Sexting

Tonight I saw a post made by a page I follow on Facebook that talked about not sharing nude pictures that your significant other sends you.  I commented on it, saying that if you don’t want to risk it being shared by the person that you send it to then don’t send it.  As a result, I’ve been accused of victim blaming and called a prude.

I love the sexuality of the body and believe that it should be shared in person and not through text messages.  I love when I meet a guy who wants to explore my body and respects that he will not explore my body until we have gotten to know each other.  If a guy insists on sending me unsolicited dick pics and then gets pissy when I refuse to send him pictures of myself, he makes it rather clear that he isn’t worth my time.  I was raped at 18 and can’t count the times that I was pressured into having sex with my abusive ex, and I will not tolerate guys who think I should give them whatever pictures they want.

There are teenagers that are sending nude pictures of themselves back and forth all day long.  They have been taught by society that it is the only way to get attention from those they are physically and/or sexually attracted to.  And this doesn’t change as they get older.  But if they are under 18, it is considered distribution of pornography of a minor.

Dating has changed drastically over the past decade.  Casual sex is more popular than dating and relationships.  When the casual sex is over, I’ve had more than one friend left hurt and wondering why the person they were sleeping with didn’t respect them.  I tried the casual sex seen and hated it.  I had a guy try to pressure me into doing things that I had already told him wasn’t going to happen (there are certain things that trigger flashbacks to the rape and cause panic attacks, so I avoid them because panic attacks during sex isn’t fun).  My preference to relationships over casual sex leaves me with few men to choose from.  But I would rather be single than with someone who only cares about having sex with me until they meet someone else to have sex with.

While I get that you wouldn’t send nude pictures to someone you don’t trust, in an ideal world, I rebuttal with the fact that when I tried online dating I received a dick pic from a guy before he ever tried to meet me in person.  This guy had no clue if I was who I said I was in my profile or anything about the type of person I am and felt the need to show me his dick.

When it comes to rape, the actions of one person are to blame.  When it comes to where your nude pictures end up after you take them and send them, you are responsible for taking them and sending them in the first place.  While it is the person’s fault who shared those pictures for sharing them, they would not have the pictures to share if you had not taken and sent them to begin with.  There is a shared responsibility when your nude pictures are seen.  Get as mad as you want with the person who shared them but remember they would not have done what they did without what you sent them to begin with.

People are assholes and you don’t know who you can really trust in today’s world.  In a world full of online dating, sexting, and catfishing there are far too many unknowns to just send images of your body to whoever wants them and even more unknowns to send them to people who do not ask for them.  We are going to come to a time years from now, when a number of those running for office will be at risk for nude pictures from their younger years surfacing.

As I have said many times before, we must teach children to respect themselves and others.  Part of this involves respecting your body and the bodies of those that you meet in life, this goes for those you have sexual contact with and those you do not have sexual contact with.  However, adults need to set examples for these children.  If the adults in a child’s life do not respect their bodies, they cannot expect the children to respect theirs.  It’s a never ending cycle and with technology at our finger tips, the potential repercussions of sharing nude pictures of yourself will grow.

Edit: After posting this last night, I ended up with a reply to my comment on the Facebook post calling my a stupid retard.  At that point I deleted my comment because I will not tolerate being called stupid or a retard.  Calling anyone a retard is socially unacceptable and calling someone who has an above average IQ a stupid retard is just cruel.

Respect to End Rape Culture

Once again a rape case has made national headlines.  The reason it made headlines, white rich privilege.  Being a promising athlete DOES NOT give you an excuse for sexual assaulting anyone, whether either or both of you are sober or under any level of intoxication.  This all hits so close to home, as I was drunk the night I was assaulted.  It has brought up a lot of unsettling feelings, including the issues I have with NC laws concerning rape and sexual assault.

Under NC law, First and Second Degree rape require vaginal penetration.  If the rapist commits forcible oral or anal penetration, this falls under First or Second Degree Sexual Offense.  That’s right, according to law I wasn’t raped even though someone forcefully and without my consent put themselves inside me because they penetrated me anally and not vaginally.  In my opinion, any forcible penetration is rape.  But it is still a big slap in the face by the law, especially since sodomy is illegal in NC.

This news has brought so much light to the rape culture that is alive and well in the US.  This rapist’s dad surely contributes to rape culture when he said that his son is paying a steep price 20 minutes of action.  Putting any object inside another human while they are passed out drunk, is NOT action it is a crime.  Being a good student and athlete does not excuse committing any crime.  His dad says, “His every waking minute is consumed with worry, anxiety, fear, and depression.” While ignoring what victims go through.  Victims have to deal with the actions of others, Brock has to deal with his actions and no one else’s.  And then he goes on to say “What I know as his father is that incarceration is not the appropriate punishment for Brock.”  Sorry dad, but your son committed a crime; he deserves to be incarcerated because academics and athleticism do not excuse behavior like you seem to think it should.  And how do you know he was never violent to anyone before the night in question, you were not by his side 24/7 so you do not know everything that your son did.

We all must accept responsibility for our actions and any punishment that may be handed to us for our actions.  Whether it is cheating on a test and being giving an F for cheating or committing a serious crime and being incarcerated, we must accept all of it.  Alcohol and binge drinking does not excuse your behavior either.  You choose to drink so you must accept responsibility for all of your actions while intoxicated.

This whole situation brings back one of the worst things after I was raped.  The person that raped me was a friend of my roommates and while I was in denial about what happened for years, I did not want him coming anywhere near our dorm.  About a month after he raped me and told me that next time we’d have to have some lube, he was picking up my roommate to go somewhere and instead of calling her and waiting in his car, he came up the room.  I was busy studying for an exam I had that week and ignored his presence in the room and he later asked my roommate why I ignored him.  He assumed that he did nothing wrong to me.  He assumed that me being motionless while he violated me, meant that I was okay with what he was doing it seemed.  None of it was okay.  What he did to me was wrong and him assuming that I wanted to have any sort of interaction with him afterwards was wrong as well.

Over the past 13 years,  I’ve faced many things as a result of that one night and I’ve learned a lot.  When it comes to rape culture, the biggest thing that I see is people not respecting others bodies.  This is across all genders and sexual orientations.  Everyone deserves, without asking, to have their body respected by everyone that they come in contact with throughout life.  Adults, often look past making kids hug them for this but if a kid doesn’t want to, there is nothing wrong with that.  Some of my younger cousins are at an age where hugging people isn’t there thing, but one of them will give fists bumps because “that’s what superhero’s do and superhero’s are cool.”  He doesn’t want to give hugs but he has his way of interacting with people that doesn’t make him feel uncomfortable.  Teach children to respect the bodies of others and respect the boundaries of the children at the same time.

I can’t say it enough, but to end rape culture we have to do a better job at teaching respect.  Respect is where it starts and ends.  There are many things in the middle that need to be addressed as well, but without respect the other things do not matter.

Should Clinton Run?

Almost everywhere I look conservatives are screaming that Clinton shouldn’t be able to run because of Bengazzi and emails.  Yet, they were perfectly fine with Bush running 12 years ago when it was becoming clear that he lied to get troops into Iraq and went against what the UN was calling for (I still wonder if he committed any war crimes).

Last night a friend asked me my thoughts on the election at hand and I told him that I was ready for it to be over.  This shocked him because he knows how politically engaged I am.  His wife turned around and asked me if I would vote for Clinton if it came down to Trump vs Clinton and I told her that I would because I see Clinton as the lesser of two evils.  Outside of all the investigations that have taken place, I think that Clinton’s time in politics is up and that she should not be running for that fact alone.

But let’s talk about Bengazzi.  Yes, Clinton was Secretary of State when this horrific attack took place.  Whose fault was it?  The terrorists who planned and carried out the attack.  There is no possible way for one person, who’s only connection to the attack was the Ambassador that was killed worked for the Department that she was over.  There is no possible way that we have the ability to stop every terrorists attack, that has been proven time and time again.  There were a lot of failures that day made by multiple people but if terrorists are determined to take the life of anyone, they will not stop until they accomplish their task no matter what the risk factor is.  Bengazzi was a tragedy, there is no denying that but Clinton is not to blame for the deaths of 4 Americans that day.

Last night after I told my one friend that I would vote for Clinton over Trump, she made the comment that she couldn’t believe that anyone would vote for someone who is responsible for the loss of so many lives.  I refrained from given my thoughts there.  4 lives is 4 too many but that is not “so many” lives as Republicans often state.  They over look the fact that there is the blood of thousands Americans and foreigners on the hands of George W Bush, Dick Cheney, and those that worked with them on the false information that led to the invasion of Iraq.  They never stop and think that maybe the hatred of and attacks on Americans is because of the actions of Republican’s who decided that their best move was to forcibly overthrow a Government.  While I do not think that Sadam should have been in power, it is not our job to police the world and take any politician that we feel like out of power.

Next we come to emails.  In the past 20 years, the technological advances are tremendous.  Many laws had to be changed in order to adapt to the cyber world.  20 years ago, there were no laws to protect anyone from cyber bullying.  Our Government needs to get in line what can be done virtually and what servers in can be done on.  I have a number of friends who have military issued smart phones and lap tops that they are able to use while not at work.  While I am sure there are high levels of encryption of the devices, having them connected to home wifi, public wifi, and cell phone carrier networks.  We need standards across the board and we need to determine when the information was marked as classified.  If, the information was marked as classified after it was sent, there is no legal standing.  Morally questionable but not illegal.

More importantly, there needs to be an across the board of whether or not government officials and employees can access anything from private/personal servers.  Whether it is classified or not shouldn’t matter.  The government has done a lot of things to keep up with the times, but they need to do more about keeping their policies with the time.  I’m still trying to figure out how they can say something is classified after it has been through multiple hands, shouldn’t it have been classified from the beginning.

I’m not sure that it is morally right to run for any office while there is any sort of investigation against you, whether the suspected crimes took place while you were in another Government office or position or not.  Like I said above, I do not think that Hillary should have run to begin with.

Hillary’s campaign has assumed from the start that she would have the young feminist vote.  I am a 30 year old feminists, so I am in this group.  But most Democratic women I know around my age are not voting for her because they feel like she is not in line with their beliefs.  We want someone that will know will support our causes and we don’t think that she is the one to do that.  You can’t run a campaign assuming that you will get the vote of one demographic automatically, that is a recipe for disaster.

Votes of the People

I’m a die-hard liberal and there is no denying it.  But I am so glad to see that there are a number of Republican’s that I know, who are downright anti-Trump.  At the same time, there are people who think he is the solution to all of the problems that this country faces.  In a world, where we have to worry about religious terrorists, they think that the person who wants to banish an entire religion from this country is the solution.  Well maybe, they think that he is a different solution that relates to the solution from 80 years ago.

Last night a family member, thankfully by marriage, posted this:

“I am fed up with these news shows and their take on Trump winning the primaries by saying “how do we stop him”. Also other republicans distancing themselves from Trump is pissing me off. The PEOPLE are voting for Trump. These news shows and other republicans are undermining our votes. JUST LISTEN TO THE PEOPLE. Nothing else matters.”

If the people, as a whole as this seems to imply, were voting for trump he would be receiving over 50% of the republican votes in the primaries.   Having the most of the vote does not equal having over 50% of the vote.  Based on the information at http://www.usatoday.com/pages/interactives/elections-results-primaries-2016/#r on 3/2 (important to note some states from Super Tuesday were not at 100% reporting when I looked at the numbers), there have been approximately 9.8 million republican votes in primaries thus far.  Of those 3.35 million votes have been placed for Trump and 6.44 million votes have been placed for all other candidates.  If we break it down more we have the following:

• Trump 34%
• Cruz 28%
• Rubio 22%
• Carson 6%
• Kasich 7%
• All others 3%

So I am curious as to how the people are voting for Trump.  And this doesn’t even look at the 6.5 million votes that have been placed for Democratic candidates.  When you look at the total percentage of the vote that Trump has received, we go from 34% of the Republican vote to 20.5% of the overall vote.  I know that this numbers will continue to change and that there is no way for us to know what Dems will vote Rep in Nov and vice versa, but in many states for primaries you only have a ballot for the party you are registered for.  But the point remain’s that Trump does not have the vote of the people, last time I checked Democrats are people too and Hillary has approximately 3.92 million votes versus Trump’s 3.35 million votes and there are been less Democratic votes placed.

What does all of this say about what will happen in November, I have no idea right now.  There is so much up in the air.  If Rubio, Carson, and Kasich were to drop out of the Republican race and their supporters started supporting Cruz, Cruz would begin to sweep Trump in primaries.  Not that I think Cruz would be a good nomination either, but there is so much going on here for anyone to really be able to say what will happen in November at this point.  I’m not really sure we will know what will happen in November until then and I should probably put in for a vacation day for Nov 9^th just so I can stay up as late as I want waiting for the results and being glued to CNN.

This morning, I saw the following meme on Facebook and it hit the nail on the head.

Speaking your mind does not make you fit for elected office.  What has he really said about policy, that isn’t questionably legal?  And he has spewed far more hatred than he has reasonably talked about policy.  Not to mention, he has had a number of business ventures that went under and that he was sued over.   This makes me think he isn’t the business man, that he lets everyone think.  A good businessman would not attack people when they question his bankrupt ventures and law suits filed against him.  We don’t need someone that thinks he can say whatever he wants, this can have too many repercussions with all allies and enemies.  We need someone who understands how the political system and works and realizes that they can’t just be a bully their way through and over the system.

We have to stand up and ensure that not only the nominees will not only protect our country but help it prosper and continue moving into the 21^st century and not back to the 18^th and 19^th centuries.

Elections Upon Us

In the US, we are lucky compared to so many other parts of the world.  We are given the right to have a say in the politicians that represent us at the local, state, and federal levels.  The 2016 Presidential Campaign, started over a year before the election date.  We are 2 days away from “Super Tuesday,” when over 10 states have primary elections.  I have just over 2 weeks until my states primary election.

Things are getting hot, but I go back to something I was told last summer.  I was told by someone that I should check out Donald Trump and consider voting for him because he made sense.  This happened a couple weeks after he had announced that he was going to run.  This person has always come across as a moderate republican and has known for a long time that there is not much more room for me to go to the left.

Last summer, none of us could have imaged where the Trump campaign would go.  But now we are at a scary point.  The republican primary candidate list is long and while it has shortened in recent weeks it still has a lot of players.  Thankfully Trump has not gotten 50% of the vote in any state, but the amount of support that he has gotten is down right scary.

For generations people have fought for equality in this country.  Minorities are constantly fighting to not be discriminated against and now we have a candidate for the highest office in our country, saying that we should close our borders to Muslims, that Mexican’s are rapists.  And we have people supporting his racist rhetoric.

While we have candidates like Bernie and Hilary who want to help protect minorities, we can’t ignore the downright ugliness coming from Trump.  His rhetoric is going back to a time when only white upper class men had a say in politics.  And what gets me the most is women supporting him.  Women are supporting someone who said that if his daughter wasn’t his daughter he would want to be with her sexually.

While I have a number of republican friends, many of them can tell me why they support the candidate that they support in the primaries.  However, I have yet to hear from a Trump supporter give a political reason why they support him.  They say he makes sense, that they like that he says whatever he wants to say, and a long list of other non political things. Yet when asked why he makes sense, they have no substance behind that statement.  When asked what he says that they like, they can give no specific answers.

Earlier this week I ready this blog post, http://honestlythinking.org/if-you-are-a-trump-supporter-these-are-the-9-things-i-assume-about-you/, and it is one of the few republican blog posts that I agree with.  As I read through it, I had a sign of relief realizing that there were republicans who were just as scared as I am of what happens if Trump is elected.  I realized that we all need to come together to prevent Trump from being elected.  President Obama and his policies and cabinet have worked hard on repairing our image with the rest of the word.  When he took office, we did not have a positive standing in the world, many world leaders were still upset about the invasion of Iraq.

Organizations like ISIS get their fuel from the hatred projected on them.  From hate filled rhetoric about closing borders to all Muslims, closing Mosques, and having Muslims carry identification.  This sounds all to familiar of what the German history books talk about for the 1930s.  Hitler, fed on the Germans desire to have someone to blame for losing WW I.  Trump is feeding on the desire of some American’s to still get retribution for 9/11 even though we caught and killed Bin Ladin and others responsible for the attacks.

I know that come November, whoever is the Democratic candidate will have my vote.  It might not be who I vote for next month, but I have to make my vote count.  We all have to make our votes count.  I heard many democrats saying that they won’t vote for Hillary or Bernie come November, if the person they supported in the primaries does not get the nomination in August.  We can’t think like that.  We have to support a candidate.  We cannot afford a possibility of having Trump elected.  I and many others are terrified are what could happen if Trump is elected.

People who are still trying to protect the ideal Christian based marriage of a women or man are so fast to look away and ignore Trumps multiple marriages and affairs.  The Ten Commandants states “tho shall not commit adultery.”

People are willing to support someone that the only talks about policy when it comes to discrimination of everyone that isn’t a white male.  Can we afford to go back this far in history?

War Against Christmas?

Is there really a war against Christmas? Everywhere I look, many Christians are throwing fits because stores have holiday sales and displays and not Christmas sales. Yet, the Jewish population gets the smallest holiday section in stores for Hanukkah and we don’t hear them complaining.

First of all, the US is NOT a Christian nation. We are a nation that has NO national religion, that has the freedom to choose what to be or not to be religious and the choice to choose our religion, and so many other things when it comes to religion. We are free to worship any deity that we choose to worship, if we choose to worship a deity. And guess what, not all of those belief systems celebrate Christmas.

Let’s take a step back to the historical aspect of Christmas. Historically, it is a well-known fact that people would have been traveling to pay taxes at some point in the spring, not in the days around the solstice. This fact alone puts into issue when the birth of Jesus is celebrated. The birth of Jesus was not celebrated on December 25th until sometime in the 4th century. There are NO historical records that show the exact date that he was born, but the spring time is believed due to why Mary and Joseph were passing through Bethlehem. There is the well-known Pagan holiday of Yule that falls on the winter solstice. With the large number of Pagan’s during the time it was determined Christmas would be celebrated on December 25th; there is a large amount of speculation around why the two are so close together.

If a Jew tells me Happy Hanukkah, I’m not going to get mad at them for not telling me Merry Christmas.  I will wish them a Happy Hanukkah as well.  Since not everyone celebrates Christmas, why should people demand that they wish everyone a Merry Christmas?  There is no reason to get offended when someone doesn’t tell you Merry Christmas.  A Pagan friend was telling me recently that when she worked in retail she had a customer make a comment to her about not wishing them a Merry Christmas.  As a Pagan her response was Happy Yule, because that is the winter holiday for her beliefs and there is nothing wrong with that.

Now let’s look at something that people just get wrong, the Nativity.  Being raised Catholic the Nativity was part of Christmas because it was the reason for the holiday.  However, I see far too many people who put the baby Jesus in the manger the day that they put the Nativity out when they put up all of the other Christmas decorations and they put the wise men next to him at the same time.  Jesus should not be placed in the manger until Christmas day and the wise men should not be placed with the Nativity until Jan 6th, Kings Day, as it is said to have taken them 12 days to travel to Jesus.  It is a Catholic tradition to start the wise men on one side of the room and each day move them a little closer to represent their journey.  Not only do I see people getting this wrong with the Nativity scenes in their yard and the pictures they post of their table top Nativity scene but I’ve also seen countless churches get this wrong.  Seriously, if anything Churches should be getting this right.

The winter is full of a variety of holidays depending on what your beliefs and culture and there is no reason that society as a whole should be demanded to wish everyone one Holiday.  There is no war on Christmas.  There is simply, a desire by those who celebrate holiday’s to be recognized.  We should embrace all of the Holiday’s equally.

Are all Muslims bad?

I know that having taken academic classes on Islam, I have a different perspective of the religion than most.  My perspective is NOT based on what I learn from the media, if it was I’m pretty sure my Islam professor would give me a swift kick in the ass.  I took two classes specifically on Islam, one being on the history of Islam as a w hole and the other being on Islam in Southeast Asia.  Southeast Asia is different from the Middle East for Muslims because many of the countries are majority other religions.

 

There are a few things that the media, and therefore citizens, get mixed up about Islam. First of all, what is jihad?  If we go by what terrorists and the media tell us, it is a war against non-Muslims.  But what jihad really is, is a struggle within one’s self to become closer to God (yes I use a capital G but the God of Islam, Allah, is also the God of Christianity and Judaism).

 

Next, let’s take a look at the fighting between Muslims.  This has been going on since the 1^st Caliphs.  After Muhammad’s death, there was confusion as to who would be the 1^st Caliph.  This created the huge divide between Sunni’s and Shi’its.  Sunni’s believe that Muhammad’s father-in-law Abu Bakr was to be the 1^st Caliph following Muhammad’s death.  While Shi’its believe that Muhammad’s cousin and son-in-law Ibn Abi Talib was the 1^st Caliph and that his descendants would follow in his footsteps as Caliph’s since they would be descendants of Muhammad.

 

The fighting between the two groups have been going on for centuries and there is nothing that the West can do to stop it.  This fighting is different than what happens when Muslims try to defend themselves against terrorists.

 

That brings me to the next point, the majority of Muslims do not endorse or support terrorists in any way.  Islam, as a whole, is NOT radical.  Every Muslim is not a terrorist and every terrorist is not a Muslim.  Wait, what there are non-Muslim Terrorists?!?!  But the media never talks about them.  They do, they just don’t call them terrorist.  Timothy McVeigh, American born and raised terrorist that killed over 160 fellow Americans, oh and he was raised Catholic.  McVeigh is just one of the many examples of non-Muslim terrorists.

 

Terrorists are evil, it doesn’t matter where they come from, what their religious background is, the country they were born in or currently reside.  Terrorism doesn’t happen in just one small part of the world, it happens everywhere regardless of so many other things.

 

Now let’s look at our current situation.  Yes, there was a terrorist attack in Paris last month that ISIS took responsibility for.  However, the terrorists that carried out the attack were NOT, I repeat NOT, refugees.  They were European Nationals.  Since the inception of the European Union, European’s have the freedom to travel between EU countries freely.  Yes, there was a couple last week that shot up coworkers of the husband and killed a number of them.  Yes, there seems to be a link between the wife and ISIS and many are questioning how she arrived to the US on a fiancé visa from the Middle East.  Yet, despite all of this, we have millions of Muslims living in the US who carry on their daily lives like every other non-extremist American.  They go to work, go to worship, take their children to after school activities, eat and shop in the same places as non-Muslim Americans.  Yet, we have a Presidential candidate and many of his supporters calling for all Muslims to undergo surveillance simply because of their beliefs.  They want these peaceful Muslims to be card carrying Muslims that identify them as Muslims.

 

And then we have people like me who quote American Author Sinclair Lewis saying, “When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.”  Think about that for a minute.  Think about what fascism did to Europe less than 100 years ago.  And then we have people who respond, saying the Jews weren’t going around killing people and being terrorists so therefore, we should treat Muslims as a whole worse because of the actions of a few of them.  One of the biggest slippery slope arguments that I have seen regarding all of this.  Hitler blamed the Jews for Germany losing WW I and got people to believe in and to elect him.  Now, we are allowing a Presidential Candidate to blame all Muslims for the actions of a few and promising to make America great again (another thing that Hitler did).  I have no idea how anyone can justify the treatment they are wanting of Muslims because of the actions of some.  What really gets me is that I see some people saying one day they only want this treatment for Muslim extremists and then the next day for all Muslims.

 

Do we need to find a solution for handling extremists and terrorists?  Yes, we need to now more than ever.  However, this is NOT confined to Muslim and extremists and terrorists.  This applies to extremists and terrorists regardless of their skin color, religious affiliation or lack thereof, country of birth, and country of residence.

 

However, we are feeding ISIS, in particular at the moment, the air it needs with all of the anti-Muslim rhetoric that is coming from the US.  One of the main idea’s of ISIS is that Muslims cannot live a Muslim life in western countries.  And guess what, every time the news reports that there are American’s who think that Muslims should be banned from the country or that Mosques should be closed, or that Muslims should have an ID card that they must carry everywhere, we are fueling their idea.  Muslim’s have been living in the US for a long time, many of them don’t bother you a bit in your everyday life but people live in constant fear of them.  I’m more afraid of what a former employee will walk into where I walk and do than I am of any Muslim that I see.   I’m more afraid of what will happen to me if my run takes me down the wrong street one day than I am of Muslims that I see when I’m at the airport.  We cannot let fear control us, we cannot continue to let the fear and hatred spill over to an ENTIRE religion.

 

Now, my best friend is in the Air Force and has spent more time that I would have liked in Iraq and Afghanistan.  Living in an Army town, I have plenty of friends who are active duty, retired, or spouses of military personal.  Some of them bring a different argument to the table.  While I have never been to the Middle East and witnessed what they have witnessed, there is no way for me to truly understand where they are coming from.   However, it pains me to hear things along the lines of “Since you’ve never been shot at by Muslims, you don’t know what they are really like.”  “All Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan are evil terrorists.”  There are countless cities in the two countries that have been under control by the bad guys over the past 14 years and those are the cities where our government sends our troops.  These are the cities that our government wants to give back to its peaceful and law abiding citizens.  Many of those who previously lived in these cities, fled before American troops ever stepped foot in the city limits.  So yes, I believe that almost every Muslim in these cities are evil terrorists.  But that doesn’t mean that they represent every Muslim that was living in that city 20 years ago.  Is it the war zones that instills these idea’s to our service men and women or is it their leadership?  I don’t know if there is a way to get to the bottom of that question but it is something to think about.

 

All of it comes down to a huge misunderstanding of the 2^nd largest religion in the world.  Personally, if all Muslims were evil terrorists the world popular wouldn’t be as large since there are so many Muslims that would be able to carry out terrorist attacks.  So many in the US are so focused on Christianity, that they fail to realize that people need a solid understanding of all religions and not just their religion.  I know atheists who know more about different religions than those who practice those religions know.  I’m not saying that everyone needs a degree in religion like I have but knowledge is power.  If you know the truth and history about something you have a different perspective about it than someone who only knows what the media tells them about it (this doesn’t just apply to religion, it applies to just about everything in life).

 

Maybe I’m crazy but I believe the religions can coexists.  Once religions stop trying to get everyone to follow their religion and recognize that there is no one religion fits all, we will have a step in the right direction.  We need to have dialogue between different religions so that people can learn about what others believe and why they believe it.  We need to have politician’s that encourage this dialogue and partake in it.  In a world full of misunderstandings, there seems to be no driving force in overcoming those misunderstandings.  Instead, people want to continue to only believe what the media feeds them, which half the time isn’t correct, and continue believing that their religion is the one answer for the world.  To have peace in the world, we first need to understand where others are coming from.  Without that understanding, there is no end in sight to everything that is currently going on in the world.

Victim Blaming

Before I get started, there are potential triggers in this post for those who have been raped or have been the victim of any sort of domestic violence.

“Her skirt should have been longer.” “Her pants shouldn’t be so tight.” “She shouldn’t have been drinking.” “Why did she stay after he hit her?” “Why did she go run by herself?” “Why did she go run at right?” “Doesn’t she know not to go there along”

We have all heard these lines at some point in reference to someone that someone knows.  Or in response to telling someone what you went through.

Wednesday evening, a runner was dragging of a path in New York City and raped.  In a group on facebook, a NYC runner made a post this afternoon about how she is a smart runner for going during the daylight.  This NYC runner is oblivious to why her post is pissing people off.  I have tried to say more than once that she is victim blaming because she is saying that she was smarter than the girl who ran when she could after work on Wednesday evening.  I have tried to explain that she is victim blaming by listing the things that the victim should have done differently or not done at all.  This NYC runner is part of the problem.  The worst part is that this NYC runner is a female who proceeded to call my narrow minded for saying she was victim blaming (I was far from the only one telling her to stop victim blaming).

Victim blaming hits very close to me.  There has been more than once in life that someone around me has made a comment about it’s a girls fault if she was drinking.  It took me a long time to believe that it wasn’t my fault for being rape.  Yes, I did choose to have some drinks that night.  Yes, I did tell my roommate that a few of her friends could stay the night in our dorm room.  Yes, I did wear hot black pants and dance my ass off that night.  But NONE of those things gave one of my roommates friends the right to violate me.  Not a single thing I did that night gave him the right to rape me.  Yet, 12 years later there are still people who think I could have done things differently that night.

Rape isn’t about sex.  Rape is about control and violence.  Rapist get off because they are in control of the situation.  That is why a rapist will likely flee when there victim starts fighting back relentlessly.  Domestic Violence is also about control.  How the abuser obtains control is different in every situation but it is all about controlling the victim.

How can a victim be to blame with they are manipulated?  I know that I have posted a lot about the abusive relationship that I was in but I have not posted much about being raped 12 years ago.  I froze when he started to attack me.  I couldn’t move.  He was on top of me.  My bed was the top bunk.  And the next day he thought he did nothing wrong.  A few weeks later after he stopped by to pick up my roommate, he asked her why I ignored him.  To him, everything he did that night was perfectly fine and there was no reason why I shouldn’t want to be around him again.  Rapist don’t get that they are wrong.  They only care about what they want.

Victim blaming happens every day.  People think that if they tell the victim what they should have done differently, that it will stop rape and domestic violence.  No one should have to change their actions to prevent being raped or being abused by their partner.  It has to start with, parents teaching their children how to respect others and what they want.  If my rapists respected me, he would have asked if I wanted him inside of me before just forcing himself inside me.

The problem isn’t what a victim should have done differently, the problem is that there are people who think they can do whatever they want to others without caring about what will happen to them.  We have to address those who think they can treat people however they want to treat them.  I’m sick of seeing all of the things that victims should do differently.

When people continue to blame the victim, they are part of the problem.  We cannot live in fear and cater our lives to preventing being raped.  As a society, we have to address respect to start changing the number of rapes that happen daily.  If we can eradicate victim blaming, the number of reported rapes will increase because victim’s fear of not being believe or being blamed will decrease.

Women don’t need to do anything to make it so men can control themselves.  Men need to be taught to control themselves.  Men need to be taught that what a women wears does not mean she wants anything sexual.  People need to be taught that unless someone says they want more, that nothing should be done.

Single and Kid Free at the Holidays

The commercials are starting.  The endless commercials from jewelers encouraging men to purchase a wide variety of jewelry for the women in their lives.  And a new one this year, the girl giving her dad a pair of toddler shoes to tell him he is going to be a grandpa.

I just want to scream.  It’s bad enough that I have to deal with the endless questions from family members at every gathering but I also have to see every on the TV, billboards, as I walk through the store, and social media.

I get it you, you want people to be happy for your life choices.  But behind, at least one smile, one like on facebook, one I’m so happy for you comment, there is pain and lots of it.  There are many who for a variety of reasons don’t know if they will ever get married or have children even if they are both things that they want.

I have wanted to be a wife and a mother for as long as I can remember.  I know who my soul mate is and while we are working on us, I have no guarantee that we will be together again.  If we don’t get back together, I don’t know if I will ever meet someone who makes me feel the way he does.  It has taken us 10 years to get to where we can both admit the mistakes that we made when we were younger and those mistakes have caused both of us to make other life choices that we now have to decide what to do with.  Knowing what I want and having it are two completely different things.

Now for the kid factor.  This got worse for me a week and a half ago.  I was diagnosed with a condition that can caused fertility issues. My mom had fertility issues, what caused the issues are unknown, so I have always been worried about her issues being hereditary.  The issues I have are not the same that she had.  Her Dr was unable to figure out why she was not ovulating and I was diagnosed with endometriosis, so we know that I am ovulating.  How it will affect me having children will not be known until I am ready to have children.  While I know that if it causes me issues, that I am far from the only women who has fertility issues.  That face doesn’t make it a million times easier.

There comes a point, where Christmas isn’t the same anymore.  When you get to the age, where you should be the one staying up late playing Santa.  When Christmas becomes about your kids and not you. But for those in my shoes, we never know if we will get Christmas cards from family members, how many times we will be asked why we don’t have a significant other or when we will get married or have kids, or if anyone will give a shit about us at the Holiday’s.  There is no other way of putting it, if you are single and kid free you get left out of so much holiday stuff.  There are no school plays or lunches in my life.  There are no nights of curling up under a blanket with hot cocoa in front of a fire.  There is no hiding presents from little eyes.  There is simply getting through it.

I have a large extended family, so you would think that I wouldn’t feel left out.  Yet, every year at Christmas dinner everyone gets stuff for my younger cousins yet don’t worry about the older cousins.  It’s like we don’t even matter except for whatever we bring towards dinner.  The older I have gotten, the worse that it has gotten.  It is to the point, where this year I don’t want to spend Thanksgiving or Christmas with one side of my family.

Instead of pestering single and/or kid free family members during the holiday’s this year, I challenge you to ask them what is going in their life.  I challenge you to take interest in them like you do with the kids that are around.  Find out what interests them, what their goals are, what they plan on doing next year.  Make them feel welcome.  It isn’t easy on them, but it would be a hell of a lot easier for them if people treated them like people and not lepers.

4 Years

4 years ago I was reading the email where he broke up with me.  That email has long since been deleted but there are still scars fro the relationship and the email.

As I have previously said, a good friend ended up making me think a lot about the relationship over the past few months.  Every week, there are more things that come to light about that relationship.  It has been a rough 4 years but I am far better now than I was then.

A fellow survivor recently posted this Blog (No One Shows Up at your Door as an Abuser) to recount the emotional abuse that she endured.  What she, I and so many others have in common is the pain and scars that these relationships causes cannot be seen by looking at us.  If you walked past us on the street you wouldn’t know what were going through while we were in these relationships or that we went through them when you pass us now.  As people heal from relationships like this, we gain another in common.  We want to make sure that those in such relationships know that there is something better for them and more importantly that they are not alone.

One of the things that I have never touched on in depth about the relationship is the sexual side of the relationship.  I have a high sex drive and when I am in a relationship I enjoy having sex at least daily.  This was a problem for him.  If we had sex on Monday per say, he didn’t see a reason to have sex on Tuesday or Wednesday and I could forget about sex more than once a day.  At a certain point, he began to say things to make me feel guilty for wanting sex so regularly.  And to further that, the few times that I didn’t want sex he decided to make me for guilty for that.  It was a no win situation, I was either a horrible person for wanting sex or a horrible person for not wanting sex.

I am an alpha female and there is no denying that.  That was a problem for him and the cause for countless arguments.  If I wanted to go out with my friends, he either had to go and would sit there and not socialize with my friends or I would have to go when he was at work so that I wouldn’t have to listen to the bitching about me not spending time with him.  One of those times that I went out while he was at work, he got off earlier than I thought he would and my phone died, which resulted in a huge disaster.  I had my charger in my car but couldn’t be reached while I was sitting with friends enjoying a glass of wine.  I was the bad person for having friends and a social life.  The harder he tried to keep me from having a social life, the more is pushed me to want to go out with friends without him.  The times that he did go, it was a fucking grump and wouldn’t talk to any of my friends and try to get to know them.  I should have seen that for a bigger red flag at the time.  And the only “friends” that he had to go out with were the girls that he claims he stopped fucking when we starting hanging out.  To this day, I don’t believe that he stopped fucking them.

So cheating.  He once claimed to pull of the interstate after dropped me off at the airport and taking a nap because he was tired from having to get up so early.  He could have at least given a more reasonable excuse for it taking 3 hours to make an hour and a half drive.  Eventually he told me that he met up with a friend for coffee before leaving New Orleans to head back to Baton Rouge.  At that point, I didn’t even believe that but I dropped it because I didn’t want to be the cause for another argument.  A few weeks after that incident, I had to help with something pretty late at work and he decided to go to New Orleans and go out bar hoping with one of the girls he claims he was no longer fucking.  The last month we were together (I use together very loosely) I am pretty sure that he was seeing someone else already tho even never admitted to such a thing.  I was accused of cheating on him a number of times even though I never would have.  After my dad cheated on my mom when I was 16, I developed a strong opinion and dislike for cheating on any level.  He clearly didn’t care that cheating had be the straw that tore my family apart.

In abusive relationships, the common denominator (no matter what type of abuse) is the abuser will never talk the blame for their actions.  It is always the victim that is at fault according to the abuser.  It is the victims fault for every harsh word, for every argument, for every hit/punch/kick, for everything that happens.  If the abuser was supposed to do something, it becomes the victims fault if it didn’t get done.

The more that I work on myself and getting to where I’m not paranoid the more that I see was wrong with that relationship.  Yesterday was the first appointment with my new therapist.  The therapist I had been seeing moved to a practice about an hour away so I needed to move to someone that was in the same town that I live and work.  this new therapist was recommended to me by a friend who is a therapist and they used to work at the same practice.  While it was only an evaluation session, she was curious as to how this past relationship effected my current dating life.  I think that this therapist will help get me where I want and need to be.

Abusive relationships take a lot out of the victim.  I have come to realize that while I will never be the person I was before I met him, it is in my power to overcome what I went through because of him.  I have the power to make what happened, part of who I am and not allow him to still control my life by living in fear.  These realizations are not something that I got when I woke up the next morning after the relationship ended.  It took 5 months for me to get all my belongings back from him, the last thing that I got back was something of value that can not be replaced that I had long before meeting him.  It took a treat to report my belongings as stolen to get them back.  Within a couple weeks of getting that box, my phone number was changed so that he could no longer contact me.  Since then, he has been blocked from my email accounts and Facebook.  While, I did not have issues with his siblings or nieces and nephews, I did block them as well to limit the information that he could ever find out about me.

 

If you are in an abusive relationship of any kind, reach out to someone that you can trust.  Find organizations in your area that help victims of domestic abuse get out and get to a safe location.  It takes a lot to get an abuser out of your life but it is possible and I hope that you find the courage to overcome what your abuser has put you through.