I Heart Feminist Boys

Here is a very interesting post and thread about what rape is and what it means. Much better than the poo-magnet Matt at Pooflingers blogged about, although that one is good for some cathartic ranting.

My two cents: Crimes are the fault of criminals, not victims, and rape is a particularly greivous crime that carries far more psychological baggage than, for example, mugging. (Which is not the downplay the seriousness of non-sexual assault!) Rape is historically a tool of oppression and dominance and a source of shame and degradation for the victims. Attention needs to be refocused away from "how women can avoid being raped" to "how to stop men from raping" - simple as that.

So all this has been occupying my time since my DNA digest didn't yield any DNA on the gel. Wah!!! I was all freshly motivated to acheive small goals, scientifically speaking, and then it didn't even work. Maybe it didn't work because I was provocatively (not) naked under my lab coat.

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Addendum to rape issue. Last night on the bus home I thought of a story that might be an antidote to the bile and spew of Vox's blog and comment page.

Here's the scenario: Girl and guy are friends. Girl is recently single, guy has been single for a little longer. They go out on a date, have a few beers. Girl invites guy to her place where they have another drink, watch tv, and make out. After making out for a while, they fall asleep and girl says it's fine for guy to crash. They wake up in the morning and start making out again. Things progress and a condom is produced from girl's dresser drawer. Condom is put on and the two begin to have sex, at which point girl realizes that she's not actually wanting to go that far with the guy. So, she stops what she is doing and says, "I'm sorry, I just don't want to be doing this."

At this point, the guy feels slighted and frustrated. What does he do? Does he continue to pump away, seeing as the girl knew what she was doing and it's too late for her to have second thoughts? Because that is what a lot of the posters on the blogs linked above would have said, following logically from their arguments. Is the guy - whose feelings are no doubt hurt - justified in ignoring the girl's wishes and carrying on? Of course not, because that would be R-A-P-E! Is the girl somehow obligated to "stay the course" having gone that far? Of course not, because as a human being she has agency over her body and what she does with it.

This true story has a happy ending, as the guy was a nice, understanding person who was considerate of his friend's feelings even though he wsa disappointed and was not a rapist. So I want to give a big hand to all Feminist Boys out there (you know who you are!) who don't define themselves by gender roles or animal instincts, but are compassionate and mature individuals.

Yay feminist boys! I heart you.

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Addendum to addendum: Icky "Christian Libertarian" guy inadvertently gives props to my favourite feminist boy by trying to take him on. Ha!