Month: January 2012 (Page 3 of 4)

This article may contain triggers for survivors of sexual assault and rape.

Some passages of this article also imply a heteronormative model that I don’t mean to assume – consent is obviously an issue in homosexual relationships, but just isn’t the focus of this article.

I have had sexual encounters that were not consensual with many men in my life, and none of them have been strangers in an alley, and none of them have involved physical force. And though this article will skim over the details of some of those incidents, it will not be the focus. The focus will be why. The focus will be who can stop it. The focus will be how it can be stopped.

Where we all agree

The first incident was when I was ten. A family member sexually abused me, and that I suppose, is the most clear cut case, the incident(s) that can be described as sexual assault, as ‘wrong’, and as blameless, with widespread agreement by most of society. The fact that I was sometimes asleep when it began, or wouldn’t move when I woke up (due to biological fear/awareness of the impact of acknowledging what had happened) would not, I think, change that perspective. It is more prevalent than you would think: 65% of women that contact rape crisis centres are adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse.

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Santorum in the tub with love

touch me my accumulation
touches on the top of the napalm
of the trickle down of the kiss of the lip
figerlets turn everything from a to b
and touch upon the reched rhythm
the calculated decision
hear me say morendo as before
oh! to war! to war!

in ditch half a head of hair
three fingers of ditchwater
half a hair of head extends
‘bove surface water extends
to crossroads where signage declares
oh! to war! to war!

Written in comradely response to this post: http://www.gender-agenda.org.uk/discuss/733/sex-work-feminism-and-the-new-moralism/

I am what I think of as a “class struggle feminist”. It’s a label that I just made up, all by myself, for the purpose of this article. Why did I make it up? Because “socialist feminism” is too narrow a label – I’m interested in gender inequality, objectification and so on as well as in issues of class organisation – and because anarchafeminism doesn’t necessarily require paying any attention to class whatsoever, and frequently has more to do with radical feminism than I do personally. I also realise at this point that “anarchafeminism” isn’t recognised by MS Word, so with audience in mind, it might be wise to proceed by using language that we can all relate to.

So what do I mean by saying that I am a “class struggle feminist”, and how does it tie in with the fact that I’ve decided to write this article in response to Swyn Haf’s thoughtful, but I feel often naive, piece on a very specific, and contentious, subject? Continue reading