it was lovely and cool this morning on the corner.
i hadn't been there but five minutes or so when a gentleman stopped to advise me of a good church i could maybe go to, one that was welcoming and open and nonjudgmental.
i think the people of the williston federated church would be appalled to know how many times strangers passing by want to give me advice about good churches- you know, not like this one. you know, churches where they welcome everyone and are supportive. churches where they aren't into victim blaming.
i kid you not. people actually say this stuff to me.
they say it nearly every time i'm out there.
other things that i hear often, less often that that, but more often than i would like, are well-meaning people who want to measure the legitimacy of my claim on assault by asking what i was wearing, or where i was, or how i might have led the perpetrator on.
today i was asked if i had been leading him on in any way, as if this questioner has the standing to evaluate my personal life to see if i had maybe deserved an assault.
"no", i said. "none of us are EVER asking for it."
it's kind of a more complex social issue than just this, though. it is part of the culture where we not only blame women for their sexuality, but we blame women for men's sexuality, and not that sexual assault has as much to do with sexuality as it does dominance and violence and depersonalization, but it gets all tied in there and it is a multi-layered problem.
the best way, incidentally, for women not to be assaulted is for men to stop assaulting us.
did you guys follow the story out of saudi arabia a few months ago? the story where two men were expelled from the country because they were too handsome and saudi women might lose control?
it was treated in the press like an amusing little side trip, a cute instance of men being subjected to sexism.
but really what's going on here is we are in essence blaming women for that.
because women are not free agents. they are not in control of their feelings or desires and they are so deficient as humans that if men who are TOO HANDSOME come along, we have to protect women from even seeing them because women who see handsome men will naturally allow themselves to be ravished and then we would have to kill them for the honor of their families.
today for a while outside the church, the people inside thought it would be a lovely day to keep the front door open. the thing about that is that i know just where to stand on the street so that i can be seen from inside the church by anyone up at the lectern or in the aisle, facing the street.
none of you gets to forget that i am out here on the street.
I AM
OUTCAST
FROM THIS CHURCH.
they didn't want to be reminded of it.
they closed the door.
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