Of seminal importance to my present interest in gender was my first piece of non scientific vaginal literature: Eve Ensler’s The Vagina Monologues, discovered while rummaging through my sister’s room. I was 13 then and it was seven years later when I saw the monologues live on stage. I saw that performance with a whole new knowledge, both carnal and intellectual. I was shellshocked by the the visceral portrayal of gender based sexism and began to doubt the legitimacy of calling myself a feminist. This is one of the many questions that my status as a male supporter of feminism brings up. I never come to meaningful conclusions on them. It’s these endlessly circular issues that characterize a man and his feminism.
Category: General (Page 14 of 27)
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.
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!