The Iowa Supreme Court issued a unanimous ruling Friday finding that the state's same-sex marriage ban violates the constitutional rights of gay and lesbian couples, making Iowa the third state where marriage will be legal.Awesome. Totally awesome. I am so fucking happy I may actually cry. This isn't New York, or Massachusetts, but Iowa, the Mid-fucking-west we're talking about. It's an important victory.
Victory in Iowa
One Set of Rules for Us...
...and one set of rules for them:
In a meeting on Monday with Vermont citizens, Sen. Pat Leahy (D-VT) admitted that the truth commission he has advocated to examine Bush administration crimes like torture most likely won't happen. Reporter Charlotte Dennett writes that Leahy said political opposition was too strong to overcome.Perhaps this is why we find ourselves in the embarrassing position of having to watch a foreign country's court take on this case while we, the "moral beacon of the world," do nothing.
Impossibly Beautiful
Blue Gal emailed me the link to this (non-embeddable, grumble) video op-ed at the New York Times by filmmaker Jesse Epstein about photo retouching, in which she interviews two retouchers, one of whom informs her that he once created a cover image by piecing four different women together at his client's request, and one of whom admits "the whole process itself is destructive to the world, effectively."
It's really great; if you can't view the video, I've transcribed it below and included some relevant images.
Discuss.Text: The New York Times Opinion Contributors. Sex, Lies and Photoshop: Why magazines should let readers know if images have been retouched. March 10, 2009. Jesse Epstein, the [female] director of "Wet Dreams and False Images," "The Guarantee," and "34x25x36," is producing a feature film on body image.
Epstein/Voiceover: In France, public health officials and psychiatrists have been meeting to try to establish laws that would make it illegal to promote negative body image and eating disorders. They want to want to ban websites, censor media, and, in particular, one of the measures is to force magazines to disclose the extent to which their images have been retouched. How many images that we see on a daily basis have been altered?
Ken Harris, Photo Retoucher: Every picture has been worked on, some twenty, thirty rounds of going back and forth between the retouchers and the client and the agency. They are perfected to death. Just look, you know, you should just look through the magazines and consider it, and all that—all that is there to alter your mind, alter your conception of what physical beauty is, and what the possibility of attaining it is, and what the means of attaining it are. There are the evened-out freckles; there are her real freckles.
What you're looking for as a retoucher is a broom, something that covers your tracks, some way of obscuring where you've been. You know, and the first thing is, people take out is bloodshot eyes. That's the last thing I take out—the last thing I'd, like, just wipe, because that just makes it look retouched. You know, so you just stay away from them, you stay away from those obvious markers that show, you know, that you've been there.
Look, she looks way too heavy, I mean, has way too, like, powerful, like she looks way too athletic, you know? 
She's supposed to look like, you know, she's wearing—look at the dress; what's that dress about? It's not, you know, it's just—she's not wearing job clothes, here, you know? She's not playing soccer. It's supposed to be in this feminine dress.
Domenic Demasi, Photo Retoucher: This was a cover for Lucky magazine that we did, where it was four images to make one image. They preferred her over this model, and we went ahead and pieced together a new girl, as a result, out of all of those.
Shorter leg. Longer leg.
Epstein/Voiceover: So, if not even the models themselves can really measure up to their own images, what does this mean?
Demasi: This has caused a problem. This is an issue in the world. It's not like I can sit here and say, "Well, you know, well, then if everybody who's affected by this, they're—they're, you know, they're just weak and they're bound to have social and mental problems." That's not the case. I'm aware that this is something that, you know, is at ground level where, you know, people are seeing this and they're growing up with these being their icons and their images.
Text: According to a 2002 New York Times article about body-conscious athletes, boys as young as 10 are "bulking up with steroids."
Epstein/Voiceover: So even the retoucher thinks this is a problem.
Harris: I mean, there is, there is, there is blame to be assessed here; I'm not sure onto whom, but the whole process itself is, is, is destructive to the world, effectively.
Text: 70 percent of girls report that images of models in magazines influence their definition of a perfect female body. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
Epstein/Voiceover: A University of Missouri study found that looking at women's magazines from one to three minutes had a negative impact on women's self-esteem. So imagine what happens if we're bombarded by these images every day.
When we're looking at a painting, it's easy to think of it as a work of art, as something abstract, something constructed. With a picture, it's harder to tell what's been done to it. With all the effort that goes into making these images look the way they do, they're also fantasies; they're also works of art. Whatever's being advertised to us—a cream or a soap or a stretch-mark potion or a diet pill—will never actually make anyone perfect. Because perfect beauty can only be achieved with an airbrush.
It's going to be interesting to see what happens in France, and whether or not these laws go through. But, if magazines are not going to disclose the extent to which the images have been retouched, I'd say, at least put the retoucher's name in the credits.
I dare one magazine just to publish an entire issue without any retouching.
Today in Inappropriate
Seen in Oklahoma City, "the buckle of the Bible Belt". Funny and wrong. I love it.
(Thanks to Shaker Molliecat for sharing.)
Fool Her Once...
Ann Coulter got very upset when she read in Car & Driver that President Obama had forced GM and Chrysler out of the NASCAR business.
If Obama can tell GM and Chrysler that their participation in NASCAR is an "unnecessary expenditure," isn't having public schools force students to follow Muslim rituals, recite Islamic prayers and plan "jihads" also an "unnecessary expenditure"? Are all those school condom purchases considered "necessary expenditures"?There's one small detail Ms. Coulter overlooked: the date of the article was April 1.
Illegal aliens cost the American taxpayer more than $10 billion a year, net, in Medicaid, Medicare, food stamps, free school lunches, prison, school and court costs. And yet cities, counties and states across the nation are openly refusing to enforce federal immigration law against illegal aliens -- all while accepting billions of dollars of stimulus money on top of a litany of other federal payouts.
*snort*
Cross-posted from Bark Bark Woof Woof.
Framing
The LA Times ran a story three days ago (reprinted in today's Seattle Times) about a church-run program in Lancaster, California that gives homeless people a one-way bus ticket out of town. The story includes a few favorable quotes from homeless people who took bus tickets from the program, but makes it pretty clear that the real goal of the program is to make homeless folks someone else's problem. (Lancaster's mayor has even donated $10,000 to the program, saying the city has enough of its "own" homeless without having to deal with those from other cities). The headline the LA Times chose is descriptive but neutral: "Homeless in Lancaster get free tickets to go away."
So what headline did the Seattle Times go with? "To reduce homelessness, nonprofit offers free 1-way bus ticket out of town." It's a subtle difference, but important: As even some who support the program acknowledge, it's more likely to shift the burden of homelessness elsewhere than reduce it, because most homeless people don't have strong family support systems or good job prospects in other cities. (People who have those things are less likely to be homeless) The couple featured in the story, for example, just moved to California from Las Vegas last month, hoping job prospects would be better there. Mobility isn't their problem; getting jobs is. Now, they're taking a one-way trip to Denver, where one of them has a relative. Their goal? To get "a fresh start." Again.
Cross-posted.
R.I.P. Andy Hallett
Andy Hallett, the actor probably best known for playing demonic lounge singer Lorne on Angel, died earlier this week of heart disease. He was 33. Lorne was always one of my favorite characters on the show. He'll be missed.
Question of the Day
We've done this one before, but not for almost a year and a half, so here we go again, with no requirement to give your name, of course, should you prefer to remain anonymous: Do you like your first name? Do you use a name other than the one you were given? If you were forced to pick a new name for yourself, what would you choose?
I like Melissa. It suits me well enough, and I like its meaning—it's Greek for honey bee. I've never gone by anything else, except Liss or Lissa, and never Missy.
If I had to choose a new name, I'd probably be really boring and pick something that was close to Melissa, like Miranda, because I like the rhythm of my name and the alliteration: Melissa McEwan. It feels like a good name for me.
The First Lady in London
BBC: "Michelle Obama was mobbed by pupils after she gave a speech at the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson School for girls in Islington, north London." That speech reminds me a lot of something we might have heard from another First Lady widely admired around these parts. (Which I intend wholly as a compliment.) [H/T to Shaker Constant Comment.]
Choir finishes song. Applause. Michelle Obama offers soloist high-five, mouthing "So good!"; soloist runs over and high-fives her, beaming. Cut to Obama giving speech.
Obama: Getting a good education is so important. That's why all of this that you're going through, the ups and the downs, the teachers that you love and the teachers that you don't, why it's so important—because communities and countries and ultimately the world are only as strong as the health of their women. And that's important to keep in mind. Part of that health includes an outstanding education.
Cut to Obama finishing speech and being absolutely mobbed by screaming girls, who want to touch her and shake her hand and embrace her. Secret Service reaches down to pull her back, but she continues to hug the girls, totally unphased. She gets up, walks to the other side of the stage, and kneels down, so that the girls on the other side can hug her, too.
Insert Your Own Stimulus Plan Joke Here
Oops:
In a press release, the White House accidentally listed a sex line number for journalists seeking an "on-the-record briefing call with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and National Security Advisor Jim Jones to discuss the NATO summit."The White House quickly corrected the press release (duh), and the only reason this is worth mentioning is because Fox actually included this in its own story about Phonegate:
But after dialing, a soft-voiced female recording that was clearly not Clinton asked for a credit card number if you "feel like getting nasty."
Asked for comment about this mishap, Deputy White House Press Secretary Bill Burton responded: "A corrected phone number on a press release is probably one of the stupider things FOX News has covered lately."Ha!
Daily Kitteh
Sophie knows how to do a lot of things really well: Look cute, annoy me, balance on monitors... But perhaps she is most skilled at sleeping. Hard.
From Ted Nugent With Love
In which I substitute an email conversation between myself and Liss for an actual post...
Liss: Speaking of horse's asses, you know you want to do a post about this.
Deeks: What the fuck??
Liss: Right? I mean, seriously.
Deeks: Whatever, he wants to do a hunting show, that's cool. I personally don't get the whole appeal of hunting, but hey, wevs, different strokes and all that. But what the fuck is with him and his son chasing contestants through the woods? Jebus! I think he's read "The Most Dangerous Game" one too many times.
Liss: I know! It's literally a show about Ted Nugent stalking people! Hello! And, if he teaches them "survival skills," but then catches them, he's a terrible teacher. But if he doesn't catch them, it's a terrible show. Great concept, bozos.
Deeks: So true. Your analysis vaguely reminds me of that show with Bobby Flay where he goes around to small towns and has little cook-offs with local chefs. But he loses every time. I read somewhere that the whole reason show was created was to make a very unlikeable man more likeable by having him humiliated every week by regular folk.
Liss: That is the same reason "News from Shakes Manor" was created, in which, you'll note, Iain always gets the best of me.
Deeks: Well, if you ever run out of idea for that series, I can start a new one called "You're An Asshole." Every post will just be the title and a photo of you.
Shaker Gourmet: Family Faves
Inspired by SKM's post below, I thought I'd share some of our family's favorite dishes.
First up is one of my favorites and I made it for Liss, Iain, and Deeks this past January, who all gave it good reviews. This is not my own creation but one of my many finds browsing the FoodNetwork site (and is Rachael Ray's). Without further ado, here is delicious gummi liquid:
I usually let it simmer a while after the chicken is supposed to be done--maybe another 10 minutes or so. I also thicken this with a typical cornstarch/broth mix after the chicken is cooked to make it more like a stew. The sour cream is very important! Mix it in before you start eating, too. I don't usually put in celery. Here is the original recipeSmoky Sweet Potato Chicken Stoup
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 medium carrots, peeled
2 ribs celery
1 large onion, peeled and halved
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1 to 2 chipotle chili in adobo, finely chopped, plus a spoon of sauce
from the can
Salt and black pepper
1 teaspoon dry thyme, eyeball it
1 bay leaf
1 cup dry white wine, eyeball it
5 cups chicken stock
1 large sweet potato, peeled
3/4 to 1 pound chicken tenders, cut into bite size pieces
4 scallions, white and green parts thinly sliced
1/4 cup cilantro leaves, a generous handful, roughly chopped
1/2 cup sour cream, for garnish, optional
Heat a soup pot over medium-high heat with 2 tablespoons of extra-virgin olive oil, about 2 turns of the pan.
While soup pot heats, chop carrots in half lengthwise then slice into thin half moons. Add the carrots to the pot while it heats, stirring to coat the carrots in the oil. Chop and drop in celery and onion, chopping as small as you can, but don't make yourself crazy. Cut the sweet potatoes into quarters lengthwise, then thinly slice into bite size pieces. Add to pot. Add in garlic, chipotle, and adobo sauce and stir to combine. Season the veggies with salt, pepper, thyme, and bay leaf. Cook the veggies together 1 minute. Add the wine and reduce a minute. Add the stock to the pot, cover the pot, and raise heat to high. Bring the stoup to a boil, remove the cover, and simmer for 10 minutes.
Add the cut chicken and simmer until chicken is cooked through. Turn the heat off and add the scallions and cilantro. Serve each portion of stoup with a dollop of sour cream on top.
Another with awesome taste but an unfortunately silly name is this one that everyone in our family loves (the girl child is known to request thirds with this one!). It is a bit time intensive. This one is Guy Fieri's:
Garam masala can be purchased at your local Indian grocer (or a well stocked spice area in a supermarket) or you can make it yourself.Taj Maholla! Chicken
For the Chicken:
* 1 tablespoon canola oil
* 1/2 cup minced garlic
* 1/4 cup minced ginger
* 2 teaspoons chili powder
* 1 teaspoon turmeric
* 2 teaspoons Garam Masala
* 2 tablespoons pomegranate juice
* 2 pounds skinless, bone-in chicken thighs
For the Butter Sauce:
* 1 tablespoon olive oil
* 1 cup diced red onion
* 1 teaspoon minced ginger
* 1 teaspoon minced garlic
* 3 Roma tomatoes, seeded and chopped
* 1/2 teaspoon Garam Masala
* 1/2 teaspoon chili powder
* 1/2 teaspoon turmeric
* 1/2 cup heavy cream
* 2 tablespoons butter
* 1 teaspoon salt
* 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Directions
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. In skillet, over medium heat, heat oil. Add garlic and ginger and slowly cook until soft, about 3 minutes. Add chili powder, turmeric, Garam Masala and pomegranate juice. Let cool slightly. Rub chicken well with mixture and bake in a shallow baking pan for 25 minutes. Chicken will be three-quarters of the way cooked. When chicken is cool to the touch, remove bones and shred meat into 1/2-inch pieces. Set aside.
Meanwhile to make Butter Sauce: In a large saute pan, heat olive oil over medium high heat. Saute onions, ginger and garlic until light brown, about 4 minutes. Add tomatoes and continue sauteing until tomatoes begin to fall apart, about 5 minutes. Add spices and continue to cook 5 minutes. Transfer to a blender and puree until smooth. Return puree back to pan and add cream and butter. Bring to a simmer and reduce for 5 minutes. Add shredded chicken and saute for 6 minutes more until chicken is cooked through. Add salt and pepper, to taste. Serve with basmati rice, if desired.
And another of Rachael Ray's:
I don't use water chestnuts--we don't like them and I don't think they really add much to the dish (made it with them the first time). I also don't use brown rice, I usually use basmati. I use cilantro and roasted cashews, not raw.Chipotle Cashew Chicken
* 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
* 2 tablespoons butter
* 1 large onion, 1/4 onion finely chopped, 3/4 thinly sliced
* 2 cups quick cooking brown rice
* 4 cups chicken stock
* 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
* 2 pounds chicken meat: tenders, boneless, skinless breasts or boneless, skinless thighs, cut into 2-inch pieces
* 2 tablespoons grill seasoning blend (recommended: Montreal Steak Seasoning blend by McCormick)
* 2 to 3 tablespoons tamari dark soy sauce, eyeball it
* 4 cloves garlic, chopped
* 1 red bell pepper, seeded and thinly sliced
* 10 to 12 water chestnuts, whole
* 1 cup frozen green peas
* 3 tablespoons chipotle in adobo (2 peppers and their sauce), available in cans on the international foods aisle or substitute 1 1/2 tablespoons ground chipotle powder
* 1 tablespoon ground cumin, a palm full
* 2 to 3 tablespoons honey, 2 healthy drizzles
* 1/4 to 1/3 cup real maple syrup, eyeball it
* 2 to 3 tablespoons chopped cilantro or parsley leaves, your preference
* 1 cup raw cashews
In a medium pot over medium heat combine 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil, 1 turn of the pan, and 1 tablespoon butter. When butter melts into oil, add in the chopped onion, cook 2 minutes, then add rice and cook 3 minutes more. Add stock and cover the pot. Raise heat to bring stock to a rapid boil. Once the stock boils, reduce heat to low and cook, stirring occasionally, until rice is tender, 17-18 minutes.
While rice cooks, make the chicken. Heat a large skillet over high heat. Add vegetable oil, 2 turns of the pan, then the chicken. Season the chicken with grill seasoning. Brown the chicken on both sides, season with soy sauce then move off to one side of the pan. Add the remaining onions, garlic and peppers. Cook 2 to 3 minutes then add water chest nuts and green peas and mix vegetables and meat together. Add the chipotles and cumin. Toss to coat. Glaze the mixture with honey and maple syrup and turn off the heat. Add in the chopped cilantro or parsley and the cashew nuts.
Top rice with cashew chicken and serve.
For easy, quick and relatively inexpensive, here's one from my childhood that I still love and my kids request (I could swear I've shared this one before but I couldn't find it!):
If you have a Trader Joe's nearby, they sell a "quick cooking sirloin" that's perfect for this recipe.Beef Stroganoff
* 1 – 1.5 lbs sirloin or top round steak, cut into thin strips
* 2 T butter
* 1/2 lb mushrooms, rinsed & sliced (or more if you like)
* 1 10.5 oz can double strength beef broth (Campbells makes this)
* 2 T ketchup
* 4 cloves garlic, finely minced
* dash black pepper
* 1 cup sour cream
* 3 cups hot, cooked noodles
* 2 tsp cornstarch & water, mixed (for thickening)
—Quickly brown beef in butter in large skillet, not so much that's it's cooked through. Add garlic & mushrooms, sauté briefly. Add broth, pepper, and ketchup, mix well. Cover, let simmer on med-low for 15 minutes.
—Cook noodles. When noodles are about done, bring stroganoff to boil and thicken stroganoff with cornstarch & water. When thickened, take off heat and stir in sour cream. Mix well & serve over hot noodles.
Other family favorites that I've shared here before: Buffalo Chicken Pasta, Feta, Artichoke, & Sun-Dried Tomato Pasta, Chicken-Fried-Chicken (and a french bread recipe is in that post too), Chicken Pot Pie, and some Herb Bread (and dipping oil) to go with just about any of these dishes!
If you'd like to participate in Shaker Gourmet, email me (and include your Shaker name) at: shakergourmet (at) gmail.com
Number of the Day
3. The number of parties Zombie Newt says we'll have in America come 2012 if the GOP doesn't shape up:
"If the Republicans can't break out of being the right wing party of big government, then I think you would see a third party movement in 2012," Gingrich said Tuesday. ... But Gingrich, bemoaning President Barack Obama's "monstrosity of a budget," acknowledged that Republicans are partially to blame for the escalation in federal spending.Yes, indeed: The Republicans are "partially to blame" for the voracious spending spree which they oversaw from the executive branch for the last eight years, as well as the legislative branch for the first six of those. Their bad.
"Remember, everything Obama's doing, Bush started last year," he said. "If you're going to talk about big spending, the mistakes of the Bush administration last year are fully as bad as the mistakes of Obama's first two, three months."
Sheesh.
Mmmm... Sciencey!
Two new studies, of varyingly dubious quality.
The first, according to the BBC (which illustrated the story with a Sex and the City image--because that joke never gets old!), "suggests" that "women may be able to blame impulse buys and extravagant shopping on their time of the month." I haven't looked closely at the methodology, but the BBC story notes that the study 1) only involved 443 women; 2) was based on self-reporting, a notoriously unreliable way of gathering data; and 3) concluded that women tend to buy one item on impulse during the ten days before their periods start, which seems too broad to even draw an inference. That, of course, didn't prevent the researchers from concluding that women shop impulsively before their periods because they're "feeling stressed or depressed and are more likely to go shopping to cheer themselves up and using it to regulate their emotions." Nor did it prevent the BBC from speculating, based on the fact that the women in the survey were buying OMG SHOEZ, that they were trying "to make themselves feel more attractive - coinciding with the time of ovulation when they are most fertile."
The second--reported in the New York Daily News--reportedly shows that as men do more work around the house, an increasing percentage--59 percent of dual-earning couples, compared to 35 percent in 1977--are unhappy with the amount of work they do at home. According to the study's main author, quoted in the Daily News, "Women are more used to their roles than men. And they’ve seen their mothers balancing work and family before them. But it’s less familiar for men." This study did have a much larger sample size--3,500 people--and it comes from a reputable source, the Families and Work Institute. (Full study available at their web site). However, digging into the numbers, it appears that although more than half of the men surveyed self-reported that they do an equal share or more of the child care, cooking, and cleaning, more than 70 percent of women reported that they do all or most of the household chores. So the real story seems to be that doing a little more around the house causes men to 1) be unhappy with the amount of housework they have to do and 2) believe that they're doing an equal or greater share than their wives. If that's true, we still have a long way to go.
Calling Cut on Domestic Violence
[Trigger warning.]
Keira Knightley has filmed a new PSA to air in movie theaters about domestic violence. Discuss.
Actress Keira Knightley is seen heading home from a movie set. She pulls up to an apartment building and looks up to see a man's silhouette in what is presumably the window of her flat. She takes the elevator up to the flat, looking anxious, and walks in, calling, "Sweetheart?" before noticing a shattered mirror, which has clearly been punched. Below it are drips of blood, leading to a blood trail she follows until her boyfriend steps in behind her, startling her.
Knightley: Oh, you're here. [notices bloodied knuckles] You're hurt. Here. [hands him a towel]
Boyfriend: Who was it today? Your leading man?
Knightley: Oh, gentleheart, please—
Boyfriend: How did it feel? Did it feel real?
Knightley: It's my job. [he throws towel in her face; she looks at him, then looks away and says, as if to a director: Sorry, we didn't agree to that. That wasn't in the script.
Boyfriend: Whore! [backhands her hard]
Knightley: Oof! [falls to ground]
Boyfriend: You stupid— [sounds of silverware and plates smashing]
Knightley: Please, I didn't agree to this! [screams as he pulls her up by her hair] Ahh! No! No! [he throws her back to the floor and kicks her repeatedly; she shouts]
Camera pans back, revealing a movie set, but there is no one there.
Text on screen: Isn't it time someone called cut? 2 women die from domestic violence every week. Help save lives. Donate £2 a month. Women's Aid. womensaid.org.uk
Oh, Lord.
The Daily Beast has a slide show today featuring photos of "sizzling G-20 wives," including Michelle Obama, Carla Bruni... and Argentinian president Cristina Fernandez De Kirchner, one of the most powerful women in the world.
Via Paul Krugman, whose only comment was, "We're doomed."
Quote of the Day
"This was a mutual and spontaneous display of affection and appreciation between The Queen and Michelle Obama."—A Buckingham Palace spokeswoman, on the First Lady having touched the Queen in what "some of the more excitable elements of the media—particularly the Americans" have suggested may have been a breach of royal protocol.
The Times notes dryly: "They missed the real story, however. What was far more interesting was that the Queen put her arm round the First Lady."
Boehlert's got more on the dreadful American media coverage of the Obamas' visit to the Palace.
The Survivor Thread
[Trigger warning.]
So, last night, I'm watching an episode of Intervention, and it's an episode with two women—one a meth addict, and one with a shopping addiction. And, in keeping with the trend I've previously observed, both of them had been sexually assaulted at a young age.
The meth addict, who was only 18, had already been, as the show (and her family) put it, "molested" twice—once by a cousin and one by a family friend who offered to mentor her after her father died. In the interviews with family members about her addiction, her aunt said she was worried about her niece, fearing she could end up "murdered or raped."
As if she hadn't already been twice raped.
Her aunt, like many people, probably doesn't consider any sexual assault a "real" rape until it's done by a stranger who leaves you half-dead. When it's done by a family member, it's merely "being molested." And part of the reason there are so many women who make this distinction is because "being molested" is so ubiquitous that it is considered a normal part of growing up female.
It put me in mind of this post by Shaker Wisewebwoman, which she sent me last week, in which she documents the multiple times she was sexually assaulted "before the age of consent" (and how she was silenced). She also notes:One time, I took an informal survey amongst the women I knew. And every single last one of them had been sexually interfered with before the age of consent. Some far, far worse than others. And there are degrees, I suppose. Some were abused by their fathers, or uncles or brothers or cousins. And their mothers told them to shut up. Some got pregnant. Some became infertile. All were traumatized.
All of my female friends with whom I've spoken about this subject have been sexually assaulted multiple times in their lives—by family members or family friends, by persons of authority (ministers, teachers, doctors), by dates or boyfriends or husbands, by strangers—in incidents ranging from exposure (flashing) to penetrative rape.
I have been sexually assaulted multiple times: Once by a man I knew, my then-boyfriend, and twice by men I did not—a stranger on a train and a medical assistant who commented on and touched my breasts as I was about to get an MRI. (I was 16 and too scared and mostly too embarrassed to tell; to this day, it makes seeking medical treatment extremely difficult for me.) And that doesn't include the random grabbing of breasts and asses, the casual assaults that women consider "part of life."
As I've said before, this points to an interesting, ahem, blindspot in the oft-cited statistic about 1 in 6 women being victims of sexual assault or attempted sexual assault sometime in their lives: Many of those women will have been victimized multiple times.
And many of us who are survivors of repeat assaults will not speak of it; many of us will pick the "worst" one and talk about that in threads on assault, as if it's the only one. We do this for many reasons: We might feel embarrassed by being repeatedly victimized, as if it's indicative of a character flaw within ourselves; we might have trouble discussing multiple assaults without undermining what tenuous feeling of safety we have; we might have faced reactions of incredulity from people with whom we shared this information and thought we could trust; we might have been called liars or hysterics—accusations born of the silence about sexual assault.
Disbelief is the inevitable result of swimming in a culture which renders invisible the reality that enormous numbers of women—and men—have been sexually assaulted, many of them more than once.
And so, this will be a thread of clattering teaspoons breaking that silence. Share your stories here.
This is a safe space and this is the survivor thread.
