It's my fault, I'm female

This article in the New York Times came to my attention earlier today. Reporting of the brutal (and recorded) gang rape of an eleven year-old girl, it is full of the little insinuations about the victim's responsibility in the matter that we have grown so accustomed to as a society.

The article, complete with pictures and details of the run-down trailer where parts of the assault took place, wastes no time in making sure the reader knows that this was not the vicious, conscious deciscions of eighteen boys and men; but something that just happened. As if the men in question were victims too; victims of oh-so-tragic and unfortunate events in which they ha no control. Those poor, poor boys, who will, like the article continues to mention, "have to live with this for the rest of their lives."

Well, guess what? Somewhere in America, now in a hidden location to avoid the media and the shameful glances of peers and town citizens, is an eleven year-old girl. Somewhere out there is an eleven year-old girl who, too, has to live with this for the rest of her life. A girl that not only very likely has physical damage so bad it will scar her for life, but whose innocence has been crushed and whose world has collapsed. Trust in adults, trust in men, trust in justice...all that may well be destroyed, or at best a massive task to build back up. And that's without the New York times deciding that things may have ended differently had she not worn so much make up or "hung around with boys at the playground." (Exactly, at the playground. She's a child.)

The article continues with the comments of "Ms. Harrison"; a neighbour whose opinion the New York Times somehow decided was relevant to the news value of the story. Ms. Harrison, clearly shaken, exclaims, "Where was her mother?", and continues along the publication's line of finding someone, anyone, to blame but the eighteen boys that carried out the rape of which the article is about in the first place. It is interesting how no one - while we're blaming the parents here - seems to be asking where her father was, but I guess this is just about the potential mistakes of females. It usually is.

And while everyone is wondering where the mother in question was while her child was being raped, no one is asking where the mothers or fathers of the boys and men were when their sons held a child down on a bed and the floor of  a bathroom while raping her and filming their abuse. But, as the article also mentions; one of the boys is a basketball star student, and one father is a school board member, and I guess we don't want to mess with those. They are, after all, popular, powerful men in powerful positions. The mother of the eleven year-old girl, on the other hand, is just female trailer trash; not worth more than the filthy sofa on which her daughter was raped. Well done, New York Times. I hope you're proud.


To sign the petition demanding the New York Times apologize for their biased reporting, please visit http://www.change.org/petitions/tell-the-new-york-times-to-apologize-for-blaming-a-child-for-her-gang-rape

Unintentional performance art

I promised myself I wasn't going to comment on the whole Charlie Sheen circus, but it's too socially and psychologicall interesting to ignore. And the reason I say that, is because for once; the media isn't in control. They're not making anything up to sell more, they're not writing half-truths...they're just waiting, like dogs, for their master to give them that bone.

Everything that's been printed about Charlie Sheen for the past few weeks has been what HE has created. Statements he has made, actions he's committed, information he's shared. Willingly, openly, and decadently. People are on the edge of their seats waiting for the next big thing, and he knows it.

Sheen registered on Twitter eight days ago, and his account reached one million followers in its first 24 hours alone. People love a trainwreck, and he is inviting us all to watch from front row. His vlog "Sheen's Korner" was set up after his downward spiral became newsworthy, because he knows people will want to hear what he has to say - but he is not about to help the mainstream media and daytime television earn their ratings. This is the Charlie Sheen Show, and he runs it. He calls the shots. Public intoxication, felony, and substance drug use are things the tabloids usually love to sniff out, but in this case they don't have to. In this case they don't have to; because he is offering it to them. Proudly. Because everything is "winning". Because HE is winning. Because tragic as his demise may be, what's even more tragic is the way the media and the general public are, once again, sensationalizing and indulging in it. We are sheep and simple-minded fools, so easily led to follow, and he knows it. He is holding up a giant mirror to us a society, showing us perfectly through his imperfection, what we have become. And we are too stupid to realize it. We will never learn.

"And the rain, when it comes, it tastes like nothing."



"I know what it's supposed to be like to be young
But it is not the way I thought it would be
My paranoia functioned like a broken mirror
To distort and destroy any clarity

I want you to give back to me
The child I never was
'Cause I believed what I was told
Like everybody does."

~ "L.O.S.", The Czars ~








‎"Diana Ross told me that people in show business can get hurt. I don’t see how...maybe one day I will." - Michael Jackson, 1971

Artist of the day

...is Nathalia Edenmont. Minus the animals.

The right to love a child

Gay adoption.

Two such emotionally charged words in separate, and even more so when put together. I overheard someone debate the issue today, and as usual, I need to vent.

In the world today, there are thousands of children in desperate need of a loving home, or simply a roof over their heads. Yet these children, already having suffered more in a few years than anyone should have to do in a lifetime, are denied the stability they so desperately crave because someone, somewhere, got stuck when looking at the biological process of child conception, and decided that that is what determines how capable you are of providing someone with love, values and attention. So. If the only healthy thing for a child is a mother and a father, then that argument, in order to be consistent, would also mean that all single mothers and fathers out there...are unfit parents. That no family where one parent has passed away, whether be it from cancer, a traffic accident, or violence, should be called a healthy family anymore. Feels kind of illogical, doesn't it?

Sweden recently became the 14th country in the world to allow gay couples to adopt. The problem is that the countries that have the highest number of children in need of a home, are more often than not very traditional and religious, hence will not allow "their" children to go to families that consist of same-sex couples. And to be blunt, it blows my mind that someone can be so cruel as to deny a child in need of love and stability those things because of their own twisted morals and backward thinking. That is pure selfishness. And to then, on top of it, say that it's "with the child's best interest at heart"...is laughable.

The "think of the children" argument is not only the most popular one, it is also highly illogical and inconsistent. This argument is mostly followed by some "well-meaning" person bringing forth the B word. Bullying. Like it would automatically follow, and like it's an inescapable fact.  Here's a newsflash for you: kids get bullied for everything under the sun. To deny gay couples the right to be parents out of the fear of their child being teased is like dying your ginger child's hair blonde or putting your overweight child on a diet before they start school, because ginger hair and extra weight stands out, which - gasp!- might lead to bullying. Yet no one in their right mind would ever consider doing that. That's just crazy talk, right?

So as usual, you are putting the responsibility on the possible victim, instead of the bully. It is not the gay couples that need to refrain from having children to avoid bullying from taking place; it's society that needs to change, and it is the other parents in the society we live in that need to open up their closed minds and teach their children that you do not pick on others and that love is love no matter your gender. That will solve the bullying problem before it even arises. And it also raises the question...if straight people are so much more suitable for parenthood than homosexual couples simply because they're straight, explain to me then, why it is their children that will very likely be responsible for the bullying of the "gay" kids that their own parents - and our so very hetero-normative society - so seem to fear will take place if we let gay people adopt? Hmmm. 

(And while we're on the subject of teaching your children the right thing, who better to teach their child love and acceptance of everyone, than parents who have lived to experience their fair share of the pain that judgment and bigotry can bring? Call me crazy, but in my world, that's what parents do: take their own experiences and use what they have learned from them in raising their child so that they will be prepared for what may come their way one day.)

Ignorance and judgment does and will always take place. It happens every day. Some children growing up with two parents of the same sex will tell you it made their lives horrible because of other people's intolerance, and some will tell you it didn't affect them negatively whatsoever. Why? Because it's the same with this as with everything else. In the words of Chuck Palahniuk:

"You grow up to become living proof of your parents’ limitations. Their less-than masterpiece. Fathers. Mothers. With all their caring and attention. They will fuck you up, every time."

All parents will make mistakes, whether they (or we, when that day comes) want to admit it or not. But no one ever tells a straight couple that the mere fact that they've decided to have a child might lead to that child being bullied - in fact, no one would ever dream of saying such a thing. We have to wait and see, right? Let them try first, at least. Yet gay couples aren't even given the CHANCE to fail like the rest of us, and all they are told is that they will, automatically, ruin their children's lives. Because of who they are. Because they happen to love eachother. Now tell me how that makes sense?

Ode to my family

Because without you, I'd be lost.