And this is why I’m a crazy ass feminist today…

Just found out about this today, but apparently, back on March 24, an appeals court in Oklahoma ruled that forced oral sex is not rape if the victim is unconscious from drinking.

Yup.

You got drunk, it’s cool to rape you.

No problem, bro.

The decision stated that “Forcible sodomy cannot occur where a victim is so intoxicated as to be completely unconscious at the time of the sexual act of oral copulation.”

The court decided, in its wisdom, that since the statute listed several circumstances that constituted force but did not include a mention of incapacitation due to the victim drinking alcohol.

Jennifer Gentile Long, leader of a group that helps to prosecute sexual and domestic violence cases, pointed out that “Oklahoma has a separate rape statute that protects victims who were too intoxicated to consent to vaginal or anal intercourse.”

Since those laws do not include oral sex, however, it’s obviously cool to go ahead and shove your dick in an unconscious woman’s mouth.

I just. I can’t. There is no way in hell that this should be an issue.

Why do we need separate legislation for each body part? Why can a woman not be protected? Are we seriously a group of orifices, some of which do not deserve protection?

The best part of this situation? “Other defendants are nevertheless making the same argument in other parts of Oklahoma to avoid charges.”

Yup. You heard that right.

And the defendant’s lawyer appears to be okay with that. She thinks he should have only be charged with “unwanted touching” because “There was absolutely no evidence of force or him doing anything to make this girl give him oral sex, other than she was too intoxicated to consent.”

Double-think and alternative facts at their finest.

It’s not force because she couldn’t say no.

And, yeah, maybe he touched her when she didn’t want it, but, hey, that doesn’t mean it was against her will.

Because, I don’t know about you, but when I am unable to consent, I’m cool with a guy shoving his dick into my mouth and leaving traces of semen around my mouth (yeah, read the article – he didn’t even have the common decency of wiping it off her face).

So, to recap – Oklahoma is totally cool with guys mouth-fucking women who are unconscious from alcohol.

I don’t know about you, but I am *not* cool with that.

National Domestic Violence Awareness Month – So Get Aware!

On September 30, President Obama proclaimed October to be National Domestic Violence Awareness Month. In his proclamation, he states that, “Nearly 1 in 4 women and 1 in 7 men in the United States have suffered severe physical violence by an intimate partner. Victims are deprived of their autonomy, liberty, and security, and face tremendous threats to their health and safety.”

Think about those numbers. One in four women. If you have a daughter, a sister, a mother, and a grandmother…one (or all) of them are at risk. Men are not just abusers, either – one in seven are also abused by domestic partners.

And the problem isn’t limited to adults.

In Ohio on October 11, a little girl – FOUR years old – needed stitches because a boy hit her. The employee at the hospital told her “I bet he likes you.”

 

Wait.

She needed stitches, and that’s a sign of liking someone?

The sad thing is, that’s not surprising.

Back in January, an 18 year old girl announced that her boyfriend hit her because he loved her. After all, she reasoned, not many boys are willing to hit their girlfriends, and the fact he’s willing to risk jail for her is a clear sign that he loves her. Because, you know, he’s only hitting her because it helps her. The crazy part is that while a lot of people rejected her hypothesis, she also got fans because of it.

Why do people keep insisting that hurting someone equals loving them? It doesn’t matter if you’re four. If you’re 18. If you’re 50. If you’re 80. No one should hit you and claim to do it out of love.

Now let’s throw in something else fun. Also back in January, some boys were introduced to a girl and then asked to slap her. Not surprisingly, most were shocked and didn’t want to do it. They didn’t want to hit a girl, especially one they didn’t know.

So why is it then okay to hit a girl you do know? Or hit a boy you know? (Remember the statistics – it’s not just girls who get hit!)

Simple answer: it’s not okay. It’s never okay. And it’s never the fault of the victim.

What to do if you’re witnesses or suffering from domestic violence?

Call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-SAFE or visit www.TheHotline.org.

Hey, as long as it’s in the family…

Open your eyes
(image by LukeDavison via morgueFile)

Outrage! Shock! Horror!  And totally dismissal.  Because while a now 52-year-old man kept a developmentally disabled woman captive for 14 years in his back yard, using her as a sex slave and abusing her, it’s all cool because, you know, she’s family.

Yeah, that’s right.  Not a problem.  Not a big deal.

Now, don’t get me wrong.  The total and complete waste of human life is going to serve 22 years in prison.  (Will he really, though?  Or will he get out early for “good behavior”?) 

The big deal here, the truly horrific part, is that the woman escaped in 2012.  Yes, two years ago.  Two years!  But the authorities never said anything to the public because, well, according to the chief of police, “…we did not release any information up to this point about the case because the crime was perpetrated within the family by a very close family member…there was no reason to believe there were any non-family members who had been victimized…”   

So, yeah, he did horrible horrible things to a woman who couldn’t fight back for over a decade, but since she was family, it’s not worth mentioning.  Now, the chief did also say that the victim was “…very fragile and we did not want to jeopardize her welfare or the case in any way.” 

The woman was 13 when her relative took her in 1998.  For all that time, he kept her in a shed in the backyard.  She did not attend school, and he did landscaping work with her in the backyard.  A neighbor said that she thought something wasn’t right, but apparently, she didn’t bother mentioning it.  And the other relatives also apparently didn’t notice something wrong with her vanishing, but, the article mentions, one of them picked her up.  So how did she contact this relative?  Did this relative know and not do anything about it?  Or did they suspect but not act?

The plea deal that is getting him 22 years, by the way?  Yeah, he’s pleading guilty to “one count of forced lewd acts on a child and two counts of forcible rape.”  Yes, three counts of crimes that spanned fourteen years of this woman’s life.

This article reminds me of something I read many years ago by a wonderful crusader and author named Andrew Vacchs.  Back in 2005, he published an op-ed about how easy it was for family members to get away with incest.  At that time, sex with a child under age 11 was up to 25 years in prison.  Unless, of course, it was a family member.  Because then it’s just a class E felony, one that is considered “an offense affecting the marital relationship” and the person who commits the crime (yes, raping a child falls into this), they can just get probation.  Because incest, you see, is considered a “nonviolent crime.”  I shit you not.  A non-violent crime.

Why is it that we are so quick to forgive people who commit atrocious acts on their own relatives?  Their children?  Their nieces and nephews?  Their grandchildren?  Why do we think this is okay?  Because, really, if we didn’t think it was okay, then these crimes wouldn’t be so easily hidden and swept under the rug.  These rulings wouldn’t happen. 

We need to know about these things, and we need to do something about them.  Me?  I’ve applied to be a child advocate. 

“Keep your thoughts positive because your thoughts become your words. Keep your words positive because your words become your behavior. Keep your behavior positive because your behavior becomes your habits. Keep your habits positive because your habits become your values. Keep your values positive because your values become your destiny.”

― Mahatma Gandhi