ACTUALLY—if you’re annoyed by my constant shouting about this women’s safety//rape, i suggest you keep fucking following me. and look inward. and think about what you’re doing to contribute to rape culture. and about what you’re doing with your body. and your brain. and your power. and…
Hearing other women’s sexual abuse & rape stories makes me so angry my teeth hurt. I cannot unclench my jaw. I am triggered. I am reminded. Of what happened to me. What has happened to so many of my girlfriends. I tell a friend a detailed account of what Greg did to me and I almost vomit. I get dizzy. I start to cry. I get confused. I have a hard time envisioning ever being touched again. I want to hide. And then I want to shout from the rooftops of the world. And then I feel crazy - why? Why do I feel crazy for screaming with anger and pain? For falling into depression? My mind tries to repress what really happened. I try to make sense of all this violence. I try to be compassionate & understanding - it’s a way of coping, & I am not crazy for that either. I am a woman who has been sexually abused & raped by a man she loved. And I hate saying that, I fucking hate saying that, because it makes me feel weak, pathetic, exactly how such violence is intended to make me feel. I am supposed to feel powerless. I am supposed to cower in weakness & submission. It’s easier that way. It’s comfortable. It feeds the system. It feeds the system to call myself crazy. And Fuck. The Fucking. System. Gregory S—. Janey S—. Stephen D—- [insert yr abuser here]. It’s tempting to call these men monsters but they’re not - they are men, and their attitudes & actions towards women are not isolated beliefs & events. They are misogyny & sexism in visible action. They are common. They are normal. And every time we talk about it we have an opportunity to change it.
God my teeth really fucking hurt. But they should. We should be outraged. We should have problems sleeping. And that doesn’t make us crazy. The opposite, actually. We’re in the fucking thick of reality.
This happens all the time. I’m upset that it happens. I’m upset that the men who do this don’t even realize what they are doing is rape. It would mean you have gone from a man to a rapist and this is to be resisted for as long as desire and silence breathe in the same space as disgust and…
TW: Domestic violence, abuse
“Rather than using the refrain “no means no,” the definition of consent under the bill requires ‘an affirmative, conscious and voluntary agreement to engage in sexual activity.’”
Read We Don’t Have To Do Anything by Sophia Katz on Medium
The piece stands on its own and is an emotional and important read. In it Sophia pours out an all too familiar narrative. The antagonist, Stan, is a stand in, but also -stan, the land of, the country. A monster, reflecting the…
Author of Red Paper Heart
I’m on Goodreads now if you wanna find me xo
Now I feel as though I hardly know the girl who dated him. But I can see how she was stiff yet accommodating. I can see the way she shrunk and contorted herself to make room for a man who did not desire her wholeness.
Gender violence is a human rights issue, so why is half the population removed from the discussion?
“Once language begins to shift, welcoming more people into the conversation of gender violence, we can begin to restructure our approach to the subject. As with any social change, education is the first step. It’s not enough to warn daughters of the risks of walking home alone, or teach them about date or marital rape. The more sons understand about their mothers’, sisters’, and girlfriends’ experiences as targets for gender violence, the more likely they are to be counted amongst the ambassadors for change. The encouraged dissection of their concepts of gender will result in consistent questioning of their and others’ assumptions and behaviors.”