Rape!

Thank you...and I am glad that I can see what happened - better than the generations before us ever could.  I can feel remorse.  I can admit that I was wrong and ask for forgiveness.  And I can feel pain.

I have been trying to think of one adult who unconditionally loved me and treated me in a positive manner.  Part of the problem of being an army brat is that there are no consistent adults.  I always felt like Grammy loved me and accepted me.  But when I stop to count the number of times we actually saw her - especially after she moved to Cali - there's no consistency.

I think we are in one those mutual journaling periods, as opposed to dialoging periods.  I hear what you are saying about development, but my distress is elsewhere at the moment...

I am getting so furious with the campaign rhetoric about rape...about legitimate rape and unavoidable rape.  I am fuming much of the time.  And the rest of the time I hurt.  Rape is about violence and teaching the oppressed that we have no control over our own bodies.  It is about overpowering and causing damage where there should only be pleasure and connection.  And the comments that the powerful white men are making overlook all that.  They see rape as a form of sex.  They see the right of white men to sow their wild oats wherever they may.  They really think rape is okay.  It's like a game to them.  Any female they can access is fair game.  Any man who says:

Indiana GOP U.S. Senate candidate Richard Mourdock declared Tuesday night he opposes aborting pregnancies conceived in rape because "it is something that God intended to happen."

Missouri GOP Senate candidate Rep. Todd Akin, the anti-abortion congressman who infamously asserted that women don't get pregnant from "legitimate rape."

(both from the Huffington Post,  November 2, 2012)

I think men who think this and who say this are rapists or wannabe rapists.  Nowhere have I seen anything blaming the men who rape.  All I see is the blather of justification.  They are entitled...at least the white guys are entitles.  No one is worried about their sons or the moral ...I don't know ... wellbeing of their sons, or of their own.

Maybe part of Me, too is for rape victims to confront any ignorant man who says something so hateful and publicly accuse them of being a rapist, for psychologically they are letting us know we have no control of our bodies.  if they can catch us they can destroy us.  And if we get pregnant we must bear their child and they get visitation rights.  Every single one of these situations shows over and over that rape is okay.  They are allowed.

Maybe if we stop circumcizing our infants, if we stop restraining them then causing severe pain to their genitals, they would not grow up understanding, experientially, rape.  They might not need to rape to discharge that original pain...just a thought.

Dinner is almost ready, and I have not eaten anyhting exceptionally healthy yet today. So I am going to go an take care of me.

Enjoy the new kitten!!

Love from Clare