Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Rapism is Normal: Get Profeminism

There's more than one version of this quote, and I'll try and find the actual one, but the wording of this one best applies here:
"As Andrea Dworkin once famously said about date-rape victims: 
the punishment for getting drunk with a frat boy and taking him to your room should be a hangover, not rape."

[top image is from the website for the London Feminist Network, here]

Chris Osborn and I have been engaging in one dynamic conversation about society, politics, misogyny, and racism.

Here's a paragraph he wrote to me that I'm sure many people who have experienced college dorm and  frat life (and life beyond college where there are gatherings of people that include men with lots of alcohol) can identify with and will recognise as utterly normal and socially acceptable. This is what I'd written to him about it: May I publish that paragraph to my blog? I just think there are too few men telling the truth about our lives and the lives of men around us. He welcomed me to do so, and to put his name with the passage he wrote:
Unfortunately most of the parties I have attended reek of misogyny. Men are there to score drunk fucks, and I don't know why many of the women are there. Some are there for the same reason, some are simply naive. I started partying in Michigan, where this was not an issue. My usual party location was a house rented by anarchist punks, and they made sure that no one was taken advantage of. There was always a sober housemate there to enforce this policy. When I came home, I continued partying. The parties here are the nasty sort. I do not have much sexual experience, and I am proud of this. I have not been in a relationship or situation where it would be appropriate. The experience that I do have has given me all the more reason to stop partying and drinking in general. Many people are unaware of the rapes that occur at parties. I was too, until I accidentally drank a cup of beer with GHB in it. The story is actually kind of funny, considering I woke up in detox, but that is for another time. What isn't funny is the fact that that cup was meant for a woman. While being arrested was not a pleasant experience, I do not regret drinking that drink because I likely prevented a woman from being raped- though inadvertently. That really hit me, though not until a year after. I rarely drink anymore, and hardly ever get drunk. I don't like the loss of control, and I really don't like the macho behavior that seems to accompany drunkenness. -- Chris Osborn (2009)
I noted that I didn't see much that was funny about being drugged that way, but acknowledged that him drinking that beverage probably did prevent a woman from being raped that night.

Rapism is normal. So what are YOU going to do about it, fellas?

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