The horrible reasons Jonathan Kay feels compelled to "explain" rape

Contributor: Tasia Alexopoulos

Jonathan Kay, Gender Expert Extraordinaire.

Jonathan Kay is a name I associate with many things: "feminist" is not one of them. This morning while I was scrolling through Twitter I was surprised to see that an article he had written about rape was being circulated by smart, feminist peoples. Unless I really want to subject myself to bigotry, idiocy, and a far-right politic that terrifies me I generally ignore Kay's work (this ban also applies to his mother, Barbara Kay).

"The many horrible reasons why men rape women"  encapsulates why I ignore Kay's work and why I think the National Post is ridiculous for giving him a platform. There is no point of his article, he is barely making an argument, and he's using anecdotal evidence to make sweeping generalizations about rape and sexual violence.

Apparently being at a famous party where someone was raped makes Jonathan Kay an expert on the issue. The infamous Zeta Psi assault was a galvanizing event and, certainly, an important moment on the Canadian political landscape in terms of how we understand and view assault. It raised questions about the culture of sexual violence and rape on campuses, the silencing of victims, and the shortcomings of the justice system.  It was not, however, an isolated incident nor are incidents like it uncommon today. What I find offensive about Kay's piece is that he refuses to contextualize this moment in time, he doesn't refer to any of the work done around it (including the personal voice of the woman he discusses who has written about her own experience), and he seems to think that having a cursory knowledge of it gives him a unique view on the general topic of sexual violence.

Careful to point out that the victim admitted she was "too drunk" to know how she arrived at the location of her assault but remembered details from the actual assault, Kay discusses how no charges were laid due to "questions about the reliability of the victim's recollections of that alcohol-soaked night. As well, according to Kay, "this was the era before cell phones and so there was no hard evidence." Does Jonathan Kay realize that there have been successful rape prosecutions without photo and video evidence? There are other kinds of evidence but at the time (and now) the most important evidence of all, a woman's own recollection of what happened, was ignored and discounted. Had Kay done any research at all on rape/assault cases he might see a distinct pattern of ignoring women's voices, invalidating them, claiming they were too drunk/too slutty/too scantily clad, accusations of story changes, improper collection of evidence, and police insensitivity when it comes to "proving" allegations of assault. It is never as simple as there not being "evidence" to support a charge. In fact, women's difficulties within the justice system was a keystone of this case but rather than even doing a cursory Google search or paying lip service to this Kay trusted that his own personal opinion and recollection was enough.

Kay goes on to discuss the motivations of the perpetrator (there were three and others watching, but he focuses on one). In the mind of the accused, what he did was a "sort of lurid sexual theatre for his pals," "he was quite giddy during the incident, acting as a sort of sexual emcee for the others... he'd treated the whole thing as a show and at the time seemed delighted by the attention." So, because a rapist is "giddy" during the act or enjoys the attention it garners him, he doesn't realize that what he is doing is wrong? Or that him appearing to enjoy himself means that the act is not really rape because it's not really about power or violence? I'm so confused. What appears to be a point is forming here, but it's so convoluted that I can barely understand it. The man, writes Kay, was not popular. Before he became "sexually infamous" everyone in the fraternity already knew that letting him in was a mistake, which he knew. Ok.. so does being unpopular make someone more likely to be become a violent gang rapist? Is that what he's getting at here?   As far as Kay "can tell" the motivation behind the rape wasn't sex or violence but was a "desperate attempt to bond with higher status peers through the collaborative humiliation of someone helpless." The collaborative humiliation of someone helpless sounds a lot like violence to me. Proving that one views women as objects also seems like violence to me, violence that stems from a culture that sustains itself on privilege and entitlement. What Kay doesn't seem to understand is that even if this guy was raping someone to make his frat brothers like him more it is still violence and still a wielding of power. It is a product of systemic misogyny and sexism. There are people who are actual experts on this type of thing, maybe Kay could have supplemented his bizarre expoundings upon the nature of rape with some actual facts.

Kay concludes with some ask and answer: "Is rape sex? Yes. Is it violence? Yes. A criminal pathology, a product of booze and incapacity, perversion, sadism, an expression of dominance, a bonding agent for mobs, a means for dumb men to climb within hierarchies of other dumb men? Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes and yes. Rape can be any twisted combination of those things, which is why the crime is so tragically common, and so difficult to eradicate. It is also why the concept of rape can’t be reduced to mere slogans about sex and power. It’s much more complicated than that."

Who is reducing the concept of rape to mere slogans? What is the point of this article?!?! And, actually, rape is not sex. Rape is rape. Sex is sex. Kay simultaneously borrows from feminist rhetoric on sexual violence while spitting on it, offering no solutions.

This coming from a man who publicly berated anyone who had the audacity to connect the Montreal Massacre with sexism, misogyny, and violence against women. Writing the Massacre off as having "no larger social or political message at play [as just a] horrible tragedy that symbolizes nothing more than our inability to prevent bad things from happening to good people," Kay not only tightened his blinders in terms of the power  of social inequalities but also did so at the expense of the women who were murdered that day by a man who was a self professed woman hater. Jonathan Kay is correct when he says this problem is complicated and difficult to eradicate but it's not because rape is a nuanced thing. If we refuse to target the root of the issue, the systemic sexism and misogyny that operate at every level of our society, then how can we ever hope to eradicate symptoms of such inequality?

Good grief, more of this shit?

Sometimes the lack of actual thought in this world seriously baffles me. Yesterday the Huffington Post published an article about former MP Ujjal Dosanjh, who tweeted about the horrific gang rape in India. Dosanjh tweeted the following:

"Absurd 2blame female dress 4 rape. If men unable 2control penises, they shud have them removed #delhigangrape"

 He went on to say (the Huff Post didn't cite where he said this) that "Obviously this issue is much broader and wider than the Indian case. Usually men blame women for the way they dress and I just wanted to put it succinctly to show the absurdity of the position."

I agree with half of what Dosanjh says, the half about women not being responsible for their assaults. What I don't agree with, and what makes me incredibly angry, is that people are having emotional knee-jerk reactions to this rape and they're saying things that are not only untrue but completely dangerous to the progress women and men have made when it comes to perceptions of sexual assault. The Huffington Post's tweet about their own article called Dosanjh's statement "bold" and I saw multiple retweets that applauded his sentiment. I understand the impulse to wish harm upon rapists, I think it's natural and can be a really helpful coping mechanism. This is not what Dosanjh has done. This is not a bold tweet, it is an incredibly stupid and incredibly revealing tweet about how ignorant people can be.

He, like many others(especially those who have no been exposed to the daily and often extreme violence which victims of sexual assault survive), has decided to take a "stand" against sexual assault in the worst way possible. In an attempt to be "supportive" without educating himself about the issues of assault he has attributed the gang rape of the Delhi student, and all rape and sexual assault, to lust. It doesn't matter how many penises you castrate, rape and sexual assault have absolutely nothing to do with sexual desire, sexual impulses, or controlling either of those things. Rape and sexual assault are always about power and control. You can only be an ally, you can only be part of the solution, if you know what it is you're fighting against. We aren't fighting against men who can't control their dicks. We're fighting against the GLOBAL inequality of women that leads to men feeling entitled to the control and denigration of women's bodies. It's a fight against people wielding power and control over women, men, and children not for bodily pleasure but because they feel entitled to the position that inflicting that kind of hurt puts them in. Castrating a rapist doesn't address systemic inequality. Castrating a rapist doesn't take into account that his penis has nothing to do with the crime.

This specific instance of idiocy is a great example of the way reactions have been pouring out in the media, facebook, twitter etc about this case of rape.It is a horrible crime, unimaginable to some. But the fact is that for some people it is all too imaginable, and not just in India. The Huffington Post article goes on to say that it in India it is "common for women to be blamed for sexual assaults, which in turns means few report it to authorities. Those who do find police often do not take their cases seriously. Politicians and decision makers in India regularly suggest that women should not go out at night or wear "provocative" clothes."

This statement could be said for any country in the world, at any time. Remember how Slutwalk started? When a Toronto Police Officer told women not to dress like sluts if they didn't want to be raped? This isn't an uncommon sentiment and the idea that women "ask for it" is not a rare response to sexual assault. Not so long ago it was legal to rape your wife in Canada because the law recognized a woman's husband as her master. What about the Christie Pits groper this summer? What did the police tell us? They told us to be alert, dress a certain way, don't go out after a certain hour etc etc. Mayor Rob Ford's niece tweeted that women should not dress like a slut if they don't want to be groped.  All things women need to do to protect themselves and "not ask for it." Women in Canada and the U.S also don't report their rapes and assaults because, guess what? Cops often don't believe them and the trauma of having to try to get police to believe you is sometimes too much for someone to bear. It isn't as easy as going to the police station, reporting your rape, and the bad person goes away. You have to give statement after statement, you have to describe what you were wearing, how they took it off, how they hurt you. Then you have to do it all over again in court. Then your rapist gets like two years in prison. In a perfect world where racism, sexism, and classism didn't exist everyone would report their assaults. In a world where there is so much inequality and so much discrimination it makes perfect sense to me that people choose to keep their assaults out of the justice system. The justice system in Canada, the U.S,  and India all have one thing in common: they are not designed for the comfort and security of victims of assault and rape and they have all been built on sexist assumptions and stereotypes.

After the Delhi rape a woman was gang raped in Thunder Bay and left for dead. So where are the tweets about that from our politicians? Where is the outrage? How dare a former MP of BC tweet something so ill-informed about rape when he used to represent a province famous for the murder and rape of indigenous women, which was essentially allowed to continue for years because authorities didn't care about the victims? This is not support for rape victims. This is not support for progressive legislation. This is emotion unfocused and set upon a world that doesn't need any more muddled ideas about sexual violence.

So let's just stop it with the "things are so bad in India" thing because we all know things are just as bad here. Let's also stop going with our gut reaction: you may wish your rapist had his penis cut off to punish him, but the idea that castration could stop rape perpetuates misconceptions we can no longer afford. Let's stop applauding every man or politician who turns their noses up at the Indian Gang Rape and calls for change while they totally ignore all other violence against women, all over the world.

The Way Must Be Tried.. Over and over and over again.

The Way Must be Tried.. Over and over and over again.

contributed by Tasia Alexopoulos

What is that old adage, oft used but rarely followed? "Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it."

It seems that our administrators at York University, who exalted the past during York's Anniversary, are refusing to learn from history at all. For several years, like most Universities, York has experienced a very serious issue with sexual assault of all forms. From groping to stranger rape, York has seen it all. This isn't a new phenomenon: sexual assault is common on all campuses, in all towns and cities, and in all people's lives. What should be new is the way we approach this issue.

Yesterday the University and our illustrious President Shoukri help a Forum on Community Safety for students, staff, faculty, and community members. Instead of being an actual open Forum for questions and serious discussion the event was a mere publicity stunt; an opportunity to reveal the University's "new" security measures and dedication to safety.

At the open Forum yesterday President Shoukri announced that the University would be graciously spending over $10 million on safety and security on campus. Shoukri not only announced that the money would be spent, but that he has "embraced" the effort to increase safety on campus. The promised funds have already been allocated, with no real input from the University community nor those who are experts in gendered violence. Not once has the President, the Dean, or any VP stepped up and said "Hey, Women's Studies students: What do you think we could do about violence on campus?" Not once have they seriously approached any anti-racist group on campus and asked what those students would consider meaningful safety measures. Unfortunately for all of us, York has a bad track record when it comes to dealing with safety in all forms despite taking a hardline stance. We've seen over and over again how they deal with sexual assault and more often than not it entails telling the ladies on campus to "be aware of their surroundings" and to "lock their doors." For real, several years ago Alex Bilyk of York University told women that the moral of the story (because sexual assault is a story with a moral other than "don't be a rapist") that they need to keep their doors locked. He was responding to a stranger assault in a University residence, perpetrated by someone who did not live in the dorm.

In almost every Security Bulletin we receive about an assault on campus women are advised to buddy up, to be aware of their surroundings and the people around them, and to report suspicious people to York Security Services. This is an outdated approach and hopefully the new Security strategy takes this into account. It does not matter how aware you are of your surroundings or of suspicious people, it does not matter if you buddy up, if somebody wants to assault you they will assault you. The most recent assaults on campus have been in daylight at busy times -- one of them occurred in the lineup for the 196 York Rocket bus, one of the longest bus lineups of all time. A person who will assault a woman in broad daylight, surrounded by people, is someone who knows that the culture on campus permits them to do so -- they know that they will not be stopped and they will not be caught, they feel invincible.

This has nothing to do with how many Security guards are around or how well armed they are. It has to do with the culture on campus that does not take safety seriously, or racism seriously. It's about being part of a campus community that doesn't educate young men about misogyny or assault but, instead, chastises women for not being aware of their surroundings. We are part of a campus that allows sexist advertising to pervade. On a broader political scale we are part of a University that has only had ONE female President and in which some Faculties have never had a female Dean. We are part of a University that discourages students to stand up for themselves when they are harassed by Professors or employers. We are part of a University whose Administrators treat students, staff, and faculty with outright scorn. There are parts of campus that still aren't wheelchair accessible. We are not part of an inclusive, respectful, anti-sexist, anti-racist campus.

The Open Forum on Community Safety shouldn't have been an opportunity to smile at the cameras and pledge your allegiance to the flag of safety, President Shoukri. It should have been an opportunity for students to voice their discomfort, their feelings, their ideas. Instead, when a group of students came to the forum to express their concern about racial profiling on campus they weren't given space, the moderator instructed the microphone runners to ignore certain questions, and VP Morrison smirked the entire time they spoke. A culture that doesn't accept sexual assault also encourages respectful dialogue and this is just not occurring at York. President Shoukri claimed that the "floating" microphones were used to address accessibility issues but when asked how the moderator planned to manage the questions queue he had no response.

So the University will spend $10 million on re-training Security Staff, arming them, and giving them the power to arrest people. They will install more emergency phones. They've created new staff positions and renamed committees.  Nowhere does it say that York is committing itself to ending sexism or racism on campus. Nowhere does it even mention gender. It's great to increase Inclusivity training, but what does that really mean? What we need is York to take a political and ideological stance against what really causes assaults and violence: power imbalances.


I wrote this two years ago, about York University, and in the years since then nothing has changed:

"Sexual assault is an epidemic in Canada and York needs to address the culture of sexism on campus more than it needs to release the metrac report. Sexual assault is not leverage. It is not fair to say "sorry you were raped, young lady, that could have been prevented with more lighting". We need to think, "hey, maybe we need to educate ALL students about sexual assault." Maybe we shouldn't cut funding to women's studies programs, maybe we should increase education around the politics and issues behind sexual assault instead of just acting like cameras and lights are going to save the day."

What is the point of re-training Security officers when you're not educating students?When you're not combating rape culture, sexism, and inequality on campus?

York's motto is "The Way Must Be Tried." This way HAS been tried. It is time to recognize, once and for all, that women have taken responsibility for their own safety and that telling us to be aware of our surroundings will not save us from being assaulted. More Security will not mean less assault, because more Security does not mean less sexism. More heavily armed Security personnel will only increase violence against University community members. It is time for the University to stop calling itself innovative and actually innovate new responses to violence on campus.Yes, prevention is the key but prevention cannot occur until we begin to seriously address the sexist and racist culture on campus. We can't let the administrators, and whatever corporations or political interests they may serve railroad true change just because they hold a community meeting and grace us with their presence. These "safety" initiatives are not enough, we need the University to commit itself, once and for all, to social justice. We need education and cultural shifts, President Shoukri, not more Security guards with tasers. 

Why Toronto will never solve the problem of gun violence

Last night The Agenda's topic was "Targeting Gun Violence", an appropriate topic after the several gun related tragedies Toronto has suffered this year and in years past.  The Danzig shooting this summer seemed to be the tipping point, prompting the Mayor to puff out his chest and demand that gangs stop terrorizing his city. "This is about gangs and gang violence" he said. "The criminals" were wrecking our fair city and we needed to use every legal means to curb the violence. One of his solutions was to "ban" people who are convicted of gun crimes, which I wrote about HERE and to make gang life "miserable." I don't believe that we can solve gun crimes by villainizing gang members, who are often people with so few options or resources that a gang is the only way to survive. I don't really think we can take a huge, complex issue and boil it down to a few bad gang apples ruining Toronto for everyone, which is what brings me back to The Agenda.

A show on "Targeting Gun Violence" could be interesting but when I went to the website to see who the guests would be I was annoyed but not surprised.
Here are the guests listed:

• Bill Blair: Toronto Police Chief
• Dr. Gary Slutkin: Founder and Executive, Cure Violence
• Alvin Curling: Fmr Speaker of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario
• Peter Sloly: Deputy Chief, Toronto Police
• John Sawdon: Executive Director, CTI Canadian Training Institute and Breaking the Cycle
• Irvin Waller: Criminology Professor, University of Ottawa
• Lekan Olawoye: Executive Director, For Youth Initiative

Every single one of these guests has a unique point of view on violence and many of them work directly with under serviced communities and have done work on reducing violence, they are all perfectly qualified guests for this show and I'd be interested in hearing what they all have to say. My issue with this list of guests is that the show didn't bother to find one single woman to pipe in.This isn't just about token women, it's about acknowledging the fact that women experience gun violence in different ways than men and their opinions and knowledge have to be taken into account in any discussion on gun violence and that there are innumerable qualified women who head organizations and write academic work on violence reduction.

So Rob Ford wants to ship out foreign gangsters who bring guns to our city and people claiming to want to get to the bottom of the issue ignore 50% of the population. These are two small reasons why we will never solve the issue of gun violence in Toronto. That may seem pessimistic but it's just honest. How can we attempt to solve such an enormously multifaceted problem when public discourse and policy are based on such simplistic ideologies? When it seems totally acceptable to only have men on a panel about gun violence? When we only view the issue from our little Toronto lens?

Somebody said to me yesterday that it was alright to just have men talk about gun violence because "men get shot more than women" and that women can't discuss guns without becoming hysterical. It is true that men are killed by guns more often than women, but that doesn't mean that women aren't killed by guns or hurt by them, threatened and coerced with them. And did men just drop out of the sky? No, men have mothers. Irregardless of who is being killed by guns, communities suffer afterwards. Mothers, wives, girlfriends, sisters, daughters, grandmothers may not be getting killed on the streets of Toronto by gangs as much as their husbands, partners, sons, brothers, and grandsons but that doesn't mean that gun violence doesn't touch their lives deeply. When we don't included women in the conversation around gun violence then we aren't serious about understanding the issue at all. Toronto is the home of so many anti-violence movements, including the United Mothers Opposed to Violence Everywhere(UMOVE) -- a presence at most anti-gun events and comprised of women who have lost their children to gun violence, amongst others. Internationally, organizations against gun violence have been primarily organized by women, such as the International Action Network on Small Arms.

We also can't just focus on gun violence as being gang related. If the issue of violence in Toronto is going to be truly addressed it has to be looked at as part of a bigger picture. Yes, gun violence on the streets of Toronto is a problem but it isn't disconnected from the culture of violence produces the men who are sexually assaulting women in our neighborhoods. It also isn't disconnected from the men who abuse their partners, who use their registered guns to intimidate and threaten them. Criminals are not just young, black men and the culture of crime and violence is pervasive.  The culture of masculinity and male privilege is something we have to address across the boards. How can we say we are dedicated to ending gun violence when our government has eradicated gun registry? The gun registry was developed specifically to address gun violence against women (read more here) so why is it being dropped? Because law-abiding citizens shouldn't have to register their guns? Because we trust the general population with their guns? It is based on the underlying assumption that the general, gun-owning population (read: white men) aren't going to use their guns for evil, that the "real" problem is the unregistered crime guns (read: black men). This is crazy. Violence against women and children happens at the hands of all men, regardless of their colour or class and if gun violence is an issue we actually want to start understanding we have to face this.

Not only did The Agenda program lack women but it lacked a true presence from the Toronto communities most affected. Lekan Olawoye, the  Executive Director of For Youth Initiative is an important voice for youth in under serviced areas but the program has two representatives from the Toronto Police, why not throw in some more community members?

Gun violence isn't just about gangs, criminals, bad boys. It's about systemic violence, discrimination, poverty, power and masculinity. It can't be solved with more police(because Toronto also seems to have a problem with police brutality). The Agenda seems like a small thing to be annoyed about, but it's an example of how we approach complicated issues in problematic ways.

Oh, sorry privileged white dude, your rape jokes are SO funny.

I'm just going to put myself out there and declare something: I hate comedy. I really, really hate comedy. A prime example of why I dislike the medium of comedy, particularly stand up comedy, is this Daniel Tosh man. I've never seen Daniel Tosh's comedy or show and so I didn't really know much about him until I heard about his "controversial" rape joke.

Apparently as he was making a point during one of his shows that "there are awful things in the world but you can still make jokes about them.” This "awful" thing that he was talking about was rape. He was "heckled" by a woman who shouted out "actually, rape jokes are never funny." But instead of just being like "well, hey lady, I think it's funny" Daniel Tosh told the audience this sparkling gem of comedic wit:

"“Wouldn’t it be funny if that girl got raped by like, 5 guys right now? Like right now? What if a bunch of guys just raped her? ... ”

First of all, she probably wasn't a "girl." But, wouldn't it be HILARIOUS if we lived in a world where women actually faced sexual and physical violence as a threat every single day? Or were threatened with rape for speaking their mind? Oh my god, funniest world ever.

Oh wait, we DO live in that world.  This is what I don't like about comedy: just because one privileged white guy who has never had to experience sexual threats thinks that rape jokes are funny, that means noone is allowed to disagree because its COMEDY. If you disagree you just have no sense of humour, and it's comedy after all so  nothing is off limits! It's okay for men to call women bitches and sluts, and joke about how horrible women make their lives and how much they'd just loooove to shut them up permanently because they're making light of the tensions in male/female relationships. Get it? It's comedy! If Daniel Tosh thinks rape jokes are funny, that's fine. But he crossed a line when he moved into "just joking" about rape to saying it would be funny for a woman in his audience to be "gang raped, by like 5 guys" at that very moment.

Women all over the world face obstacles to speaking their minds and living their lives freely, and one of the greatest threats to our freedom is sexual violence. Guess what, Daniel Tosh, we can't even go to University without having to worry about some man raping us in the library or grabbing us in broad daylight. Women who are citizens of war torn nations, or of nations experiencing political upheaval, are always in danger of being sexually assaulted, of being gang raped. If you speak out against your government, you're not just going to be jailed, you're going to be raped.

After the G20 in Toronto, female journalists told stories of police officers telling them that they would be raped in custody. A female gamer, who exposed the true identity of the creator of a domestic violence video game, was sent repeated threats that she would be raped and killed. It might seem funny and novel to someone like Daniel Tosh, but it's neither funny nor is it novel because it is extremely common.

During the much lauded "Arab Spring" women were sexually assaulted in the crowds of protesters, including female journalists. After female journalists came forward about being brutally assaulted many headlines questioned why women would be journalists at all, when rape was a constant possibility.  Sexual violence is a threat that keeps women from being able to freely pursue their dreams and goals. It is a very real, and every day threat.

Being heckled is part of a comedian's job, it's the gauntlet they have to run to be taken seriously. Responding to a heckler in this way is just totally ridiculous. You would never see a male comedian respond to a male heckled with a rape threat. It's not in our collective unconscious or part of our cultural lexicon that men are there for raping. It becomes not about comedy, it's not about what's "Taboo" to joke about anymore, it's a rich white dude saying it would be funny for a woman to get raped by 5 men. That's not funny and if that's comedy, then comedians should be embarassed.

Because it would be SO funny if 5 men in the audience gang raped that woman. If they held her down, beat her up a bit, and each took turns sexually violating her body, while she screamed and kicked, pleading for her release.  What a fucking hilarious joke. Bravo, comedy. Bravo.

This song isn't about sexual assault at all!

I was listening to some Top 40 Radio this afternoon. Usually I don't listen too carefully to lyrics because generally speaking they're idiotic in Top 40 music. Today, though, my ears couldn't help but hear some lyrics that made me feel a bit.. awkward.

Apparently there is a new song called "Kiss you inside out" by the band Hedley. Not only is Hedley just plain offensive because their music hurts my ears, but these lyrics are bizarre:

I don’t know if you’re ready to go
Where I’m willing to take you girl
I will feel every inch of your skin
And you know I can rock your world 

Let's start here, shall we? If you aren't sure whether or not your "girl" is "ready to go" where you're "willing" to take her, then you have a problem.  You will feel every inch of her skin? Well, maybe you should wait until you know whether or not she wants you to? Just because you're some whiny sounding pop singer with neck tattoos doesn't meant that what you're saying is less threatening.

Turn off the lights
Take off your clothes
Turn on the stereo
Ouuu oohhh
Give up the fight
I’m in control
Why don’t you let it go.

What? Give up the fight?! There's a fight? This is what I don't get about pop music. This shit is aimed directly at the wallets and hearts of pre-teen girls and what this song is telling them is that it's romantic when a guy pushes you to "give up the fight" and just accept that he's "in control" and so you might as well just "let it go." Guess what, this scenario is called sexual assault! This guy is turning on the stereo because he doesn't want his neighbours to hear this poor girl screaming, most likely.

Just close your eyes and shut your mouth
And let me kiss you inside out.

Shut your mouth?! How are you supposed to kiss someone back, say yes, or express any kind of pleasure, when you have your mouth shut? This is just so fucking creepy. These are 30 year old men singing about a woman just lying back with her eyes closed, mouth shut, letting whatever is happening just happen to her. You sell your music to children, Hedley! You sell your music to young girls who are already vulnerable to sexual assault and date rape! How can you be so irresponsible? Not only are you hideously untalented musicians you're also embarrassing human beings.

I don’t care if you steal all my air
we can breath in together as one
it’s all right if you’re here every night
waking up with you in the sun
we start with an hour and we find we waste the day
kicking back with the love we found.

Oh right, because sexual assault is a great precursor for a loving and long-term relationship. He's only assaulting you because he loves you! Having sex when you don't want to is just what you do in a relationship! Just lay back and take it, unless of course you don't want to have a boyfriend. What the hell kind of message is this?

let me love you, let me love you
let me love you babe. 

Ah yes, because sex is always equated with love and someone who says they love you could never hurt you, right?

How, in 2012, a band comprised of adult males can get away with lyrics like this is beyond me. How do they exist in society and not realize that what they're saying is not only fucking disgusting but it's describing something that is against the law. I get it, pop culture is rape culture. Our mainstream media is saturated with things that normalize sexual assault and sexualize women and girls.Sometimes I just forget, for a moment, how blatant these messages really are until I turn on the radio or the TV and get smoked in the face with a song about date rape.  Men who sing to girls have a responsibility to not just write or perform conventional music about female sexual passivity. The fact that this kind of music is still being performed just goes to show exactly how much artistic creativity actually exists in our mainstream music: zero. That this group got up and sang this song at the MMVAs, so a crowd of thousands of screaming twelve year old girls, solidifies their position as men who are part of the problem. 

Maybe try trading your silly tattoos, vintage t shirts,and counterculture haircuts for something that is actually different and radical: standing up to a music community that normalizes and naturalizes sexual assault. Or, you could continue just being an annoying, entitled, totally oblivious band of insignificant assholes.

so exciting, i might die from over excitement!

president shoukri is right, it's an "exciting time" to be at york.


let's count all of the great things york has done the past year and a bit: had an awesome strike, blamed women for being sexually assault, turned a blind eye to a criminal act/destruction of private property, tried to renovate vari hall to stop student protesting, hired a former major mining corporate freak to become vp university relations, showed their zionist colours and given up completely to the control of the israel lobby, hired an unqualified union buster to be the dean of the largest faculty of any kind in canada, fired teaching assistants and contract faculty for no reason and with impunity, had their general counsel and university secretary investigated by the law society of upper canada, tried to force google to violate email privacy, oh and spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on fancy lawyers to fuck striking people over and to try to get rid of tenured faculty.


indeed, an exciting time to be at york.

more education, less blaming.

There was a sexual assault last night at york university and before I write else about it I just want to say that I'm finding it a little gross the way it's being slanted as something that york university can prevent.

I've gone to four different universities throughout my academic career and at every single one of them i knew women or heard of women being assaulted on campus or in their homes. the university of Saskatchewan, Queen's university, university of Toronto, and now York university--none of these places can ever have enough "security" to stop sexual assault.

All of these universities have had several high profile assaults as well--stranger assaults(which are usually pretty rare). so, while i think the university has to become more serious about safety on campus, i don't really think it's fair to act like this only happens at York and that ANY safety precaution can stop a sexual assault. more women than we'd like to admit are sexually assaulted on campuses every single day--by their partners, their professors, classmates, and strangers.

Darshika Selvasivam, vp of campaigns and advocacy for the york federation of students is quoted as saying "sexual violence is sadly becoming an all too common event around york university's campus" and while I agree that assaults at york are becoming more visible, I think it's dangerous to say that incidences are on the rise because it ignores the multitude of women assaulted all of the time on our campus--ask any of the sexual assault crisis lines in the area, this isn't a new thing.

Focusing on the york administration as the cause of sexual assaults is not entirely productive and obfuscates the broader issues around sexual assault.

Sexual assault is an epidemic in Canada and York needs to address the culture of sexism on campus more than it needs to release the metrac report. Sexual assault is not leverage. It is not fair to say "sorry you were raped, young lady, that could have been prevented with more lighting". We need to think, "hey, maybe we need to educate ALL students about sexual assault." Maybe we shouldn't cut funding to women's studies programs, maybe we should increase education around the politics and issues behind sexual assault instead of just acting like cameras and lights are going to save the day.

I understand certain measures need to be taken, but let's not forget how widespread sexual assault is.

Consider that the "york rapist", a man who just randomly wandered into women's rooms and sexually assaulted them with no thought whatsoever, just received 8 years for his crime. 8 motherfucking years, for perpetuating a horrific crime and then acting like it was just a bit of fun and in Canada this is considered a good sentence.

In this situation, the residence in which the women lived were totally neglectful of the security precautions ALREADY in place. But also, as well as looking at yYork university we need to consider how the criminal justice system and widespread ideas and misconceptions about sexual assault lead not only to the gross under prosecuting of sexual assaults but also the joke convictions and punishments that sexual assaulters receive.

We live in a society where you can walk into a residence and go door to door raping young women and only receive 8 years time for it. So yes, York university should release metrac, it should consider safety precautions, it should be more sensitive to sexual assault survivors, but as the York university community it is our responsibility to look at the broader societal structure that allows women and men to be victims of such crimes(and you can read about how york has contributed to that HERE).

One of the victims of the York rapist is suing York university for not protecting her, and I have to say that anyone at all who thinks york needs to improve security should get behind this lawsuit. Women who have also been sexually assaulted on campus should join it and it should be come a class action law suit against York university. law suits are really the only power we have against the university and it's the one thing the university is scared of.

But also, let's not forget that sexual assault doesn't just happen because it's dark outside. We need to have open dialogues about why it happens and talk about how it happens regardless of how many security men are driving and figure out how to educate people about WHY sexual assault happens.

rape really brings the pigs to the trough

Alex Bilyk is at it again.

You may recall, not so long ago, that Bilyk was MIA when a student was assaulted in a busy library at York.

He's notorious for saying stupid things in the media about York and on behalf of York.

This time, he's truly crossed a line.

In a recent national post article covering a sexual assault trial(several assaults in 2007), Alex Bilyk said that the lesson was to "lock your doors".

Not to mention that the assaults happened in a residence on campus, by people who weren't York students, who were somehow able to gain easy access to a locked residence.

So, if you don't lock your doors and you are gang raped then it is your own fault.

We try not to let the rage take us over, but in this case, we have something to say to Alex Bilyk: you are a fucking pig. You are the scum of the universe. You are the stupidest fucking piece of shit we have ever had the un-pleasure of meeting (and we have met you, several times, Mr Bilyk). You misogynist, ignorant, sleazy, immoral, lying, villainous freak. How do you even sleep at night?

Enough. This is the last we want to hear out of your dumb-shit mouth. You are obviously a complete idiot who has never read a book in his life.

Mr. Bilyk, how often can you stand being tagged with the words "sexism" and "sexual assault"?

Your time here at york has been a joke. You should leave.

bilyk@yorku.ca

these guys are the worst. the worst!

yesterday the general manager of the saskatchewan roughriders, eric tillman, plead guilty to the assault of a teenage girl.

that means, he's guilty. assign a punishment and move on to your next case.

but no. today judge murray hinds granted eric tillman an absolute discharge. that means NO punishment.

an absolute discharge means that a guilty person is not convicted and there is no criminal record.

that's right, he admitted that he sexually assaulted a teenager--he plead GUILTY to sexual assault--and that shit won't even be on his record.

the judge said that he believes eric tillman is "genuinely remorseful" and that his "behaviour" was just fuelled by a bad combination of non prescription drugs that he took for his sore back.

really?? i'm pretty sure that, legally speaking, remorse doesn't erase the crime or the impact of the crime on the victim. tillman feeling guilty about assaulting the girl doesn't change the fact that she was assaulted by him.

the girl he assaulted was 16 and the babysitter of his two children. he sexually assaulted her at his home but claims he doesn't remember doing so because he had taken sleep-aids and pain medication together and they made him all loopy.

so being drunk or high is now a successful defense for sexual assault charges??

i find it interesting that he was her boss. for example: if you're working in an office and your boss shows up high, then he assaults you, then he feels bad, that's still sexual assault. it's also an unsafe work place and a violation on the part of your supervisor/employer to provide you with a safe working environment and to not abuse their power.

technically this girl was injured on the job due to the negligence of her employer, so maybe she should go to the saskatchewan worker's compensation board and try to get compensation that way.

but for real, this is really actually unbelievable. the roughriders should fire tillman's ass.

pure class over at the huffington post... pure class

we've all heard that roman polanksi is being extradited to the united states for a crime he's been on the run from. fair enough. you rape a 13 year old girl, eventually you get your comeuppance.

well, not according to joan z. shore over at huffington post.
in her article "polanki's arrest: shame on the swiss" shore, the cofounder of a women's equality group, says that americans should protest his extradition by "smashing [their] cuckoo clocks, pawning... Swiss watches, and banning Swiss cheese and chocolate. and let them yodel all they like."

oh my god, so witty. rape is SO funny and an opportunity to be hillaaaaaarious.

shore goes on to say that there is more to this "story":

"the 13-year old model "seduced" by Polanski had been thrust onto him by her mother, who wanted her in the movies. the girl was just a few weeks short of her 14th birthday, which was the age of consent in California. (it's probably 13 by now!) polanski was demonized by the press, convicted, and managed to flee, fearing a heavy sentence."

there are a few problems here. the girl wasn't "seduced", she testified that she'd been given champagne, quaalude, and had also asked polanski to stop several times. in the LAW that's not called seduction, you stupid bitch, it's SEXUAL ASSAULT.

and also, the age of consent in california was NOT 14 in 1977. it was 17. and it's not 13 now, it's 18.

polanksi was "demonized" in the press after details of the girls assault were made public, mainly because what he did was against the law and horrifying.

shore thinks its outrageous that polanski should be "hauled back" to the states to answer for his crime.

here is one of her reasons: she met polanski after he fled america, accompanying mike wallace for a sixty minutes interview with the director. but she and mike wallace were "utterly charmed by roman's sobriety and intelligence"

because rapists are never charming or intelligent. right shore? i'm sorry but has she never, ever read a single book about rapists, or taken a psychology class, or even read the fucking news?

ted bundy was described in TIME magazine as "handsome, cultured, and charming" and he received thousands of love letters while in jail. does that mean his crimes didn't matter? or that they weren't legally crimes? that peoples lives weren't destroyed?

shore wants to know why america "always get sidetracked by sex and scandal?

"
Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joan-z-shore/polanskis-arrest-shame-on_b_301134.html

"
so deep. what a deep and insightful comment about the nature of america and americans.

why oh why must america fulfill its obligatations to prosecute crimes? especially crimes involving sex? i mean, what's the point?

arresting polanski before "he was to receive an honorary award at a film festival" is "disgraceful", she writes.

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joan-z-shore/polanskis-arrest-shame-on_b_301134.ht

because a famous and powerful movie director raping a 13 year old girl and then fleeing the country isn't symptomatic of a larger problem in the film industry at all. or in any media industry that utilizes the bodies of young girls. or in society.

it's also not problematic at all that because polanksi makes films, has won awards, and is rich he should be excused for raping a 13 year old girl.

as one astute commenter posted:

"Sure when Polanski was 42, he drugged, raped, and sodomized a 13 year old girl, but he's made three great movies. I could see bringing Polanski to justice if he was a mailman, or janitor, or if his movies were bad, but his movies are good, so he should get a pass so he can keep skiing, and drinking champagne. . Why be successful if you can't get away with things like raping a 13 year old?

If you rape a girl and go to jail, it's your fault that you weren't successful enough, and you have to take responsibility. That's what keeps me on the straight and narrow. Everytime I think about committing a robbery, murder, or raping someone, I do a reality check, and realize I'm not successful enough to get away with it. Being unsuccessful is a powerful deterrent to crime.

That's only fair. That's how life should work.

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joan-z-shore/polanskis-arrest-shame-on_b_301134.html

"

polanksi admitted to the rape. rape is a crime. criminals get punished. that's how the system works. you don't get to admit you're a rapist, then run away, make some award winning films, live abroad, and just get away with it.

so, joan shore, go nuts smashing your cuckoo clocks and tossing your swiss chocolate out the window.. i'm sure the 13 year old girls of the world will thank you some day.

douchebag award goes to.... york university!!

dear york: please, please, please pull up your socks.

please.

on the 19th of september a little bulletin popped up on the yorku main website. it said that a student had been arrested for sexual assault.

for two sexual assaults.

on the 15th, a woman was sexually assaulted in the library at yorku and then another woman was sexually assaulted on the 18th, in the library.

generally speaking, on university campuses, when someone is assaulted a general warning or bulletin goes out to the university community via email. also, the library at york has these fancy new tvs everywhere with news and security updates, warnings about stolen items.

so, did a warning go out on the 15th? no, of course not.

did a warning go out on the 18th? no, of course not.

only when the assailant was arrested did the university alert the community that someone had been arrested. so why bother telling us of his arrest if we didn't know about the crimes in the first place?

so understandably the university community is a little annoyed with the university and have been contacting alex bilyk, media relations director, about their concerns.

alex bilyk has yet to respond in a substantial and satisfactory way. and why? it's his job to do this media shit, why isn't he doing his job?

because yesterday and today alex bilyk was at the ontario human rights tribunal, sitting at the back of the room, twiddling his blackberry, watching as the former and current presidents of yorku testified.

so instead of dealing with students' concerns for their safety, instead of warning students of a threat against their safety, the university has been carefully and vigilantly protecting its own reputation.

according to the toronto star's louise brown, alex bilyk noted in speaking to her that "the university must try to strike a balance between notifying students of a threat and causing undue panic."

um, women live with the fear of sexual violence every single day. when we hear about such crimes, generally we don't start panicking and fainting.

suggesting that giving women the information they need so that they can make informed decisions about what they feel is safe and comfortable for them will somehow cause mass hysteria is not only patronizing to the max but also belittles and minimizes the extent to which sexual violence pervades women's daily existence.

and suggesting that any panic experienced over the news of TWO sexual assaults occuring in a public library at one's campus is somehow "undue" just makes bilyk look like an insensitive prick.

as one circulated letter to bilyk aptly pointed out:

"i know you have been quite busy with york politics over the past two days but it would be a welcome change if the safety of the university community could take precedence over this for once."

precisely.

dear carleton university: blaming a girl for her own rape? not going to fly.

on august 31, 2007 the president of carleton university was probably sleeping the sound sleep of the privileged on expensive sheets in a quiet neighborhood.

but at 11:30pm, a young woman was working late in a chemistry lab and was violently sexually assaulted by a man that has never been caught.

because i don't really believe in reiterating the details of sexual assault, i won't. but it was violent and cruel, and the woman ended up needing surgery for her jaw and spent weeks on a liquid diet, and is now facing shoulder surgery as a result of her attack.

since the attack carleton has ensured that new security measures are in place including, which is great, but the victim of the attack was still attacked and had her life destroyed.

so she sued carleton.

according to the ottawa citizen the woman is seeking $535, 000 in damages for her injuries, mental suffering, expenses and future loss of income. in her statement the jane doe states that "university officials were negligent by failing to take adequate security measures, including equipping laboratory buildings with security devices such as swipe cards and ensuring that door and tunnel entrances to the building were visibly monitored by security cameras."

i agree. any student knows that sometimes being at school late at night is completely unavoidable. science students especially know this because they do lab work which often requires checking results or other time sensitive things.

also, it was 2007. which means carleton university had ample time to make accommodations for women working late at night on campus. throw up a camera or two around or in the labs, make the buildings inaccessible except to those who have keys, you know, simple things like that.

small security measures like cameras or swipe cards might not stop all violent crimes, but they do help deter some crime or catch the perpetrators of others.

considering that carleton DID put in these measures after the woman's attack you would think that carleton would agree that maybe they dropped the ball.

actually, the university is alleging that it's the woman's own fault that she was violently raped and had the shit beaten out of her. because she didn't keep a "proper lookout" for her own safety, failed to register with the department of university safety as a student working late, that she chose to remain on the premises alone, and that she chose not to lock the door of the lab.

i have four words for whoever crafted this response: you piece of shit.

not only has this statement been properly identified as victim blaming, but it sets an incredibly dangerous precedent.

'don't want to get raped? don't go to school' is basically what their statement is saying to women and men on their campus. oh, you don't want to have your face smashed in while you work in the lab? well then you'd better make sure the door is locked at all times but keep in mind that by choosing to be at school late at night you're choosing to make yourself available to rapists.

it's like how in the 90's a police officer in toronto who was investigating a bunch of stranger rapes in the park told women that in order to prevent the attacks they should hit the ground and start chowing down on grass. yes... grass.

apparently, a woman vomiting is so repulsive sexually that a rapist will immediately take off running.

so maybe this young science student just didn't eat enough grass before her long shift in the lab.

i'm guessing that carleton tries to encourage its students to feel safe at their new school, which eventually becomes a home to many of them. they probably tell students that theirs is a special community, a community that each student belongs to. they want you to feel comfortable for the four years or more that you will spend on the campus.

well in this case we get to see a rare case of complete transparency: the university will blame a young woman for a violent attack to save itself $535,000.

$535,000 doesn't seem like a lot of money to be asking and it doesn't really seem like an amount of money over which to invoke such a ridiculous defense. it especially doesn't seem like a huge amount of money considering this woman probably ended up dropping out of school and maybe now her science dreams are ever farther from coming true.

that amount of money is nothing to a university, some university presidents make a little under this amount every year for doing basically nothing. so carleton university, do the right thing and don't make this woman's life any harder than it has been. give her the money, some grass seeds, and maybe shove your antiquated victim blaming up your ass.