“I know this is years too late, but I’m sorry I didn’t answer you. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you the truth. I’m sorry for you, and I’m sorry for me. We both could have used that truth, I’m thinking. It could have saved me (and maybe you) from so much. But I was afraid. I’m still afraid—my fear like continents and the ocean between—but I’m going to speak anyway, because, as Audre Lorde has taught us, my silence will not protect me.”
Tag: tw: rape
disease-danger-darkness-silence:
I hate Freud.
His whole weird theory about penis envy and children being sexually attracted to their parents and secret desires and all that shit actually came straight out of an attempt to ally himself with wealthy and influential rapists and was a direct form of victim blaming.
He had started the research looking into “hysteria” which at the time was really usually referring to women’s symptoms of PTSD. It turned out that the reason so many woman had these symptoms is because so many of them had experienced sexual violence– especially CSA and incest at the hands of their fathers.
At first he was making real progress, and it was through working with these women that he discovered that talk therapy could be used to treat trauma. The symptoms of PTSD were lessened when women were able to safely speak about their experiences out loud and be believed.
But it wasn’t the women who paid for the therapy. It was their fathers, husbands, the same men who were perpetuating the violence in the first place. And Freud didn’t want to validate his patients (the women) if it meant making his clients (the men) unhappy.
So he came up with a new idea. These symptoms weren’t from trauma. The memories weren’t real. These women were just sexual beings as children and had penis envy and it made them lust for their fathers and fantasize about the rape that they had reported to him. That’s where the shittiest parts of Freud’s theories emerged.
Another part of it besides just the monetary aspect, though, was that there was a feminist movement on the fringes starting up at the time and by publishing work about women’s CSA he would be aligning himself with it and therefore losing support, respect, funding, prestige from his male peers and from the psychological community at large. He literally made that gross victim blaming shit up to keep his own reputation with these fucks and to make sure he still got publication and fame.
By coming up with fake theory about little girls fantasizing about incest he not only fucked over generations of women, the feminist movement that was arising, and the entire psychology field for years to come, but he also completely swept away any progress made in understanding trauma and so we didn’t have any clue why men coming back from war had “hysteria” like women during WWI.
And our research on PTSD and trauma is still lacking to this day, especially because of the stigma that maybe traumatized people deserved it or wanted it or imagined it. People don’t want to believe it’s real. Perpetrators of traumatic violence want everyone to forget about it, not acknowledge it, or trivialize it.
And they have Freud’s cultural legacy to help them.
Can you provide academic citations for this? This is really neat.
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0959353596062015
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0959353596062015
If you don’t have access bc paywall, here’s a decent summary on Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Freudian_Coverup
Some vague proof:’
An essay on the topic:
http://socialistreview.org.uk/404/whats-wrong-sigmund-freud
If you want some more, just google, “Sigmund Freud Seduction Theory Problematic.” There’s lots of academic and non-academic discussion on the topic, but TLDR Sigmund Freud is basically disregarded in almost all aspects of psychology by anyone who actually cares about their patients, so fuck that guy for holding psychology back.
Words cannot express how much I hate Freud. His theories have been entirely disproven by current psychological research, but using him to interpret literary texts is still a widely accepted technique in the field of literary study today.
English departments across the country will not bat an eye at tenured professors bringing Freud into lectures and citing him in scholarly articles and books. Doing a “Freudian reading” of a literary character or theme is regarded as a valid means of understanding and drawing meaning from works by authors as diverse as William Shakespeare, James Joyce, and C.S. Lewis. And it is based entirely on this guy’s unbelievably sexist, flat-out fraudulent, and thoroughly disproven research. It’s insane.
Just so everyone on my dash is aware that Freud’s theories are pseudoscience.
natalie portman radiates such a terrifying energy i can’t describe it….. it’s not exactly evil but it’s not warm either…. i feel like she could unhinge her jaw and drag me into the ocean like a kraken but she wouldn’t bc it’s undignified
Wanna know why?
“Oscar-winning actress Natalie Portman told the crowd at Saturday’s Women’s March in downtown Los Angeles that she experienced what she calls “sexual terrorism” as a 13-year-old after the release of the film The Professional.
Portman described her pride and excitement in releasing the film, only to encounter sexually explicit messages both directed toward her and made about her.
”I excitedly opened my first fan mail to read a rape fantasy that a man had written me,” she recalled. “A countdown was started on my local radio show to my 18th birthday, euphemistically the date that I would be legal to sleep with. Movie reviewers talked about my budding breasts in reviews.”
The experience, she said, changed the way she expressed herself publicly, in order to limit the ways she could be objectified by others.
”I understood very quickly, even as a 13-year-old, that if I were to express myself sexually, I would feel unsafe,” she said. “And that men would feel entitled to discuss and objectify my body to my great discomfort. So I quickly adjusted my behavior. I rejected any role that even had a kissing scene and talked about that choice deliberately in interviews. I emphasized how bookish I was and how serious I was. And I cultivated an elegant way of dressing. I built a reputation for basically being prudish, conservative, nerdy, serious, in an attempt to feel that my body was safe and that my voice would be listened to.”
Video of the speech here: https://www.vox.com/2018/1/21/16917130/natalie-portman-womens-march
When I was 13 years old and curious about sex and love, I asked my mom if she had had sex before marrying my father (of whom she is still married to, and has been since before I was born). She said that that wasn’t really a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ question. I said ‘sure it is, you’ve either had sex before him, or you haven’t’. She brought me onto the couch and sat me down and told me about the boy she liked when she was young and how one night she snuck into his house while his parents were gone and they were kissing and he said they should have sex and she said that she wanted to save sex for marriage and he laughed and basically took all her clothes off and he raped her and as my mom was telling the story she cried and this was the second time I had ever seen my mom cry. She was 12 when it happened.
In grade 8 I got a call from my friend in the middle of the night and she was drunk in the park crying and told me that she went out that night with some other friends and they drank a little and her guy “friend” starting flirting and yes she laughed at first but then he tried to pull her shirt over her head and she pulled away and he ripped her shirt and it was her favourite shirt and then he pushed her to her knees and HIS BEST FRIEND HELD HER JAW OPEN WHILE HE FACE FUCKED HER. And so I went to the park and picked her up and took her home and slept in her bed with her except we didn’t sleep because she just cried and her mouth bled and this was four years ago but I still have to be the one to bring her items to the till it the cashier is a man, and she still has anxiety attacks and she’ll get a rash all over her body and I just want to kill those boys but instead they are still walking around. And I’m in the bathroom with her, dabbing at her skin with a warm cloth until it returns to its regular colour.
And in grade 9 one of my closest friends was kinda seeing this boy and so they hung out one night and then she said that she really had to be getting back home and he said that she wasn’t going anywhere until she gave him what he wanted and he parked the car and took off her clothes and she said no and he ignored her and so she laid in the backseat totally limp and just cried and it wasn’t even sex, he just masterbated by using her body instead of his hand and she came to school the next day with vodka in her water bottle and she drank all day and I had to fight her to get the alcohol away from her and she just cried and threw up and I skipped class while I held her hair back and that same boy texted me a month later, asking if I ever wanted to hangout sometime.
And in that same year my very best friend who has never even kissed a boy, confessed to me that when she was 9 years old, her 12 year old cousin made her give him a hand job and he told her that was what cousins do and he gave her a chocolate bar afterwards and she told me that he probably doesn’t even remember it but that it’s something that she’ll never have the luxury of forgetting.
And in grade 10 I knew a girl who invited her best friend over to watch Disney movies and then he started to put his hands down her pants and she said no but she is 130lbs and he is 220lbs and he called her a tease while she tried to fight him but he used one hand to hold her down, and the other to put inside of her and i was the one to push her inside of a classroom and stand in front of her while calling the police when he showed up at our school looking for her and she was so damn scared.
And a few months later I skipped class and was in the car with a guy who i had had unprotected sex with in the past while under the influence of cocaine but this time I was sober and I insisted we use a condom but he told me he couldn’t feel anything while the condom was on so he ripped it off and I said I refused to have unprotected sex again and so he just grabbed me and forced himself into my mouth and I was crying and he pulled me onto him and I just came saying “stop” over and over like a broken record but he must’ve heard something different because he went until he came and I just sat naked in the backseat while he drove me back to the school and said “we should do this again sometime”. And I had five showers that night and I scratched at my skin so hard to try and rip his fingerprints off of me, I still have the scars.
And I found out soon afterwards that that same guy had raped a classmate of mine, 5 months earlier and she told me about how he brought her McDonald’s first, and how he said they could take things slow and she told me about how he didn’t listen to her either. And he goes to our school and so after she told me about her incident and I told her about mine, we decided to report it to the police and the trial is currently still going on and he told people about it, except in his version we are just “asking for attention” and all his friends talk about how bad they feel for him. As if HE is the one that still wakes up screaming. As if HE felt like his skin no longer was beautiful, no longer belonged to him.
And I held her in my arms as she bawled after giving the police her statement. And she did the same for me.And I met a woman a year ago in a paint store and she had a service dog and I asked what the dog was for and it turns out that she had been so brutally raped and abused in her life, that the dog is literally trained to keep men away from her.
And I’m so FUCKING SICK AND TIRED OF THIS WORLD WE ARE LIVING IN. How many rape victims eyes have I already looked into? How many more will I? And how many more friends will I hold while they shake? Because I don’t know how many more I can take. And who the fuck still has the nerve to make rape jokes? And… Something just has to change. Please, someone just start being that change.
-16 year old girl
Did I reblog this already I dont care
Watch: Samantha Bee takes on untested rape kits and the cops and politicians who want to destroy them.
Holy fucking shit that last part oh my god
Asking for help with legal research for a Supergirl fic!
Hi all! So, I’m gearing up to start writing a fic I’ve been researching for two or three months now (things have gotten intense!) and I’m wondering if anyone with some knowledge of US/California law/how court cases work on a basic level would be interested in helping out answering some specific questions for me or pointing me in the right direction!
The fic is Kara x Cat x Alex, featuring demisexual Kara Danvers and asexual Alex Danvers, and is basically going to be a realistic exploration of trauma and kink in the superhero genre. Or as realistic as I can get it via a LOT of research (seriously, you should see my google search history these days).
The court case I’m trying to figure out involves the DEO/Supergirl suing Maxwell Lord for
humanalien trafficking, rape and sexual assault, and involves fun legal questions like how to get aliens considered persons under US law. (This is just for your info; most of my questions are pretty basic legal things!)
Reblogging just in case it’ll help anyone else see this! I am looking for super basic (US) legal advice from anyone with that kind of experience–just things I can’t quite figure out how to google. Fic info above is just in case anyone is interested. DM me if you know things about the law and wanna chat!
Asking for help with legal research for a Supergirl fic!
Hi all! So, I’m gearing up to start writing a fic I’ve been researching for two or three months now (things have gotten intense!) and I’m wondering if anyone with some knowledge of US/California law/how court cases work on a basic level would be interested in helping out answering some specific questions for me or pointing me in the right direction!
The fic is Kara x Cat x Alex, featuring demisexual Kara Danvers and asexual Alex Danvers, and is basically going to be a realistic exploration of trauma and kink in the superhero genre. Or as realistic as I can get it via a LOT of research (seriously, you should see my google search history these days).
The court case I’m trying to figure out involves the DEO/Supergirl suing Maxwell Lord for human alien trafficking, rape and sexual assault, and involves fun legal questions like how to get aliens considered persons under US law. (This is just for your info; most of my questions are pretty basic legal things!)
I was wearing this outfit today to a grocery store when I made a baby smile. I was wearing this outfit today when I threw my head back and laughed, when I sang in the car with my family, when I filled it with yummy food to keep it healthy.
I was wearing this outfit today to a grocery store when I overheard a woman telling her young daughter who was pointing and laughing that I would get what’s coming to me. I was wearing this outfit today when a woman told a man that it was the wrong kind of attention and that I was asking for someone to get me. I was wearing this outfit today when the same man stared at my body longingly and then agreed with the woman that I was asking for an attack.
I was not wearing this outfit when I was raped. I was wearing a size XXL hoodie and a pair of my mom’s sweatpants, much to the shock of the friend I told after, who asked what she’d been taught to ask: “What were you wearing?”. I feel so terrible for the little girl whose mother was teaching her at the grocery store that she deserved to be assaulted if she dressed comfortably for the weather, which was climbing above 80 degrees, or for an injury, which called for a brace and a boot that doesn’t allow room for long pants, or for her body, because it’s hers and she can put on it what she damn well pleases. I feel terrible for the man who will look me up and down as though I was a 5 for $20 steak deal he might purchase and will immediately after speak to a presumable stranger about the violent fate I deserved. I feel terrible for the woman with fabulous hair who feels she can express herself but refuses to let me do the same.
Summer is coming up. It’s hot outside. I have an injured ankle, and a tight boot and brace to wear on one leg. I will not dress uncomfortably to protect complete strangers who are so offended by an expanse of skin that they console themselves by predicting my next rape.
Stop perpetuating slut-shaming and thus perpetuating a culture of excused rape. Stop perpetuating slut-shaming and thus perpetuating a culture of insecurity, inherent shame, and body image distortion which can cause an innumerable amount of incredibly dark issues nearly impossible to overcome.
My body is mine, and I love it. It is the house I live in, with which I will someday create a family, with which I run and dance and hold the strong lungs I use to sing. I refuse to be ashamed of it for any reason, especially the reason being that this culture which glorifies sex and punishes those who have it, which encourages being sexy and then preaches that sexy girls ask for attack, has taught its people that my stomach is a sin.
Please think twice this summer before you choose to say anything at all to or about anyone who wears something they choose to wear. Please think twice before you say that a girl deserves to be raped for wearing shorts. Please try and catch yourself when you think things like that. Please be courteous and gentle and loving, and spend your effort tackling real problems. My stomach and legs are not a real problem.
This is not a post that I can just scroll by.
Question of Smoke 