The obtuse entitled man

(Crossposted in an edited form at UneFemmePlusCourageuse )

(Note: this is not anti-male.  This is anti one male and others of his particular ilk.)

I gave a speech today on Take Back the Night marches (something I’ve been involved in for the past few years) in my notorious speech class , and wow, pardon , I didn’t define rape for the uninformed entitled twenty-two-year-old men of America! Quelle horreur ! Because nobody could possibly know what that word means unless I, Gen Dusquesne, widely-renowned legal expert, informs them. I mean, Gott in Himmel , maybe all of his forays into the rooms of drunken girls who would never give him a second look sober were rape! Maybe that time he jumped out of the bushes and proceeded to fuck a girl was rape! He couldn’t know! Because I never told him, in the one speech I gave on the topic. So he can’t set boundaries for himself, he can’t be expected to change if we uppity women won’t give him exact instructions on what rape is and how not to do it.

Yeah, it was this guy . And here’s his exact words,

"There is a lot of ambiguity in your speech. One of the greatest problems with sexual assault crimes is actually identify [sic] what a sexual assault is, because the line easily becomes fuzzy. Therefore, the problem step was not completely clear. If you can’t clearly identify the problem, you can’t ask people to take an action."

Hmm. Hmm . "Kein Problem ?" Let’s look at some of the statistics I used, shall we?

"One in six women and one in thirty-three men will be sexually assualted in their lifetimes. College women are four times more likely to be sexually assaulted. According to campus police, there were four incidents of forcible sex offenses on campus during 2006. Sixty percent of sexual assaults are not reported to the police."

How is the problem not clear? Sexual assault itself is a problem. I don’t give a shit if you define it as an unrequested ass slap or a full-on violent rape. They are both problems, one is more serious than the other, but they both represent facets of the gross lack of respect for women’s bodies in our society. All forms of sexual assault are problems that need to be taken care of to ensure equality between men and women in our society. I’ve been harrassed on the street and I’ve been raped, and no one should have to go through either experience. The fact that a funny story one of my friends told me the other day (in which his friend went to New York City, got on the wrong train, ended up in a bad neighbourhood at 3 am, asked a guy for directions, was told to give the guy $10 if he wanted directions, laughed it off, walked away to find a group of "unfriendly looking guys" waiting for him, and turned around to find $10 direction guy waiting again) was hilarious for him but sent chills up my spine? That’s not okay. That there are neighbourhoods that I know far better than my boyfriend does that I would not feel comfortable walking through at night without him or another trusted male there with me is not okay. That this freaked me out so bad is not okay. That a dude has come up to me and a female friend telling me his name is "Ben Dover," and asked where our boyfriends are, with three huge friends behind him, is not okay. That my high school boyfriend thought it was okay to have sex with me when I had already told him no is not okay. Got it?

No, I don’t think you do. RAINN ‘s definition is,

"Sexual assault is a broader category that the Justice Department uses to classify rape, attempted rape, and other violent felonies that fall short of rape. Rape is defined as forced vaginal, oral, or anal penetration."

(I referenced RAINN multiple times in the speech. So he has an easy source to look stuff up.)

But really? What his comments read to me as is, "you haven’t given me all the answers in five minutes. Therefore, I will keep on being a rapist or potential rapist and I will not question my actions or think about this further, because I have not been spoon-fed absolutely everything, simply told some important facts and that it is wrong."

Then again, maybe it was just my repeated references to sexual assault as a cultural problem which could be changed rather than a "natural" one that luckily for him can’t be changed. He doesn’t want to lose his easy excuse, don’tcha know.

Fucking bastard.