Good quote from the article below: “Sexual consent isn’t like a lightswitch, which can be either “on,” or “off.” It’s not like there’s this one thing called “sex” you can consent to anyhow. “Sex” is an evolving series of actions and interactions. You have to have the enthusiastic consent of your partner for all of them. And even if you have your partner’s consent for a particular activity, you have to be prepared for it to change. Consent isn’t a question. It’s a state. If, instead of lovers, the two of you were synchronized swimmers, consent would be the water. It’s not enough to jump in, get wet and climb out — if you want to swim, you have to be in the water continually. And if you want to have sex, you have to be continually in a state of enthusiastic consent with your partner.”
A great article by Scarleteen explains what it “sounds like” to navigate consent and how to check-in with your sexual partner.
The middle of the post gives a chart of verbal cues for consent and nonconsent, and afterwards includes a great “traffic light” guide by Columbia University Health Service’s Sexual Violence Prevention and Response Program for navigating consent:
(via sexxxisbeautiful)
“There’s a big difference, however, between hating a dominant group in an oppressive system like patriarchy and hating the individuals who belong to it. Angela Davis once said that as an African American she often feels hatred for white people, but her feelings for particular white people depend on the individual. She hates white people’s collective position of dominance in a racially oppressive society, she hates the privilege they enjoy at her expense, and she hates the racist culture that whites take for granted as unremarkable while she must struggle with the oppression it creates in everyday life. But Davis also knows that while individual whites can never be free of racism, they can participate in racist systems in many different ways, which include joining people of color in the fight for racial justice. The same can be said of men and women.
The distinction between groups and individuals, however, is subtle and easy to lose sight of when you’re up to your ears in an oppressive system. Of course women are going to feel and express anger, resentment, and even hatred toward individual men who may not have it coming in just that way or to that degree or at that moment. Of course men are sometimes going to get their feelings hurt or be called on to take responsibility for themselves in ways they may not be used to. When I heard Davis talk about hating white people, and when I’ve heard women talk about hating men, I’ve had to get clear in my own mind about how these words refer to me and how they don’t, and it often takes some effort to get there. And as a white male who benefits from both male and white privilege, I’ve also had to see that it’s up to me-and not to women or people of color-to distinguish one from the other. Too often men react to women’s anger by calling on women to take care of them, and in this way recreate the male-centered principle of the very gender order that women, feminist and otherwise, are angry about.”
— Allan G. Johnson (via wretchedoftheearth)
(via femblr)
[video]
will arnett as gob bluth as the 12th doctor
#eleven begins to glow with regeneration energy #[final countdown plays in distance]
(via mimesandpunishment)
If Comedy Has No Lady Problem, Why Am I Getting So Many Rape Threats? -
Warning: The linked video is of West reading misogynist rape threats leveled at her after the debate. It’s disturbing stuff.
Lindy West recaps her experience after a recent debate about comedy, in which she rejected the idea that rape jokes have no effect on culture.
Let me be clear: I don’t believe that previously non-raping audience members are going to take to the streets in a rape mob after hearing one rape joke. That’s an absurd and insulting mischaracterization. But I do believe that comedy’s current permissiveness around cavalier, cruel, victim-targeting rape jokes contributes to (that’s contributes—not causes) a culture of young men who don’t understand what it means to take this stuff seriously.
And how did they try and prove me wrong? How did they try to demonstrate that comedy, in general, doesn’t have issues with women? By threatening to rape and kill me, telling me I’m just bitter because I’m too fat to get raped, and suggesting that the debate would have been better if it had just been Jim raping me.
