Vaginal Pain

miss-milk: Are we just pretending this didn’t happen or...

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 06:20:04 -0400

Are we just pretending this didn’t happen or something?

My kind of idol Nigella Lawson and her vile creature of a husband publically choking her in rage has made me so fucking angry right now. I mean i know no facts, but look at her fucking face as she walks away! but what makes my rage boil even hotter is that now people are slating her for being a coward and not standing up against domestic violence. Sorry, WHAT? She is being attacked for being attacked. Now how the fuck does that work. ANd it’s clear from the first picture its abusive and controlling all of the time not just in this very public incident. I love you Nigella.

diasporicdecay: ofthemoons: No, I’m not going to the world...

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 06:07:38 -0400

diasporicdecay:

ofthemoons:

No, I’m not going to the world cup.

Please, please share it guys! This is the truth. We Brazilians are really tired of this shit. via

Wow this was an eye opener :(

This is a great video! Also let’s not forget that during these events the sexual violence attacks rates are even higher: human trafficking for sexual purposes is higher; rape is higher; and so on! And Brazil needs to tackle this issues before putting its population at risk.

velvetlovepocket: “If You Know Someone Who Doesn’t Believe...

Sun, 16 Jun 2013 18:34:12 -0400

velvetlovepocket:

“If You Know Someone Who Doesn’t Believe Sexism Exists, Show Them This”
Link here: [x]

bankuei: bossymarmalade: stopthatimp: realfakescientist: snow...

Sun, 16 Jun 2013 18:32:28 -0400

bankuei:

bossymarmalade:

stopthatimp:

realfakescientist:

snowstorminjuly:

heylookitsliz:

elizabeth-antoinette:

ikenbot:

freeselfdefense:

Rape Escape

Easy and very effective

Requires nothing but your body

Includes attack

Very useful to know, pass and share please.

Worth watching

I don’t mean to impose a personal favour on you guys, but I really would like to ask that everyone who follows me reblog this.

I don’t think I made it very clear but last month I was sexually assaulted by someone who I thought was my friend (I don’t want to talk about it don’t ask), and it’s… really fucked with my head.

Had I known this a month ago I would have been able to get away.

So, essentially, I’m really pleading with you to reblog this so everyone who follows you doesn’t get stuck in the same position I was with no way out.

I mean again I don’t want the point of this to be my sob story or whatever but if you could reblog this it would seriously mean a lot

The instructor has made me cringe a few times, but this is generally a really good video, and something that doesn’t get taught in basic self defense classes for women. Every time I’ve taken self defense, I’ve been told how to stop random attackers, muggers, or stranger rape. The thing that they don’t teach - don’t even touch - is what to do when you are already with someone who hasn’t listened to a single no you’ve said yet, or who doesn’t listen when you change your mind. Important. shit.

Important.

Okay - no. None of this is good advice.

I don’t have the time or the energy to go up against this comprehensively, but here are a few things:

1) hold his armpits? that’s a major part of your plan? dude, men typically have stronger upper body strength. even if he’s not holding your arms down (and good luck with that), you’re not gonna be able to prevent him from gaining leverage with your upper body.

2) The fact is, the conditions under which a rape victim fights back vary from person to person. Stranger rape not really being a thing, most women hesitate to use any damaging techniques against a rapist because it’s someone they know, and even as it’s happening you probably won’t be in a position where you can use serious retaliatory techniques against the person, because that’s just not how human emotions/instincts work. You can tell yourself what-if all you want, but that’s not going to help in the end, and eventually the vast majority of survivors come to terms with that. Your intentions and training mean shit in the end, because there’s no level of training short of straight-up brainwashing that makes you fully aware/willing to do damage to a friend or loved one who’s attacking you. I have major problems with the “ladies against gun control cause it helps you not get raped” NRA campaigns, but honestly, my biggest problem is my problem with all anti-gun-control shit: most people are not prepared to pull the trigger. They’re not trained, they’re not ready - even defensive, relatively non-damaging techniques are things that are very hard to execute in the moment.

3) that woman and man are much more evenly matched than me & my rapist, and I’d assume many women and their rapists. This would not work against, say, a 5’1”, 100-pound woman and a 6’2”, 240-pound man. Also, rapists choose their victims, so good luck getting a lucky match in terms of physical defense. Much less mental defense/likelihood of fighting back.

4) rapists are often chemically compromised or just straight pissed as hell. This means that even if you get them off of you - congrats, you’ve just pissed them off. maybe you’re lucky and they’re the type not to get violent. then again, maybe you’re not. My experiences mean I wouldn’t lay my money on getting lucky.

5) Basically the problem I have with this line of thinking is that it, again, places the impetus on women to fight back/get out of the situation. I don’t object to self-defense classes, but even when executed entirely non-judgmentally, without a bit of shaming, they still help delude women into believing they have a snowball’s chance in hell of getting away, when there’s no guarantee that that’s the case. it’s a bandaid on a severed artery. And I seriously question why there are so many “how not to get raped” self-defense videos floating around, and not a ton of “what to do if you get raped: your rights, your recourse, and how to navigate the legal system” videos. I suspect the latter would be much more useful in terms of actually stemming the tide of rape.

6) Most rapists rape repeatedly and plan their rapes against people they think are vulnerable. No, really, there is research backing this up. They’re not all special snowflake sociopaths, because that’s not how rape culture works. They’re conditioned to believe that targeting victims & carrying out rape is perfectly acceptable, and they admit it without shame. Before you realize you’re in a vulnerable position, you’re vulnerable. This information is barely useful, if that. I’d say it mostly serves to shame women and make them blame themselves for their assaults. If you’re not training at military levels - with the caveat that you also had better hope you’re not up against a friend of yours who’s also been training at military levels, because military rape is a very real problem - then you most likely do not have the capacity to end a rape simply by kicking someone or holding their arms. You just don’t.

And to be honest, as a rape victim who often talks to women who haven’t been raped, I worry about my gender’s complicit participation in the self-defense blame game.

I’ve been feeling leery about this post ever since I saw it being reblogged, and Imp has laid it all out very clearly in terms of why it’s problematic in both practical application and in shaping of victim blaming.

EVERYTHING stopthatimp said.

I’ve been holding off on commenting mostly because I’m still recovering from chemotherapy and not on full focus, but at least on the martial arts side:

1.Martial arts techniques are not a “trick” you learn and practice and you can do it easy.

The reason people practice so much is that everything you learn will be used under the wrong conditions - the person won’t be lined up, you’ll have already screwed up the position, you can’t see straight because you got hit in the head, etc. You train over and over for all the ways to get out of the way it’s going wrong.

So a lot of times “easy videos” only provide a technique you can practice IF you ALREADY have a martial arts foundation (and you still need to practice it) - they will not give you any kind of real skill which is what you’re going to need in an emergency and worse, they have you thinking you might have it.

2. Martial arts are mostly useful in altercations when you are fully willing to inflict bodily harm on someone and potentially send them to the hospital or worse.

While you might go, “Rapists need to be fucked up more than anyone else!” the fact is, will you REALIZE this person is trying to rape you when it happens? Will you be able to shift from “My good friend” to “I am willing to stab this person in their eye and leave them permanently blinded” in the moment?

Will the police back you? Will the law? Will the rest of society? As mentioned above, given that most rapes are from already known people, is this the response that will be best if it’s family? Your teacher, priest, boss?

As much as violence is morally correct in defending your body… society punishes survivors - for fighting back, for daring to ask it to stop, for demanding accountability and even if you say nothing - just being alive is enough cause for punishment. The question is not just will the rapist escalate in violence, but will society?

Martial arts aren’t an answer to the end of a long line of society-wide violence

I don’t know the answers to any of all of that, and no one giving you a video can read the future and predict that for you either. I love martial arts and self defense BUT the reality is it’s not a few easy tricks to proficiency anymore than anyone can practice a few punches and become a world-class boxer.

Not only that, martial arts are NOT the answer to social level problems any more than Batman can really punch out poverty…

It’s like living in a building that is on fire and obsessively wondering what kind of supersoaker water gun you should carry - the real problems are large, systemic, and what you should be focused on, not the random chance you might get “lucky” in your unluckiness and happen to have the tool to stop gap a problem in the moment.

saucy-mermaid: You don’t know true pain until you have someone who can’t even find your damn...

Sun, 16 Jun 2013 09:40:45 -0400

saucy-mermaid:

You don’t know true pain until you have someone who can’t even find your damn clit.

Just some randoms things...: evilfeminist: We need to loose this discourse between bad and good...

Sun, 16 Jun 2013 09:36:42 -0400

Just some randoms things...: evilfeminist: We need to loose this discourse between bad and good...:

evilfeminist:

We need to loose this discourse between bad and good feminists and stop buying into the Patriarchy’s definition of Acceptable Feminism, which is those feminists men still deem fuckable. I’m a feminist because I want nothing less than the liberation of all women from the…

"An even bigger issue is that if people think social justice is about niceness, it means they have..."

Fri, 14 Jun 2013 21:09:06 -0400

“An even bigger issue is that if people think social justice is about niceness, it means they have fundamentally misunderstood privilege. Privilege does not mean you live in a world where people are nice to you and never insult you. It means you live in a world in which you, and people like you, are given systematic advantages over other people. Being marginalised does not mean people are always nasty to you, it means you live in a world in which many aspects of the cultural, social and economic systems are stacked against people like you. Some very privileged people have had awful experiences in life, but it does not erase their privilege.”

- The Revolution Will Not Be Polite (via sonicy0uth)

recipes for revolution are quiteeeeee tricky.

(via crystal-cat-loves-ac)

"This tendency was exemplified in the President’s speech, when he stated: ”We all know somebody — a..."

Mon, 10 Jun 2013 16:02:47 -0400

“

This tendency was exemplified in the President’s speech, when he stated: ”We all know somebody — a family member, a friend, a neighbor — who has struggled or will struggle with mental health issues at some point in their lives.”

Note the construction of the sentence: “We all know somebody – a family member, a friend, a neighbor – who has struggled with mental illness.” The person with mental illness here is always someone else. They are always removed from ourselves. They are the people we help, the people we are sad for, the people we want to save. The people who are sick, the people who are hurting, the people with the problems – they are categorically not us. They are other.

They are, moreover, specifically not the implied audience of the sentence. The implied audience is the people who “know somebody’ with a mental illness. Obama probably wanted to evoke sympathy for people with mental illnesses. But in doing so, he reinforced the trope of the mentally ill as the “other” – as people who aren’t worth speaking to, and about, directly. Despite the fact that one in five Americans suffer, or will suffer, from a mental illness, and thus make up a fairly sizeable portion of the audience.

Thing is, I do actually know a family member, a friend AND a neighbor who has struggled with mental health issues. You know who else has struggled with mental health issues?

Me.

”

- The “Family Members, Friends, Neighbors” approach to Mental Illness: Analysis of 2013′s National Conference on Mental Health | Culturally Disoriented (via gruntledandhinged)

Miss Representation

Sat, 08 Jun 2013 18:40:45 -0400

Miss Representation

"When the white knight knows so little about his damsel in distress, how does he expect to rescue..."

Sat, 08 Jun 2013 08:01:52 -0400

“When the white knight knows so little about his damsel in distress, how does he expect to rescue her? When she turns around and tells him to call her “Ms.” and to stop telling her what to do, will he be outraged at her ingratitude? When she says she’s quite happy wearing a traditional outfit, thank you, but could she please get maternity leave, will he snort in disgust at his charge? When she wraps her head in a veil and stands up for her Islamic prayer, will he throw up his hands at her inability to throw off Islamic slavery? When she says why thank you for your help, but I need my husband out of Guantanamo and my son out of /your/ Musharraf’s jail, and then I’d like to open a Qur’an school for girls—what will he say then? When she says she’s got her own ways of effecting the revolution, and it doesn’t involve selling out brown men to America, will he decide against trying to rescue her after all?”

- Shabana Mir, How Not to Rescue Muslim Women (via eibmorb)

unapproachableblackchicks: “First Lady Michelle Obama is known...

Sat, 08 Jun 2013 02:40:27 -0400

unapproachableblackchicks:

“First Lady Michelle Obama is known for her incredible intelligence, grace under pressure, and her charming amiability. As a result, she is one of the most popular political figures in the country. And quite honestly, she has to be; as the first black First Lady of the United States, Michelle Obama must navigate a dual terrain of sexist and racist stereotypes and bigotry with a friendly, open, and non-confrontational demeanor. But after she confronted a heckler during her speech at a Democratic fundraiser on Tuesday night, the response revealed what feminist and anti-racist activists have known all along: Michelle Obama cannot win, and it is because she is a black woman.

The crowd responded with support for the First Lady while Sturtz was escorted out. And that’s where, if the First Lady was a white woman, the incident would have likely ended. But of course, Michelle Obama is not a white woman.

When interviewed after being escorted out of the fundraiser, Sturtz said of the First Lady, “She came right down in my face. I was taken aback.” Interesting. Sturtz assumed that because the First Lady is supposed to be the embodiment of grace and cool, that she should stand at her lectern and silently endure what she felt was blatant disrespect. Instead, Michelle Obama decided that she had had enough and instead of shouting from across the room, spoke to Sturtz face-to-face and demanded respect. I can’t help but think that if Hillary Clinton or Laura Bush had done the same, that we would all be nodding our heads in support of the First Lady defining how she wishes to be treated.

Notice the language Sturtz uses to describe the encounter. Rutgers Anthropology Ph.D student Donna Auston emphasizes that Sturtz’s word choice of “taken aback” is one of distinct privilege; Sturtz sees herself as above reproach in this situation. As Auston inquires, why was Sturtz surprised at Obama’s response? “Is it because you did not expect her to exercise agency? Did you not expect her to assert that she is your equal?” Auston asks. Either black women are supposed to tacitly accept maltreatment and disrespect, or when they do exercise their agency, they are branded as the “Angry Black Woman.”

The choice of words Sturtz employed indicate that she has cast the First Lady as the aggressor who over-zealously responded to reason with anger. And once you label a black woman as “angry,” you have, in essence, invalidated any response, no matter how justified or rational it may be. You can silence any challenge or dissenting thought from a black woman by even remotely alluding to this offensive stereotype. Writer and creator of This Week in Blackness’ “Angry Black Lady Chronicles” Imani Gandy perfectly emphasizes this point: “Anytime [black women] speak up, not even to just defend ourselves, but just to say anything, all of a sudden it’s ‘Why are you so angry?’”

The response has revealed the troubling reality that if you’re a strong, independent, educated, empowered black woman, you are held to a different standard. Everyone from New York Timescolumnist Nicholas Kristof to recent heckler of President Barack Obama and co-founder of Code Pink Medea Benjamin tweeted their disapproval at Michelle Obama’s response, criticizing the First Lady for her “lack of “diplomacy” and snidely labeling it as “not her finest moment.” These comments criticize both Michelle Obama’s intelligence and rationality. As feminist media activist Jamia Wilson tweeted, to attack a woman of color’s communication skills “is old hat & reiterates damaging stereotypes.” Kristof and Benjamin are brazenly perpetuating those stereotypes in their responses.

If you make the choice to heckle a speaker, fine. But to interrupt a speech by the First Lady of the United States and then, when she confronts you, claim you feel threatened, is a fairly inane reaction. The First Lady is a person, like any of us, and she has the right to determine the way she is treated. She has the right to speak in her own defense, just as you have the right to speak in yours. And she should not be caricatured, lectured, and demonized as hyper-aggressive or overly sensitive, phrases that we are so quick to call out when directed at white women, for defending herself and setting boundaries.

I’m sure that Michelle Obama is reminded of her identity as a black woman daily, and as this response has shown, in ways that reify that identity as less-than. She has previously dealt with the racist, sexist mischaracterization of the “Angry Black Woman,” and this instance most certainly will not be her last. The fact remains that if you are a black woman in the United States, your actions, words, tone, appearance, characteristics, personal associations, etc., are subject to intense scrutiny and perpetual chastisement. Black women cannot defend themselves or express normal human emotions without expecting and receiving the sad reflection of our racist, patriarchal societal norms in return.

At the end of the American day, black women just cannot win.

mia-the-wonder-slut: ev4n-perks: methr4y: jaba-the-slut: “No...

Fri, 07 Jun 2013 21:20:27 -0400

mia-the-wonder-slut:

ev4n-perks:

methr4y:

jaba-the-slut:

“Nobody says anything about that”

I’ve reblogged this about 40 times. But let me do it again.

His autopsy reports did show that his skin colour was changed by the condition, not artificially.

I love Michael Jackson. Judge all you want.

Other than the obvious ignorance of his condition that people have, I hate this attitude that people get about PoC who do lighten their skin. Instead of being upset that people don’t feel beautiful in their natural skin tone thanks to pervasive ideas about beauty and whiteness, white people instead get mad that he may have had the audacity to try to look white. Like, how dare he try to look white? It’s the same issue when PoC dye their hair blond or red or any other color generally ascribed to white people. How many times have you heard someone say “black people shouldn’t bleach their hair”? Where’s the indignation when white people emulate and appropriate a “look” from PoC? When we exoticize brown skin and “ethnic” styles? It doesn’t matter if he DID bleach his skin or not. The fact of the matter is that when you’re white, you have the autonomy to change your skin and hair however you want without anyone judging you, or making you feel like a traitor to your race. But if you’re a PoC, anything you do that isn’t ascribed to your race will be held against you by indignant white folk who want to put you and your body in a box. Just fucking mind your own damn business and stop politicizing people’s bodies.

That comment!! ^^

did-you-kno: Source

Wed, 05 Jun 2013 02:40:30 -0400

did-you-kno:

Source

cosmiccrystals: sweetupndown9: These Women Are About To Tell...

Tue, 04 Jun 2013 21:20:37 -0400

cosmiccrystals:

sweetupndown9:

These Women Are About To Tell You Some Things That Are Absolutely None Of Your Business

Holy shit women on fire. This video gave me chills. If you do nothing at all today - watch this!

this shit is fucking A+++++++++++++++++ omg perfection

"[B]y opting for an elitist and apolitical “feminist” struggle, bourgeois feminists ignored that real..."

Tue, 04 Jun 2013 18:40:35 -0400

“[B]y opting for an elitist and apolitical “feminist” struggle, bourgeois feminists ignored that real social change cannot be brought about in the absence of political freedom, nor can it be achieved by groveling before a repressive system. Feminism is not just about fighting for gender equality; it is about shaking the hegemonic dynamics of power and domination. Gender subordination is a fundamental factor in this matrix of power, but it intersects with political oppression and exploitation on the basis of class, religion, ethnicity, physical ability, and related aspects of personal identity.”

- Budour Hassan (via kawrage)

"When we begin to put all of these things together, we begin to understand what america is doing...."

Tue, 04 Jun 2013 16:02:28 -0400

“

When we begin to put all of these things together, we begin to understand what america is doing. Genocide can be seen in the mass removal of Blacks from the streets, by placing them in jails. Yes, the courts conspire to commit genocide. Black people are in the majority in most jails in this country. Concentration camps have been established and maintained throughout this country. They were established as a result of the McCarran Act of 1950. There is a book called Concentration Camps, U.S.A. that’s written by Charles R. Allen-who is white. (I say this because it usually bridges the credibility gap; you don’t believe what Black folks say but you believe white folks.) It is in your interest that you read it, because your not knowing what’s going to happen doesn’t make it any less true. Me and Carmichael can’t fill all the camps. They must be planning on taking somebody else. This country is waging a genocidal war against people of color; domestic and foreign. This is a country that pays white farmers for not growing food and dumps surplus food in the ocean. Birth control, as it’s practiced by governmental programs dealing with the masses of poor, can’t be called anything else but an attempt at genocide. Birth control should be an individual decision. It should not be forced by a government.

Some of you are probably saying america wouldn’t do that kind of thing. Negroes like to believe that they are something special to this country. Well, let’s examine america’s history. The American Indian-total genocide. And “the man” shows it to you on t.v. The Japanese-america dropped the bomb on Japan and not on Germany, not because they didn’t have the bomb, but because the Japanese are yellow. When this country fought Germany, the German-Americans were not put in concentration camps; however, when they fought Japan, Japanese-Americans were put into concentration camps, in this country.

”

- Imam Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin (H. Rap. Brown)

Taken from his political autobiography “Die Nigger Die!” (page 138-139)

Tattooed applicant goes right off Air NZ

Tue, 04 Jun 2013 13:20:57 -0400

Tattooed applicant goes right off Air NZ:

red3blog:

wolfpangs:

thousandyearsbunny:

Claire Nathan, the woman who was barred by Air New Zealand from working as an air hostess because of a ta moko on her forearm, says she no longer wants to work for the airline.

Air NZ refused to hire her because of her traditional ta moko. Yet they use the Maori symbol for its company logo.

And that, in a nutshell, is what it’s like to be indigenous.

“We’ll appropriate your cultural iconography for our brand identity but we’ll also deny you employment for it.”

you go girl!

Tue, 04 Jun 2013 10:40:36 -0400

you go girl!

cestlafemmenoire: Why Women Make Noise During Sex | UA Magazine acceptthis: lasociologue: “It...

Tue, 04 Jun 2013 02:40:33 -0400

cestlafemmenoire:

Why Women Make Noise During Sex | UA Magazine

acceptthis:

lasociologue:

“It turns out, women make sex noises to help their partner climax. 66% reported making noise to speed up their partner’s ejaculation. Reasons included discomfort or pain, boredom, fatigue or because of time limitations. Remarkably, 92% reported to believe that these vocalizations boosted the self-esteem of their partner, and 87% percent reported using them for this purpose. According to the scientists, promoting male self-esteem “may strengthen the pair bond, decreases the risk of emotional infidelity and abandonment, resulting in continued access to resources and protection.””

oh.

I make noise because I like being vocal when it’s my turn and I know it turns my boyfriend on as well. That being said, I’ve definitely done this out of pure boredom before or if things are taking too long

like c’mon I have things to do after this

osolibre: “I began to use the phrase in my work White...

Mon, 03 Jun 2013 21:20:40 -0400

osolibre:

“I began to use the phrase in my work White Supremacist Capitalist Patriarchy because I wanted to have some language that would actually remind us continually of the way, the interlocking systems of domination that define our reality…To me, an important breakthrough, I felt, in my work and that of others was the call to use the term White Supremacy over racism, because racism in and of itself did not really call for a discourse of colonization and decolonization, the recognition of the internalized racism within people of color, and it was always in a sense keeping things at the level that in which whiteness, and white people, remained at the center of the discussion…In my classroom, I might say to students that when we use the term white supremacy, it doesn’t just evoke white people, it evokes a political world that we can all frame ourselves in relation to.”

- bell hooks, cultural criticism and transformation (Media Education Foundation video)