Dedicated to Ali

No, this post is not dedicated to me. I am a narcissist but not that much of one! No—this Ali is a sweet freshman girl I met at Take Backthe Night a few weeks ago. She came by the table I was hosting for the Anne Braden Institute and we started chatting. Ali was adorable and just taking her first women’s studies class. She said something like, “I never knew feminism was so normal and about equality and stuff.” Yes, you precious little feminist caterpillar, break out of your cocoon—you will be a brilliant butterfly soon! There is so much to learn about what it means to end sex-based oppression and most of it isn’t really that radical (but that is another post coming soon). Until then, Ali, it was nice to meet you. I hope you learned a lot at your first Take Back the Night event.

Good segue. This post is about Take Back the Night and rape. Cheery, I know. But important because, as many gains as women have made in the last few decades, sexual violence is still a MAJOR problem. It’s a problem that just can’t be ignored until it’s 100% resolved.

Recently, a friend and I were talking about the Slutwalk thing, and she said something about how rape isn’t about sex, it’s about power. I have heard this argument a lot. I disagree. Why must we feminists (and people in general) always make these dichotomous statements? If rape is about power, it can’t be about sex and vice versa. Bullshit.

The guy one of my friends was dating in high school who forced his penis into her mouth wanted to get off sexually. I am guessing he also got off on the power of using his hands to grab her hair and pull her towards him violently. I wish I was making this up. And, the sad thing is, she told me this story without referring to it as rape. She didn’t once name it as such. My mouth just dropped open. I knew they guy. I wanted to cut his balls off after hearing about this. (Ya, I realize that is violence too but men who sexually abuse others shouldn’t be allowed to keep their sexual organs. Just my opinion.)

What the fuck made him believe that her body was just his to abuse in any way he chose? He was physically stronger. Did that give him the right? He is a boy, so therefore he can’t be expected to control his sexual needs or actions. Did that give him the right? She was a cheerleader. Obviously, that means she was asking for it, I mean you can see her legs in that short skirt.

Repeat after me: There is nothing a woman can ever do that will justify sex without consent. If you believe there is, you are wrong. I don’t care what she is wearing, how she dances, if she has had sex with you before, whether or not you bought her dinner, whether or not she placed herself in a vulnerable situation or anything else. When she says “Stop” or “No,” that’s it—I am sorry if you have a hard on the size of Texas. Run to the bathroom and whack one out, but using her to get you off is no longer an option. (I will say, if she does that too often, you might want to consider finding a different sexual partner who actually enjoys cock).

SPECIAL NOTE: I have inadvertently focused on the dominant form of rape: Men versus women. However, other forms exist. Men with men, women with women, women with men, transgendered with women, transgendered with men, etc. If you have experienced one of these forms, please don’t take this post to mean that what you experienced isn’t just as devastating and wrong. It is and I am really sorry for what you went through.

Bottom line is: If one partner says “no,” just stop. Seriously.

Men (or women) who believe that they have the right to take whatever they want without consent need to imagine what their life will be like in prison. Ass rape. Is it about power? Yup. Is it about sex? Ya—that big guy or girl from cell 151 is going to come all up in your business. Will it rip you apart? Hopefully—you fucking loser.

So yes, rape is about power, it is about aggression, and its about sex (a perverted, disgusting, abusive form of sex but still sex).

I do have other stories from Take Back the Night but this post is getting too long so I will leave you with this and some pictures of the event.

I would love your thoughts on this and other things about rape that I didn’t have a chance to talk about. There is a comments box below, let’s have a conversation.

The woman who put this whole thing together. Yay Sharon!

A crowd gathers to hear other people's stories...

Me--looking a little prego's. I am not. I swear.

Pinwheels for Peace

Clothesline Project - these t-shirts are a must read

Getting ready to march around campus

Cunt Post

So--I have had a really busy week and a very busy weekend with homework...which means that I don't have time to create the amazing blog you readers deserve. But, instead of just ignoring all of you, I decided to post a paper that I turned in for a WGST class a couple of years ago. I hope you enjoy!

The Cunt Manifesto

That was the basic inequity which could never be righted:
not that the male had a wonderful added attraction called a penis, 

but that the female had a wonderful all-weather cunt.
Neither storm nor sleet nor dark of night could faze it. It was always there,

always ready. Quite terrifying if you think about it.
No wonder men hated women.

No wonder they invented the myth of female inadequacy.

-Erica Jong, Fear of Flying

CUNT is an organization composed of those who love the cunt, understand the cunt, and value the cunt. In its earliest usage “cunt” was simply a word that referred to the female genital area.  It was not an obscene or demeaning term. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, only later did the word become a "term of vulgar abuse."  CUNT calls on all men and women to disavow indecent usage of the word cunt and use it only to affirm the beauty and power of the female sexual organs.

Education is an invaluable tool for understanding the cunt. As Mary Wollstonecraft made clear very early in the Women's Movement, lack of education has perpetuated the myth of female inferiority--even among women! The same is true in regards to the myth of female sexual inferiority. CUNT is dedicated to preaching the gospel of the holy cunt and sexual equality for all by espousing the following tenets:

I

A cunt is part of the woman's body. A woman should never be referred to as "a cunt" because this usage reduces her being to a body part when, in fact, a woman's being consists of much more than her genital region. We must consider not only a woman's body (all of it) but also the "world of thought and ideas, the life of the mind and the spirit" as the whole of a woman's being (Friedan 30).

II

The cunt, as opposed to the penis, is a three-part region. Alix Shulman once explained that a man uses his penis for urination, sexual pleasure, and making babies (293). Women have three areas in which these bodily functions take place: the opening to the urethra, the vagina, and the clitoris. Understanding this trinity (a.k.a. the cunt) is vital to women being allowed equal sexual pleasure. The vagina and clitoris are both invaluable to female sexual pleasure and neither should be emphasized over the other. CUNT urges the society at large to repudiate myths (such as orgasms as exclusively vaginal) that cause women to believe that certain sensations they feel in their cunt are not as valuable as others.

III

CUNT stands in direct opposition to certain widely-accepted Freudian assertions. Femininity is not a "problem" to be solved (Freud 343). Our cunt is not the same as the male penis, but in an "atrophied state" (Freud 343). We have not been castrated (Freud 354)! Our feminine cunts are perfect the way they are. Scientists have determined that the clitoris contains nerve endings similar to and just as sensitive as those that are found in the penis and that the most intense orgasms women experience are through direct stimulation of the clitoris (Lydon 219). Women who experience sexual pleasure through their clitoris are not "regressive, infantile, neurotic, hysteric, [or] frigid" (Shulman 294). There is no immature orgasm. Moreover, women do not have penis envy. The cunt is "multi-orgasmic" and the penis is not (Lydon 222). Why would we ever want to trade?

IV

Susan Lydon once wrote that "Women's sexuality, defined by men to benefit men, has been downgraded and perverted, repressed and channeled, denied and abused" (219, italics added). CUNT refuses to accept female sexuality that has been defined by men. Female orgasm should not be sought after simply to enhance male ego (Lydon 225-26) and sexual activity is not primarily for male satisfaction (Koedt 375). The cunt should not take a back seat to the pleasure of the penis. Furthermore, women should not be ashamed to seek sexual "satisfaction as aggressively" as men have for centuries (Lydon 223). Women who love sex are not sluts anymore than the men who love sex are. In addition, foreplay, especially stimulation of the clitoris, should not serve only to excite a woman so that it is possible for the penis to enter the vagina without painful repercussions but should continue until both partners (if they desire) have reached orgasm (Koedt 373). A "clit-tease" is on par with a "cock-tease" and neither is appreciated by either sex (though a "clit-tease" has probably never been used as a justification for rape—nor should it be). If the cunt desires an orgasm and does not reach it because their partner has already reached theirs and ends sexual activity, it is the partner’s fault not the woman's "psychological failing" (Shulman 300). Finally, it is nice when orgasms are simultaneous, but it is not necessary for great sex and neither partner should feel inadequate if they need more time to be fully satisfied. In summation, female sexuality is dependent on what women desire and no apologies need to be made for this fact.

V

A woman's cunt may never desire to be filled (or, in some cases, partially filled) with a penis. It may prefer "hands or bananas or dildoes," or even no penetration (Johnston 349). This is a valid choice. Just as the penis can obtain pleasure from a man or woman, so can the cunt. The irrational fear that men will become expendable if some women choose to be in intimate relationships with other women is both unfounded and illogical (Koedt 376-77). Hetero and homosexual people have always, and most likely, will always exist and occupy the same world without really being any sort of threat to each other (though many contrived theories of the dangers of homosexuality do exist).

VI

CUNT upholds the right of women to refuse motherhood, just as the penis has the right to refuse fatherhood (even though one of the functions of a penis, as with the cunt, is to start a baby). As Ti-Grace Atkinson points out, "a capacity for some activity is not the same as the need for that activity" (15). Both male and female bodies are designed for the possibility of making children but that design should not make parenthood mandatory (neither socially nor biologically). A woman is not less of a woman because she does not use her cunt to create a baby, just as a man is not usually considered less of a man when he chooses to be responsible with his ejaculations.

VII

The cunt is beautiful. CUNT denounces the common perception (primarily by females) that they or their cunts are ugly. As Erica Jong so poignantly writes, “All women think they’re ugly, even pretty women. […] They all think their cunts are ugly. They all find fault with their figures. They all think their asses are too big, their breasts too small, their thighs too fat, their ankles too thick” (182). This is because society upholds a “beauty ideal” that women feel they must adhere to. Well, the cunt doesn’t need to. It needs no artificial embellishment. It needs no perfumes, diets, hair cuts, or plastic surgery to become more appealing than it already is. The "beauty ideal" has made women feel inadequate for long enough and it deserves no place in CUNT (Firestone 143-44).

CUNT urges all men and women to adhere to the above tenants and to go forth into all the world spreading the good news of the amazing cunt. Amen.

Fuck You, Chicago

So, one of the coolest things about grad school is doing research. I wish I was being sarcastic. It’s a little embarrassing that I love this shit so much. Undergrads don’t get many opportunities to dig through collections in archives. So, naturally, doing so was something that I was looking forward to upon starting classes this fall.

For one of my classes we have been assigned a document project in which we must locate at least 15 primary source documents from an historical collection. Like a good student, I chose a topic that interests me (the Sex Wars) and started searching early for primary source documents in the U of L archives. I found nothing. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Jack Shit.

Okay, don’t panic. Positive self-talk is as important as taking good notes and getting enough rest (all of which I absolutely do). Just need to widen the search.

Hells ya. There it is! The perfect collection on a group that worked on anti-pornography legislation in the 1980s. That will be awesome. It has everything: mission statements, meeting notes, brochures, speeches, papers. Wow.

FML. It’s in Minneapolis.

Road trip? I look up the drive on Google Maps. 12 hours, 700 miles. Hmmmm. Oh shit, why the hell not. It’s what I want to study. It’s a great project and I love visiting new places. Plus, SPOCK might be convinced to go with me. How bad could it be?

I am glad you asked. Here are some random thoughts I felt needed to be recorded from the LONG day:

Hour 2: What a beautiful day! The leaves are turning colors and it’s just gorgeous. I am just the luckiest person in the world to get to do something like this…following my dreams and passions. Love it.

Hour 4: Wow…my butt hurts, maybe I will stop and grab a snack and drink.

Hour 6: Oh fuck, oh fuck…I have to peeeeeeee and I am stuck in the middle of Chicago’s toll hell. I am rapidly running out of money.

Hour 6 and ½: Whew! I feel better, I can handle this. Halfway there. Uhhhhh, how the hell do I get back on the freeway? There is no entrance going the right direction. That’s okay, Maggie (my GPS) will get me there. Get back on the freeway going the opposite direction and turn around. Good work Maggie.

Hour 6 and ¾: Fuck you Chicago. I don’t have any more quarters! I can’t get off the fucking freeway and turn around without 50 cents. Are you kidding me? What asshole thought of not letting people drive off a freeway unless they pay? Actually, that’s kind of goddamn brilliant. From now on when people come to my apartment, I am not going to let them leave until they pay me a dollar. Oh good, a place to turn around. Only lost about 30 minutes.

Hour 8: Stop for gas and text SPOCK (who did not come with me—for good reasons) the following: In the future, when I come up with dumbass plans like, “how about if I jump in a car and drive for 12 hours today, alone, without any of my own music, through the Chicago area (where all the toll booths in the world went to die),” please do whatever it takes to stop me, up to and including beating me into submission.

Hour 10: Driving sucks. It’s dark. I can’t see to change CD’s and I almost got in an accident trying. Best to just try to find a radio station. Thank god for NPR.

Hour 10 ½: Oh god I am an idiot.

Hour 11: Stupid, stupid, stupid. Hate life. It sucks ass.

Hour 11 ¼: Headache, heartburn, stomach ache, blurry eyes…

Hour 11 ½: Must be almost there. Must be close. Must get off my ass.

Hour 11 ¾: Fortheloveofgodandallthesaintsinheaven. What the fuck was I thinking???!!!!

 

Hour 12: Finally arrived at hotel and showered. Bed is soft and warm. Maybe life isn’t so bad after all.

In case you were wondering...the rest of my trip went really well. I found all of the information (plus more) that I needed. Here is a picture of me digging through the archives:

It's a Math Thing

 

Anyone who knows me can tell you two things: I hate math and I am a slob. But, grad school is supposed to be about stretching oneself and growing as a human being. Therefore, I dedicate this post to that endeavor. Plus, on a date recently, SPOCK (my Sexual Partner Of the Chosen Kind), gave me a lesson in correlation that I feel should be put to use.

First, I have to begin by admitting something very painful. My mom was right about something. Now, I love my mom but because she is a conservative protestant republican, she and I have very little in common (well, besides 50% of our DNA…but that’s not the point). Some of her advice I tend to ignore. I sound like a horrible person now, but it’s true. Anyway, this summer she gave me some advice. She said I should try to keep my apartment neater and it’s very easy to do if every hour or two I take a fifteen minute break to clean. Not only will that keep my apartment cleaner but I will feel more focused when I go back to studying.

Challenge accepted.

Shitfuckmotherfuckingsonofabitchasswipecrapheadbastard!

Not only was she right, but I can prove it mathematically. Since moving to Louisville mid-August, I have kept track of a couple of items on various dates – let’s call these items variables (it's a math thing). 

Both variables are on a scale of 1 to 10. 

Date	Cleanliness of Apartment (10 is super clean)	Ability to focus on school (10 is super focused)
8/22	10	9
8/30	8	6
9/6	4	1
9/10	8	7
9/16	6	2
9/28	9	7
10/3	3	1

Now…using a simple mathematical formula:

I was able to determine that there is a 0.96 positive correlation between my apartment being clean and my ability to focus on homework. (Trust me—you don’t need to check my math, it’s totally accurate). Of course, there are other things that might affect my ability to focus on homework. Things like:

1. Hunger

2. What’s on TV

3. Is SPOCK in town?

4. Did I just have sex?

However, even if those other factors affect my focus, the cleanliness of the home still has an incredibly high rate of correlation. So I will take my medicine and admit that my mom was absolutely right. But, as SPOCK always says, even stopped clocks are right twice a day. God that was mean. I really do love my mom. (Can everyone make sure to NEVER tell her about this blog? Please?)

I bet you’re wondering, did Allie just make all that shit up? Of course I did. But that is what statisticians do…create data to play with. What? It’s a math thing and as an expert mathematician, I feel totally justified in making that statement. 

Seriously though, since beginning graduate school I have used math and I have learned how to keep my apartment a little neater for the next time mom visits (anyone want to calculate the relationship between her finding out about this blog and her continuing to love me? I am curious about that one.)

At any rate: math + clean toilet=win!

I just bought cigarettes for work...

I never thought I would get to say that, but it’s true. Before I tell you what that was all about, I should at least give you some idea of what I do for work at U of L.

I have a sweet deal where I get to split my time between the Women’s and Gender Studies Department and the Anne Braden Institute for Social Justice Research. Here some fun details:

Anne Braden Institute – you see, Anne Braden rocked harder than Bon Jovi. She was a journalist and a social activist and for over five decades she fought to end oppression in the United States, specifically in the south. She endured mistrust from the government, her family, some friends, and a great deal of the population of Louisville because of her convictions concerning race—but she never faltered. Here she is fighting for racial justice:

My jobs for the Institute:

1. Campus Social Justice Coalition Liaison. Translation: Hang out with the most amazing people on campus who are out there kicking ass to end every conceivable type of oppression and help with fun events like Take Back the Night, Pride Week, Peace and Justice Week, Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service, International Women’s Day, etc.

2. TA Duties. Translation: Hang out with a professor I have already come to love and adore and help her keep track of grades, maybe grade easy writing assignment, etc.

My jobs for Women’s and Gender Studies:

1. Community Internship Liaison. Translation: Hang out with people from some of the coolest non-profits in Louisville so that our senior undergrads have places to do their 100 hour internships.

2. Women’s and Gender Studies Outreach. Translation: Hang out with other WGS students, area high school students, alumni and friends of WGS to talk about the WGS program and feminism in general.

That’s right. My job is awesome. I’m like fucking Jesus. The only way I could be more like Jesus is if my duties actually required walking on water.

Okay, so the cigarettes. One of the fun things that I got to do for both WGS and ABI was help decorate altars for the Dia de Los Muertos celebration at the Kentucky Museum of Arts and Crafts. This year they are doing an installation honoring a few of the incredible men and women who have worked/taught at the University of Louisville. 

Two of these women were Lilialyce Akers and Anne Braden. Lilialyce is the reason I get to attend graduate school and be like Jesus. When she passed away she left $500,000 to start a scholarship fund, of which I am one of the recipients. You already know a little about Anne. 

Part of decorating the Altar requires gathering personal mementos or items that would have had significance to Lilialyce and Anne. Below are some fun pictures of me helping set up the exhibit. Anyhoo…Anne smoked Vantage cigarettes for years so I was sent on an errand to find a pack which allowed me to utter a phrase I never thought I would, “I just bought cigarettes for work.”

Me and the cigarettes

Anne's Altar

Lilialyce's Altar