The supplies came in an over-sized plastic box inside the cardboard box. Given all of the small pieces such as the pins and the gems and appliques, I wish this had a storage case instead of the plastic that you can see in this photo.
Showing posts with label Men's Issues. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Men's Issues. Show all posts
Friday, November 13, 2015
Nail Fun with Friends or Lovers
The supplies came in an over-sized plastic box inside the cardboard box. Given all of the small pieces such as the pins and the gems and appliques, I wish this had a storage case instead of the plastic that you can see in this photo.
Friday, September 12, 2014
Some Thoughts on Rape as a Man's Issue, Part 2
Continuing my thoughts from last Friday I wanted to share the story of one male rape survivor who is also my partner because he and I discussed the study and my post about at some length. I'll call him "S" to offer him privacy. Those who may know him please respect that if he wanted to share this more with you, he would have done so already. He's allowing me to bring up what I do below in the hopes of getting folks to think.
My partner, S, and I have a lot in common even though we are 11 years apart in age. Sadly, one of the things we have in common is surviving a series of childhood and teen sexual attacks, harassment, and rape. We know when my abuse started and what happened at various ages; we aren't sure with him because he's decided he doesn't want to drag up the details. It is a valid way to survive and live now even I'm always concerned there might be a flashback around the next corner.
His one rape we did talk about after last week's post here on this blog happened when S was a teenager, I believe 15 years old. Here is what S has told me in the past: He was jumped by a group of older boys and men in the boys' bathroom at school after the normal day was over. They threatened, they had at least one knife, they each anally raped him, then they shoved the knife inside and cut him up. Afterwards he pulled himself together, washed up as best he could, and went home.
S told no one until he told an online therapist years later and then told me a year after that. His parents and sister still do not know.
The next morning he noticed a wide streak of white hair on his head so he dug around and found a hat. He kept wearing hats, refusing to take them off even if he got into trouble with his parents, until the hair grew out enough that it was cut off. Extreme shock seems able to do that to hair.
But S's way of surviving this went beyond not talking and wearing a hat.
S started growing out facial hair, wearing more "butch" clothing, taking on very public extracurricular activities so that he was never alone and was very much in the public eye. The men/boys who raped him taunted him for being girly, for being a loner, he was going to stop those things from attracting any more attention.
S told me during our conversation last weekend that he never thought of it as "rape" because rape didn't happen to boys or men, only girls and women. It took him a few years to even think of it as sexual assault.
"What was it?" I asked him.
"It was just the cost of being different," S automatically muttered then recovered and said, "I didn't have the words to describe it."
I hugged S so hard and so long after that.
I get the normal protective reaction that I'm sure other women and men have when they learn that their loved ones have been raped -- anger, thoughts of revenge, fear that I could harm in some inadvertent fashion. But having been through this myself I know that my feelings and need to do something can in many ways be stealing the power from the survivor.
Instead I told S that he was a strong man, that he did an amazing job of getting through school, and that he was powerful for continuing to survive it. If his rapists goals were to make him conform he's overcome that and turned into his own man.
The physical scars from the knife part of the rapes have impacted our love life so thanks a lot bastards for damaging one way my lover could enjoy sex! However we embrace a multitude of sexuality so, once more, he's proved himself stronger than the rapists.
While his rapists harmed him deeply I think our rape culture harmed him even more.
This culture sets up the idea that men are rapists and women are victims. This culture denies that men/boys can be victims and therefore they great difficulty even doing the internal work to survive because to even admit that something was done against their will might strip a male survivor of manhood since the rape culture tells them that men can't be raped. They turn the anger inward and harm themselves or outward and harm others; female survivors do this to but we have more public resources to help us fight those two anger directions.
S's rapists ultimately failed as he learned to be himself again and overcome the anger trying to harm him or make him harm others.
S proves himself to be more of a man every day than any of those rapists could ever hope to be as they cave into their impulses and violence probably over and over and over again since study upon study show that multiple rapes and multiple types of violence are very common among rapists.
My partner, S, and I have a lot in common even though we are 11 years apart in age. Sadly, one of the things we have in common is surviving a series of childhood and teen sexual attacks, harassment, and rape. We know when my abuse started and what happened at various ages; we aren't sure with him because he's decided he doesn't want to drag up the details. It is a valid way to survive and live now even I'm always concerned there might be a flashback around the next corner.
His one rape we did talk about after last week's post here on this blog happened when S was a teenager, I believe 15 years old. Here is what S has told me in the past: He was jumped by a group of older boys and men in the boys' bathroom at school after the normal day was over. They threatened, they had at least one knife, they each anally raped him, then they shoved the knife inside and cut him up. Afterwards he pulled himself together, washed up as best he could, and went home.
S told no one until he told an online therapist years later and then told me a year after that. His parents and sister still do not know.
The next morning he noticed a wide streak of white hair on his head so he dug around and found a hat. He kept wearing hats, refusing to take them off even if he got into trouble with his parents, until the hair grew out enough that it was cut off. Extreme shock seems able to do that to hair.
But S's way of surviving this went beyond not talking and wearing a hat.
S started growing out facial hair, wearing more "butch" clothing, taking on very public extracurricular activities so that he was never alone and was very much in the public eye. The men/boys who raped him taunted him for being girly, for being a loner, he was going to stop those things from attracting any more attention.
S told me during our conversation last weekend that he never thought of it as "rape" because rape didn't happen to boys or men, only girls and women. It took him a few years to even think of it as sexual assault.
"What was it?" I asked him.
"It was just the cost of being different," S automatically muttered then recovered and said, "I didn't have the words to describe it."
I hugged S so hard and so long after that.
I get the normal protective reaction that I'm sure other women and men have when they learn that their loved ones have been raped -- anger, thoughts of revenge, fear that I could harm in some inadvertent fashion. But having been through this myself I know that my feelings and need to do something can in many ways be stealing the power from the survivor.
Instead I told S that he was a strong man, that he did an amazing job of getting through school, and that he was powerful for continuing to survive it. If his rapists goals were to make him conform he's overcome that and turned into his own man.
The physical scars from the knife part of the rapes have impacted our love life so thanks a lot bastards for damaging one way my lover could enjoy sex! However we embrace a multitude of sexuality so, once more, he's proved himself stronger than the rapists.
While his rapists harmed him deeply I think our rape culture harmed him even more.
This culture sets up the idea that men are rapists and women are victims. This culture denies that men/boys can be victims and therefore they great difficulty even doing the internal work to survive because to even admit that something was done against their will might strip a male survivor of manhood since the rape culture tells them that men can't be raped. They turn the anger inward and harm themselves or outward and harm others; female survivors do this to but we have more public resources to help us fight those two anger directions.
S's rapists ultimately failed as he learned to be himself again and overcome the anger trying to harm him or make him harm others.
S proves himself to be more of a man every day than any of those rapists could ever hope to be as they cave into their impulses and violence probably over and over and over again since study upon study show that multiple rapes and multiple types of violence are very common among rapists.
Friday, September 5, 2014
Some Thoughts on Rape as a Man's Issue, Part 1
Today's thoughts were kicked off by this Slate article that looked at men and boys as victims of rape. This is very important to me, in part, because I worked during my college years to include men during rape awareness campaigns, not as potential perpetrators, but as potential victims. It is also important to me because I've had male family members and lovers, past and present, who are sexual assault survivors. Not all of them were abused by other men and boys, though the majority were.
The key to understanding the article and the findings that men and boys are being raped at a much higher level than we had previously thought is this fact, according to the article:
Let's unpack the sentence above.
Rape, according to the FBI, involves penetration of some object or body party by another person without consent of one of the people (called a victim). There is nothing about a penis, and although we might argue that that is implied in the case of oral sex, I think that such nitpicking misses the point, which is that someone has not consented to penetration, and therefore a crime has been committed.
This means that anyone can be raped, and anyone can commit rape. Does that scare you? While I can understand why this might feel scary, I think it is more reassuring to me that we may be on the verge of taking sexual violence a bit more seriously, at least at the FBI level.
You've probably heard the phrase "rape culture." Often we talk about women as objects, women as victims, women as survivors, what women can do to stop it or discourage it, women women women.
Every now and again we hear about how men can prevent rape, but generally in the sense of preventing them from becoming rapists, or how men can help protect women from becoming victims of rape.
This gendered rape discussion seems to create feelings of anger on both sides of what shouldn't ever be a debate -- forcing another person to engage in any type of sexual activity should never be okay, regardless of age, race, sex, orientation, or anything else.
If you do not have rights over your own body, then you have no rights at all.
Just accept the fact that men and boys are raped, and they are raped at a higher level than we ever imagined.
Who are their rapists? Sure, other men and boys are the majority of perpetrators of rape against men and boys, but women and girls are also rapists. Don't think that's so? Go back and reread the new definition of rape.
This is a question of consent and what consent means. The state of California has recently revised and expanded its rape definitions to include a long discussion of consent. [3] I highly recommend you follow Source [3] to read it thoroughly, because I think it is brilliant and also has the possibility to change how we look at sexuality, especially if we can push for similar changes around the nation.
Let me just highlight the consent paragraph for you all: "Consent" means positive cooperation in act or attitude pursuant to an exercise of free will. The person must act freely and voluntarily and have knowledge of the nature of the act or transaction involved. A current or previous dating or marital relationship shall not be sufficient to constitute consent where consent is at issue in a prosecution. In prosecutions in which consent is at issue, evidence that the victim suggested, requested, or otherwise communicated to the defendant that the defendant use a condom or other birth control device, without additional evidence of consent, is not sufficient to constitute consent.
Wow, just think about this. The phrases exercise of free will and freely and voluntarily are really standing out to me, because these call into question a ton of social and cultural expectations.
We teach our males that they must want sex all the time. We pound it into their heads with TV, movies, music, clothing, discussions, books, religion, almost anything you can think of.
We hear repeatedly as girls that the only thing boys want is sex, so we teach our daughters and sons this, and we expect our boyfriends and husbands to constantly want sex.
As a society we spend millions of dollars on scientific research to create medications to help men "get it up."
In movies and TV, there are jokes about slipping these pills to men without their knowledge or laughing off complaints about too much sex when these complaints come from men.
As a society we taunt men who aren't interested in sex at the drop of a hat and question their masculinity, so they self-medicate or feel horrible if they just happen to not want sex tonight.
We promote sex as the happy ending to a couple's argument or the thing you have to do on anniversaries or for birthdays.
I can imagine that the pressure to have sex is very high for men and boys.
Is that pressure, then, the same as social rape?
I think this is a question we need to give some serious time to in our society, because just focusing on the female-victim/male-perpetrator concept is not solving our sexual problems.
______________
Sources:
[1] Slate Article
[2] PDF from FBI on the legal changes
[3] Stanford University rape definition article
The key to understanding the article and the findings that men and boys are being raped at a much higher level than we had previously thought is this fact, according to the article:
in 2012, the FBI revised its definition and focused on penetration, with no mention of female (or force). [1]Specifically the definition from the FBI is Penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object, or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person, without the consent of the victim. [2]
Let's unpack the sentence above.
Rape, according to the FBI, involves penetration of some object or body party by another person without consent of one of the people (called a victim). There is nothing about a penis, and although we might argue that that is implied in the case of oral sex, I think that such nitpicking misses the point, which is that someone has not consented to penetration, and therefore a crime has been committed.
This means that anyone can be raped, and anyone can commit rape. Does that scare you? While I can understand why this might feel scary, I think it is more reassuring to me that we may be on the verge of taking sexual violence a bit more seriously, at least at the FBI level.
You've probably heard the phrase "rape culture." Often we talk about women as objects, women as victims, women as survivors, what women can do to stop it or discourage it, women women women.
Every now and again we hear about how men can prevent rape, but generally in the sense of preventing them from becoming rapists, or how men can help protect women from becoming victims of rape.
This gendered rape discussion seems to create feelings of anger on both sides of what shouldn't ever be a debate -- forcing another person to engage in any type of sexual activity should never be okay, regardless of age, race, sex, orientation, or anything else.
If you do not have rights over your own body, then you have no rights at all.
Just accept the fact that men and boys are raped, and they are raped at a higher level than we ever imagined.
Who are their rapists? Sure, other men and boys are the majority of perpetrators of rape against men and boys, but women and girls are also rapists. Don't think that's so? Go back and reread the new definition of rape.
Penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object, or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person, without the consent of the victim.You can probably imagine how threats of violence or the use of weapons could create this situation, but that is "force," and the new definition doesn't require that. So if there is no force, how can rape happen? (Some of the social and relationship pressures I'll discuss next also apply to women/girls, but I'm focused today on men/boys as survivors.)
This is a question of consent and what consent means. The state of California has recently revised and expanded its rape definitions to include a long discussion of consent. [3] I highly recommend you follow Source [3] to read it thoroughly, because I think it is brilliant and also has the possibility to change how we look at sexuality, especially if we can push for similar changes around the nation.
Let me just highlight the consent paragraph for you all: "Consent" means positive cooperation in act or attitude pursuant to an exercise of free will. The person must act freely and voluntarily and have knowledge of the nature of the act or transaction involved. A current or previous dating or marital relationship shall not be sufficient to constitute consent where consent is at issue in a prosecution. In prosecutions in which consent is at issue, evidence that the victim suggested, requested, or otherwise communicated to the defendant that the defendant use a condom or other birth control device, without additional evidence of consent, is not sufficient to constitute consent.
Wow, just think about this. The phrases exercise of free will and freely and voluntarily are really standing out to me, because these call into question a ton of social and cultural expectations.
We teach our males that they must want sex all the time. We pound it into their heads with TV, movies, music, clothing, discussions, books, religion, almost anything you can think of.
We hear repeatedly as girls that the only thing boys want is sex, so we teach our daughters and sons this, and we expect our boyfriends and husbands to constantly want sex.
As a society we spend millions of dollars on scientific research to create medications to help men "get it up."
In movies and TV, there are jokes about slipping these pills to men without their knowledge or laughing off complaints about too much sex when these complaints come from men.
As a society we taunt men who aren't interested in sex at the drop of a hat and question their masculinity, so they self-medicate or feel horrible if they just happen to not want sex tonight.
We promote sex as the happy ending to a couple's argument or the thing you have to do on anniversaries or for birthdays.
I can imagine that the pressure to have sex is very high for men and boys.
Is that pressure, then, the same as social rape?
I think this is a question we need to give some serious time to in our society, because just focusing on the female-victim/male-perpetrator concept is not solving our sexual problems.
______________
Sources:
[1] Slate Article
[2] PDF from FBI on the legal changes
[3] Stanford University rape definition article
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