Poupak's Parisian Life in New York

Redefine Rape: Pass NY’s Rape is Rape Bill This Year

redqueenxlt:

Redefine Rape: Pass NY’s Rape is Rape Bill This Year

severin:

Please sign and spread the word:

I write concerning necessary changes to the New York State Penal Law to redefine rape. In the wake of the mistrial on the rape charges against former New York City Police Officer Michael Pena, it is more important than ever to advance “Rape is Rape” legislation, Assembly Bill 09774 and Senate Bill S06877.

I urge you to support and pass the “Rape is Rape” bill in this legislative session. The bill re-defines the crimes of Rape in the First, Second and Third Degrees to include forcible oral and anal sexual conduct and aggravated sexual contact, in addition to sexual intercourse as an element of rape charges.

While Pena was convicted of several other charges for holding a Bronx school teacher at gunpoint and forcing her to engage in oral and anal sex, he was not convicted of the top count of rape. No verdict was reached on the rape charge despite evidence of the defendant’s semen in the victim’s underwear, redness to her genitals, eyewitness testimony and the victim’s own account of the pain of the attack.

Common sense dictates that what happened to this victim is rape. No other victim should have to suffer the indignity of being told that being forced to engage in oral or anal sex is not rape.

Thank you for your consideration and work towards securing a safer New York.

(via khealywu)

2 June 2012

• Tags
• We live in a Rape Culture

To all those men who don’t think the rape jokes are a problem:

oforganon:

(via)
This post in particular is addressed to men, not because women don’t rape and women don’t make/laugh at rape jokes and not because men can’t be raped, but because, by nature of the existing gender disparity, men are in a unique position to be taken seriously when they raise objections to casual language and humor regarding rape. Men are also in a unique position to prove to rapists and douchebags that not all men rape or take rape lightly by being able to embody living proof of that fact.

I get it—you’re a decent guy. I can even believe it. You’ve never raped anybody. You would NEVER rape anybody. You’re upset that all these feminists are trying to accuse you of doing something, or connect you to doing something, that, as far as you’re concerned, you’ve never done and would never condone. 

And they’ve told you about triggers, and PTSD, and how one in six women is a survivor, and you get it. You do. But you can’t let every time someone gets all upset get in the way of you having a good time, right? Especially when it doesn’t mean anything. Rape jokes have never made YOU go out and rape someone. They never would; they never could. You just don’t see how it matters.

I’m going to tell you how it does matter. And I tell you this because I genuinely believe you mean it when you say you don’t want to hurt anybody, and that it’s important to you to do your best to be a decent and good person, and that you don’t see the harm. And I genuinely believe you when you say you would never associate with a rapist and you think rape really is a very bad thing. 

Here is why I refuse to take rape jokes sitting down…

Because 6% of college-aged men, slightly over 1 in 20, will admit to raping someone in anonymous surveys, as long as the word “rape” isn’t used in the description of the act—and that’s the conservative estimate. Other sources double that number (pdf). 

A lot of people accuse feminists of thinking that all men are rapists. That’s not true. But do you know who think all men are rapists?

Rapists do. 

They really do. In psychological study, the profiling, the studies, it comes out again and again. 

Virtually all rapists genuinely believe that all men rape, and other men just keep it hushed up better. And more, these people who really are rapists are constantly reaffirmed in their belief about the rest of mankind being rapists like them by things like rape jokes, that dismiss and normalize the idea of rape.

If one in twenty guys (or more) is a real and true rapist, and you have any amount of social activity with other guys like yourself, then it is almost a statistical certainty that one time hanging out with friends and their friends, playing Halo with a bunch of guys online, in a WoW guild, in a pick-up game of basketball, at a bar, or elsewhere, you were talking to a rapist. Not your fault. You can’t tell a rapist apart any better than anyone else can. It’s not like they announce themselves. 

But, here’s the thing. It’s very likely that in some of these interactions with these guys, at some point or another, someone told a rape joke. You, decent guy that you are, understood that they didn’t mean it, and it was just a joke. And so you laughed. 

Or maybe you didn’t laugh. Maybe it just wasn’t a very funny joke. So maybe you just didn’t say anything at all. 

And, decent guy who would never condone rape, who would step in and stop rape if he saw it, who understands that rape is awful and wrong and bad, when you laughed? When you were silent?

That rapist who was in the group with you, that rapist thought that you were on his side. That rapistknew that you were a rapist like him. And he felt validated, and he felt he was among his comrades. 

You. The rapist’s comrade. 

And if that doesn’t make you feel sick to your stomach, if that doesn’t make you want to throw up, if that doesn’t disturb you or bother you or make you feel like maybe you should at least consider not participating in that kind of humor anymore, not abiding it in your presence, not greeting it with silence…

Well, maybe you aren’t as opposed to rapists as you claim. 

——————————————————-
Note: A quick and simple rule for language and behavior if you want to be a decent person: Ask yourself, who is more likely to be made to feel comfortable around me based on whatever I’m about to say/do? Rape survivors? Or rapists? Who is more likely to be made to feel uncomfortable? If you’re doing something that is more likely to make rapists feel comfortable and/or rape survivors feel uncomfortable, then don’t do it!

<source link>  - by timemachineyeah

This is well written and eloquent.  Some facts to take into consideration next time you do a set.

7 December 2011

• Tags
• We Live in a Rape Culture

On the Subject of Rape…

Let me just start by saying this is completely my opinion, and my feelings alone, and not representative of anything from any improv theater or performer involved.  This is how I perceived that particular person who took center stage at a show I was attending.

The various legal loopholes and political decisions that led to the release of Dominic Strauss Kahn (DSK), whose charges of rape were dropped, have only had one positive effect:  rape is now at the fore front of many interesting discussions.  My friend Chrissie Gruebel published an excellent piece on her blog that I would recommend you read.

I wanted to talk about ASSSSCAT, the show that closed the Del Close Marathon, a huge improv festival.  During the show, comedians on stage invited audience members to tell a true story from their lives, and then improvised a set around it.   

At some point during the show, an audience member came to the microphone and started a story that left a weird taste in my mouth.  It took me almost two weeks to be able to write about it, because I had a hard time figuring out how to approach this - so I am just going to write about how I experienced his story.  Obviously, I can’t speak for anyone else, but I was shocked and uncertain about what to do.  At some point, I was going to get up and leave, but I was sitting very close to the stage and didn’t want to disturb the performers.  

He started his story by saying that he is a cook/host at Second City in Chicago (justification#1 – he is supposedly part of the community).    One evening, a very drunk (justification #2) and older (justification #3) woman was hitting on one of the waiters at Second City. This woman, who was from out of town (justification#4), gave her number to the waiter and asked him to call her (justification#5).  The waiter, not interested, shared the story with the rest of the staff and practically forced this cook/host to take the number, even giving him money for the cab (justification#6) to show up at her hotel.

The woman opens the door to her hotel room thinking it was the waiter, but SURPRISE it’s the cook/host.  She immediately asks him to leave, but he finds some BS excuse to go get her cell phone so that he can call a friend to come pick him up since he doesn’t have money for the taxi back (another murky part of the story).  She goes to get her cell phone, and makes a HUGE mistake: she leaves the hotel room door open.

He enters her room, closes and LOCKS (as his hand gesture suggested during his monologue) the door behind himself.  When she comes back, she tells him to leave, again. Instead, he kisses her.  Then she asks him to leave, again. Instead, he pushes her on the bed and says that she “straddled him” and was “much stronger than him” (justification#7).  Still, she asks him to leave, again.

He said that he then took it to the next “level” WHILE SHE WAS ASKING HIM TO LEAVE.  He fingered her violently (he shows that with a hand gesture - at this point everyone is the audience is booing and the performers are basically asking him to shut up, but he keeps talking).  SHE ASKS HIM TO LEAVE.  He tells her that he won’t until he gets some.  I think that at that moment, she understood that she was going to be raped.  She asks him if he has a condom (justification#8) and he says “of course” puts on the condom and rapes her.

He finished his story by saying “we didn’t do anything fancy; she just basically lied there and let me do my business.”

So, if you’re a female Second City customer from out of town, you’re a little older and a little drunk, and you are interested in one of the waiters, given all the justifications above, it’s OK that the cook/host shows up in your hotel room and rapes you.

To the performers that night, I don’t know how I would have reacted if I had been on that stage.  That’s how professional you all are – it was obvious that you were shocked as we were, but you kept it together and - while siding with the audience - you managed to somehow control the situation as much as possible.  I admire your poise and your professionalism.  

Second City, I hope you are reading this story and if this guy really works in your establishment, you can identify him and do what’s right.

To the woman who got raped, you probably didn’t press charges because you felt that you had done something wrong and deserved this.  You didn’t. You are the victim. Go press charges. Even if they’re dropped, like it was the case against DSK, at least you tried. And if we don’t try, we won’t know, and we won’t move forward and change mentalities. 

(Updated at 8:31 pm on 08/25 with the link to the video posted by Stephanie Streisand 38 mns in - I hadn’t seen this and am not going to watch because I can almost recite the whole thing by heart and it was disturbing enough the first time)

(Updated at 9:15 pm on 08/26: The Second City responds to this post and to Jezebel and Splitsider’s follow up posts - Thank you!)

25 August 2011

• Tags
• We Live in a Rape Culture
• Rape