by Amy McCarthy, an editor, writer, community manager, and feminist who can be found playing Top Chef in her kitchen when not causing all kinds of trouble on Twitter. Follow Amy.
[Content note: Sexual violence, description of assault, reproductive coercion, self-harm.]
Over the past few years, we've started hearing more frequently the stories of a number of women and men who were sexually assaulted while they served in the United States Armed Forces and reported their assaults.
In mid-2012, 35 instructors at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, TX were removed from their positions, a majority of whom were removed for "illicit sexual conduct," including rape. We have heard the story of Marine Lt. Elle Helmer, who was raped in 2006 by a superior officer. According to CNN, when she reported her assault to her commanding officer, he discouraged her from getting a rape kit. You can read the survivor stories of Rebecca, Terri, Heath, Darchelle, Panayiota, Jenny, Michael, Heath, and Amando here.
What we don't hear as often, though, are the stories of the thousands of other women and men in the United States Armed Forces, deployed and stationed stateside, who are victims of rape at the hands of superior officers, peers, and civilian instructors, but never report their assaults.
According to Protect Our Defenders, an organization that works to support military rape victims, "only 13.5% of sexual assaults within the services were reported." That means, instead of the official number of 3,158 sexual assaults that were reported in 2010 (the most recent year that reporting is available), it is likely that the number is much closer to 19,000.
One of those 19,000 victims who have been silenced by rape culture is my dear friend, who has chosen to be identified here only as "S." She spoke to me about her experience, with the explicit intent of publicly sharing her story.
S, a strong, vibrant young woman who has a bright future ahead of her, joined the Navy to get out of her small town, get a little direction, maybe see the world. She served in the Navy from 2009 until 2012, during which time she studied aircraft electrical systems.
The assault happened at a party celebrating her group's "A" School Graduation. (At "A" School, sailors learn how to do the jobs they enlisted to do.) After the ceremony, most of her graduating class got rooms at a local hotel because they'd all been drinking. S shared her room with a woman in her class.
After deciding to call it a night, S left for bed, telling her roommate that she'd leave the deadbolt to their room unlocked so she could get in when she was through partying. When S woke up a few hours later feeling sick, her attacker was raping her. Even though she was sick and continued to vomit on her attacker, he continued to assault her.
Once the assault was over, S's attacker left and she hid in the bathroom until morning. Soon after, S flew home several states away to celebrate Christmas with her family, not telling anyone.
She kept the assault to herself until she had to tell her boyfriend. She'd become pregnant as a result of the rape and wanted an abortion. Her boyfriend "didn't believe in abortion," and wanted S to carry the pregnancy to term so that he could "raise the child as his own." He propsed, because he thought it was the "right" thing to do.
Seventeen weeks into the pregnancy, S realized that she couldn't go through with it. She ended her pregnancy, and her relationship suffered because of that decision. It eventually fizzled out.
Undiagnosed PTSD, stress, and anxiety were beginning to wear on her and she felt like she had to get out. In February of 2012, S attempted suicide.
S told her supervisor at work, who was also a friend and insisted that S go to the hospital for a check-up. Doctors checked her into the hospital for a mandatory overnight psychiatric evaluation.
"I had already started therapy when I attempted suicide," says S, "but I hadn't really told anyone my story. I had avoided thinking about it for so long that the memories had become overwhelming." Now just over one year later, S is out of the Navy and doing better. I asked her how she's healing.
"Getting out of the Navy helped. I had to get away from that uniform—it was a constant reminder. It's easier to talk about it now," she says.
But she still experiences the lingering effects of the sexual assault in sometimes unexpected ways: "The FedEx guy at work touched me yesterday at work and I freaked out, and I still can't get in an elevator with a man and not feel threatened, but I'm doing better."
I also asked her what she hoped to accomplish by telling her story. Her response was poignant: "I hope that it makes someone feel less alone. I felt lost when it happened. Like, I couldn't tell anyone. So I didn't. When I found out I was pregnant, I told [my ex-boyfriend] about it. He flipped out and blamed me. Saying I shouldn't have been there and that I was stupid for putting myself in a situation where it could have happened."
"I just hope that I make someone realize that there are people all around them who have experienced what they're going through...and the aftermath. And they just have to reach out. The sooner, the better."
S and the 15,841 other silenced sexual assault victims in the United States Armed Forces deserve more.
* * *
If you have survived sexual assault and want to reach out for support, there are resources that can help you (the following is not a comprehensive list):
Resources within the military: Military OneSource and US Department of Defense Sexual Assault Prevention and Response.
In conjunction with the military: RAINN's SAFEHelpline.
Resources outside the military for veterans of the US Armed Forces: Military Rape Crisis Center.
Silence & Military Sexual Assault: A Survivor Story
Tsarnaev Cites War as Motivation for Bombing
[Content Note: Terrorism; war.]
According to anonymous sources "familiar with the interviews" of Boston bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, he has cited "the American wars in Iraq and Afghanistan" as the motivation for the attacks carried out with his brother.
The 19-year-old suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings has told interrogators that the American wars in Iraq and Afghanistan motivated him and his brother to carry out the attack, according to U.S. officials familiar with the interviews.I am not justifying the Tsarnaevs' attack when I observe the following: The wars and drone operations continually justified as "spreading freedom" and/or "making us safer" do neither.
From his hospital bed, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has acknowledged his role in planting the explosives near the marathon finish line on April 15, the officials said.
...The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe an ongoing investigation, said Dzhokhar and his older brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who was killed by police as the two attempted to avoid capture, do not appear to have been directed by a foreign terrorist organization.
Rather, the officials said, the evidence so far suggests they were "self-radicalized" through Internet sites and U.S. actions in the Muslim world. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has specifically cited the U.S. war in Iraq, which ended in December 2011 with the removal of the last American forces, and the war in Afghanistan, where President Obama plans to end combat operations by the end of 2014.
Obama has made repairing U.S. relations with the Islamic world a foreign policy priority, even as he has expanded drone operations in Pakistan and other countries, which has inflamed Muslim public opinion.
Daily Dose of Cute
Sophie, greeting me in the morning at the bottom of the stairs: "RUB MAH BELLEH, TWO-LEGS!"
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.
Texting! With Liss and Deeky!
As Deeky mentioned In the News, I recently gifted him a Star Wars bow tie. Here is the text conversation had upon its arrival...
Deeks: Thanks for the bow tie!
Liss: You're welcome! I wanted to send you something non-garbagey for a change!
Deeks: LOLOLOL. I just assumed it was garbage prior to opening it.
Liss: "Wait—what? Who is this from again?"
Deeks: I had to check the note they included.
Liss: LOL!
I don't know what he is on about. Just because the last thing I sent him was a pair of marshmallow dolls with googly eyes! Harrumph.
In The News
[Content note: Homophobia, rape, rape culture]
Tuesday:
Steubenville's football coach got a two-year contract extension. I hate everything.
Folk singer Richie Havens died yesterday.
Watch Havens' legendary performance of Freedom at Woodstock.
One Direction is heading for a showdown with Justin Bieber at the Billboard Music Awards. Be safe, everyone!
Here is everything you need to know about the Senate's online sales-tax bill.
Delaware's House is set to debate and vote on marriage equality today. Yay!
Rhode Island's Senate Judiciary Committee will consider a marriage equality bill today. Yay!
The French National Assembly gave its final approval today to marriage equality. Yay!
Check out this awesome Star Wars bowtie that Liss gave to me. Yay!
Photo of the Day
At the White House Science Fair, President Obama intently pedals a bicycle connected to a water filtration system designed by two teenage girls, as they explain the science to him. [Video here.] President Obama said to participants at the event:
"We celebrate our great football players … and we celebrate outstanding musicians, and that's all appropriate. But we've got to make sure that we're also celebrating, every single day in our schools, in our classrooms and in our country, the outstanding contributions that scientists and engineers and mathematicians and engineers are providing to us every single day."I continue to love every single personal interaction this President has with kids.
"We want you to know that you've got a whole country behind you as you pursue your dreams," he said. "And your success is going to be our success, as well. So, way to go."
[Related Reading: Last Year: Marshmallows!]
An Observation
[Content Note: Misogyny; body policing; culture of judgment.]
If I never heard the phrase "side boob" ever again, that would be okay.
I would also be very okay with never reading "bump watch," and especially the related "baby bump or brunch bump," ever again. Ever.
I wouldn't miss "bikini body," either. Or "beach body."
Or "post-baby body." At least in the context of: "Look at Cis Female Celebrity's banging' post-baby body!" or "Look at Cis Female Celebrity's shitty post-baby body!"
And "nip slip" is one of THE WORST. It can fuck off forever.
I pretty much hate every cutesy phrase used to publicly audit women's bodies, is what I'm saying.
[Related Reading: I Would Like to File an Official Complaint.]
Quote of the Day
"I am a black, gay male."—Nevada State Senator Kelvin Atkinson (D), on the floor of the Nevada Senate yesterday, during a debate preceding a vote in which the Senate "voted 12-9 to repeal the state's 2002 amendment limiting marriage to one man and one woman and replace it with language requiring the recognition of all marriages between two people, 'regardless of gender'."
In addition to out LGBT Sens. David Parks and Pat Spearman, Sen. Kelvin Atkinson declared on the floor during the debate, "I am a black, gay male." Because he was speaking about his sexual orientation publicly for the first time Monday night, he said he had heard negative comments about the marriage amendment repeal from others prior to the vote. But, he said, "People should mind their business and allow people to do what they want to do."This is the beginning of a very long road with an uncertain end, but irrespective of its eventual outcome, what Senator Atkinson did yesterday was important and brave. He will change minds, which is a crucial step in changing the law.
...The bill will now go to the state Assembly. If it passes there, it will have to be passed by the next legislature, which meets in 2015, and then by the people the following year.
Especially as long as we continue to allow majority votes on minority rights.
Boston Bombing: The Latest
[Content Note: Terrorism; violence; injury.]
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the surviving brother of the pair who are believed to have bombed the Boston Marathon, killing three spectators and wounding nearly 300 others, and killed an MIT police officer, was charged yesterday afternoon in a bedside hearing at the hospital where he is still recovering from his injuries. During the hearing, a magistrate judge read D. Tsarnaev his rights and explained the charges against him. He will not be tried as an enemy combatant, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney confirmed yesterday: "We will prosecute this terrorist through our civilian system of justice."
D. Tsarnaev has been charged with using a weapon of mass destruction and malicious destruction of property resulting in death. Spencer Ackerman explains the WMD charge here.
If he is convicted, he could face the death penalty. The State of Massachusetts doesn't have the death penalty, but this will be a federal trial, and federal statutes supersede state law. The feds don't have to seek the death penalty, but they can.
In other news, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who died after a gunfight with police, after reportedly detonating a suicide vest and then being run over by his fleeing younger brother, has been identified as a potential suspect in an unsolved 2011 triple homicide of a former roommate and two others.
Finally: The New York Times interviews survivors about their experiences of being near the explosions.
Question of the Day
What was a memorable experience you had of seeing some animal in person for the first time?
Because today is Dudley's adoption anniversary, I am recalling the first time I saw greyhounds in person. One night, I was totally pissed off with Iain about something that I'm sure was super important (lol), and I went out for a drive to cool off. I ended up at PetSmart (or PetCo, or whatever) to buy some treats and toys for the cats, which I knew would get me back in a good and loving headspace.
While I was there, a local greyhound rescue was having an in-store meet-and-greet with a bunch of the dogs awaiting adoption. Greyhounds are such iconic dogs, but I had never seen one in person before, and I found myself returning to that part of the store over and over, just to look at them. It was like seeing a unicorn.
They were beautiful—so much taller than I thought they were, so sleek. I finally stopped to pet one, and her fur was so soft. She did that loooooooong greyhound stretch, and then leaned hard against me. Swoon.
I also remember the first time I saw a giraffe in person. Actually, it maybe wasn't strictly the first time, because I'd probably seen them at zoos, but this one was at the county fair, and it had been raised on a farm. It stretched its impossibly long neck over the steel bars of its large pen, so visitors could pet it and offer it treats. It was so powerful and so gentle. What an experience.
Tom Hardy and a Puppy Visit the CN Tower
"Tom," said the puppy, licking its nose, "why do humans like dogs so much?" And Tom replied, "Well, puppy, I think the humans who do like dogs like them for a whole lot of different reasons, but mostly it's probably because dogs tend to be so loyal and nonjudgmental and love people unconditionally." And the puppy said: "Tom, if that's why people love dogs, why don't people try to be more like that to each other?" And Tom said: "That's a good question, puppy."
Monday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by bowties.
Recommended Reading:
Sally: The News Media's Public Disservice in Boston
Mike: Questions Boston City Officials and Representatives Need to Answer
Anna: The Feministing Five: Akiba Solomon
Steve: Victoria Stilwell's Advice: 'Train Your Dog Positively'
Rebecca: Things We Saw Today: Daenerys Targaryen in How to Train Your Drogon
Jess: Sports and Domestic Violence: All Blacks' Julian Savea Is Latest Athlete to Be Charged [Content Note: The post at this link contains discussion of domestic violence and sexual assault.]
Trudy's collection of some of her writing on race, particular to racism, White supremacy and White privilege. A lot of great reading there.
And finally: Heads-up, London Shakers! Blackfeminists is hosting a fundraising poetry event this Friday, April 26th, from 7-9:30pm at The Gallery Cafe, Bethnal Green, London. The POwErTRY Collective will "celebrate and showcase the creativity of black women poets, spoken word artists, and performers," and feature Zena Agha, Kassandra Gordon, Selina Nwulu, Kelechi Okafor, Hibaq Osman, Dorothea Smartt, and Bella Zhawi. Check it out!
Leave your links and recommendations in comments...
Daily Dose of Cute
One of my favorite pictures of Dudley, taken last fall.
Today is the three-year anniversary of our adopting Dudley. He is totally the fucking best. There are precious few things I love in the world as much I as love his goofy face.
I remember the day that he came to live with us, his foster dad (who's also the president of the organization from which we adopted him) was supposed to bring him by in the evening. He called in the afternoon and asked if he could drop him an hour earlier than we'd originally said, because he had another interested adopter who wanted to meet that night. Naturally, I said that was fine.
But I was petrified. Dudley was now going to arrive a half hour before Iain got home from work, instead of a half hour after, and, until I realized I'd be on my own, I hadn't realized how much I was counting on having someone else there with me who didn't know what the fuck they were doing either, to receive my looks of overwhelmed panic.
Dudley was handed off to me by his wonderful foster dad at about a quarter to six. He looked up at me with fearful eyes, and I probably looked back with approximately the same expression. "Welcome home," I told him. We walked into the house and I showed him around. "This is your bed. Here's your food and water. Are you thirsty?"
After the tour, we went out on the front porch and waited for Iain to get home. He pulled into the driveway and got out of the car with a big grin on his face. "We have a dog!" he exclaimed.
We have such a dog.
Quote of the Day
"FDR told us that the only thing we had to fear was fear itself. But when future historians look back at our monstrously failed response to economic depression, they probably won't blame fear, per se. Instead, they'll castigate our leaders for fearing the wrong things. ...While debt fears were and are misguided, there's a real danger we've ignored: the corrosive effect, social and economic, of persistent high unemployment. And even as the case for debt [alarmism] is collapsing, our worst fears about the damage from long-term unemployment are being confirmed. ...We are indeed creating a permanent class of jobless Americans. And let's be clear: this is a policy decision."—Paul Krugman, in a great piece on the continuing US unemployment crisis.
Which, as a not-insignificant aside, does not demonize people who are unemployed, unlike many of the pieces on this subject. Krugman is well aware of the folly of tasking individuals with finding solutions to systemic problems.
In The News
[Content note: Homophobia, terrorism, sexual abuse]
It's A New Week:
Pat Robertson says marriage equality is a plot by the Illuminati. Or something.
Singer Rolf Harris has been arrested in connection with a sexual abuse investigation.
Chrissy Amphlett, frontwoman for the Divinyls, died Sunday at her home in New York. She was 53 years old.
Watch the Divinyls perform their iconic hit I Touch Myself.
Roland Emmerich, director of films such as Stargate, Godzilla and 2012, is working on a new movie about the Stonewall Riots. Oh dear.
Welp.
77 Guantanamo inmates are now on hunger strike over jailing without charge or trial. That is nearly half of total population of the prison.
This is the most misleading headline of all time. #Disappointed
One Direction have been named Britain's richest boyband. Who knew that was even a thing someone kept track of?
The Parks and Rec Open Thread
This family is terrible. Apparently.
[Content Note: Rape culture; rape jokes; bullying.]
I don't guess I need to tell you how excited I was to have two episodes of Parks and Recreation waiting for me at the end of last week. And I don't guess I need to tell you, either, that I would love more than anything to be able to write an enthusiastically happy post about how much I loved both episodes.
But, unfortunately, I can't do that.
1. Because the first episode prominently featured Patton Oswalt, who is a fan of rape jokes. He has tweeted such gems as:
"Uh-oh, Spaghettios..." -- Pelican Bay inmate before he's raped by his cellmate, "Spaghettios" DiCenzo—and his comedy special, Comedians of Comedy, included an extended sequence in which he assumes the persona of a murderer and rapist, talking to the camera/audience as if to his victim. Because comedy.
That the above sequence happens at a log cabin only made the entire P&R arc where he and Leslie are living at a cabin all the more heinous for me to watch.
2. And because the second episode was perhaps the worst Jerry-hating episode of all time. And not just an entire episode built around everyone hating Jerry, but about how, if Jerry is removed from the group, everyone immediately turns on Tom, because "there's always a Jerry." I like Jerry, and I don't want to see him bullied. I don't want to watch other characters bully him, which makes me not like them so much. And I sure as shit don't want to see one more scene of Leslie and Ben perplexedly trying to figure out why Gayle would love Jerry or find him attractive.
The treatment of Jerry has always been the show's weakest spot, and I feel like the writers are trying to counter criticism by doubling-down on it. As if exposing us to more contempt for Jerry is somehow going to magically make it funny. It doesn't work. And even if it weren't mean-spirited garbage, it doesn't even seem consistent within the show's established characterizations. Even Chris, who is nice to EVERYONE and constantly expresses his fear of hurting other people, is now passive-aggressively mocking Jerry in order to win a bet with Ron? Nope. NOPE.
I am disappointed, Parks & Rec. I expect more.
