gonna need to pull your head out of your ass to read this one buddy
MASSIVE trigger warning for the following links and bullets. includes mentions of rape, abuse, violence, racism, misogyny, homophobia, child sex abuse, pedophilia
Porn use:
- There are over 420 million pages of pornographic material online worldwide. (IFR)
- 72 million searches for porn are logged monthly. (IFR)
- 25% of all daily search engine requests are for pornography (68 million searches daily) (IFR)
- 42.7% of internet users view porn (IFR)
- 100,000-plus websites are devoted to child pornography. There are over 116,000 daily requests for this material. (IFR)
- 20% of men admit to accessing pornography at work (IFR)
- 35% of those purchasing online porn make $75,000-plus annually. (IFR)
- The United States is the top producer of pornographic web pages with 244,661,900, or 89 percent (IFR)
- Worldwide revenue from mobile phone pornography is $1 billion-plus and growing (Bryan-Low, Cassel and Pringle, David. “Sex Cells: Wireless Operators Find That Racy Cellphone Video Drives Surge in Broadband Use.” The Wall Street Journal, May 12, 2005)
Ex-porn star testimonies:
- Corina Taylor: ”When I arrived to the set I expected to do a vaginal girl boy scene. But during the scene with a male porn star, he forced himself anally into me and would not stop. I yelled at him to stop and screamed ‘No’ over and over but he would not stop. The pain became too much and I was in shock and my body went limp.”
- Jenna Jameson: ”Most girls get their first experience in gonzo films – in which they’re taken to a crappy studio apartment in Mission Hills and penetrated in every hole possible by some abusive asshole who thinks her name is Bitch.”
- Alexa James: ”The first shoot I did was with a man who was probably 40 and he was as thick as a soda can. He held me down and shoved it in me with no lube tearing my vagina. When I started to tear up and cry he flipped me over and continued from behind be so they wouldn’t get me crying on film. He pulled my hair and choked me over and over again even when I told him it hurt and I could barely breathe.”
- Linda Lovelace: ”My initiation into prostitution was a gang rape by five men, arranged by Mr. Traynor. It was the turning point in my life. He threatened to shoot me with the pistol if I didn’t go through with it. I had never experienced anal sex before and it ripped me apart. They treated me like an inflatable plastic doll, picking me up and moving me here and there. They spread my legs this way and that, shoving their things at me and into me, they were playing musical chairs with parts of my body. I have never been so frightened and disgraced and humiliated in my life. I felt like garbage. I engaged in sex acts for pornography against my will to avoid being killed.The lives of my family were threatened.”
- Andi Anderson: ”After a year or so of that so-called “glamorous” life, I sadly discovered that drugs and drinking were a part of the lifestyle. I began to drink and party out of control! Cocaine, alcohol and ecstasy were my favorites. Before long, I turned into a person I did not want to be. After doing so many hardcore scenes I couldn’t do it anymore. I just remember being in horrible situations and experiencing extreme depression and being alone and sad.”
- Alexa Milano: ”My first movie I was treated very rough by 3 guys. They pounded on me, gagged me with their penises, and tossed me around like I was a ball! I was sore, hurting and could barely walk. My insides burned and hurt so badly. I could barely pee and to try to have a bowel movement was out of the question. I was hurting so bad from the physical abuse from these 3 male porn stars.”
- Jessie Jewels: ”People in the porn industry are numb to real life and are like zombies walking around. The abuse that goes on in this industry is completely ridiculous. The way these young ladies are treated is totally sick and brainwashing. I left due to the trauma I experienced even though I was there only a short time.”
- Genevieve: ”I had bodily fluids all over my face that had to stay on my face for ten minutes. The abuse and degradation was rough. I sweated and was in deep pain. On top of the horrifying experience, my whole body ached, and I was irritable the whole day. The director didn’t really care how I felt; he only wanted to finish the video.”
- Jersey Jaxin: ”Guys punching you in the face. You have semen from many guys all over your face, in your eyes. You get ripped. Your insides can come out of you. It’s never ending.”
- Elizabeth Rollings: ”I didn’t want to feel the pain of penetration from an over average sized man, being told to freeze in a position until the camera man was happy with his shots was very painful. I had peoples body fluids forced on my face or anywhere else the producer pleased and I had to accept it or else no pay. Sometimes you would get to a gig and the producer would change what the scene was supposed to be to something more intense and again if you didn’t like it, too bad, you did it or no pay.”
- Lucky Starr: ”I was worried about my first anal scene for quite a few days … then the big moment arrived. It REALLY hurt! I almost quit and said, “I can’t do this”. When it was all over, I was so happy and relieved I was able to do it…”
- Ashlyn Brooke: ”I honestly felt that if I had to have another strange man in my face, his hands (God knows where they’ve been all over me) him calling me his baby and having to exude some sort of forged passion for the world to see, I probably would have exploded. And what would have been stuck to the walls would have probably been nothing, just pieces of skin, bone, the brain of a robot, and what would have been left of what would have existed once as a huge and warm heart.”
- Roxy: ”After only 30 movies I caught two sexually transmitted diseases. Herpes, a non-curable disease and HPV, which led to cervical cancer where I had to have half of my cervix removed. Porn destroyed my life.”
- Anita Cannibal: ”Yeah, there are a lot of cover-ups going on. There is a lot of tragedy. There are a lot of horrible things.”
- Tamra Toryn: ”As for myself, I ended up paying the price from working in the porn industry. In 2006, not even 9 months in, I caught a moderate form of dysplasia of the cervix (which is a form of HPV, a sexually transmitted disease) and later that day, I also found out I was pregnant. I had only 1 choice which was to abort the baby during my first month. It was extremely painful emotionally and physically. When it was all over, I cried my eyes out.”
- Jessi Summers: ”I also did a scene where I was put with male talent that was on my no list. I wanted to please them so I did it. He put his foot on my head and stepped on it while he was doing me from behind. I freaked out and started balling; they stopped filming and sent me home with reduced pay since they got some shot but not the whole sce
porn trends:
- “teen” is the most commonly searched porn term
- child pornography is one of the fastest growing businesses online.
how pornographers feel about women:
- “I’d like to really show what I believe the men want to see: violence against women. I firmly believe that we [pornographers] serve a purpose by showing that. The most violent we can get is the cum shot in the face. Men get off behind that, because they get even with the women they can’t have. We try to inundate the world with orgasms in the face.” - Bill Margold, porn industry veteran, quoted in Robert J. Stoller and I. S. Levine, Coming Attractions: The Making of an X-rated video; 1993.
- “There’s nothing I love more than when a girl insists to me that she won’t take a cock in her ass, because — oh yes she will!” -Max Hardcore, interviewed in Hustler (June 1995).
- “My whole reason for being in this Industry is to satisfy the desire of the men in the world who basically don’t much care for women and want to see the men in my Industry getting even with the women they couldn’t have when they were growing up. I strongly believe this… so we come on a woman’s face or somewhat brutalize her sexually: we’re getting even for their lost dreams. I believe this. I’ve heard audiences cheer me when I do something foul on screen. When I’ve strangled a person or sodomized a person, or brutalized a person, the audience is cheering my action, and then when I’ve fulfilled my warped desire, the audience applauds.” - Bill Margold, porn industry veteran and Free Speech Coalition board member.
- “It might promote violence against women in the United States, but I say, ‘Good.’ I hate those bitches. They’re out of line and that’s one of the reasons I want to do this … I’m going through a divorce right now. … I hate American women.” - What pornographers really think of women (Deutsche Presse-Agentur, 14 October 1999)
2010 study on popular porn films:
- 88% of scenes contained physical aggression, including spanking, gagging, and slapping.
- Women were overwhelmingly the targets of aggressive acts, and men the perpetrators.
- Following instances of aggression towards women, in 95% of cases the women expressed pleasure or neutrality.
cases of porn leading children to commit sexual assualt IN THE UK ALONE:
- February 2014: A 13-year-old boy told a UK court that he raped his 8-year-old sister after viewing pornography at his friend’s house. The teenager told police he “decided to try it out” on his sister because she was small and “couldn’t remember stuff,” reported the Lancashire Telegraph.
- November 2013: A different 13-year old UK boy pleaded guilty to raping an eight-year old girlwhen he was 10. A pornography addiction since age 9 was said to have played a significant role in his crimes.
- March 2013: Two boys aged 14 and 15 admitted to a British court that they were re-enacting scenes witnessed in violent online pornography when they beat, brutalized, then raped a 14-year-old girl they had tied to a chair.
- March 2013: A UK report found that thousands of British children had committed sexual offenses. In all, 4,562 minors – some as young as five – committed 5,028 sexual offenses over a three year period from 2009-2012. Experts blamed “easy access to sexual material.”
- January 2012: Children’s aid and sex abuse organizations in Australia largely blamed 414 cases of children sexually abusing other children on the explosion of pornography made accessible to children.
- August 2012: A 13-year-old Canadian boy pleaded guilty to repeatedly raping a 4-year-old boy who lived in his foster home. The boy said the idea came from watching “gay porn” on his foster parents’ home computer.
- April 2012: A child therapist reported a case of a 13-year-old boy who raped his 5-year-old sisterafter developing a “complex fantasy world” warped by “two years of constant porn use.”
- Latinos and Hispanics: Pornography tends to stereotype Hispanic women as feisty, “hot and spicy Latinas”, sexy Señoritas, with a high sex drive and low impulse control. Many are portrayed as maids, illegal immigrants to the United States, or unfaithful wives. Since Latinos and Hispanics can be of any race (many are white Hispanic Americans, Mestizos etc.), cultural characteristics are sometimes portrayed via iconic items like South and Central American national costumes, sombreros, maracas, or Mexican dresses.
- Asian women: Are viewed as sexually willing or submissive. Asian men are hardly portrayed in pairing with white women and not as common compared to white men with asian women porn. Asian women are mainly portrayed as the: “Dragon Ladies”, as servile “Lotus Blossom Babies”, “Innocent School Girls” in private school uniforms, “China dolls”, “Geisha girls”, war brides, or prostitutes. Japanese media have also at times sensationalistically promoted the stereotype of Japanese women overseas as “yellow cabs”.
- Black performers: Large penis size in Black men is consistently emphasized in pornography, often by exclusively casting actors with larger than average penises such as Lexington Steele, Kid Bengala, Jack Napier and Mandingo. Men are often treated to stereotypes of gang affiliation, working class labor, and are overrepresented in gang rape fetish films. Also, they are represented as overly aggressive and demanding, and are performing with white women. Similarly, black women are often portrayed with large breast and buttocks, or ‘booty’. They normally play a submissive role while performing with a white male.
- Youth who look at violent x-rated material are six times more likely to report forcing someone to do something sexual online or in-person versus youth not exposed to x-rated material. [12]
- Middle-school aged boys who view X-rated content are almost three times more likely to report oral sex and sexual intercourse than boys who do not use sexually explicit material[13]
- A study in the southeastern U.S. found that 53 percent of boys and 28 percent of girls (ages 12-15) reported use of sexually explicit media. The Internet was the most popular forum for viewing. [14]
- The words “sex” and “porn” rank fourth and sixth among the top ten most popular search terms. [15]
- Roughly two-thirds (67 percent) of young men and one-half (49 percent) of young women agree that viewing pornography is acceptable.[7]
- Nearly 9 out of 10 (87 percent) young men and 1 out of 3 (31 percent) young women report using pornography.[8]
- Experts have warned that the rise in the viewing of pornography was implicated in a variety of problems, including a rise in the levels of STDs and teenage pregnancies. Additionally, males aged between 12 and 17 who regularly viewed pornography had sex at an earlier stage in life and were more likely to initiate oral sex, apparently imitating what they had seen. [9] [10]
- Internet pornography was blamed for a 20 percent increase in sexual attacks by children over three years.[6]
- One out of three youth who viewed pornography, viewed the pornography intentionally.[1]
- Seven out of ten youth have accidentally come across pornography online.[2]
- Nearly 80 percent of unwanted exposure to pornography is taking place in the home (79 percent occurs in the home; 9 percent occurs at school; 7 percent other/unknown; 5 percent at a friend’s home).[3]
- Kids experience unwanted exposure to sexual material via:[4] A link came up as a result of an innocent word search (40 percent), Clicking on a link in another site (17 percent), A pop-up (14 percent), Other (13 percent), Misspelled web address (12 percent), Don’t know (4 percent), Pictures involving animals or other strange things (10 percent)
- Type of material youth encounter when unwanted exposure to pornography occurs:[5] Naked people (86 percent), People having sex (37 percent), Violent pictures (13 percent)
- Nearly 74 percent of pornography websites surveyed display adult content on their homepage (accessible to anyone) before asking if the viewers are of legal age. [11]
- American children begin consuming hardcore pronography at an average age of 11
- Four out of five 16 year-olds regularly access pornography online
- Findings from the Youth Internet Safety Survey indicate that 15% of 12-17 year olds have purposefully looked at x-rated material online.
- Data from the PEW Internet and American Life Project suggest that 70% of 15-17 year old internet users accidently view pornography “very” or “Somewhat” often.
Child Pornography
- Child pornography is a $3-billion industry. (Top Ten Reviews)
- Child pornography is one of the fastest growing businesses online, and the content is becoming much worse. (Internet Watch Foundation) Internet Watch Foundation confirmed 1536 child abuse domains in 2008.
- The fastest growing demand in commercial websites for child abuse is for images depicting the worst type of abuse, including penetrative sexual activity involving children and adults and sadism or penetration by an animal. 58% of child sexual abuse images depict this level of abuse. (IWF, 2008)
- 69% of all victims in child abuse images are between the ages of 0 and 10 years old. (IWF, 2008)
- In a study of arrested child pornography possessors, 40 percent had both sexually victimized children and were in possession of child pornography. Of those arrested between 2000 and 2001, 83 percent had images involving children between the ages 6 and 12; 39 percent had images of children between ages 3 and 5; and 19% had images of infants and toddlers under age 3 (National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, Child Pornography Possessors Arrested in Internet-Related Crimes: Findings fro the National Juvenile Online Victimization Study. 2005).
- further decline in dopamine levels
- further decline in opioids and endorphins
- drop-off in GABA, which is an anti-anxiety neurotransmitter
- rise in brain stress hormones CRF and norepinephrine
- elevated dynorphin which inhibits dopamine and lowers your pleasure response
- one week after quitting the reward center sprouts new nerve cell branches, which correlate with cravings to use
- More sources on addiction to porn
Common porn addiction withdrawal symptoms include:
- Anxiety
- Restlessness
- Irritability
- Insomnia
- Fatigue
- Headaches
- Poor concentration
- Depression
- Social isolation
- Loss of libido (Can take days to manifest, and last a long time)
Adult (>18 years old) exposure to pornographic media is connected with:
- Believing a rape victim enjoyed rape
- Believing women suffer less from rape
- Believing women in general enjoy rape
- Believing a rape victim experienced pleasure and “got what she wanted”
- Believing women make false accusations of rape
- Believing rapist deserve less jail time
- More acceptance of the rape myth
- More acceptance of violence against women
- More likely to go to a prostitute and to go more frequently
- Increasing their estimates of how often people engage in sex with violence
- More self-reported likelihood of forcing a women sexually
- More self-reported likelihood of rape
- Creating more sexually violent fantasies to get aroused
- Engaging in more sexual harassment behaviors
- More likelihood of forcing a woman sexually
- More likelihood of future rape
- Using physical coercion to have sex
- Using verbal coercion to have sex
- Using drugs and alcohol to sexually coerce women
- Having engaged in rape
- Having engaged in date rape
- Having engaged in marital rape
- Being an adult sex offender
- Being a child molester
- Being an incest offender
- Engaging in sexual abuse of a battered spouse
- More willingness to have sex with 13-14 year olds
- More sexual attraction to children
- Having sexually abused children
Life and death of a porn star:
- all the women who don’t make money from the porn industry.
- the women who are kidnapped, tortured, and forced into snuff films.
- the skeletons that NAFTA keeps hidden in cobweb-ridden closets on the U.S.-Mexican border.
- their average career length is 3 months. [x] [x]
If you don’t feel like reading:
- Shelley Lubben: Porn as a driver for prostitution and sex trafficking, (Vimeo)
- Cindy Gallop: Make love, not porn (Adult content)
- “They call it fantasy," - Andrea Dworkin
- Ex-Pornstar Jan Villarubia tells her story
- Dr. Gail Dines addressing porn culture and rape culture’s intersecting roles in patriarchy
- “Two Ex-Porn Stars Uncover The Truth About Porn.”
- This guy stopped watching porn — and he wants you to know why.
- Facing Life Head-On: Satan’s Final Frontier—the Sex Industry
- Dr. Gail Dine’s lectures on pornography on youtube (1, 2, 3, 4)
- This video has footage the porn industry doesn’t want you to see. Women are abused, screaming, crying, raped and in pain on the porn set…No woman should have to go to work only to return home beaten and traumatized.”
- On the show Date My Pornstar, porn fans get to interact and converse with their favorite pornstars about their experiences in the industry
- The story of ex-pornstar ‘Sal’, (Pink Cross Foundation)
- Porn actress Sierra Sinn Leaves Porn
- On the Joni talk show, ex-porn actresses come forward to share their experiences on what drove them into the porn industry, how it impacted their lives and what drove them out.
Just links:
- Here is a site that has testimonies from lots of porn stars. The site is run by an ex pornstar who has dedicated her life to helping the women in the industry.
- Here is an article about Linda Lovelace, star of Deep Throat, basically the first pornography film, talking about how the film was her being raped, and the other atrocities she went through in the porn industry.
- Here is a video of a talk show where three porn actresses speak out against the industry and tell their stories. I can assure you, these are not extreme cases. This is the average life of porn stars.
- Here has great information on the porn industry, and if you scroll down to Porn and the Performer, you can read statistics about the porn industry and porn actresses and what they suffer through.
- Here is some facts about porn from Shelley Lubbens website.
- How porn harms the economy
- How porn harms relationships
- How porn harms gay men
- How porn harms gay women
- How porn harms POC
- Stop Porn Culture’s FAQ
- 400+ dead porn stars obituaries
- more databases on dead porn stars
- More testimonies
- 100+ stories
- anti porn documentaries
- DianaRussell.com
- Shelley Lubben.com (Ex porn-star helping other porn stars)
- Shelley Lubben’s MySpace Website
- List of Dead Porn Stars and How They Died
- Where My Ladies At (About porn and it’s connection to hip hop and rap.)
- Feminist Fred: A Place for Men to Learn about Feminism (Also home of Pornsick Pat)
- Compulsion Solutions
- Internet Pornography Statistics (InternetFilterReview.com)
- Porn and Sex Industry Statistics (Enough is Enough.)
- Pornography and Sex Trade Statistics (Most thorough and documented.)
- PBS Documentary “Porn In America”. Full video and lots of information.
- XXX Family Values: ABC Primetime Show about Porn Star Sunny Lane. (Sunny’s parents are her managers. Transcript and video clip at link.)
- ABC Primetime Interview with Porn Star Belladonn (Tells the harsh truth about porn.)
- Porn Profits: Corporate America’s Secret (ABC Primetime Show.)
- Anti-Pornography and Prostitution Research Group (Japan)
- Pornography: Creating Demand for International Sex Trafficking (By Shared Hope International)
- SHIT LOAD OF STATS
if these links aka fucking cold hard proof dont make you stop watching it, i hope you drop dead.
Nice work. Probably won’t work on him.
everyone needs to take some time out of their day and read up on this.
STOP
FUCKING
WATCHING
PORN
also, hey, it’s just not. hot.
Book porn. Seriously guys, there are books for this.
I posted last week asking people if they knew of some good resources for male victims of sexual assault. Here is the list people came up with:
Thanks everyone!
To think that some people don’t see a problem with society is disturbing
it’s not just disturbing, it’s fucking scary.
Comic about slurs, published in the Galago magazine last summer.
Excerpt from “Trigger Warning” by Briana Zora Libby [x]
[[trigger warning: rape]]
In response to the Steubenville, Ohio teen rape case, West Virginia U.S. Attorney William J. Ihlenfeld is launching a program to teach high school athletes not to post evidence of rape online.
It’s called “Project Future,” and his goal is to teach teens how to avoid getting in trouble with the law by using cell phones, cameras, and social media “responsibly.” Instead of teaching teens not to rape, the U.S. Attorney wants to teach them not to get caught.
This is rape culture at work: The very people who are in charge of enforcing our laws look at a cruel, brutal attack on a young girl and think, “If only the teens hadn’t posted photographic evidence online.”
"5 Things More Likely To Happen To You Than Being Falsely Accused Of Rape
A man is 631 times more likely to become an NFL player than to be falsely accused of rape.
“We end on a serious note. Because 1 in 33 men will be raped in his lifetime, men are 82,000x more likely to be raped than falsely accused of rape. It seems many of us would do well to pay more attention to how rape culture affects us all than be paranoid about false accusers.”
that last paragraph
Laurie Halse Anderson, author of Speak, on the question “Have any readers ever asked questions that shocked you?”
Read that again. Read it again, and again, and again. Over and over guys have asked her why Melinda was so upset about being raped. This is a girl who went to a party with friends. She was thirteen. She had a drink, because everyone else was. And a senior held her down and raped her while she was too drunk to get away.
And guys don’t understand why she was upset.
Read that again and then come back and tell me again why I should just shut up and take a joke when a comedian blows off rape as a big deal, or women’s bodies are casually treated as commodities in media. Remind me why I shouldn’t care about the very real harm that society’s treatment of women and sexual assault does.
(via witchlingfumbles)
Two weeks ago a man in France was arrested for raping his daughter. She’d gone to her school counselor and then the police, but they needed “hard evidence.” So, she videotaped her next assault. Her father was eventually arrested. His attorney explained, “There was a period when he was unemployed and in the middle of a divorce. He insists that these acts did not stretch back further than three or four months. His daughter says longer. But everyone should be very careful in what they say.” Because, really, even despite her seeking help, her testimony, her bravery in setting up a webcam to film her father raping her, you really can’t believe what the girl says, can you?
Everyone “knows” this. Even children.
Three years ago, in fly-on-the-wall fashion of parent drivers everywhere, I listened while a 14-year-old girl in the back seat of my car described how angry she was that her parents had stopped allowing her to walk home alone just because a girl in her neighborhood “claimed she was raped.” When I asked her if there was any reason to think the girl’s story was not true, she said, “Girls lie about rape all the time.” She didn’t know the person, she just assumed she was lying…
No one says, “You can’t trust women,” but distrust them we do. College students surveyed revealed that they think up to 50% of their female peers lie when they accuse someone of rape, despite wide-scale evidence and multi-country studies that show the incident of false rape reports to be in the 2%-8% range, pretty much the same as false claims for other crimes. As late as 2003, people jokingly (wink, wink) referred to Philadelphia’s sex crimes unit as “the lying bitch unit.” If an 11-year-old girl told an adult that her father took out a Craigslist ad to find someone to beat and rape her while he watched, as recently actually occurred, what do you think the response would be? Would she need to provide a videotape after the fact?
It goes way beyond sexual assault as well. That’s just the most likely and obvious demonstration of “women are born to lie” myths. Women’s credibility is questioned in the workplace, in courts, by law enforcement, in doctors’ offices, and in our political system. People don’t trust women to be bosses, or pilots, or employees. Pakistan’s controversial Hudood Ordinance still requires a female rape victim to procure four male witnesses to her rape or risk prosecution for adultery. In August, a survey of managers in the United States revealed that they overwhelmingly distrust women who request flextime. It’s notable, of course, that women are trusted to be mothers—the largest pool of undervalued, unpaid, economically crucial labor.
"
bitch-imamotherfuckingprincess:
I went to the bathroom in a building on my campus and saw this on the back of the stall door. While I’m deeply upset that a young woman went through such a horrible ordeal, I’m also very touched that so many other girls wanted to help her and offered advice as well as ways to seek help. We are women hear us roar.
TRIGGER WARNING
This is a Scottish anti-rape PSA that is a direct response to blaming a rape victim for dressing like a slut. What do you think? Is it effective?
Never have I seen such an effective video in my life… and it’s only 30 seconds long. Definitely, 100% watch and reblog this.
Nobody asks to be raped. Ever.
Well done Scotland
fucking hell.
jesus fucking hell.
People’s response to a rapist truck driver trying to take a 16 year old runaway girl
THIS IS SO IMPORTANT YOU GUYS
That woman is my heroine
I want to say thank you all for watching something so important. This can lead to the saving of other boys and girls from being raped and kidnapped. All it takes is one voice to save a life.

ifoundthisandthoughtitwasfunny:
WHAT THE FUCK
As bad as the percentages for men were, it’s also disturbing for the women’s numbers as well… like it’s internalized misogyny and sexism, with, most likely, slut-shaming to follow.
After all, the Stubenville Rape Survivor got death threats over twitter from other women, and were charged with that crime.
…this is horrifying.
no fucking words jesus christ
When is rape okay?
NEVER.
Humanity fails for the 694087435546th time.
whaaat
i never ever ever was told that rape was conditionally bad
where are people shaping these opinions because i need to just go there and make them stop holy shit
Just last week I happened to be awake at 3 am and heard “go away, stop it” from outside my apartment window. Of course I was worried and wound up going outside with my cell phone and my pocket knife (the cell phone so I could pretend I was on it). I found a woman across the street, 18-20, somewhat drunk and trying to pull away from a guy claiming to be her boyfriend. After walking to the end of the block and back I sucked it up and stopped right next to them and asked her if she was okay. No. I asked if she knew him. Yes. I asked if he was her boyfriend. No. I asked if she wanted to go with him. No. I told her she could come with me. He wouldn’t let go of her arm and kept talking to her with the platitudes women are familiar with - come on baby, I’ll take you home, just hang out with me, we were having such a good time - and eventually he gave in after seeing I had my finger on the dial button, but he was vibrating on the spot and he was pissed. Then he kept talking to me with all the insults women are familiar with - bitch, cunt, stupid fucking slut, etcetera forever. And of course he went after her for “leading him on.” I got her in a cab from my front door and went so far as to make sure I didn’t turn on any lights when I went inside so he wouldn’t know that my apartment was on the basement level facing the street where he was standing.
But this isn’t a problem or anything.
A few months ago I was working late shifts at work and getting off at 3 am. I only live a few blocks from there, so I was walking home. This was when there was a series of attacks against women in my neighbourhood. Not rapes, but escalating attempts to harm women, involving choking. So yes, I was on red alert. A group of five men from the bars saw me walking home. They started calling out to me - again, with all the lines women are used to (that, by the way guys, are not in the least bit attractive) - hey baby, where you goin, come on just stay and chat, a pretty thing like you shouldn’t be going home alone, where do you live. I ignored them and walked faster, and they sped up to keep up with me. Five men in their 20s. Following me home, drunk, and getting progressively angrier that I wouldn’t talk to them. “Why the fuck you being so rude? We just want to talk, quit being such a frigid bitch.” *guffaw guffaw* “Baby come on slow down, have some coffee with us.” I walked even faster, still not talking to them. I have foot and knee injuries, so this was getting really painful and I couldn’t have broken into a run if I’d tried. They thought this whole thing was quite hilarious and quite rude of me, never mind that I’m the one being followed home by drunk strangers. I finally looped a block and backtracked to the main road, which is really well-lit, and plopped myself dead centre in the middle of the ambulance-police combo that is in front of one of the bars every Saturday night without fail.
But street harassment isn’t a problem or anything.
Walking down a bright road in daylight, men lean out of car windows and honk and cheer at me and my friends. This has been happening since I was 14. Many of them are stuck at the same light we are, so we spend a good two minutes listening to them ask us to flash them. “Just show us your titties, we’ll give you each $5!”
Going to a bar and getting my ass groped at the bar as a precursor to offering to buy me a drink. I don’t know if men think this is a demonstration of their sexual abilities, or what, but it happens all the time.
Walking home from Walmart at 10pm and having a guy walk by me say “nice titties” thinking I can’t hear him because I have headphones in. Worst of all, spinning in anger and having to keep my mouth shut, because it could get a lot worse really fast.
Being “accidentally” groped on buses and trains frequently (they say they’re stumbling and that’s where their hands end up, but come on: I’m on the same vehicle, there was no jolt, and even if their was my hands don’t wind up on them), and not being able to complain without everybody thinking you’re crazy.
Dancing at a bar and having a guy slide his hand down the front of my pants. And then getting thrown out for elbowing him and shoving him away from me.
Getting told to smile by strangers (always men), and being told to cheer up, like I owe them a certain mood.
Having a guy you slept with once sit outside your house for seven hours, and then try to follow you inside while you pretend not to notice his car, and then disregard your requests through the intercom to leave you alone. And then, when you finally call the police, having the policeman call you back to say “He’s leaving, but he sounded sincerely sorry. You shouldn’t be so hard on him, he sounds like a nice guy.” Yeah, give him your home address then.
Having male customers look you up and down like you’re on the menu, and not being able to slap the customer who grabs your ass while you’re cleaning tables because you’ll be fired.
Finding out your sister’s employer felt comfortable uttering threats to punch her in the face for accusing him of being unfair, and her not feeling like she could tell anybody.
Having my male boss feel like he can touch me, rub my shoulders, call me honey and sweetheart and baby, and him being right, he can do those things, because everybody calls you oversensitive if you complain about those things.
Being followed home numerous times, both on foot and by car, being forced to talk to the guy who sits next to you on the bus for 45 minutes straight, and since I couldn’t think of a non-threatening way not to give him my phone number, I did so that I could get away. It took him a year and a half to stop calling me. Being told I’m paranoid for carrying any kind of protection, and stupid for not protecting myself, I’m a misandrist for assuming the worst of strange men, and stupid for having a conversation, I’m rude for asking men to leave me alone, and stupid and weak for not being more direct and assertive. Being told to go out and have fun more, stop being so uptight, and having that thrown in my face when something happens, because if I had some morals and didn’t advertise myself as, I don’t know, being alive or something, nothing would have happened. Being told to give him a chance and then being told to stop leading him on. Having to know all of the escape routes on my way home, and sending staff to the dumpsters in pairs. Having it be a fucking brave thing to do to stand next to a girl so she can walk away from the guy trying to bully her into going home with him.
And then having to listen to people say, “You’re exaggerating. Men aren’t like that, quit trying to see the worst in people. Men get harassed too, just ignore them and walk away. It’s the same thing.” Listening to people just step right over the fact that if woman deems a guy creepy, she’s told she’s being too critical and she needs to lower her standards, but if a man deems a woman possessive, controlling, demanding, jealous, bitchy, clingy, psycho, on her period, whiny, or outright dangerous he’s commended on his standards and congratulated on a bullet deftly dodged.
How many women does it take to bring these things to light before people stop thinking we’re crazy, over-critical bitches?
Amen. This is perfect.