Tag: Rape culture

Thoughts on Season 7, Episode 1 of True Blood

Spoilers and a lot of swearing. Mind yourself.

Yes, I watch True Blood. Mr. Katje and I marathoned through several seasons and then got all caught up, and started catching episodes as they came out.

If you asked us why we’ve stuck with it we’d likely respond with “Stockholm Syndrome.” The show is like a trainwreck: awful, but you can’t tear your eyes away. At some point the only characters on the show we weren’t constantly wishing death upon were Lafayette, Eric, and Terry. (Other characters had their moments but these 3 were the only ones we consistently did not hate.)

All of the protagonists are stupid. The show is terribly written. They handle rape so awfully I should be surprised but sadly I am not. (Seriously, really really awful.)

And yet we keep coming back. We’re addicted to it, like one gets addicted to V.

So on that note, my thoughts on the first episode of the final (thank gods) season. There be spoilers and a lot of swearing ahead; mind yerself. (though if you haven’t seen it my thoughts might not make much sense, anyway.)

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This is Rape Culture — addendum to my Amanda Todd post

Trigger warning: description of rape, rape culture, misogyny, bullying, suicide

Something I didn’t really get into in my last post about Amanda Todd’s suicide is the misogyny, sexism, and clear and present rape culture apparent in the details of the case. I did originally write about it in my post, but decided I wanted to focus on suicide and not misogyny in that post, and that I could write a follow-up post later.

This is that follow-up post.

Most of the posts about Amanda attribute her suicide to bullying and tend to ignore the fact that it was more than bullying. It was sexual harassment. It was assault based on slut-shaming.

She was convinced to flash a guy on webcam. We don’t know if she was coerced or not, but it’s likely. Regardless, she regretted doing it.

Then she was stalked and harassed by a guy who had gotten a hold of a screenshot of that flash, who told her to “give him a show” or he’d distribute the picture to all her friends.

That’s rape culture.

The idea that men are entitled to women’s bodies, and that if they don’t get what they want they can force the issue — that’s rape culture. The idea that stalking and harassing a girl because she flashed someone once online is acceptable — that’s rape culture. The idea that she got what she deserved because she slept with someone who was involved with another person — that’s rape culture. The framing of the story by certain news agencies to moralize about how girls shouldn’t show their breasts on webcam because, oh, look what happens — that’s rape culture. The fact that no one is really talking about the misogyny, sexism, and slut-shaming present in her case — that’s rape culture. The comments on various sites by “trolls” — rape culture.

And social media has made rape culture more pervasive and more dangerous.
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Rape Culture and Fatphobia

[TRIGGER WARNING: RAPE, FATPHOBIA]

Rape seed caught at sunset
This is not the rape I’m talking about. (Image by jimmedia via Flickr.)

“Fat girls should be happy for any attention.”

“Oh, come on, she’s too fat to be raped!”

How many times have you heard or seen the above sentiments, or ones similar to them? How many times have you uttered them, either because you truly believe they’re true or because you’ve internalized hatred of yourself, or both?

I’ve heard and seen these sentiments a lot. I wish I had a quarter for each time, because then I’d have enough quarters for several rolls of quarters, and then I’d use them to beat people. Namely misogynistic fatphobic rape apologists.

Which, by the way, the people who utter these sentiments are.

I get it if you’ve internalized the hatred of yourself. I do. I was there for a long time. But darlin, you’ve got to pull yourself out of that trench. Please believe me when I say that a) rape has nothing to do sex and everything to do with power and b) you are beautiful regardless. And please believe me when I say that continuing to utter those sentiments contributes to rape culture and fat hatred.

This is the insidious thing about oppression: we are trained to be complicit in our own degradation. From birth we are put into this culture that tells us these sentiments, these vicious lies, and parades them about as truth. And with so many years of this being drilled into our heads, it’s understandable we may believe these things about ourselves.

So we utter these same statements and make it easier for the oppressor to keep his great big boot on our faces. We have been well-trained to hate ourselves. We have been well-trained to hate others like ourselves, to question their every move.

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