And before I forget

[trinityvixen]

A little bit of feminism for your day, and let this be a lesson for the future:

When someone breaks into another person's apartment, anything they do in there is a crime. It is not a joke, it is not funny, and it's not some misunderstanding or merely "inappropriate" behavior. If they touch any one living in that home, it could be perceived as assault, and, under some circumstances, excuse for the invaded to react with deadly force.

So, when a man breaks into an apartment through the fire escape's access to a window and gets into bed with the female occupant and starts touching her that is not "inappropriate touching." That is molesation. She has been molested. Fortunately, that was the worst that happened, but that is still sexual assault, given the nature of the attack, the target, and the place where it occurred (you can't tell me a criminal got into bed with a potential victim with no intention of launching any kind of sexual assault).

Please, kindly refer to such incidents correctly in the future. Columbia, I'm looking at you. I don't care how much you stress that this wasn't in one of you buildings. Morons.

Comments

[linaerys.livejournal.com]

Excellent point. If you want to yell at another asshole, you can find him here (http://stop-him.livejournal.com/39403.html). Le sigh. Don't know why I responded, and I didn't do a very good job, except it was more fun than writing a sales proposal.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I read your response last night, and I think you were very well phrased, actually. I'm going to read over all the points made, see if I need to jump in.

But he's such A Nice Guy(TM), I'd feel bad if I hurt his widdle feelings. ::mutters:: condescending asshole. If he wants to know why some crazy feminists don't seem willing to meet fanboys halfway, he should look in a mirror.

[linaerys.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I couldn't even respond to the other guy who wrote back to me, saying that women don't get raped that much in comics. Haven't like 95% of comics heriones been raped at one point or another? Just because it's not happening every month doesn't mean that's not a lot.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I am trying to find the list. There was one. It was pretty brutal.

[chuckro.livejournal.com]

I suspect you're thinking of the women-in-refrigerators list. If I'm remembering it correctly, there were relatively few rapes, but a large number of de-powerings, assaults or incredibly-out-of-character stupidity for the female characters.

Actually, I personally can't recall very many rapes in comics. Sue Digby in Identity Crisis is the only one that jumps to mind as particularly unnecessary and "there for shock value".

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Don't forget the Silk Spectre.

And, no, I'm not arguing there are many rapes. That's what the misogynist-apologist is arguing. He thinks rapes are underrepresented (oh boy), but he misses the point that sexual violence of any stripe is overrepresented. I just made that point.

[chuckro.livejournal.com]

Not necessarily sexual violence, but violence doled out or defined by basis of sex. Does that make sense? The characters aren't being sexually assaulted. They're being assaulted because they're women.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I think both occur, actually. Violence against women because they are women and violence against women of a sexual nature. It doesn't matter whether there's sexual intent or not--assault is, first and foremost, about power. Sexual assault only adds sexual power to that.

[chuckro.livejournal.com]

I do my best to avoid the feminist/fanboy comic debates. Frankly, I think Gail Simone is the genius who will prove both sides to be tilting at windmills: She writes good comics featuring strong/non-exploited female characters that sell well to both feminists and fanboys. If you don't like what's being published, write something better and convince an editor it'll sell. That's how you win.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

That's a sound theory. Honestly, I'd just like to see no more current titles fall back on abuse for the quick score on the sympathy meter. Otherwise, I've always excused comics because they are, besides their lousy score on sexual abuse, equal opportunity ogle-fests.

[chuckro.livejournal.com]

I think you can make a good story that involves abuse. I think you can make a realistic story that involves abuse, that hits buttons and really makes you feel for the characters. I think you need to be a very good writer to do it. I trust Alan Moore, or Mike Carey, or Gail Simone. Maybe even Rick Veich or Bill Willingham. That's about it, though.

I'd also love to see one of those writers do a story in which a male character gets put through a horrible ordeal and has emotional consequences other than rage/thirst for revenge. (Actually, Willingham's been doing that quite well in Fables.)

The other option, of course, is to make rape (as it once was) verboten in superhero comics. Kinda like the way Archie lives in a world where sex simply does not exist.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

I'd also love to see one of those writers do a story in which a male character gets put through a horrible ordeal and has emotional consequences other than rage/thirst for revenge. (Actually, Willingham's been doing that quite well in Fables.)

I'd like that, too, if only to prove two things. One: you don't have to go on revenge/rage quests to fix the thing. Two: that such incidents of abuse neither call into question masculinity nor necessarily depend upon homosexual abusers to occur. That would be big of them.

No, I don't want comics censorship. I want comics to have some level of imagination that doesn't rely on the quick and easy no-one-will-be-able-to-question-us-if-we-say-they're-just-unsympathetic-to-victims-of-abuse angle.