“
Yes, my consuming desire is to mingle with road crews, sailors and soldiers, barroom regulars—to be a part of a scene, anonymous, listening, recording—all this is spoiled by the fact that I am a girl, a female always supposedly in danger of assault and battery. My consuming interest in men and their lives is often misconstrued as a desire to seduce them, or as an invitation to intimacy. Yes, God, I want to talk to everybody as deeply as I can. I want to be able to sleep in an open field, to travel west, to walk freely at night...
”
”
Sylvia Plath (The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath)
“
Being born a woman is my awful tragedy. From the moment I was conceived I was doomed to sprout breasts and ovaries rather than penis and scrotum; to have my whole circle of action, thought and feeling rigidly circumscribed by my inescapable feminity. Yes, my consuming desire to mingle with road crews, sailors and soldiers, bar room regulars--to be a part of a scene, anonymous, listening, recording--all is spoiled by the fact that I am a girl, a female always in danger of assault and battery. My consuming interest in men and their lives is often misconstrued as a desire to seduce them, or as an invitation to intimacy. Yet, God, I want to talk to everybody I can as deeply as I can. I want to be able to sleep in an open field, to travel west, to walk freely at night...
”
”
Sylvia Plath (The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath)
“
The Black female is assaulted in her tender years by all those common forces of nature at the same time that she is caught in the tripartite crossfire of masculine prejudice, white illogical hate and Black lack of power.
The fact that the adult American Negro female emerges a formidable character is often met with amazement, distaste and even belligerence. It is seldom accepted as an inevitable outcome of the struggle won by survivors and deserves respect if not enthusiastic acceptance.
”
”
Maya Angelou (I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (Maya Angelou's Autobiography, #1))
“
In much the same way, motherhood has become the essential female experience, valued above all others: giving life is where it's at. "Pro-maternity" propaganda has rarely been so extreme. They must be joking, the modern equivalent of the double constraint: "Have babies, it's wonderful, you'll feel more fulfilled and feminine than ever," but do it in a society in freefall in which waged work is a condition of social survival but guaranteed to no one, and especially not to women. Give birth in cities where accommodation is precarious, schools have surrendered the fight and children are subject to the most vicious mental assault through advertising, TV, internet, fizzy drink manufacturers and so on. Without children you will never be fulfilled as a woman, but bringing up kids in decent conditions is almost impossible.
”
”
Virginie Despentes (King Kong théorie)
“
I draw a line down the middle of a chalkboard, sketching a male symbol on one side and a female symbol on the other. Then I ask just the men: What steps do you guys take, on a daily basis, to prevent yourselves from being sexually assaulted? At first there is a kind of awkward silence as the men try to figure out if they've been asked a trick question. The silence gives way to a smattering of nervous laughter. Occasionally, a young a guy will raise his hand and say, 'I stay out of prison.' This is typically followed by another moment of laughter, before someone finally raises his hand and soberly states, 'Nothing. I don't think about it.' Then I ask women the same question. What steps do you take on a daily basis to prevent yourselves from being sexually assaulted? Women throughout the audience immediately start raising their hands. As the men sit in stunned silence, the women recount safety precautions they take as part of their daily routine. Here are some of their answers: Hold my keys as a potential weapon. Look in the back seat of the car before getting in. Carry a cell phone. Don't go jogging at night. Lock all the windows when I sleep, even on hot summer nights. Be careful not to drink too much. Don't put my drink down and come back to it; make sure I see it being poured. Own a big dog. Carry Mace or pepper spray. Have an unlisted phone number. Have a man's voice on my answering machine. Park in well-lit areas. Don't use parking garages. Don't get on elevators with only one man, or with a group of men. Vary my route home from work. Watch what I wear. Don't use highway rest areas. Use a home alarm system. Don't wear headphones when jogging. Avoid forests or wooded areas, even in the daytime. Don't take a first-floor apartment. Go out in groups. Own a firearm. Meet men on first dates in public places. Make sure to have a car or cab fare. Don't make eye contact with men on the street. Make assertive eye contact with men on the street.
”
”
Jackson Katz (The Macho Paradox: Why Some Men Hurt Women and How All Men Can Help (How to End Domestic Violence, Mental and Emotional Abuse, and Sexual Harassment))
“
In the 1890s, when Freud was in the dawn of his career, he was struck by how many of his female patients were revealing childhood incest victimization to him. Freud concluded that child sexual abuse was one of the major causes of emotional disturbances in adult women and wrote a brilliant and humane paper called “The Aetiology of Hysteria.” However, rather than receiving acclaim from his colleagues for his ground-breaking insights, Freud met with scorn. He was ridiculed for believing that men of excellent reputation (most of his patients came from upstanding homes) could be perpetrators of incest.
Within a few years, Freud buckled under this heavy pressure and recanted his conclusions. In their place he proposed the “Oedipus complex,” which became the foundation of modern psychology. According to this theory any young girl actually desires sexual contact with her father, because she wants to compete with her mother to be the most special person in his life. Freud used this construct to conclude that the episodes of incestuous abuse his clients had revealed to him had never taken place; they were simply fantasies of events the women had wished for when they were children and that the women had come to believe were real. This construct started a hundred-year history in the mental health field of blaming victims for the abuse perpetrated on them and outright discrediting of women’s and children’s reports of mistreatment by men.
Once abuse was denied in this way, the stage was set for some psychologists to take the view that any violent or sexually exploitative behaviors that couldn’t be denied—because they were simply too obvious—should be considered mutually caused. Psychological literature is thus full of descriptions of young children who “seduce” adults into sexual encounters and of women whose “provocative” behavior causes men to become violent or sexually assaultive toward them.
I wish I could say that these theories have long since lost their influence, but I can’t. A psychologist who is currently one of the most influential professionals nationally in the field of custody disputes writes that women provoke men’s violence by “resisting their control” or by “attempting to leave.” She promotes the Oedipus complex theory, including the claim that girls wish for sexual contact with their fathers. In her writing she makes the observation that young girls are often involved in “mutually seductive” relationships with their violent fathers, and it is on the basis of such “research” that some courts have set their protocols. The Freudian legacy thus remains strong.
”
”
Lundy Bancroft (Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men)
“
You’re looking for sexual tidbits as a female child, and the only ones that present themselves depict child rape or other violations (all my favorite books in my preteen years: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Clan of the Cave Bear, The World According to Garp, as well as the few R-rated movies I was allowed to see—Fame, most notably, with its indelible scene of Irene Cara being asked to take her shirt off and suck her thumb by a skeezy photographer who promises to make her a star), then your sexuality will form around that fact. There is no control group. I don’t even want to talk about “female sexuality” until there is a control group. And there never will be.
”
”
Maggie Nelson (The Argonauts)
“
The bright hours when the young rebelled against the descending sun had to give way to twenty-four-hour periods called “days” that were named as well as numbered. The Black female is assaulted in her tender years by all those common forces of nature at the same time that she is caught in the tripartite crossfire of masculine prejudice, white illogical hate and Black lack of power. The fact that the adult American Negro female emerges a formidable character is often met with amazement, distaste and even belligerence. It is seldom accepted as an inevitable outcome of the struggle won by survivors and deserves respect if not enthusiastic acceptance.
”
”
Maya Angelou (I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (Maya Angelou's Autobiography, #1))
“
Cases of genocide carried out as policy may be found in historical documents as well as in the oral histories of Indigenous communities. An example from 1873 is typical, with General William T. Sherman writing, “We must act with vindictive earnestness against the Sioux, even to their extermination, men, women and children … during an assault, the soldiers can not pause to distinguish between male and female, or even discriminate as to age.
”
”
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz (An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States (ReVisioning American History, #3))
“
Most abusive men put on a charming face for their communities, creating a sharp split between their public image and their private treatment of women and children. He may be: Enraged at home but calm and smiling outside Selfish and self-centered with you but generous and supportive with others Domineering at home but willing to negotiate and compromise outside Highly negative about females while on his own turf but a vocal supporter of equality when anyone else is listening Assaultive toward his partner or children but nonviolent and nonthreatening with everyone else Entitled at home but critical of other men who disrespect or assault women The pain of this contrast can eat away at a woman. In the morning her partner cuts her to the quick by calling her a “brainless fat cow,” but a few hours later she sees him laughing with the people next door and helping them fix their car. Later the neighbor says to her, “Your partner is so nice. You’re lucky to be with him—a lot of men wouldn’t do what he does.” She responds with a mumbled “Yeah,” feeling confused and tongue-tied. Back at home, she asks herself over and over again, “Why me?
”
”
Lundy Bancroft (Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men)
“
The Black female is assaulted in her tender years by all those common forces of nature at the same time that she is caught in the tripartite crossfire of masculine prejudice, white illogical hate and Black lack of power. The
”
”
Maya Angelou (I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings)
“
Magnus threw the monkey a fig. The monkey took the fig.
"There," said Magnus. "Let us consider the matter settled."
The monkey advanced, chewing in a menacing fashion.
"I rather wonder what I am doing here. I enjoy city life, you know," Magnus observed. "The glittering lights, the constant companionship, the liquid entertainment. The lack of sudden monkeys."
He ignored Giuliana's advice and took a smart step back, and also threw another piece of fruit. The monkey did not take the bait this time. He coiled and rattled out a growl, and Magnus took several more steps back and into a tree.
Magnus flailed on impact, was briefly grateful that nobody was watching him and expecting him to be a sophisticated warlock, and had a monkey assault launched directly to his face.
He shouted, spun, and sprinted through the rain forest. He did not even think to drop the fruit. It fell one by one in a bright cascade as he ran for his life from the simian menace. He heard it in hot pursuit and fled faster, until all his fruit was gone and he ran right into Ragnor.
"Have a care!" Ragnor snapped.
He detailed his terrible monkey adventure twice.
"But of course you should have retreated at once from the dominant male," Giuliana said. "Are you an idiot? You are extremely lucky he was distracted from ripping out your throat by the fruit. He thought you were trying to steal his females."
"Pardon me, but we did not have the time to exchange that kind of personal information," Magnus said. "I could not have known! Moreover, I wish to assure both of you that I did not make any amorous advances on female monkeys." He paused and winked. "I didn't actually see any, so I never got the chance."
Ragnor looked very regretful about all the choices that had led to his being in this place and especially in this company. Later he stooped and hissed, low enough so Giuliana could not hear and in a way that reminded Magnus horribly of his monkey nemesis: "Did you forget that you can do magic?"
Magnus spared a moment to toss a disdainful look over his shoulder.
"I am not going to ensorcel a monkey! Honestly, Ragnor. What do you take me for?
”
”
Cassandra Clare (The Bane Chronicles)
“
As bell hooks wrote in a 1998 essay, "Naked Without Shame," about black women's bodies and politics, "Marked by shame, projected as inherent and therefore precluding any possibility of innocence, the black female body was beyond redemption." She points out that since the time of U.S. slavery, men have benefited from positioning black women as naturally promiscuous because it absolves them of guilt when they sexually assault and rape women of color. "[I]t was impossible to ruin that which was received as inherently unworthy, tainted, and soiled," hooks wrote.
Women of color, low-income women, immigrant women- these are the women who are not seen as worthy of being placed on a pedestal. It's only our perfect virgins who are valuable, worthy of discourse and worship.
”
”
Jessica Valenti (The Purity Myth: How America's Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women)
“
Thomas looked like someone's painting of the forgotten Greek god of body cologne. He had long hair so dark that light itself could not escape it, and even fresh from the shower it was starting to curl. His eyes were the color of thunderclouds, and he never did a single moment of exercise to earn the gratuitous amount of ripple in his musculature. He was wearing jeans and no shirt--his standard household uniform. I once saw him answer the door to speak to a female missionary in the same outfit, and she'd assaulted him in a cloud of forgotten copies of The Watchtower. The tooth marks she left had been interesting.
”
”
Jim Butcher (Dead Beat (The Dresden Files, #7))
“
The Black female is assaulted in her tender years by all those common forces of nature at the same time that she is caught in the tripartite crossfire of masculine prejudice, white illogical hate and Black lack of power.
”
”
Maya Angelou (I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings)
“
The sixth of January, 1482, is not, however, a day of which history has preserved the memory. There was nothing notable in the event which thus set the bells and the bourgeois of Paris in a ferment from early morning. It was neither an assault by the Picards nor the Burgundians, nor a hunt led along in procession, nor a revolt of scholars in the town of Laas, nor an entry of “our much dread lord, monsieur the king,” nor even a pretty hanging of male and female thieves by the courts of Paris. Neither was it the arrival, so frequent in the fifteenth
”
”
Victor Hugo (The Hunchback of Notre-Dame)
“
When somebody touches you...and you really don’t wanna be touched, that’s not really being touched. You still got you inside of you. And nobody has touched you. Not really. You still got you inside of you. You believe that.
”
”
John Irving (The Hotel New Hampshire)
“
Jack struggled throughout his life to maintain his male identity, yet in a final symbol of rejection by family and society, and a final assault upon his body, this little old gray-haired man was buried in a woman’s white satin dress
”
”
Lou Sullivan (From Female to Male: The Life of Jack Bee Garland)
“
One of the things you never really see in a romance book is a woman who has self-esteem issues. I mean, I’m sure they’re out there, but they’re few and far between. Like they can have eating disorders, post-traumatic stress from sexual assault or mental abuse. They can be sold into sex trafficking and they can carry epic amounts of grief. We have female characters who have suffered every loss imaginable and ones who are scarred physically and mentality, but where in the hell are the average women? Ones who look in the mirror and cringe a little? Like, why are all those others acceptable to women, but reading or knowing another woman who has a low self-esteem is, like, worse than all that drama llama?
”
”
J. Lynn (Dream of You (Wait for You, #4.5))
“
My consuming desire to mingle with road crews, sailors and soldiers, bar room regulars - to be a part of scene, anonymous, listening, recording - all is spoiled by the fact that I am a girl, a female always in danger of assault and battery.
”
”
Sylvia Plath (The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath)
“
No pen can give an adequate description of the all-pervading corruption produced by slavery. The slave girl is reared in an atmosphere of licentiousness and fear. The lash and the foul talk of her master and his sons are her teachers. When she is fourteen or fifteen, her owner, or his sons, or the overseer, or perhaps all of them, begin to bribe her with presents. If these fail to accomplish their purpose, she is whipped or starved into submission to their will. She may have had religious principles inculcated by some pious mother or grandmother, or some good mistress; she may have a lover, whose good opinion and peace of mind are dear to her heart; or the profligate men who have power over her may be exceedingly odious to her. But resistance is futile.
”
”
Harriet Ann Jacobs (Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl)
“
Females between sixteen and twenty-four years old face a higher risk of being sexually assaulted than any other age group. Most victims of campus rape are preyed upon when they are in their first or second year of college, usually by someone they know. And it’s during the initial days and weeks of a student’s freshman year, when she is in the midst of negotiating the fraught transition from girlhood to womanhood, that she is probably in the greatest danger.
”
”
Jon Krakauer (Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town)
“
What happens next is you’re more likely to be a victim of sexual assault,” he says, and I feel Alex tense beside me. “Girls, one in three of you.” He points right at me, Alex, Sara, Branley, and Lila. “There are five right here, so let’s be generous and say it’s just one. Which one of you will it be?”
From the left a boy yells, “Please say it’s Branley,” followed by a chorus of laughter.
“Let me guess, she’s the hot one, right?” Nolan says, smiling along with them. “Guess what—one of you is the one who’s going to do it.”
That shuts it down, fast.
“It’s a small town,” he goes on. “Ninety percent of rapes are acquaintance rapes—that means you know your attacker, girls. And guys, that means you know the girl you damaged physically, emotionally, and mentally. One in six of you boys is going to be sexually assaulted too, by the way.
”
”
Mindy McGinnis (The Female of the Species)
“
juvenile female aggravated assault rate took a 57 percent hike. Juvenile weapons violations for males went down seven percent, but for females it went up 44 percent.
”
”
Dave Grossman (On Combat: The Psychology and Physiology of Deadly Conflict in War and Peace)
“
The detective cleared his throat. It sounded like he was reading. “At seven twenty p.m., an officer in Rock Creek Park interrupted an assault and robbery in progress. The victim was a female
”
”
Geraldine Brooks (Horse)
“
Mary Higgs, a minister’s wife who went undercover as a female tramp to study the effects of poverty, was horrified to find that in her ragged dress she was continually verbally assaulted by men.
”
”
Hallie Rubenhold (The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper)
“
There is no good reason that a girl is shamed for sexting while a boy is not, that a woman’s number must be lower than a man’s, that a survivor of sexual assault has her credibility stolen from her along with her bodily integrity. For women to be truly safe, we must eradicate the use of the term “slut.” Only then will female sexuality become transformed from a site of pitfalls to one of positivity and possibility.
”
”
Leora Tanenbaum (I Am Not a Slut: Slut-Shaming in the Age of the Internet)
“
It is a source of power to recognize that women hold the reins in this evolutionary equation, and their mate selections, in principle, have the power to undermine male control and create greater equality between the sexes.
”
”
David M. Buss (When Men Behave Badly: The Hidden Roots of Sexual Deception, Harassment, and Assault)
“
One way to curtail men's proprietary mindset is to empower women -a trend that started with first-wave feminists who ushered in women's right to vote and continues today with women's increasing access to their own resources.
”
”
David M. Buss (When Men Behave Badly: The Hidden Roots of Sexual Deception, Harassment, and Assault)
“
One way to curtail men's proprietary mindset is to empower women -a trend that started with first-wave feminists who ushered in women's right to vote and continues today with women's increasing access to their own resources-.
”
”
David M. Buss (When Men Behave Badly: The Hidden Roots of Sexual Deception, Harassment, and Assault)
“
The modern proliferation of porn consumption, in short, has escalated both conflict between the sexes and the harms of female-female competition. The technology behind porn is modern. The sexual psychology it exploits is evolutionary ancient.
”
”
David M. Buss (When Men Behave Badly: The Hidden Roots of Sexual Deception, Harassment, and Assault)
“
The Black female is assaulted in her tender years by all those common forces of nature at the same time that she is caught in the tripartite crossfire of masculine prejudice, white illogical hate and Black lack of power. The fact that the adult American Negro female emerges a formidable character is often met with amazement, distaste and even belligerence. It is seldom accepted as an inevitable outcome of the struggle won by survivors and deserves respect if not enthusiastic acceptance.
”
”
Maya Angelou (I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings)
“
Male sexual jealousy is the leading cause of the murder of adult women, accounting for between 50 and 70 percent of all such homicides.8 Police know this. When women are murdered, the prime suspects are boyfriends, husbands, ex-boyfriends, and ex-husbands. Although jealousy sometimes motivates women to murder, only 3 percent of murdered men are killed by their romantic partners or exes, and many of these female-perpetrated homicides are women defending themselves against a jealously violent man.
”
”
David M. Buss (When Men Behave Badly: The Hidden Roots of Sexual Deception, Harassment, and Assault)
“
your book is full of piquant ideas on how sexual assault is practiced by many people but in African countries the issue is pressurized by females themselves as they tend to dress on night attires as a result males are piquant ed
to commit an offense
”
”
Nicholas D. Kristof (Freedom of the high school press)
“
Sigmund Freud was the first to hypothesize that female “hysteria” stemmed from childhood sexual assault, but he retracted his theory once he realized that it meant the ritzy neighborhood in Vienna in which he practiced was rife with sexual predators and child molesters.[
”
”
Stephanie Foo (What My Bones Know: A Memoir of Healing from Complex Trauma)
“
What happens next is you’re more likely to be a victim of sexual assault,” he says, and I feel Alex tense beside me. “Girls, one in three of you.” He points right at me, Alex, Sara, Branley, and Lila. “There are five right here, so let’s be generous and say it’s just one. Which one of you will it be?”
From the left a boy yells, “Please say it’s Branley,” followed by a chorus of laughter.
“Let me guess, she’s the hot one, right?” Nolan says, smiling along with them. “Guess what—one of you is the one who’s going to do it.”
That shuts it down, fast.
“It’s a small town,” he goes on. “Ninety percent of rapes are acquaintance rapes—that means you know your attacker, girls. And guys, that means you know the girl you damaged physically, emotionally, and mentally. One in six of you boys is going to be sexually assaulted too, by the way.” test
”
”
Mindy McGinnis (The Female of the Species)
“
The sixth of January, 1482, is not, however, a day of which history has preserved the memory. There was nothing notable in the event which thus set the bells and the bourgeois of Paris in a ferment from early morning. It was neither an assault by the Picards nor the Burgundians, nor a hunt led along in procession, nor a revolt of scholars in the town of Laas, nor an entry of “our much dread lord, monsieur the king,” nor even a pretty hanging of male and female thieves by the courts of Paris. Neither was it the arrival, so frequent in the fifteenth century, of some plumed and bedizened embassy. It was barely two days since the last cavalcade of that nature, that of the Flemish ambassadors charged with concluding the marriage between the dauphin and Marguerite of Flanders, had made its entry into Paris, to the great annoyance of M. lé Cardinal de Bourbon, who, for the sake of pleasing the king, had been obliged to assume an amiable mien towards this whole rustic rabble of Flemish burgomasters, and to regale them at his Hôtel de Bourbon, with a very “pretty morality, allegorical satire, and farce,” while a driving rain drenched the magnificent tapestries at his door.
”
”
Victor Hugo (The Hunchback of Notre-Dame)
“
Female choice about when, where, with whom, and under which conditions they consent to sex is the deepest and most fundamental component of women's sexual psychology. It is a fundamental human right. Although men have coevolved strategies to undermine it, that freedom of choice should never be compromised.
”
”
David M. Buss (When Men Behave Badly: The Hidden Roots of Sexual Deception, Harassment, and Assault)
“
Nor did enslaved women have legal protection against sexual abuse from enslaved men. In the 1859 case of George v. the State of Mississippi, in which an enslaved man was accused of raping an enslaved female child, the Mississippi supreme court noted that “a slave can only commit rape upon a white woman” and held that “the regulations of law, as to the white race, on the subject of sexual intercourse, do not and cannot, for obvious reasons, apply to slaves; their intercourse is promiscuous, and the violation of a female slave by a male slave would be a mere assault and battery.”38 There was, then, legally no such thing as the rape of an enslaved woman.
”
”
Ned Sublette (The American Slave Coast: A History of the Slave-Breeding Industry)
“
The racial oppression that inspired the first generations of the civil rights movement was played out in lynchings, night raids, antiblack pogroms, and physical intimidation at the ballot box. In a typical battle of today, it may consist of African American drivers being pulled over more often on the highways. (When Clarence Thomas described his successful but contentious 1991 Supreme Court confirmation hearing as a “high-tech lynching,” it was the epitome of tastelessness but also a sign of how far we have come.) The oppression of women used to include laws that allowed husbands to rape, beat, and confine their wives; today it is applied to elite universities whose engineering departments do not have a fifty-fifty ratio of male and female professors. The battle for gay rights has progressed from repealing laws that execute, mutilate, or imprison homosexual men to repealing laws that define marriage as a contract between a man and a woman. None of this means we should be satisfied with the status quo or disparage the efforts to combat remaining discrimination and mistreatment. It’s just to remind us that the first goal of any rights movement is to protect its beneficiaries from being assaulted or killed. These victories, even if partial, are moments we should acknowledge, savor, and seek to understand.
”
”
Steven Pinker (The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined)
“
If a woman, teen, or girl says No, Stop, I Changed My Mind, I Can’t do This, or I’m Just Not Ready… Believe Her! No, she doesn’t REALLY want it. No, she’s NOT playing hard to get. No, she’s NOT just a tease. No, she didn’t ASK for it. Sexual violence is NOT okay no matter how much you try to rationalize it. Don’t be a predator! Have some self-control and RESPECT her decision. Forcing yourself on a person is sexual assault, period!
”
”
Stephanie Lahart
“
I won’t play the game—I don’t bake cupcakes and make cooing noises over pictures of everyone’s kids. If a man doesn’t bake cupcakes and make cooing noises, you know what they call him? Senior Partner. Ben hasn’t made cupcakes once. But men expect you to be more thoughtful than they are—softer, more accommodating. And when you are paid less than your peers, or assaulted on a date, or lose a promotion, they’ll tell you it was your fault—you were too soft, too accommodating.
”
”
Elizabeth O'Roark (The Devil You Know (The Devils, #3))
“
A woman writing of the joy and terror of furious combat, or of the lust of torture and killing, or of the violent forms of evil--isn’t taken quite seriously. Because women aren't as capable of violent physical assault--not to speak of rape--as men are[...] So when one who writes about serious, violent evil turns out to be female, some readers may feel cheated--particularly if an action scene has stirred them. Now it all seems flat, even false--'What the hell does she know about real fighting?
”
”
James Tiptree Jr. (Meet Me At Infinity: The Uncollected Tiptree: Fiction and Nonfiction)
“
A woman’s mate value even varies over the monthly ovulation cycle. Subtle changes in women’s attractiveness reflect the ovulatory phase. Their skin glows a bit more, their waist-to-hip ratio becomes slightly lower, and their voices rise a bit, all qualities found to enhance perceptions of female beauty. The fact that women become more exacting in their mate preferences at precisely this time in their cycle might reflect an adaptation to monitor their own mate value and adjust their standards accordingly.
”
”
David M. Buss (When Men Behave Badly: The Hidden Roots of Sexual Deception, Harassment, and Assault)
“
We’re in a period right now where nobody asks any questions about psychology. No one has any feeling for human motivation. No one talks about sexuality in terms of emotional needs and symbolism and the legacy of childhood. Sexuality has been politicized--“Don’t ask any questions!” "No discussion!" “Gay is exactly equivalent to straight!” And thus in this period of psychological blindness or inertness, our art has become dull. There’s nothing interesting being written--in fiction or plays or movies. Everything is boring because of our failure to ask psychological questions.
So I say there is a big parallel between Bill Cosby and Bill Clinton--aside from their initials! Young feminists need to understand that this abusive behavior by powerful men signifies their sense that female power is much bigger than they are! These two people, Clinton and Cosby, are emotionally infantile--they're engaged in a war with female power. It has something to do with their early sense of being smothered by female power--and this pathetic, abusive and criminal behavior is the result of their sense of inadequacy.
Now, in order to understand that, people would have to read my first book, "Sexual Personae"--which of course is far too complex for the ordinary feminist or academic mind! It’s too complex because it requires a sense of the ambivalence of human life. Everything is not black and white, for heaven's sake! We are formed by all kinds of strange or vague memories from childhood. That kind of understanding is needed to see that Cosby was involved in a symbiotic, push-pull thing with his wife, where he went out and did these awful things to assert his own independence. But for that, he required the women to be inert. He needed them to be dead! Cosby is actually a necrophiliac--a style that was popular in the late Victorian period in the nineteenth-century.
It's hard to believe now, but you had men digging up corpses from graveyards, stealing the bodies, hiding them under their beds, and then having sex with them. So that’s exactly what’s happening here: to give a woman a drug, to make her inert, to make her dead is the man saying that I need her to be dead for me to function. She’s too powerful for me as a living woman. And this is what is also going on in those barbaric fraternity orgies, where women are sexually assaulted while lying unconscious. And women don’t understand this! They have no idea why any men would find it arousing to have sex with a young woman who’s passed out at a fraternity house. But it’s necrophilia--this fear and envy of a woman’s power.
And it’s the same thing with Bill Clinton: to find the answer, you have to look at his relationship to his flamboyant mother. He felt smothered by her in some way. But let's be clear--I’m not trying to blame the mother! What I’m saying is that male sexuality is extremely complicated, and the formation of male identity is very tentative and sensitive--but feminist rhetoric doesn’t allow for it. This is why women are having so much trouble dealing with men in the feminist era. They don’t understand men, and they demonize men.
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Camille Paglia
“
A male approaches a female and begins to flirt. She is not aware that he has slipped her a drug that renders her unconscious. He then takes her body to his home, positions her correctly, and has sex with her while she is knocked out. If you’ve read about Bill Cosby, this may sound familiar. You may be surprised to learn that this is one of the mating strategies of the funnel-web spider, Agelenopsis aperta.44 These male spiders have evolved a strategy of anesthetizing females who are reluctant to mate using a chemical cocktail.
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David M. Buss (When Men Behave Badly: The Hidden Roots of Sexual Deception, Harassment, and Assault)
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Everyone suspected that the rigors of a good school would have the desired, dulling effect on Noah and Simon—Gravesend Academy would assault them with a host of new demands, of impossible standards. The sheer volume (if not the value) of the homework would tire them out, and everyone knew that tired boys were safer boys; the numbing routine, the strict attentions paid to the dress code, the regulations regarding only the most occasional and highly chaperoned encounters with the female sex … all this would certainly civilize them.
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John Irving (A Prayer for Owen Meany)
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Why would women fear rape from strange men when most rapists are men they know? Why don’t women show greater fear of rape from acquaintances since they make up the vast majority of perpetrators? And why would so many women fear that their rapist would murder them when the conditional probability of “if rape, then murder” is so small? In short, why do women appear at first glance to be miscalibrated in their rape fears? One possible solution to this mystery is an evolutionary mismatch. Perhaps over human evolutionary history the rates of stranger rape and rape followed by murder were much higher than they are today. For thousands of years, small-group warfare often left a trail of female victims in its wake.
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David M. Buss (When Men Behave Badly: The Hidden Roots of Sexual Deception, Harassment, and Assault)
“
for ordinary African Americans, coping with hegemonic gender ideology can be so demanding that generating alternatives can seem virtually impossible. But the importance of this task cannot be underestimated because African American survival may depend on it. One important task lies in rejecting dominant gender ideology, in particular, its use of the thesis of "weak men, strong women" as a source of Black social control. Because hegemonic masculinity equates strength with dominance, an antiracist politics must challenge this connection. Within this project, the fundamental premise of any progressive Black gender ideology is that it cannot be based on someone else's subordination. This means that definitions of Black masculinity that rely on the subordination of Black women, poor people, children, LGBT people, or anyone else become invalid. Definitions of Black femininity that do not challenge relations of sexism, economic exploitation, age, heterosexism, and other markers of social inequality also become suspect. Rather than trying to be strong within existing gender ideology, the task lies in rejecting a gender ideology that measures masculinity and femininity using gendered definitions of strength. In this endeavor to craft a more progressive Black gender ideology, African American men and women face similar yet distinctive challenges. The task for African American men lies in developing new definitions of masculinity that uncouple strength from its close ties to male dominance. Good Black men need not rule their families with an iron hand, assault one another, pursue endless booty calls, and always seem to be "in control" in order to avoid the sigma of weakness. The task for African American women lies in redefining strength in ways that simultaneously enable Black women to reclaim historical sources of female power, yet reject the exploitation that has often accompanied that power. Good Black women need not be stoic mules whose primary release from work and responsibility comes once a week on Sunday morning. New definitions of strength would enable Black men and women alike to be seen as needing and worthy of one another's help and support without being stigmatized as either overly weak or unnaturally strong.
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Patricia Hill Collins (Black Sexual Politics: African Americans, Gender, and the New Racism)
“
I reach out and squeeze her hand, and remember everything we’ve lived through together. The normal things we endured as we grew from girls to women. The days in school where boys would line us up in order of our fuckability. The parties where it was normal to lie on top of a semi-conscious girl, do things to her, then call her a slut afterwards. A Christmas number-one song about a pregnant woman being stuffed into the boot of a car and driven off a bridge. Laughing when your male friends made rape jokes. Opening a newspaper and seeing the breasts of a girl who had only just turned legal, dressed in school uniform to make her look underage. Of the childhood films we grew up on, and loved, and knew all the words to, where, at the end, a girl would always get chosen for looking the prettiest compared to all the others. Reading magazines that told you to mirror men’s body language, and hum on their dick when you went down on them, that turned into books about how to get them to commit by not being yourself. Of size zero, and Atkins, and Five-Two, and cabbage soup, and juice cleanses and eat clean. Of pole-dancing lessons as a great way to get fit, and actually, if you want to be really cool, come to the actual strip club too. Of being sexually assaulted when you kissed someone on a dance floor and not thinking about it properly until you are twenty-seven and read a book about how maybe it was wrong. Of being jealous of your friend who got assaulted on the dance floor because why didn’t he pick you to assault? Boys not wanting to be with you unless you fuck them quickly. Boys not wanting to be with you because you fucked them too quickly. Being terrified to walk anywhere in the dark in case the worst thing happens to you, and so your male friend walks you home to keep you safe, and then comes into your bedroom and does the worst thing to you, and now, when you look him up online, he’s engaged to a woman who wears a feminist T-shirt and isn’t going to change her name when they get married. Of learning to have no pubic hair, and how liberating it is to pay thirty-five pounds a month to rip this from your body and lurch up in agony. Rings around famous women’s bodies saying ‘look at this cellulite’, oh, by the way, here is a twenty-quid cream so you don’t get
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Holly Bourne (Girl Friends: the unmissable, thought-provoking and funny new novel about female friendship)
“
In their book Warrior Lovers, an analysis of erotic fiction by women, the psychologist Catherine Salmon and the anthropologist Donald Symons wrote, "To encounter erotica designed to appeal to the other sex is to gaze into the psychological abyss that separates the sexes.... The contrasts between romance novels and porn videos are so numerous and profound that they can make one marvel that men and women ever get together at all, much less stay together and successfully rear children." Since the point of erotica is to offer the consumer sexual experiences without having to compromise with the demands of the other sex, it is a window into each sex's unalloyed desires. ... Men fantasize about copulating with bodies; women fantasize about making love to people.
Rape is not exactly a normal part of male sexuality, but it is made possible by the fact that male desire can be indiscriminate in its choice of a sexual partner and indifferent to the partner's inner life--indeed, "object" can be a more fitting term than "partner." The difference in the sexes' conception of sex translates into a difference in how they perceive the harm of sexual aggression. ... The sexual abyss offers a complementary explanation of the callous treatment of rape victims in traditional legal and moral codes. It may come from more than the ruthless exercise of power by males over females; it may also come from a parochial inability of men to conceive of a mind unlike theirs, a mind that finds the prospect of abrupt, unsolicited sex with a stranger to be repugnant rather than appealing. A society in which men work side by side with women, and are forced to take their interests into account while justifying their own, is a society in which this thick-headed incuriosity is less likely to remain intact.
The sexual abyss also helps to explain the politically correct ideology of rape. ... In the case of rape, the correct belief is that rape has nothing to do with sex and only to do with power. As (Susan) Brownmiller put it, "From prehistoric times to the present, I believe, rape has played a critical function. It is nothing more or less than a conscious process of intimidation by which all men keep all women in a state of fear." ... Brownmiller wrote that she adapted the theory from the ideas of an old communist professor of hers, and it does fit the Marxist conception that all human behavior is to be explained as a struggle for power between groups. But if I may be permitted an ad feminam suggestion, the theory that rape has nothing to do with sex may be more plausible to a gender to whom a desire for impersonal sex with an unwilling stranger is too bizarre to contemplate.
Common sense never gets in the way of a sacred custom that has accompanied a decline of violence, and today rape centers unanimously insist that "rape or sexual assault is not an act of sex or lust--it's about aggression, power, and humiliation, using sex as the weapon. The rapist's goal is domination." (To which the journalist Heather MacDonald replies: "The guys who push themselves on women at keggers are after one thing only, and it's not reinstatement of the patriarchy.")
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Steven Pinker (The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined)
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Of course, women are capable of all sorts of major unpleasantness, and there are violent crimes by women, but the so-called war of the sexes is extraordinarily lopsided when it comes to actual violence. Unlike the last (male) head of the International Monetary Fund, the current (female) head is not going to assault an employee at a luxury hotel; top-ranking female officers in the US military, unlike their male counterparts, are not accused of any sexual assaults; and young female athletes, unlike those male football players in Steubenville, aren’t likely to urinate on unconscious boys, let alone violate them and boast about it in YouTube videos and Twitter feeds. No female bus riders in India have ganged up to sexually assault a man so badly he dies of his injuries, nor are marauding packs of women terrorizing men in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, and there’s just no maternal equivalent to the 11 percent of rapes that are by fathers or stepfathers.
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Rebecca Solnit (Men Explain Things to Me)
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Interestingly, married women in their early thirties are most likely to have an affair, perhaps reflecting a motivation to switch mates while their desirability is high and they are still fertile. Additional lines of evidence support the notion that infidelity serves a mate-switching function. First, women who initiate affairs are much more likely to suffer from marital dissatisfaction than women who do not. This might seem blindingly obvious, but the same studies show that men who have affairs do not, in fact, differ from those who abstain from affairs in their levels of marital happiness. Second, women are much more likely than men to become emotionally involved with, and to fall in love with, their affair partners. Roughly 79 percent of women report doing so, in contrast to only 30 percent of men.9 Moreover, women are more likely to cite emotional involvement as a reason for the affair. Men are more likely to cite pure sexual pleasure. These critical sex differences point to dramatically different functional reasons for male and female infidelity. For women especially, they point to the mate-switching function; for men, the desire for sexual variety.
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David M. Buss (When Men Behave Badly: The Hidden Roots of Sexual Deception, Harassment, and Assault)
“
One of the most serious harms of trauma is that of loss of control. Some researchers of trauma have defined it as a state of complete helplessness in the face of an overwhelming force. Whether or not such total loss of control is constitutive of trauma, a daunting, seemingly impossible, task faced by the trauma survivor is to regain a sense of control over her or his life. Trauma survivors (rape survivors, in particular, because they are frequently blamed for their assaults) are faced with an especially intractable doubled bind: they need to know there's something they can do to avoid being similarly traumatized in future, but if there *is* such a thing, then they blame themselves for not knowing it (or doing it) at the time. They are faced with a choice between regaining control by accepting (at least some) responsibility--and hence blame--for the trauma, or feeling overwhelmed by helplessness. Whereas rape victims' self blaming has often been misunderstood as merely a self-destructive response to rape, arising out of low self-esteem, feelings of shame, or female masochism, and fueled by society's desire to blame the victim, it can also be seen as an adaptive survival strategy, if the victim has no other way of gaining control.
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Susan J. Brison (Aftermath: Violence and the Remaking of a Self)
“
Depletion of Vitamin D Sunscreens prevent the absorption of vitamin D. But all the compounds discussed above, whether in sunscreens or other products, also lower your liver’s ability to convert this critical vitamin to its active form. This prevents the regeneration of new cells in your protective intestinal wall barrier, allowing more lectins and LPSs through, along with other foreign bodies. Men with prostate cancer have very low levels of vitamin D. Despite the fact that my practice is in Southern California, I have found that almost 80 percent of my patients have low levels of vitamin D in their blood. In fact, anyone in my practice with leaky gut or autoimmune diseases has low levels. Lacking sufficient vitamin D, and in the face of repeated assaults on the walls of the intestine and the lack of ongoing repair to keep out lectins and LPSs, the body constantly senses that it is at war. It’s not surprising, then, that most of my overweight and obese patients are also very deficient in vitamin D.20 Such a deficiency also impedes the generation of new bone, setting the stage for the development of osteoporosis. My thin female patients with osteopenia and osteoporosis also have low levels of this critical vitamin when they first come to see me.
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Steven R. Gundry (The Plant Paradox: The Hidden Dangers in "Healthy" Foods That Cause Disease and Weight Gain)
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Male power and patriarchy are clearly part of the picture. Men historically created the workplace rules and influenced social norms that overlooked sexual harassment. An evolutionary perspective highlights an underlying sexual psychology that influences these male-biased practices. Studies by psychologist John Bargh and his colleagues, for example, explored the unconscious links between power and sex.25 One study found that men experienced an unconscious association between the concepts of power and sex, but this occurred only for men who scored high on a “likelihood to sexually harass” scale. In these men’s minds, concepts like “authority” and “boss” were automatically linked with concepts like “foreplay,” “bed,” and “date.” Their second study primed men to think about power and subsequently asked them to rate the attractiveness of a female confederate in the room who the men believed was just another study participant. Again, only men scoring high in likelihood to sexually harass viewed the woman as especially attractive and expressed a desire to get to know her. In short, power and sex are linked, but primarily in the minds of a subset of men. This may explain why only a minority of men in positions of power over women sexually harass them; many men with power do not.
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David M. Buss (When Men Behave Badly: The Hidden Roots of Sexual Deception, Harassment, and Assault)
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And yet, being surveilled with the intention of assault or rape is practically mundane, it happens so often. It’s such an ingrained part of the female experience that it doesn’t register as unusual. The danger of it, then, is in its routine, in how normalized it is for a woman to feel monitored, so much so that she might not know she’s in trouble until that invisible line is crossed from “typical patriarchy” to “you should run.”
So now, when I drink, I’m far more cautious. I don’t like ordering draft beers from taps hidden from view. I don’t like pouring bottles into pint glasses. I don’t leave my drink with strangers, I don’t let people I don’t know order drinks for me without watching them do it, and I don’t drink excessively with people I don’t think I can trust with my sleepy body. I don’t turn my back on a cocktail, not just because I like drinking but because I can’t trust what happens to it when I’m not looking. The intersection of rape culture and surveillance culture means that being a guarded drinker is not only my responsibility, it is my sole responsibility. Any lapse in judgment could not only result in clear and present danger, but also set me up for a chorus of “Well, she should’ve known better.”
The mistake we make is in thinking rape isn’t premeditated, that it happens by accident somehow, that you’re drunk and you run into a girl who’s also drunk and half-asleep on a bench and you sidle up to her and things get out of hand and before you know it, you’re being accused of something you’d never do. But men who rape are men who watch for the signs of who they believe they can rape. Rape culture isn’t a natural occurrence; it thrives thanks to the dedicated attention given to women in order to take away their security. Rapists exist on a spectrum, and maybe this attentive version is the most dangerous type: women are so used to being watched that we don’t notice when someone’s watching us for the worst reason imaginable. They have a plan long before we even get to the bar to order our first drink.
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Scaachi Koul (One Day We'll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter)
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Local Teen Adopted Finds Adoptive Family Within 24 Hours of 18th Birthday The final chapter of a family tragedy was written yesterday at the county courthouse when Cynthia and Tom Lemry signed formal adoption papers, gaining custody of Sarah Byrnes less than 24 hours before her 18th birthday. Local readers will remember Ms. Byrnes as the youngster whose face and hands were purposely burned on a hot wood stove by her father 15 years ago. The incident came to light this past February after Virgil Byrnes assaulted another teenager, 18-year-old Eric Calhoune, with a hunting knife. “Better late than never,” said Cynthia Lemry, a local high school teacher and swimming coach, in a statement to the press. “If someone had stepped up for this young lady a long time ago, years of heartache could have been avoided. She’s a remarkable human being, and we’re honored to have her in our family.” “I guess they’re just in the nick of time to pay my college tuition,” the new Sarah Lemry said with a smile. Also attending the ceremony were Eric Calhoune, the victim of Virgil Byrnes’s attack; Sandy Calhoune, the boy’s mother and a frequent columnist for this newspaper; Carver Milddleton, who served time on an assault charge against Virgil Byrnes in a related incident; the Reverend John Ellerby, controversial Episcopalian minister whose support of female clergy and full homosexual rights has frequently focused a spotlight on him in his 15-year stay at St. Mark’s; and his son, Steve Ellerby, who describes himself as “a controversial Episcopalian preacher’s kid.” Sarah Lemry confirmed that following the burning 15 years ago, her father refused her opportunities for reconstructive surgery, saying her condition would teach her to “be tough.” She refused comment on further torturous physical abuse allegations, for which, among other charges, Byrnes has been found guilty in superior court and sentenced to more than 20 years in the state penitentiary at Walla Walla. When asked if she would now seek the reconstructive surgery she was so long denied, Sarah Lemry again smiled and said, “I don’t know. It’d be a shame to change just when I’m getting used to it.
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Chris Crutcher (Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes)
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Just as women do not have the ritual of dominance-based violence, they also lack the built-in safety. In other words, if you are dealing with a female threat, she will be seeking to do damage, not to show who is boss. In my experience, women gouge for eyes, bite, and try to cut the face with their fingernails far more often than men. Second, if you are a woman dealing with a male threat, he can still Monkey Dance at you and perceive you to be challenging him. A significant percentage of the males who prey on women are seeking to safely establish dominance over somebody. In that case, when a woman fights back the man will react very violently. In his mind, a victim specially chosen to be weak enough to guarantee his validation as a dominator has seen him as weak enough to challenge. A man fighting another man for dominance will try to beat him, but a man who thinks that he is fighting a woman for dominance will be seeking to punish her. Punishment is much worse. Third, there are specific reactions to violence that most women have absorbed at a very young age that profoundly affect their ability to defend themselves. You see this in victims who flirt with or compliment their attacker: “You’re so handsome you don’t need to rape.” And you see it in women who struggle instead of fight. Women are used to handling men in certain ways, with certain subconscious rules—social ways, not physical ones. These systems are very effective within society and not effective at all when civilization is no longer a factor, such as in a violent assault or rape. On a deep level, most women feel at a gut level that if they fight a man he will escalate the situation to a savage beating, punishment for her challenge to his “manhood.” They feel this way because it is true. This is a hard thing to write. Years ago, before I learned to just listen, a friend told me her story. It had been several days and most of the swelling had gone down. She told me about the rape and the beating. I asked her if she had fought. Not my business and decades of experience later I would have just listened, but I was young and believed that there were more right and wrong answers than there are. She shook her head and said, “I was afraid he’d hurt me if I fought.
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Rory Miller (Meditations on Violence: A Comparison of Martial Arts Training and Real World Violence)
“
Correlation and causality. Why is it that throughout the animal kingdom and in every human culture, males account for most aggression and violence? Well, what about testosterone and some related hormones, collectively called androgens, a term that unless otherwise noted, I will use simplistically as synonymous with testosterone. In nearly all species, males have more circulating testosterone than do females, who secrete small amounts of androgens from the adrenal glands. Moreover, male aggression is most prevalent when testosterone levels are highest; adolescence and during mating season in seasonal breeders. Thus, testosterone and aggression are linked. Furthermore, there are particularly high levels of testosterone receptors in the amygdala, in the way station by which it projects to the rest of the brain, the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis, and in its major targets, the hypothalamus, the central gray of the mid-brain, and the frontal cortex. But these are merely correlative data. Showing that testosterone causes aggression requires a subtraction plus a replacement experiment. Subtraction, castrate a male: do levels of aggression decrease? Yes, including in humans. This shows that something coming from the testes causes aggression. Is it testosterone? Replacement: give that castrated individual replacement testosterone. Do pre-castration levels of aggression return? Yes, including in humans, thus testosterone causes aggression. Time to see how wrong that is. The first hint of a complication comes after castration. When average levels of aggression plummet in every species, but crucially, not to zero, well, maybe the castration wasn't perfect, you missed some bits of testes, or maybe enough of the minor adrenal androgens are secreted to maintain the aggression. But no, even when testosterone and androgens are completely eliminated, some aggression remains, thus some male aggression is testosterone independent. This point is driven home by castration of some sexual offenders, a legal procedure in a few states. This is accomplished with chemical castration, administration of drugs that either inhibit testosterone production or block testosterone receptors. Castration decreases sexual urges in the subset of sex offenders with intense, obsessive, and pathological urges. But otherwise, castration doesn't decrease recidivism rates as stated in one meta-analysis. Hostile rapists and those who commit sex crimes motivated by power or anger are not amenable to treatment with the anti-androgenic drugs. This leads to a hugely informative point. The more experience the male had being aggressive prior to castration, the more aggression continues afterward. In otherwise, the less his being aggressive in the future requires testosterone and the more it's a function of social learning.
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Robert M. Sapolsky (Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst)
“
Lieutenant Smith was asked by Mister Zumwald to get him a drink,” Wilkes said. “She responded with physical violence. I counseled her on conduct unbecoming of an officer and, when she reacted with foul language, on disrespect to a superior officer, sir, and I’ll stand by that position. Sir.”
“I agree that her actions were unbecoming, Captain,” Steve said, mildly. “She really should have resolved it with less force. Which I told her as well as a strong lecture on respect to a superior officer. On the other hand, Captain, Mister Zumwald physically accosted her, grabbing her arm and, when she protested, called her a bitch. Were you aware of that, Captain?”
“She did say something about it, sir,” Wilkes said. “However… ”
“I also understand that you spent some time with Mister Zumwald afterwards,” Steve said. “Rather late. Did you at any time express to Mister Zumwald that accosting any woman, much less an officer of… what was it? ‘The United States Naval services’ was unacceptable behavior, Captain?”
“Sir,” Wilkes said. “Mister Zumwald is a major Hollywood executive… ”
“Was,” Steve said.
“Excuse me, sir?” Wilkes said.
“Was a major Hollywood executive,” Steve said. “Right now, Ernest Zumwald, Captain, is a fucking refugee off a fucking lifeboat. Period fucking dot. He’s given a few days grace, like most refugees, to get his headspace and timing back, then he can decide if he wants to help out or go in with the sick, lame and lazy. And in this case he’s a fucking refugee who thinks it’s acceptable to accost some unknown chick and tell him to get him a fucking drink. Grab her by the arm and, when she tells him to let go, become verbally abusive.
“What makes the situation worse, Captain, is that the person he accosted was not just any passing young hotty but a Marine officer. He did not know that at the time; the Marine officer was dressed much like other women in the compartment. However, he does not have the right to grab any woman in my care by the fucking arm and order them to get him a fucking drink, Captain! Then, to make matters worse, following the incident, Captain, you spent the entire fucking evening getting drunk with a fucktard who had physically and verbally assaulted a female Marine officer! You dumbshit.”
“Sir, I… ” Wilkes said, paling.
“And not just any Marine officer, oh, no,” Steve said. “Forget that it was the daughter of the Acting LANTFLEET. Forget that it was the daughter of your fucking rating officer, you retard. I’m professional enough to overlook that. I really am. There’s personal and professional, and I do actually know the line. Except that it was, professionally, a disgraceful action on your part, Captain. But not just any Marine officer, Captain. No, this was a Marine officer that, unlike you, is fucking worshipped by your Marines, Captain. This is a Marine officer that the acting Commandant thinks only uses boats so her boots don’t get wet walking from ship to ship. This is a Marine officer who is the only fucking light in the darkness to the entire Squadron, you dumbfuck!
“I’d already gotten the scuttlebutt that you were a palace prince pogue who was a cowardly disgrace to the Marine uniform, Captain. I was willing to let that slide because maybe you could run the fucking clearance from the fucking door. But you just pissed off every fucking Marine we’ve got, you idiot. You incredible dumbfuck, moron!
“In case you hadn’t noticed, you are getting cold-shouldered by everyone you work with while you were brown-nosing some fucking useless POS who used to ‘be somebody.’ ‘Your’ Marines are spitting on your shadow and that includes your fucking Gunnery Sergeant! Captain, am I getting through to you? Are you even vaguely recognizing how badly you fucked up? Professionally, politically, personally?
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John Ringo (To Sail a Darkling Sea (Black Tide Rising, #2))
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Basie would lie on the mattress and talk endlessly, sometimes drinking from a bottle of Murree’s whisky he’d bring with him, bought from one of the clandestine bars in Heer where there were locked cages for female drinkers, to prevent them from being sexually assaulted by the inebriated male clientele, as well as to stop the drunk women from killing every man in sight.
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Nadeem Aslam (The Blind Man's Garden)
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Exodus 7:8–13 relates the story of Moses and Aaron changing their staff into a serpent.8 This activity by the Hebrew leaders is an attack on Pharaoh and the Egyptians, and it strikes at the very heart of Egyptian belief. In the first place, on the front of Pharaoh’s crown was an enraged female serpent/cobra called a uraeus. The Egyptians believed this serpent was energized with divine potency and sovereignty. It was considered the very emblem of Pharaoh’s power; it symbolized his deification and majesty. “When Moses had Aaron fling the rod-snake before Pharaoh, he was directly assaulting that token of Pharaonic sovereignty—the scene was one of polemical taunting. When Aaron’s rod swallowed the staffs of the Egyptian magicians, Pharaonic deity and omnipotence were being denounced and rejected outright. . . . Yahweh alone was in control of the entire episode.” 9
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John D. Currid (Against the Gods: The Polemical Theology of the Old Testament)
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Disparity of force can take many forms. Force of numbers is one of the most common. A significant disparity of size and strength is another. Male attacking female, adult violently attacking child, and able-bodied attacking the handicapped also constitute disparity of force. So does highly skilled hand-to-hand fighter attacking the less-skilled. So does position of disadvantage, in which the law-breaking attacker has a huge tactical and/or physical advantage other than disparity of size, strength, or skill as the assault unfolds. Because
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Massad Ayoob (Deadly Force - Understanding Your Right To Self Defense)
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Transgender people are the victims of an astonishing amount of violence. One out of every four trans people has experienced a bias-driven assault, and the numbers are higher for trans women, trans people of color, and people who identify as neither male nor female.
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Dashka Slater (The 57 Bus: A True Story of Two Teenagers and the Crime That Changed Their Lives)
“
There was much to be indignant about. Topless models were still appearing on Page Three of The Sun. Government funding to women's crisis centres were being halved as part of new austerity measures. Female journalists were in danger of being harassed and assaulted while reporting in war zones overseas.
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Balli Kaur Jaswal (Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows)
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College anti-assault activists are fond of saying, “Don’t tell girls not to drink, tell rapists not to rape.” Personally, I don’t see it as a zero-sum game. As the parent of a daughter, I firmly advocate talking to young women about the unique way female bodies metabolize liquor: drink for drink a girl will become incapacitated more quickly than a guy who is the same size and weight. I also endorse discussing how alcohol reduces power and obscures judgment, making it more difficult to recognize and escape dangerous situations. At the same time, it’s clear that we need to be far more active in discussing how guys’ alcohol consumption adversely affects their judgment, putting them at risk of engaging in the kind of sexual misconduct that could get them suspended or expelled from school—not to mention harming another human being.
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Peggy Orenstein (Boys & Sex: Young Men on Hookups, Love, Porn, Consent, and Navigating the New Masculinity)
“
Being surveilled with the intention of assault or rape is practically mundane, it happens so often. It's such an ingrained part of the female experience that it doesn't register as unusual. The danger of it, then, is in its routine, in how normalized it is for a woman to feel monitored, so much so that she might not know she's in trouble until that invisible line is crossed from "typical patriarchy" to "you should run.
”
”
Scaachi Koul (One Day We'll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter)
“
Did I develop my own set of random assumptions by utilizing the very little information available to me? For example, Leo Vodnik had held a magazine titled Construction Engineering Australia. Men are ten times more likely than women to die at work. Is that all it took for me to predict a “workplace accident” as his cause of death? Ethan Chang had his arm in a cast. Was it his injury that made me choose “assault,” together with the fact that injury and violence is a leading cause of death for young adult men? I know I watched Kayla Halfpenny at the airport and saw her knock over her drink and then her phone. Was it my observation of the sweet girl’s clumsiness together with the fact that road traffic injuries are one of the leading causes of death among young adults that led me to say “car accident”? Did I simply make random choices? Is that what led me to pancreatic cancer, the most feared cancer, for the vibrant woman who reminded me of my friend Jill, and breast cancer for the pregnant woman? Did I temporarily believe I was Madame Mae? I must have been thinking of my mother, because I kept saying “fate won’t be fought.” Had I somehow become a strange alchemy of the two of us? Both of us, after all, specialized in predictions. There are certain events in my life that I believe may have had a profound effect on me. For example: the little boy who drowned at the blowhole when I was a child. I have never forgotten the sound of his mother screaming. That boy had brown eyes and dark hair. When I saw that dear little brown-eyed, dark-haired baby, did I think of that poor boy and therefore predict the baby would drown at the same age? Did I look at the young bride, Eve, and remember the charming woman who came to my mother for readings, who was so excited about her forthcoming wedding, the first wedding I ever attended? Did I think of the time I saw her at the shops, her inner light snuffed out, and remember how she died in a fire believed to have been lit by her husband? Why did I choose self-harm for Allegra, the beautiful flight attendant? Was it simply that I saw repressed pain in her eyes from the back injury I now know she suffered on that flight? Was it because I knew the rate of suicide in young females has been steadily increasing over recent years? Was I thinking of death as I boarded the plane and contemplating the fact that everyone on that plane would one day die, and wondering what their causes of death would ultimately be? Well. That’s the only one of my questions I can answer with certainty. Of course I was thinking of death. I had my husband’s ashes in my carry-on bag. I was missing my two best friends. I was thinking of every person I had ever lost throughout my life.
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Liane Moriarty (Here One Moment)
“
What's lost on the porno-gore crowd is the fact that these franchises are based on real-life murders in which real, actual women were brutalized by men, were assaulted by men, watched their friends be murdered by men. But the fantasies have become so vivid and mainstream that no one points out the stinking female corpse at the root of this poisonous tree, and anyone who attempts to do so is called a killjoy, as I have been many times.
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Grady Hendrix (The Final Girl Support Group)
“
A third of all female murder victims are killed by their spouse or partner. One-quarter of women would be sexually assaulted before they turned fifty. Another third would be molested by a boyfriend, husband, or relative. We don’t need tougher background checks on gun buyers, Kate wanted to say. We need better background checks on our dates.
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Stu Summers (Summers' Love)
“
He groped about for several minutes, growling like a bear and stamping his feet at anyone who ventured too close. Isabella rushed at him and retreated several times, giggling each time he missed. Then before Adelaide quite knew what had happened, the little mischief-maker shoved her from behind and launched her directly into Gideon’s path. Adelaide trod on his foot and banged into his chest, but Gideon wrapped his arms about her and somehow kept them upright. “Well, who do I have here?” His voice remained jovial, but she could feel his heartbeat accelerate under her palm. Did he know? Gideon’s hand moved up her back and lingered at the base of her neck. “Definitely feels like a member of the female persuasion.” His fingers toyed with the loose tendrils at her nape. Adelaide closed her eyes against the sensations assaulting her. His touch traveled to her shoulder, and she forced her eyes open. If he knew it was her, why was he taking so long to claim his victory? “Let me see …” He traced one of the rosettes on the edge of her sleeve. “I don’t recall Mrs. Chalmers wearing a flower like this.” Warmth from his hand shocked her momentarily as he quickly passed over the small section of her arm covered by neither gown nor glove. Calluses grazed her skin, leaving tingles in their wake. “Too tall to be Bella.” He explored her elbow, her wrist, and finally clasped her hand where it lay pressed against his shirtfront. “Mrs. Garrett’s dress had long sleeves, I believe, so this gloved arm must belong to …” His thumb drew a small circle against her palm. “Miss Proctor.” He’d known all along, the scoundrel.
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Karen Witemeyer (Head in the Clouds)
“
The sexual politics of slavery presented an exact paradigm of the power relationships within the larger society.13 Black female slaves were essentially powerless in a slave society, unable to legally protect themselves from the physical assaults of either white or black males. White males, at the opposite extreme, were all powerful, with practically unlimited access to black females. The sexual politics of slavery in the antebellum South are perhaps most clearly revealed by the fact that recorded cases of rape of female slaves are virtually nonexistent. Black males were forbidden access to white females, and those charged with raping white females were either executed, or, as in Missouri, castrated, and sometimes lynched.
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Melton A. McLaurin (Celia, a Slave (Gender and Slavery Ser. Book 5))
“
Emma Sulkowicz, the Columbia University student who made waves as an activist against sexual assault, ended her school year as she began it: carrying a mattress. Ms. Sulkowicz carried her mattress around campus throughout her senior year to raise awareness to her school’s handling of sexual assault. On Tuesday, she brought it with her to her graduation ceremony, and walked with it during the processional. Four fellow female graduates helped her carry the mattress as she walked across the stage to cheers from the audience. Ms. Sulkowicz has said she was raped in her dorm by a classmate who was later cleared of the crime in what she said was a flawed university disciplinary proceeding. She has spent approximately the past nine months carrying her mattress on campus as part of a school-sanctioned art project, “Mattress Performance (Carry That Weight),” vowing to carry it as long as she and the accused student attend the same school. The project sparked debate on and off campus. In January, Ms. Sulkowicz was the guest of New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand at President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address. The accused student, Paul Nungesser, and Ms. Sulkowicz both graduated Tuesday. Mr. Nungesser has said he didn’t rape Ms. Sulkowicz and last month filed a lawsuit in Manhattan federal court against Columbia for allowing what he says is sustained harassment against him. As part of the lawsuit, his attorney requested that Columbia bar Ms. Sulkowicz from carrying the mattress at graduation. The school almost did. On Monday, it sent out graduation guidelines that said: “Graduates should not bring into the ceremonial area large objects which could interfere with the proceedings or create discomfort to others in close, crowded spaces shared by thousands of people.” Students saw the guidelines as a reference to Ms. Sulkowicz, they said. But she showed up on Tuesday, mattress in hand. Some students wore red tape on their graduation caps in solidarity with Ms. Sulkowicz, referencing No Red Tape, Columbia’s anti-sexual-assault activist group. Mr. Nungesser’s attorney, Andrew Miltenberg, criticized Columbia. “Once again, Columbia has irresponsibly allowed Ms. Sulkowicz to create a spectacle, the purpose of which is to vilify and humiliate Mr. Nungesser,” Mr. Miltenberg said. “Shame on Columbia for forcing the entire class of 2015 to bear silent witness to the victimization of Mr. Nungesser, on a day set aside to celebrate their academic achievements.” Ms. Sulkowicz, who graduated magna cum laude, and her
”
”
Anonymous
“
One in every four women will experience domestic violence in her lifetime. An estimated 1.3 million women are victims of physical assault by an intimate partner each year. 85% of domestic violence victims are women. Historically, females have been most often victimized by someone they knew. Females who are 20-24 years of age are at the greatest risk of nonfatal intimate partner violence. Most cases of domestic violence are never reported to the police. Witnessing violence between one’s parents or caretakers is the strongest risk factor of transmitting violent behavior from one generation to the next. Boys who witness domestic violence are twice as likely to abuse their own partners and children when they become adults. 30% to 60% of perpetrators of intimate partner violence also abuse children in the household.
”
”
Terri Reid (Never Forgotten (Mary O’Reilly #3))
“
Ignoring male rape not only neglects men, it also harms women by reinforcing a viewpoint that equates ‘female’ with ‘victim’, thus hampering our ability to see women as strong and empowered. In the same way, silence about male victims reinforces unhealthy expectations about men and their supposed invulnerability.
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Philip W. Cook (When Women Sexually Abuse Men: The Hidden Side of Rape, Stalking, Harassment, and Sexual Assault)
“
the sociopolitical progress made under Obama turned out to be not as widely celebrated as those of us living in progressive bubbles liked to believe - bubbles that were popped in 2016, when we were all so sure we were about to witness the election of the first-ever female president... Trump was the embodiment of every guy who had ever assaulted me or bullied me or harassed me, and he was being taken seriously.
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”
Gabrielle Korn
“
Early Christian priests altered perceptions of sexuality in Roman culture by employing child rape as a means of reinforcing indoctrination. Ancient child abuse within the Church was not the product of a few rogue pedophile priests; it was a deliberate, purposeful act, meant to change Roman perspectives on sexual intercourse and religion. The Christian hierarchy used the sexual assault of minors as a means of transforming a society steeped in the veneration of female sexual allure and feminine spiritual and political authority. The Christian war on classical values redefined morality and enabled priests to use extremely brutal mechanisms for changing the way people thought about sex.
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”
David C.A. Hillman (Original Sin: Sex, Drugs, and the Church)
“
It disturbed Eve, though, that Claire believed that a young female detective would be more motivated than a man to investigate the sexual assault of a woman. Was there any merit to that belief?
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Lee Goldberg (Bone Canyon (Eve Ronin, #2))
“
Although there has been an assault on the Black working class, there is still a working class. It is conflated with the working poor. It is highly exploited and has experienced heavy assaults on its wage. It is a class which is often poor and female.
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Rose M. Brewer
“
There is a fear of catching AIDS , but a fear also of simply catching sex. There is a fear of catching anything whatever which might seem like a passion, a seduction, a responsibility. And, in this sense, it is once again the male who has most deeply fallen victim to the negative obsession with sex. To the point of withdrawing from the sexual game, exhausted by having to bear such a risk, and no doubt also wearied by having historically assumed the role of sexual power for so long. Of which feminism and female liberation have divested him, at least dejure (and, to a large extent, de facto). But things are more complicated than this, because th e male who has been emasculated in this way and stripped of his power, has taken advantage of this situation to fade from the scene, to disappear — doffing th e phallic mask of a power which has, in any event, become increasingly dangerous. This is the paradoxical victory of the movement for feminine emancipation. That movement has succeeded too well and now leaves the female faced with the (more or less tactical and defensive) defaulting of the male. A strange situation ensues, in which women no longer protest against male power, but are resentful of the 'powerlessness' of the male . The defaulting of the male now fuels a deep dissatisfaction generated by disappointment with a sexual liberation which is going wrong for everyone. And this dissatisfaction finds expression, contradictorily, in the phantasm of sexual harassment. This is, then, a very different scenario from traditional feminism. Women are no longer alienated by men, but dispossessed of the masculine, dispossessed of the vital illusion of the other and hence also of their own illusion, their desire and privilege as women. It is this same effect which causes children secretly to hate their parents, who no longer wish to assume the role of parent and seize the opportunity of children's emancipation to liberate themselves as parents and relinquish their role. What we have, then, is no longer violence on the part of children in rebellion against the parental order, but hatred on the part of children dispossessed of their status and illusion as children. The person who liberates himself is never who you though the was. This defaulting o f the male has knock-on effects which extend into the biological order. Recent studies have found a fall in the rate of sperm in the seminal fluid, but, most importantly, a decline of their will to power: they no longer compete to go and fertilize the ovum. There is no competition any more. Are they, too , afraid of responsibility? Should we see this as a phenomenon analogous to what is going on in the visible sexual world, where a reticence to fulfil roles and a dissuasive terror exerted by the female sex currently prevail? Is this an unintended side-effect of the battle against harassment - the assault of sperm being the most elementary form of sexual harassment?
”
”
Jean Baudrillard (Screened Out)
“
Nikkie and Yeroen both looked awfully depressed about their sudden loss of status. They seemed to have shrunk in size. But at times they seemed ready to resurrect their old coalition. That this actually happened in the night quarters, where Luit had no escape, was probably no accident. The horrible scene the keepers discovered told us that Nikkie and Yeroen had not only repaired their differences, but had acted together in highly coordinated fashion. They themselves were almost free of injuries. Nikkie did have a few superficial scratches and bites, but Yeroen had none at all, suggesting that he had held Luit down while letting the younger male inflict all the harm.
We will never know exactly what transpired, and unfortunately no females had been present to stop the fight. It is not unusual for them to collectively interrupt out-of-control male altercations. On the night of the assault, however, the females had been in separate night cages within the same building. They must have followed the entire commotion, but were helpless to intervene.
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Frans de Waal (Our Inner Ape: A Leading Primatologist Explains Why We Are Who We Are)
“
The “domestic violence” label was attention-grabbing fodder for the media, though. Columnists rushed to compare Solo with Ray Rice and Greg Hardy—two male NFL players who had recently been accused of horrific assaults on their female significant others—and demanded that Solo be kicked off the national team. Once the details of the arrest started to make the rounds, Solo posted a message online apologizing for “an unfortunate incident” but vowing she would be cleared of the charges, even if she couldn’t share her side of the story:
”
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Caitlin Murray (The National Team: The Inside Story of the Women who Changed Soccer)
“
I heard Lucien first.
'Back off.'
A low female laugh.
Everything in me went still and cold at that sound. I'd heard it once before- in Rhysand's memory.
Keep going. They were distracted, horrible as it was.
Keep going, keep going, keep going.
'I thought you'd seek me out after the Rite,' Ianthe purred. They couldn't be more than thirty feet through the trees. Far enough away not to hear my presence, if I was quiet enough.
'I was obligated to perform the Rite,' Lucien snapped. 'That night wasn't the product of desire, believe me.'
'We had fun, you and I.'
'I'm a mated male now.'
Every second was the ringing of my death knell. I'd primed everything to fall; I'd long since stopped feeling any guilt or doubt about my plan. Not with Alis now safely away.
And yet- and yet-
'You don't act that way with Feyre.' A silk-wrapped threat.
'You're mistaken.'
'Am I?' Twigs and leaves crunched, as if she was circling him. 'You put your hands all over her.'
I had done my job too well, provoked her jealousy too much with every instance I'd found ways to get Lucien to touch me in her presence, in Tamlin's presence.
'Do not touch me,' he growled.
And then I was moving.
I masked the sound of my footfalls, silent as a panther as I stalked to the little clearing where they stood.
Where Lucien stood, back against a tree- twin bands of blue stone shackled around his wrists.
I'd seen them before. On Rhys, to immobilise his power. Stone hewn from Hybern's rotted land, capable of nullifying magic. And in this case... holding Lucien against that tree as Ianthe surveyed him like a snake before a meal.
She slid a hand over the broad panes of his chest, his stomach.
And Lucien's eyes shot to me as I stepped between the trees, fear and humiliation reddening his golden skin.
'That's enough,' I said.
Ianthe whipped her head to me. Her smile was innocent, simpering. But I saw her note the pack, Tamlin's bandolier. Dismiss them. 'We were in the middle of a game. Weren't we, Lucien?'
He didn't answer.
And the sight of those shackles on him, however she'd trapped him, the sight of her hand still on his stomach-
'We'll return to the camp when we're done,' she said, turning to him again. Her hand slid lower, not for his own pleasure, but simply to throw it in my face that she could-
”
”
Sarah J. Maas (A Court of Wings and Ruin (A Court of Thorns and Roses, #3))
“
Take your hands off him.'
She did.
'Unshackle him.'
Lucien's skin drained of colour as Ianthe obeyed me, her face queerly vacant, pliant. The blue stone shackles thumped to the mossy ground.
Lucien's shirt was askew, the top button on his pants already undone.
The roaring that filled my mind was so loud I could barely hear myself as I said, 'Pick up that rock.'
Lucien remained pressed against that tree. And he watched in silence as Ianthe stopped to pick up a grey, rough rock about the size of an apple.
'Put your right hand on that boulder.'
She obeyed, though a tremor went down her spine.
Her mind thrashed and struggled against me, like a fish snared on a line. I dug my mental talons in deeper, and some inner voice of hers began screaming.
'Smash your hand with the rock as hard as you can until I tell you to stop.'
The hand she'd put on him, on so many others.
Ianthe brought the stone up. The first impact was a muffled, wet thud.
The second was an actual crack.
The third drew blood.
Her arm rose and fell, her body shuddering with the agony.
And I said to her very clearly, 'You will never touch another person against their will. You will never convince yourself that they truly want your advances; that they're playing games. You will never know another's touch unless they initiate, unless it's desired by both sides.'
Thwack; crack; thud.
'You will not remember what happened here. You will tell the others that you fell.'
Her ring finger had shifted in the wrong direction.
'You are allowed to see a healer to set the bones. But not to erase the scarring. And every time you look at that hand, you are going to remember that touching people against their will has consequences, and if you do it again, everything you are will cease to exist. You will live with that terror every day, and never know where it originates. Only the fear of something chasing you, hunting you, waiting for you the instant you let your guard down.'
Silent tears of pain flowed down her face.
'You can stop now.'
The bloodied rock tumbled onto the grass. Her hand was little more than cracked bones wrapped in shredded skin.
'Kneel here until someone finds you.'
Ianthe fell to her knees, her ruined hand leaking blood onto her pale robes.
'I debated slitting your throat this morning,' I told her. 'I debated it all last night while you slept beside me. I've debated it every single day since I learned you sold out my sisters to Hybern.' I smiled a bit. 'But I think this is a better punishment. And I hope you live a long, long life, Ianthe, and never know a moment's peace.'
I stared down at her for a moment longer, tying off the tapestry of words and commands I'd woven into her mind, and turned to Lucien. He'd fixed his pants, his shirt.
His wide eyes slid from her to me, then to the bloodied stone.
'The word you're looking for, Lucien,' crooned a deceptively light female voice, 'is daemati.
”
”
Sarah J. Maas (A Court of Wings and Ruin (A Court of Thorns and Roses, #3))
“
Emily had been right about the convertible. I'd loved the way my ears flapped in the breeze. My nose had been twitching double-time with all the scents--some wonderful and others horrible--that had assaulted my nostrils. Down the Aisle
”
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Barbara Hinske (Down the Aisle (Book Four in the Guiding Emily Series))
“
I could no longer believe that I was assaulted because of my sexuality alone, it was my gender expression that had invited the brunt of the violence. If I had looked like what he expected a woman to look like, it would never have happened as it did. I think he hit me because he saw me as being incorrectly female. I think he hit me because he saw me as a threat to his masculinity. But most of all, I think he hit me because he saw it as his job, as a man, to enforce the rules as he understood them.
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Hannah Gadsby (Ten Steps to Nanette)
“
Consider now a more disturbing sexual taste. In Stephens-Davidowitz’s study, fully one-quarter of female searches in straight porn emphasize suffering—physical and psychological—with search terms including words such as “brutal” and “painful.” (Five percent of searches were for “rape” or “forced sex,” even though these are banned on Pornhub.) Despite the fact that men are, in the actual world, far more violent and more likely to commit sexual assault, these searches were at least twice as common among women than among men.
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Paul Bloom (The Sweet Spot: The Pleasures of Suffering and the Search for Meaning)
“
More astonishing was the discovery that 99 percent of the female profiles turned out to be fake, created by Ashley Madison to give the illusion that an abundance of attractive married women used the site. In reality, although there were 20 million men actively using the cheating site, only 1492 women, less than 1 percent of the total user base, actively used the site.
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David M. Buss (When Men Behave Badly: The Hidden Roots of Sexual Deception, Harassment, and Assault)
“
According to Finnish psychologist Kaj Björkqvist, there is no logical reason to assume “that females should be less hostile and less prone to get into conflicts than males.” Depending on age, economic class, stress, and tribal custom, girls and women will physically and verbally assault each other. In fact, according to Björkqvist, “with respect to interpersonal aggression, same-sex encounters are more frequent than between-sex encounters.” We may remember that anthropologist Victoria Burbank found female “acts of physical aggression, [which ranged] from slaps to murder, in sixty-one percent of the societies.
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Phyllis Chesler (Woman's Inhumanity to Woman)
“
his comment was offensive and debating whether the female body does, indeed “try to shut the whole thing down.” We know this—we saw it happen with Trump and allegations of sexual assault, we saw it with Brett Kavanaugh and allegations of attempted rape.
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Sarah Kendzior (Hiding in Plain Sight: The Invention of Donald Trump and the Erosion of America)
“
After midnight, state and city police fired hundreds of rounds into Alexander Hall, a female dormitory, from which officers claimed snipers had fired. Alexander Hall and other student residences were riddled with bullet holes, looking more like a war zone than a college campus. A 21-year-old Jackson State student, Phillip Lafayette Gibbs, and seventeen-year-old high school student, James Earl Green, lay dead from the assault of police officers on campus.
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Akinyele Omowale Umoja (We Will Shoot Back: Armed Resistance in the Mississippi Freedom Movement)
“
It’s possible that a connection existed between the increasing independence of many women and the surgical assault on them. But it’s even more likely that doctors started removing women’s sexual organs simply because the arrival of anesthetics had made it safe to do so. Doctors had always regarded female reproductive organs as the source of all women’s medical problems.
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Gail Collins (America's Women: 400 Years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates, and Heroines)
“
I dedicate my #notrumpvote to my strong female friends who have to talk on the phone as they walk to their car at night. To my brilliant female friends who learned from the time they were small to apologize for their opinions and diminish the quality of their contributions. To my female friends who have been assaulted and not believed, or were too afraid to come forward, or were told it was your fault. To every woman who has ever been told to take responsibility for a man’s wicked behavior. I vote for you.
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Jonathan P. Walton (Keeping the Faith: Reflections on Politics & Christianity in the Era of Trump & Beyond)
“
There were some obvious reasons why women responded to 2016 with righteous outrage: they'd watched an extraordinarily qualified female presidential candidate lose to an extraordinarily unqualified, hateful charlatan with a self-confessed record of sexual assault. But it wasn't just that.
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Leah Greenberg (We Are Indivisible: A Blueprint for Democracy After Trump)
“
We must look at the fact that even in emergency situations, white bystanders are less likely to help Black people than each other. We have to ask ourselves why the study “White Female Bystanders’ Responses to a Black Woman at Risk for Incapacitated Sexual Assault” shows that even young white women in college are less likely to help potential victims of assault if they are Black. We have to ask why white undergrads said to researchers that they would be less likely to help Black women because they felt less personal responsibility for them. Or why they perceived Black victims as experiencing more pleasure in situations that they recognized as dangerous for white women.
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Mikki Kendall (Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women That a Movement Forgot)
“
The massive lawfare, assassination attempts, sexual assaults and rapes, character assassination, shaming and sexual objectification, children abuse among many other attacks on the SPH and His followers, especially the female followers, has been taken a serious note of and the report published on the UN website by the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) -
”
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Nithyananda Paramashiva
“
UN has published the report on the persecution on The SPH Nithyananda and KAILASA.
The SPH Nithyananda Paramashivam has been facing persecution for over two decades, especially for His highly progressive stance on true women empowerment.
The massive lawfare, assassination attempts, sexual assaults and rapes, character assassination, shaming and sexual objectification, children abuse among many other attacks on The SPH Nithyananda and KAILASA, especially the female followers, has been taken a serious note of and the report published on the UN website by the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) -
United Nations Recognizes Persecution of The SPH Nithyananda Paramashivam and KAILASA
Find out more on SPH Nithyananda Facebook page
”
”
SPH Nithyananda
“
#BreakingNews
UN has published the report on the persecution on the SPH and His followers.
The SPH Nithyananda Paramashivam has been facing persecution for over two decades, especially for His highly progressive stance on true women empowerment.
The massive lawfare, assassination attempts, sexual assaults and rapes, character assassination, shaming and sexual objectification, children abuse among many other attacks on the SPH and His followers, especially the female followers, has been taken a serious note of and the report published on the UN website by the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW).
#KAILASA #Nithyananda #UnitedNations #HumanRights #UNHCR #WomensRights #OHCHR
#UNRecogonisesPersecutionofSPHNithyanandaAndKAILASA #WomenEmpowerment
”
”
Nithyananda
“
#BreakingNews
UN has published the report on the persecution on The SPH Nithyananda and KAILASA.
The SPH Nithyananda Paramashivam has been facing persecution for over two decades, especially for His highly progressive stance on true women empowerment.
The massive lawfare, assassination attempts, sexual assaults and rapes, character assassination, shaming and sexual objectification, children abuse among many other attacks on The SPH Nithyananda and KAILASA, especially the female followers, has been taken a serious note of and the report published on the UN website by the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) -
United Nations Recognizes Persecution of The SPH Nithyananda Paramashivam and #KAILASA
#UnitedNations #HUmanRights #UNHCR #WomensRights #OHCHR
#UNRecogonisesPersecutionofSPHNithyanandaAndKAILASA
”
”
The SPH Nithyananda