Rape equals rape

A school friend shared a picture on Facebook that I found very poignant. I disagreed with the action but completely agreed with the sentiment. A topless woman (certain parts whited out before being uploaded) had the words Still not asking for it written across her chest. I don’t really agree with the topless protesting part but like the effectiveness and simple truthfulness of her message. I believe that people should dress and act modestly. But regardless of a person’s actions and state of dress, be they male or female, no one ‘is asking for’ sex unless they actually, you know, actually confirm that they want to, preferably by using their voice or the sign language equivalent. Anything outside of that is rape, plain and simple, regardless of a person was flirting or half-naked or had even had sex with that person before. No equals no, an inability to say no or think clearly equals no, and rape equals rape.

The way to stop rape isn’t for potential victims, both male and female, to take preventative measures like being careful with what they wear and not walking home alone at night. It’s good to be aware of the risks of different actions and to behave accordingly. But rape is always, every single time, completely and utterly the rapist’s fault. It’s never the victim’s fault. The way to stop rape is stopping rapists. I don’t expect that the poster in the link I’m about to share will stop people raping others, partially because most rapes are by someone you know and partially because it’s not that simple. But I think it’s brilliant at pointing out just how convoluted our thinking has become if society is willing to even consider blaming a victim for something that was inflicted on them. If someone’s front door was slightly ajar because they were running to their neighbour’s house to help with something and it didn’t close properly behind them and someone snuck into their house and burgled it, would we blame the victim or the thief? We might say that the owner should take precautionary measures like shutting and locking their doors, but the thief still, of his own free will, snuck in and stole the items. Similarly, it doesn’t matter whether a woman is wearing revealing clothing or a man was fine with kissing but not with sex. The other person might be tempted by the clothes or by the stimulation but at the end of the day sex requires two people saying yes, just like giving someone your TV requires two people saying yes, and forcing sexual contact on another person is a much more serious offense than nicking a TV.

 

The poster: http://www.rapecrisisscotland.org.uk/campaigns/10-top-tips-to-end-rape/

Friendzoning? More like friendno-ing! (Yeah, lame. I know.)

I hate the concept of ‘friendzoning’.  It is essentially complaining that someone just wants to be your friend and is not physically attracted to you. Why not just appreciate the fact that they do like you enough to want to be your friend, rather than that they don't like you the way you want them to? In my opinion, someone who complains about being friendzoned isn't really that person's friend as they're just waiting until a boy or girl is added to that friend instead of actually appreciating the platonic bond they share.

The term implies that people have the right to expect anyone they’re friends with to consider dating them at some point in time. I understand the frustration and disappointment over being friendzoned – in a platonic way, I guess it’s kind of like my friendship with my ex-friend, as I wanted a different depth and reliability of friendship than she did – but hate when people complain about it. Should my best friends and I complain that we’re not attracted to each other’s sex and so will never be together in that way? What if you’ve considered the possibility of dating that person on a theoretical level but just don’t like them? Does that count as friendzoning because from the other person’s perspective you haven’t given them ‘a chance’? If you have a boyfriend/girlfriend and you make a new friend, are you obligated to reflect on whether they'd make a good boyfriend/girlfriend instead of just being happy with the loving relationship that you're already in? Are people who complain about being friendzoned suggesting that the friendzoner should just date anyone who is their friend even if they don’t see them as potential life partners, just because no one should be relegated to the horrific role of ‘friend’? I mean, who wants to be a friend? Who even has friends?

Friends suck. Or at least, the concept of friendzoning would have us believe they do.

 

It's even more denigrating to the concept of friendship as the idea that liking someone in a romantic way is liking them as 'more than friends', when it's really just liking them 'different than friends'. Friendship is just as important as romantic interest, and I'd argue that it's more important. I want romance and a romantic relationship. I need friends and human interaction on a platonic level. I would never consider marrying a man who I would not also consider a close friend.

Rant time over.

 

So, apparently I’ve felt strongly about this for a little while, because while looking through notes on my phone I found another draft post on this topic, except on 8 January 2013 instead of May 2012. I'll include it here because it's short and makes the point about the idea of blame, although I think the above version is much more developed.

 

The concept of the friendzone irks me exceedingly (I’ve been rereading Anne of Green Gables, hence the language). Essentially, it’s just a way of saying that you have unrequired feelings for someone with whom you are friends. But whereas ‘unrequited feelings’ implies that it’s a shame, ‘friendzone’ somehow creates blame where there need not be any, suggesting that the other person not being willing or able to see you as ‘more than a friend’ is wrong. And how is it determined who is wrong in the situation? Couldn’t the person with the unrequired feelings be equally wrong? Does that mean that I was ‘friendzoned’ in year nine when I had a secret crush on a friend of mine? Was it wrong of him not to like me back, despite the fact that he had a lot of other male and female friends (and ended up coming out two or three years later)? Or was it wrong of me to like him and not tell him?

Foudroyant(e)

While looking up a word from my French textbook, I came across the word ‘foudroyant(e)’, which immediately struck me as an interesting and strangely attractive word. It's not like "inoubliable", which has history for me, or "soixante", which just sounds beautiful, but there was something about it that meant I felt that I had to find out what it means, a phrase that I am hesitant to use after my lecturer's "French and English are not the same" explanation but will still do so as I was searching for its meaning, it's just that the most basic form of that is an attempted direct translation to English.
 
Its meaning? Lightning (progress)/stunning (success)/violent (illness, poison).  The idea of the same word meaning lightning, stunning and violent (I didn’t contextualise them at first and so assumed it meant the noun and the adjectives in general) seemed fitting. After all, what is lightning but a beautiful-from-a-distance-but-crazy-scary-up-close phenomenon? It makes even more sense when contextualised – something describing speed, forceful/even aggressive impressiveness (after all, literally stunning someone would be an aggressive act) and striking out. There’s not really a point to this, except for an observation on lightning: it’s fast and it’s aggressive and it’s uniquely beautiful. The noun to which this French word does not apply is aptly described by all facets of said word's meaning. At least as far as the facets presented by my dictionary.

Edited (from notes on phone from 6 March):
I was thinking about the word foudroyant again when getting ready for bed last night and realised that my conclusion about how foudroyant aptly describes lightning is wrong for the express reason that stunning is contextualised to mean success, and so it's expressly not the literal hit-you-over-the-head-and-stun-you type, and so I was making the aforementioned mistake of comparing English and French too much. I knew that foudroyant didn't refer to stunning blows or violent in the sense of a human or action being violent, although it could refer to the rapidity of progress. I understood the word, but then took its English approximations. Linking them to the noun lightning was fine, but I then stated how foudroyant doesn't mean lightning but aptly describes it, when really it doesn't mean it but the other meanings of its English approximations aptly describe it.

Uni

I’ve started uni! I love it so far. The environment, both academic and physical, is wonderful. The two courses I’ve been to so far have been amazing. There aren’t any people in the courses (at least not in the one today) that are there when they don’t want to be. They chose that degree and those courses and they’re fully aware of the cost.

On the downside, though, uni makes me really sleepy. I was yawning repeatedly just ten minutes ago. I was planning on doing French preparation and revision tonight, as well as some other general things like finding some stuff that I packed away last year and reading, but am way too tired to attempt it now. Which is surprising because, hey, 9:20.

I might try to get two of the general things done before turning in.

Why I like blogging

It’s easy to not return to something once you’ve stopped. We are often creatures of inertia. As a kid I always delayed getting in a bath or pool as long as possible, but then once I was in I never wanted to get out when the water turned cool or it was time to go home. After my exams, getting back to blogging was something that I wanted to do but kept putting off as I didn’t know what to write about. When you start and strike that initial spark of creativity, however, it makes turning that spark into a flare significantly easier.

Blogging appeals to me for a few reasons. Firstly, it encourages opening whatever corner of your mind creativity comes from and keeping those floodgates open rather than letting them shut and having to find and wrench it open again the next time you want to do some creative enterprise. Secondly, it gives you the feeling of creating something, and as it’s accessible by whoever might take interest in it it’d be much like publishing a short story (except without the validation that would come from knowing that someone believes in that story). Thirdly, I like writing and writing about things that you’ve observed is easier on your self-esteem than writing fiction as you don’t finish a post and look back at it and wonder if it has any worth at all, even if it’s not yet ready to be posted. And finally, it makes me think about things. I was vaguely aware of the things that I wrote about in my post on the end of the world before I wrote them. I knew that I wanted to get the chance to experience marriage and working and having kids before going to heaven. I knew that I’ve always been afraid that my faith isn’t genuine enough. But writing things down helps you to organize your thoughts and recognise things. I’d never linked my need for others to share my opinion with my dislike of hearing people talking about potential end of the world scenarios and my slight fear that they will actually occur. I don’t expect to reach self-actualisation. But blogging helps you to understand more about yourself and your reasons for things and I love that, especially at a time when I’m questioning so much about the strength of my faith and need to identify the problems that I have and find ways to solve them.

'The End of the World' (written late November/early December)

Apocalypses fascinate people. What kind of apocalypse will it be? What will happen afterwards? They create a great playground for writers to explore not only humans bravely facing impossible odds but also the events that occur afterwards. Are we still in existence? How do we cope? I enjoy novels and shows about small groups of people overthrowing tyrannical governments and overcoming overwhelming odds as much as the next teenager. And I believe that the world as we know it is going to end one day and that it will usher in a new world. Even though I’ve been questioning my faith over the last few years, I’ve internalised basic Christian beliefs to the point that I would still set my moral compass by the Ten Commandments, even if I don’t always follow it, and would still believe that the world is one day going to end, etc, even if I suddenly decided to walk away from Christianity. I’ve struggled with why God has let the world go on for so long doing things that He disagrees with and what the purpose of us living separately to Him is, unless it’s just to give us time to decide whether we want to live with Him before bringing everyone back and judging us. But, regardless of how I am mentally with things, part of me will never let me stray too far from Christianity. It is a part of me and even when I have doubts, something in me holds me to the rock. Or the Rock holds me there.

The idea of the eschaton has always kind of scared me. It probably didn’t help that Left Behind was my favourite book series when I was twelve, when I first prayed with the uncertainty of whether I was really a Christian or had just been doing what was set out for me and the worry that I was only making the decision to pray for salvation out of the fear of the consequences of not doing so, the stick behind the proverbial donkey. While the fears of not being ‘truly’ saved lingered on and off over the years, my main issue with the Second Coming was the idea of lost opportunities. I guess part of me has always said that it will come eventually, and that’s great, but I want the chance to get married and work and live my life here before things happen and the playing field changes in unknowable ways. I knew that heaven was a sure thing and would happen at some point and be forever and be perfect, but I wanted a chance in this imperfect world first. That viewpoint was held whenever I was comfortable in my faith. When I wasn’t, I’d view it with worry that it was going to come in my time of doubt and that I wouldn’t be ready for it (conversely and rather strangely, after reading Left Behind a small part of me wanted to be like Bruce Barnes as it would mean I’d have the opportunity to minister to people, especially as I’d never been completely sure about whether my father went to church because my mother did or due to his own belief in Christ). But the point is that – and this is an admission that I’d never make to my family – one of the reasons that I hate hearing reports about dates for the end of the world is that part of me fears that that theory is true and that I won’t be ready and that I will hurriedly do more spiritually out of a fear of the apocalypse rather than out of love of God. This is, I believe, why superheroes are making a comeback. People have fears about technological developments or global relations or zombies and escape in stories of society facing circumstances that it cannot overcome and being saved by a person who obtained powers from spiders or however Superman got them (he’s like an alien, right?) or through technology. We worry that our own society is going to need a superhero, so we rally around imaginary superheroes. The thing is that we have been given a superhero, Jesus, but we ignore him. Now, my problem is that part of me accepts this but the other part struggles with sin and with whether I’ve been forgiven or have sought forgiveness and turned back too many times and whether the Bible is even true. It’s like I sought explanations from my brother (I still need to read his Extension History on the historiography of Jesus Christ, actually; online note to self), but the more he assured me that there was actual proof the less faith I had, until I’ve ended up in this weird place where I accept that it’s all true but am distanced and feel disconnected from God. Did I, while seeking intellectual reassurance, lose my emotional one? Am I like Victor Frankenstein, seeking scientific discovery (or in my case what apologetics have stated) and sacrificing emotional connection and values for it?

The other, more prominent and more easily communicated, reason that I hate the theorizing about when the world will end is that I believe that it is impossible for us to know. The Bible says that God alone knows the exact time. Mayans living in ancient times had no idea. People near the end of a millennium are just guessing. Christians trying to use whatever formula to work out a particular date have no chance. The latter annoys me as it also just results in a string of potential ends-of-the-world that just make people laugh over the claims, have less belief in its eventual occurrence, and have even more derision for Christianity.

I’m also a person who seeks assurance from others’ opinions. I hate to admit it when I firmly believe that what other people think about you doesn't matter as much as what God and you think about you, but it matters to me. Which is, I believe, why my mind often blanks when I'm talking to someone I barely know and refuses to give me words to say. (It's often not even wanting to say something but being too shy, although that happens too; it's just that around strangers/friendly acquaitances I have nothing to say, but then when I'm with my family or close friends I'm suddenly a torrent of words.) Even though I know that it doesn’t matter that other people choose different pairings in Fire Emblem or that it doesn’t matter that I didn’t build up enough support between the characters to get the ending I wanted, I need to replay the game (in Hector’s mode, so it may not really count as replaying) so that Lyn and Hector wind up married and Eliwood and Ninian end up together and, while I appreciate the ability for people to make their own desired pairing, as long as it is between certain characters, work, I don’t like knowing that other people are equally convinced that Hector ended up with Florina or that other rider or alone. I don’t like my brother feeling that he’s won an argument or that he is right when Mum and I both disagree with him, because he’s wrong but he thinks otherwise. While I’m fine believing something that other people don’t believe, I feel like the Aurons whose reality was endangered by other people’s disbelief.

So I am 99.9% sure that the world will not end the day I get my HSC results, and that belief is not even affected by the annoyance that I would feel if I’ve finally completely finished high school and gotten my final results only to have it all rendered irrelevant. In fact, even that 0.1% believes that it won’t. It’s just that that 0.1%, or probably a greater percentage actually, contains my uncertainties and my fears and is telling me there are people out there that believe that it will end that day and nothing I could say would change their minds; what if it does? What will happen afterwards, and will I be ready for it?

Unashamed Excitement for The Host

I've just got to say: I am so excited for The Host. I was nervous about how it will be executed but, while it focusing too much on particular elements or altering things that shouldn't have been altered or whatnot are still a possibility, after watching the trailer and an interview with the main cast members, concerns about how they're going to do the Mel-Wanda thing have disappeared. It's promising. Unless they've just turned it into a love story and removed the other parts - which, from what was said in the aforementioned interview, seems unlikely - I think it's going to be a great movie. Though that may be partially because strong music in a trailer can impart a feeling of being ready for war. Which is strange for someone who is anti-war. But at least I can take my brother, who is interested in the alien and what-is-humanity elements of the book, with me with the hope that he'll enjoy it too.