Am I legitimate enough for you?

A few weeks ago, I posted about my experience of sexual assault and rape in my life, and the ways in which some of that sexual violence is not seen as a real thing or as a serious thing. I posted that, obviously, because to a lot of uneducated people, they don't think of those things as rape. Which, yes, they are.

When we do workshops at BARCC, we sometimes ask high-schoolers what they think of when they think of rape, and where they get those images from. What we usually hear is the back-alley stranger-rape scenario and various SVU episodes. And that's what people like Paul Ryan, Todd Akin, and Mike Huckabee are thinking of when they say things like "forcible", "legitimate", or "honest" rape. That scenario, which happens in only about 15% of rapes, is the only thing they consider rape.

So let's talk about the rape I didn't talk about in that post, the rape when I was 20, the one I said was more discrete in my head.

* I was literally grabbed off the street by a stranger and taken to his apartment.
* He had a gun.
* I went to the hospital and had evidence collected. There was a lot of evidence; there was no possible doubt in anyone's mind that a rape had occurred.

An honest, legitimate, forcible rape, in the terminology of the above jackasses.

And, y'know, add to that the fact that I was 20 and looked 15. I was small and delicate. I was blonde and blue-eyed. When people talk about the Model Rape Victim, that is what they are talking about: me at 20 and the bags and boxes of evidence, me giving my statement to the police in a shaky voice and insisting that I needed my dad. Zero ambiguity. Textbook. Perfect.

But I guess not enough.

Because I got pregnant.

So I guess, according to Akin, I guess my rape just wasn't legit enough. I guess the actual scenario that he would describe as rape, the only scenario he would describe as rape, is still not really rape in his eyes, because I did not secrete magical rape-semen-killing vagina-venom.

So yeah.

I know you all know. I know you all know that his statements are bullshit. I know you all know how damaging statements like that can be to someone who's experienced a less damn theatrical rape and is maybe still questioning whether she can call that rape, because the guy was a friend, or whatever.

Legitimate. Honest. Forcible. Fuck you.

I know at least six women who have become pregnant as the result of rape. We all have different stories. But all of us were really raped, whether fucktards like the above would agree or not. Some of these women had abortions, some gave their children up for adoption, some kept the children. But that is six women whom I personally know.

So yeah. I've been quiet on this one because it hits me in different ways than it hits most of y'all, and it hits me in ways I'm not used to talking about, and I have a lot of doubts about hitting the "post" button, but no, this is important shit.

You need to know that you know someone who got pregnant as a result of rape.

And if you tell people who think that doesn't happen that you know someone that it absolutely did happen to, and they ask a shocked "what did she do?", you can say, "she kept going, and she kicks ass."

So besides that, Mrs. Lincoln.

Here is some catching up!

My Reading
Was awesome. Annie's has a cozy space for reading, and we filled it! Thanks so much to everyone who came out and to p_m_cryan and novelfriend for having me!

I rode a pony!
Okay, novelfriend's horse is tall enough that she is maaaaaybe not exactly a pony, but riding a horse is equally awesome. Calico is a pinto and a sweetheart, and Judah got to ride her too, and that was a lovely afternoon. <3

Pi-Con
Okay, when I said "9 panels is perfect!", I may have forgotten that I'm used to pulling that off problem-free at 4-day conventions. Whereas Pi-Con runs from 6pm Friday to 3pm Sunday. So. That. Was kind of a lot. And I hadn't been able to do as much prep as I wanted, because of trying to scrape myself back together after Jack's death. I managed to do a decent job, I think (I did get compliments), and generally relied on "This is my $Xth of 9 panels" to explain exhaustion and not progress to "also, our cat just died," because no one really wants to have that conversation. I like being on panels, though! So while my fatigue was sort of epic, it was still a good time filled with interesting conversations. And my reading was well-attended and had a bunch of people I don't even know, who hopefully I didn't depress too much!

And there was Barfleet. I like Barfleet.

Why I Like Barfleet
1. You can buy a cheap souvenir cup or take the plain cup and you get free drinks all night.
2. They actually card and are rigorous about not giving alcohol to minors. (Yes, I greeted the Commander with a hug and we traded stories about our kids. Yes, he still carded me. I have no quarrel with this.)
3. Great music. Okay, sometimes not good music, but fun music.
4. They actually do sexual assault prevention stuff.

Read #4 again.

I KNOW.

The first time I personally noticed this was when I was sitting on the windowsill talking to friends and an adorably-slightly-inebriated sindrian plopped down by my feet, rested his head in my lap like he was a unicorn and I a maiden, and curled a hand around my thigh. Pretty much instantly, Barfleet staff surfaced and asked, "He okay?" In response to my "Yep! He always gets snuggly like this," the staffer nodded and ninja-vanished, and it only occurred to me a moment later that that was a check-in; it wasn't "Does he need a barf bag?" it was "Do you need him off of you?"

This wasn't an isolated incident. Okay, a bunch of us got very snuggly that night, and some of us got a bit more-than, prompting my "we're putting the whore back in Horta" tweet. And I saw multiple staff members performing multiple checks on multiple groups of people, as general policy. If it looked like there was a little drunk-sexiness going on, Barfleet staff made sure everything was cool. Unobtrusively, but decisively. Pretty much everything we've been saying party hosts ought to do for years.

So yeah. Props.

Museum of Fine Arts
So I went from travel and reading and con and travel straight into a Get Shit Done week. Elayna has slacked on her summer homework because her best friend was leaving for college and they wanted to spend every last minute together; said friend is now off at school and we are playing catch-up. Yesterday we watched The Artist (none of us can figure out why that was homework, but we liked it, so okay) and went to the Museum of Fine Arts.

The MFA is awesome. When I have money, I want to get us a membership so we can go all the time, or at least I can, because a 4-person family trip = herding cats. The MFA is enormous, you guys. We spent about four hours there and only saw a tiny fraction of what was available, just because there is so much. Also the layout is very labyrinthine. It took us a lot of searching to find the Buddhist Temple Room, which is down a narrow corridor and then through a mini-maze. (That room is amazing. Find it.) From there we stumbled upon Gonkar Gyatso's work in the Seeking Shambhala exhibit, which we were just awestruck by, to the poorly-hidden delight of the museum guard/docent/not sure. He just kept looking at us and grinning. We are enthusiastic in our art appreciation!

Our absolute favorite, though, was the new contemporary art wing. Many of the pieces in other wings made us go "woooow", but this wing was so exciting for us! Elayna will be writing that up, so I'll ask if I can repost her essay here, but - really cool, really engaging stuff. Elayna's favorite piece was a projection by Jenny Holzer, a 60-minute long marquee scroll of individual brutal, lovely sentences. We want to go to the ICA next.

(The video room is super-freaky.)

We Make Doctors Nervous
When we called Elayna's pediatrician last month about some RSI pain she was having, we did not like the response we got; the doctor couldn't take time to see her and dismissed our concerns, and the staff (lied and) said they'd been trying to reach us to schedule her back-to-school physical, and now they can't possibly see her any earlier than late October.

So I did not exactly tell them to fuck off, but I switched her care to Adam's-and-my doctor. She's seventeen and a half. She doesn't need to stick to a pediatrician. So Adam brought her in yesterday for her pre-appointment baseline blood draw, and told me that they seemed very nervous about her age. They don't usually take minors, apparently. I told them her age on the phone when I scheduled the appointment! I don't know.

I took her in today for the actual checkup (the pain resolved within two days), and boy howdy were they all nervous. I mean, the tech was nervous, and the doctor was super-nervous. I get the feeling that he hasn't interacted with a teenager in a very long time. He so clearly had no script. At the end, he even tacked on a "the internet is dangerous for a young person" monologue. Also, I thought he was going to faint when he finally managed to bring up the fact that she will eventually need a gynecological exam, and was visibly relieved when I reassured him that I had a gynecologist we would handle that through when the time comes.

My goodness. She's seventeen and a half! Is that really so young for a non-pediatrician? Can I get a ruling on that, y'all?

And that catches us up to now.
And now is when I go and be Mean Mom and make sure she's doing her summer reading, and see what Judah's doing, and maybe get a little rest.