ff

what up, rape culture!? whatcha been up to lately? cool, cool.

* how's about you give this a read?

okay, jokes aside (HAHA RAPE!) this is a solid piece. all academic in nature. thanks thomas!
it is longish, but well worth the time. there are statistics and percentages, guys! NUMBERS! and, too, some very good advice. i just want to cut-and-paste it all, but i'll try to limit myself to:

something that i'm finding terrifying and shocking as i learn more and more about rape culture is how many people i actually know who have been sexually assaulted. i always thought the list was too long when i was looking at the 'society-confirmed-rapes', but now as i think back on stories i have been told over the years... there are so many i never classified correctly. never truly appreciated the extent of damage and violence. so so many. and i shudder to think about what my reactions were when i was told about these assaults. did i listen openly or did i try to excuse the acts - try to empathize with the bad guy because, you know, he was a 'nice guy'? did i build one more tiny wall against a victim classifying her assault as just that? god i hope i didn't. but i probably did. even though there was always a banging in my gut i didn't understand. all i can do is know what i know now and never ever ever put up such a wall again. let's all be that way, okay?

happy friday, my lovely internets.

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ff (fs)

uuuuggggggghhhhh guys. sorry. i put off writing this week's feminist friday post cause ugh. right? remember last week's rape-culture-fatigue link?

well this week i was gonna write about men explaining things. (after friends who i love dearly refused to learn from conversations we'd had to either a) NOT TALK ABOUT IT with me or b) adjust their attitudes on rape culture...)

and i was gonna write about the series of sexual assaults in one of my fav toronto neighbourhoods. and the heavy-sighs-for-reals? response from our shitty mayor's niece (and the very-awesome response of one of the victims).

i was gonna write about one of my very favourite humans getting chased right to her front door off the bus by two douchebags in my sweet scary hometown. and the fact that some people felt that 'not taking the bus' anymore was the solution to avoiding such situations. thanks, yo. practical shit.

but yeah. pooped. i've been dancing lots of ballet this week and i just don't feel like getting into and getting angry this week. see back to that fatigue piece.

SO INSTEAD!

i want you to take a look at the man i've decided is theeeee sexiest man. this week. his style is so unconventional and anti-heteronormative! (and daaaaamn them tattoos.) and even though he is gay i am in love with him and hoping maybe he will marry me. after he is done winning project runway... ladies and gentleman. fabio costa. love of my life!

{all photos of sweet beautiful fabio from the project runway site} 

happy long weekend.

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ff

in an epic case of 'hahahaha ooooops!' todd akin said the worst ever thing this week. and of course the internets. is. talkin. bout. it. (and republicans in general.)

* this one is particularly good so i'm setting it on its own...

i could post 18 bazillions more links, but i'll spare you all that underlined text.

i didn't reeeeally want to talk about this. because it is insane and so rage-inducing and beyond comprehension that i'm all 'nooooooooooo!' about blorging on the subject. but. then again.people who refuse to call themselves feminists, even, are posting alllll about it in a mad fervor.

this is one of a million and ten things that being a feminist means to me: believing that people in power positions should be educated about the things that are asserting power over. being outraged that there are people in 2012 who do not know the most basic details of how the female reproductive system works who are attempting to assert any level of power or control over those female reproductive systems. i don't think that is a radical point of view.

oh! and also a point for BETTER SEX EDUCATION IN THE US. (and we ain't sooo wise here either, canada. i do have a friend who believed that a headstand after intercourse was functional birth control. a sexually active friend. and a pile o' other crazy ideas about how our baby-makers work. that is to say that this whole thing, sadly sadly, did not surprise me. heaviest sigh.)

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ff

heeeey guys! the internet exploded this week!

back story. if you've been living in a hole. (or are not on twitter all the time, which is like, totes the same thing, am i right?!)

daniel tosh was making rape jokes, a female audience member shouted that 'rape jokes are never funny' and then daniel tosh said what would be funny is if that female audience member got raped by other members of the audience, like 5 of them, right?! tada!

there are 18 zillion articles - good and bad - about this. and even more tweets forever unto infinite. but i picked just this one article for you to read on the topic!

* how to make a rape joke

i chose it for many reasons, but truly the main reason is that it made me laugh a lot. like. this whole passage:

{lindy west from jezebel}

bahaha! that's great! thrashers... good one! and it is good to have a good laugh here and now because this whole fight just reminds me that rape apologists are everywhere, and they're my friends who don't know that that is what they're doing, and it breaks my heart all the time forever because I KNOW TOO MANY PEOPLE, GUYS! I KNOW TOO MANY GIRLS WHO HAVE BEEN RAPED! and it is a raw and hard subject for me. so. i'm glad that this piece was written with humour and with intelligence and so on and so forth.

read it if you love me. i mean it. more than ever. please. pleasepleaseplease. (and there are some great links in there. too. click 'em!)

OH! and. p.s. remember when we had good-news-feminist-friday? well. nevermind.
*saudi arabia takes it back. no olympics for ladies

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