought to thank AnnArchist for posting this to reddit.com in their version of a "wtf?!" section. Or both. We'll see how the comments go.

If and when a nerve like this has been hit, you better believe it's not because one little blog post is so goddamned "offensive" or off the wall. I mean privileged white het men are all for free speech, right? The celebrate it. Right? I mean their "free speech" called pornography--pimped and raped women AND girls being coerced into saying what pimps want women and girls to say in front of a camera, including with their bodies non-verbally--is to be protected and made available to WHM 24/7, right? And THAT'S not offensive, is it? The rape and pimping of women and girls in pornography is NOT offensive, compared, to, oh, say, one white gay man's blog post about how commonly fathers rape their daughters. ONE. BLOG. POST. (Well, yes, now two.)

Let's just keep the attention focused on ONE or TWO questions, if you please:
WHY WON'T FATHERS ORGANISE TO STOP OTHER FATHERS FROM RAPING THEIR DAUGHTERS? WHY, INSTEAD, WILL THEY ORGANISE TO HAVE MORE PHYSICAL AND SEXUAL ACCESS TO THEIR DAUGHTERS?

Now, let's have a reasonable, RESPONSIBLE, RESPONSIVE conversation about THAT, shall we? And let's put all the sidetracking and misplaced rage and offense and hurt aside, to deal with THAT issue. AND the issue that fathers and father-figures DO rape their daughters. Sometimes they pimp them out too.

My writing is not nearly as offensive or outrageous as THAT, is it? (Is it??)

Let me tell you what is likely to happen.

What is likely to happen is there is going to be a ruckus. Because white het men's entitlements and privileges include not having to challenge each other on matters of men's sexual violence against women and girls. So rather than focus directly and only on that, there is going to be a lot of diversionary tactics employed, with all manner of "well, women hurt kids too!" (Yes, and so fucking what? Does that mean we can't focus on this issue? Why can't we?) and "how dare you call all fathers rapists!!" (Um, I didn't.) One man already accused me of calling fathers child-raping animals. No, that's what rapists and other misogynistic men say about themselves, actually: that we can't help it. That our testicles and penises do our thinking for us. That we are sexually abusive because of testosterone, depression, being fired from work, alcohol abuse, an unloving spouse. That it's psychological evolution. It's sociobiology. It's wired into our brains, wherever those brains are located.

I don't say any of that, nor do any radical feminists I know. We believe in the humanity of men. It's men who won't challenge each other to be more humane. And I believe men will find any reason at all to deflect from this subject: why do fathers work for one another's rights, but NOT AT ALL for one another's responsibilities not to be rapists of their girls?

The het men will get to whining, BIG TIME, about how offended they are, and how much such conversation victimises them. To het men: women I know are offended and victimised that so goddamned many of you rape women and girls or speak about it in a joke, or hurl misogynist terms at women and leer with sexual interest at girls half or one third your age. Yes, het men will be offended, greatly, by one man calling on them to be as responsible with their power as they are defensive of it. And the most privileged of those het men, the economically more stable white ones, will lead the charges of offensiveness and victimisation. Just wait, watch, and see. And I'd love to be wrong about this, by the way.

To all dads of girls: in case you weren't aware of it, it is likely to be males in your daughter's family who sexually assault her, if you're not already doing so, or even if you are. So let's stay with THAT offense long enough to address THE QUESTIONS in bold above.

And if white het men write to me about other matters, I'll surely take that as a sign that you've got something to hide and protect and keep secret. Because, otherwise, why would it bother you so much? Surely you know, from the experience of your own childhood, that men tend to be more horrendously and sexually abusive than do women. Remember your childhood? Surely SOME of you have sisters who were raped by your fathers. Surely some of you watched your moms being bashed by your father's fists.

But we're supposed to respect fathers as GODS, right? "God The Father" and all that CRAP. Well, I say it'd be better for us to consider children as sacred, and to consider it to be men's responsibilities to hold one another accountable for the crimes against children we commit. Disproportionately FEMALE children, in OUR OWN families.

Who's Your Daddy? I Mean Rapist. Tips on How to Prevent Female Child Sexual Abuse: if we're going to deal with reality, that is, and not the myths

This man raped and burned his ten year old step-daughter. His name is Chris Newbury, and he is from Wichita, KS. He was caught in 2009:

[image of this child rapist/incest perpetrating arsonist is from here]

This next image is of a father who raped his daughters and made them bear his children, and killed his children who were also his grandchildren. 47-year-old Daniel  Rinehart faces charges of murder, statutory rape and incest, after admitting to investigators that he is the father of at least two of his daughter's four children. The bodies of two of the children were found earlier this month in coolers on the property. Investigators say one of the other daughters tipped them off about the alleged incest.

This is what he looks like. He has lived in Kansas City, Missouri:

 

[image of this rapist/incesting/murdering father/grandfather is from here]

What follows is the image of a father who raped and videotaped the rape of his daughter, and posted it online. He is also accused of having sexually abused other girls. His name is Kenneth John Freeman (ironically) and he is a former Washington State Sheriff’s Deputy. He was arrested and jailed in Hong Kong on Wednesday. Freeman is wanted for multiple counts of child rape and for videotaping and photographing these assaults. In plain English, he raped his daughter several times and then posted video and pictures of it online. He posted $50,000 bond and fled. This is what he looks like:

The following photo is of Jonathan Goodrum, a 19 year-old man who has pleaded guilty of raping his 1-day-old daughter.

1-day-old and still in the hospital, after a routine examination, vaginal tears were found on the infant. Police are only saying the tears were made with an “unknown object”. He may only serve 11 months in jail, and while he won't be able to have access to his infant daughter, he may be able to have access to his one year old daughter. This is what he looks like. I am not sure where he lives.

[image of this father-raper of his one day old infant girl is from here]

What are Father's Rights Activists doing about this? What laws are they working to change so this cannot happen?

Prevent fathers, step-fathers, and father figures from having unsupervised time with any children (including, especially, their own) and their nieces, any future grandkids, and neighbor's kids.

That alone would decrease child sexual abuse DRAMATICALLY. But who cares about girls being safe, right? (When father's "wrongs" are at risk?)

Fathers who care about girls would don't work to make fathers across the board have unlimited access or unsupervised time with their daughters. Not if they are clued into the reality of who is doing the abusing.

Whenever a social movement is organised by and for a structurally powerful groups's rights of access to be strengthened, enforced, bolstered, or buoyed, the movement is NOT a human rights movement, but one working AGAINST the oppressed.

If fathers care about girls more than they care about themselves, they will make sure laws, policies, and customs are strict when it comes to men having unsupervised time with girls, ESPECIALLY INCLUDING the known and trusted men in the girls' lives.

How can you know that girls' perp is most likely to be her father and fight for the rights of fathers to have more time with girls? What kind of deranged human "wrongs" proponents would organise around THAT?

Oprah's Conversation with Child Molesters: the extended interviews

 

[image of white heterosexual male rapers and molesters of girls is from *here*]

***TRIGGER WARNING***: THIS MATERIAL MAY DEEPLY TRIGGER ANY SURVIVORS OF RAPE OR CHILD SEXUAL ASSAULT OR OTHER FORMS OF SEXUAL ABUSE BY ADULTS OR RELATIVES.

Oprah's Conversation with Child Molesters: beyond what you saw on television today, if you watched. What follows is from www.oprah.com/oprahshow/Oprahs-Conversation-with-Child-Molesters*.

The Oprah Winfrey Show  | 

February 08, 2010

She calls it the most honest conversation she's ever had with sex offenders. Oprah sits down with four admitted child molesters for a frank, graphic discussion of their crimes. Watch the two-hour conversation in its entirety—an Oprah.com exclusive.

Watch Part 1








Watch Part 2









Watch Part 3







4 things you need to know about child molestation

Are you a victim of sexual abuse?

If you or someone you know is a victim of sexual abuse, call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE

Find out more from the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children

*     *     * 

Did anyone else watch Oprah today? It featured interviews with four white het male abusers of children. All the victims were girls. Most were family members, including daughter and granddaughter.


These are normal men speaking out about something normal het white men do every day somewhere. Every day. Somewhere. Other men, and a few women, also do this--molest, assault, violate children, sometimes their own. With men, the victims are most often their own daughters or nieces or granddaughters or younger sisters or female cousins. Most often.

What this program demonstrates is how patriarchal atrocities happen because men are dishonest with one another, and do not stop each other from harming children. We do not prevent harmful access to children, and increasingly, laws are put in place that make perpetrating father's access "a right", that is not in the best interest of the child. The child's right to not be violated is violated by laws men work to get passed to have access to children, partly in order to violate them.

This means that it is not the stranger in the car offering candy we have to worry about MOST. We MOST have to worry about and stop the father, grandfather, uncle, male cousin, or brother. That's who must be stopped from having access to girls. Less access is needed. So who are the groups fighting for MORE ACCESS? And I have to wonder: who will benefit from this expansion of "rights of access to violate one's children"?

Here at A.R.P., comments about this show are welcome from anyone who reads and abides by the comments policy (see top right of main page).

Rape & Sexual Abuse Stats: WAY TOO LOW, and here's a couple of reasons why

[image is from here]

I write today about something I am outraged by often, but today I carry more rage than usual.

I found a male-man I have known well has, within the last couple of weeks, sexually assaulted someone--his female spouse. I'd call what happened "rape" and I'm not sure if the woman wishes to, can, will, or what. I know she did not get medically examined after the assault, and will not report him as a rapist to the police. So add that to the list of rapes that will never get counted in the national stats.

It is for her to name her own experience, and it is for me to name it for myself, not to her directly. I call what he did rape. If she asks me what I call it, I'll tell her.

He got drunk and did something she had been very clear with him to never do. And the same night he did it, he said he'd like to do more (of that sort of sexually violating activity). He inserted part of his body into her body without asking permission, with force, and caused her both internal physical injury and emotionally trauma, as well as triggering some very deep old trauma that remains actively "resurrected". There is also the breach of trust to deal with, from a man she absolutely trusted to respect her sexually and otherwise. This goes to show that even heeding Pearl Cleage's advice, women are still vulnerable to rape because men rape people they have intimate relationships with, that include the trust of the woman that he won't assault or violate her, willfully. He at least doesn't believe he wasn't responsible for what he did because he was drunk, although be blames what he did on the effects of the alcohol. I don't. Not for one second.

She said to me recently, in the context of feeling the rage of being assaulted by her husband, "Sometimes I hate men!" and I said "Me too". She is a lover of humanity, and deeply caring, soulful person, and generous of spirit and compassion. She is also very self-possessed, knows her boundaries, sets them, and expects them to be honored. He violated all of that by what he did.

So he blamed it on being drunk and I told her "Not all people when drunk are sexually aggressive" and "the alcohol didn't infuse him with the desire or will to do what he did. (She agreed.) Both the desire to do what he did, and the will, the power, and the sense of entitlement were all in place prior to taking any drink that evening. But he got behaviorally "sloppy" due to being drunk--which was his choice, btw--no one coerced him into getting drunk, or spiked his drinks with extra shots of liquor. He was at a social event, was uncomfortable, and drank too much in order to get through the evening in a way that ended up being traumatising to his spouse. How caring of him. NOT. And, of course, due to him drinking so much he put her in the position of "making sure he was ok throughout the night, even post-assault". How vile men can be. (She was the only person around him once they left the party.)

The list of men I know or have known who have not sexually assaulted a woman or girl is very small, and getting smaller. And I have little doubt that the other male-man who is in my life has committed sexual assault. His level of misogynist rage is high at times, and frightens most of us who are around him, not infrequently. And he's not a raging fool. He doesn't ever use misogynistic language, terms, etc. He never outwardly shows disrespect for his female partner or other women. And it is clear he has "rage issues" that he has not dealt with, that can and do express themselves to or around his female spouse.

So, to anyone who wants to make the case to me that "not all men are sexually abusive", you'd have to prove to me first that you are among the population of men who has never sexually violated and/or been oppressively physically aggressive against a female person.

Given the number of men who have committed date rape, marital rape, and other forms of rape, who would never think to name it that way, and given the number of women who have been date raped and otherwise sexually violated and assaulted who do not call it that because to do so would mean dealing with that man differently--and he is, after all, most likely to be a family member, or a spouse, or a boyfriend--I know for a fact that the stats on sexual assault against women by men is WAY TOO LOW.

Even one of the men who came to this blog to demonstrate that not all men are rapists demonstrated his lack of regard for his female spouse saying "no" to his sexual advances.

I have checked in with other het guys since, wondering about how many of them won't accept their girlfriend or wife's "first no" as HER FINAL ANSWER. Almost no men do.

I ask men, why don't you accept her first "no" as her final "no"? The males answer that they know if they keep asking or pressuring her, she'll eventually give in. They make arguments that they don't believe she really means "no" when she says "no". These men, are, in my view, rapists. And when I suggest that once you have recommended doing something sexually that she says "no" to, that she is perfectly capable of asking about it in the future should she change her mind and become interested in exploring this activity, the answer is something like "I wouldn't be respecting myself if I didn't keep asking her about it".

Rapist culture: alive and unwell.

To any man reading this: please don't ever use force against a woman; please don't ever ask a woman TWICE to do something she said no to the first time. Take her "NO" as meaning "NO" unless SHE brings it up later for discussion to re-evaluate her answer. And, in the mean time, evaluate where you even got the idea to do something she said "no" to, because clearly it wasn't from her. Did you get it from a scene constructed by pimps who are trafficking women and filming that activity? Did you get it by watching the rape of a woman online, that you pretend was consensual?

If you want women to not hate you, stop yourself and other men from committing sexual assault and violation against girls and women.

Another issue is men having pornography available for children to find, whether that is online pornography or material pornography in the form of magazines, books, or videos.

Please know this: children being exposed to your pornography constitutes sexual abuse of a child. Always. I know of NO ONE who was exposed to their father's pornography when young, if the child was female or male, who wasn't damaged from that experience. With girls, it often set up very distorted ideas about "sex" and the same with boys. But with boys, they later act out what they learned, against girls and later against women, whereas the females act it out against themselves, usually. And NO FATHER I know who has pornography accessible to his children considers him allowing that to be the case "child sexual abuse".

Men are debating "the logic of women" online. I won't direct you to where. These misogynists are claiming feminists are not logical. They apparently don't find it "logical" to tell men to stop rape. That argument, that statement, doesn't factor into their "logic system". How utterly self-serving and male supremacist.

If I try to point this out, they reject it based on my allegiance with feminism. How convenient for these illogical, misogynist fools.

I'm pissed at men right now, and also am amazed at the number of misogynist men who send comments here to be posted, without even realising misogynists' comments will never see the light of day here, or the depth of the dark either. They go to a spam box. So keep on sending them, fellas. That spam box is hungry for your illogical stupidity.

There is a comment policy that I will have to make clearer, I guess, although I don't think these misogynists are smart or logical enough to read and comprehend it.

If men stopped men from behaving in misogynistic and sexist and racist ways, rape and other sexist and racist violence against women would end. Why don't men do this? Why is this not a priority?