Show and Tell

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGI-b60BWN4

This video is called "Rape. Sexual Assault. Let's STOP blaming the victim" It has two characters in it, one of which is the victim (the girl), and the assaulter (the guy). The situation described in the video is one that I believe is common in rape/assault scenarios. The guy believed the girl was leading him on, and the girl believed she was having innocent fun. I believe both could have 100% improved their decision making to help prevent the end result; in saying this I am not suggesting in any way that it is the girl's fault that she was raped. Let me explain.

Let's begin with the guy. Just because a girl is wearing a cute dress, taking shots with you, and maybe even flirting with you does not in anyway mean she wants to have sex with you. Sometimes it may, but you're better off and would be smarter to always assume it doesn't. Regardless of a girls actions, especially if she is drunk, it is not intelligent to assume you're going to have sex with her unless she flat out comes out and says "We're having sex."; and even with that being said you still have to use your better judgement. If a girl is beyond wasted and says she wants to have sex with you it doesn't necessarily mean you should do it; especially if it's a girl you don't know and haven't had sex with before. First and foremost, you'd be taking advantage of a situation that you know probably wouldn't be available if she were sober, and you risk getting yourself in legal trouble if the girl wakes up and decides that she was raped for any number of reasons. Rape claims aren't always blunt and to the point. A girl doesn't always say no, and in a drunken state just because she doesn't doesn't at all mean she won't reconsider after the fact when she sobers up. This really just has to do with self control. Know the boundary lines and don't cross them. This is only going to benefit you in the long run. And if indeed she really does want to have sex with you I'm sure she'll find a way to make it happen. (This oviously stands for girls or guys, but I'm speaking on behalf of the video)

Now for the girl. First of all, what were you even thinking taking a stranger from the bar back to your house???? Hello, that's like in the top 5 things girls are taught from birth to not do. I'm not in any way saying the girl deserved what she got, because under no circumstance should anything like that ever happen, but as a female you definitely have to be smart to make sure it doesn't. Taking shots and dancing with a random is one thing, but taking him to your house, alone at that, is definitely a never in your life thing to do. That's basically equivilent to walking in a dark alley in queens at 2 AM. As women we have to be so very careful, generally even more so than men when it comes to putting trust in people. Now, this is not to say these things don't happen to men, because they do, but women are generally targeted more often.

Things like this happen all the time and it is so important to educate yourself in how to prevent this from happening to you and also what to do in these types of situations. This guy wasn't random at all to the girl, and she even liked him, but that doesn't change the fact that she didn't know him and he came to all the wrong conclusions about her actions. In the end, could she have made better decisions to prevent this from happening? Yes. Was it her fault? No. All she did was put her faith in the wrong person. Seeing the best in people is a great and terrible thing all at the same time. It's important to know that there are people out there that think exactly like that guy. When it comes to your life it is always better to be safe than sorry.

Sexual abuse/violence

I think people need to be more familiar what to be sexualy abused truly means. This sounds like a simple solution, but I don't think that it is as simple as it sounds. Sexual abuse, although commonly associated with violence, isn't always a done in a violent manner. I think because of this people may often disregard the wrongness of the situation. The bottom line is, if you're doing something sexualy that in your mind you know you do not wanna do and someone is forcing it upon you than they are in fact taking advantage and abusing a vulnerable person. Just because something may not seem like a big deal at the time doesn't mean it's not. And the same goes for the other party. Even you may not feel like your behavior is forceful, doesn't mean it isn't to the other person. I think people just need to be so careful and aware of their actions and realize when they're crossing the line. I say this because there are situations where people truly don't believe they are doing anything wrong or vice versa. I think this has a lot to do with a lack of education in this particular department because it's not a topic easily discussed.

Now don't get me wrong there's still those sick and twisted people who abuse others knowingly and intentionally. There's really no understanding why people do such things, but what we can do is not be afraid to speak up when such things happen. There's really no right preventative maintenance for these types of situations especially when considering that most sexual violence is not random and is often done by family members or close friends. All we can really do in this case is be so careful about the trust we put in people.

I remember my freshman year in high school we had to do some project where we made a video about something I don't exactly remember the details, but there was a girl that had been sexualy abused when she was younger. She did her video on sexual violence and shared her personal stories and experiences and I thought she was so strong for doing such a thing. I know that definitely wasn't easy and I had a new found respect for her after that day.

Stuff like this happens all the time and it's so real and isn't anything that will go away probably not ever, but it's important for people to step up when it does. It's people like that girl in my english class that can change lives. We shouldn't look down on people for going through such vile things and I don't think they want us to pity them but to show them the same respect you would show any other individual. It's just important to know that these things do happen and although they can't always be prevented you can be there for the people that go through it.

What I'll take from this class

Overall I ended up enjoying this class a lot more than I had originally anticipated. I think because of this I will be more adventurous with my course selections in the future and not be afraid to try something I'm not so sure about maybe. It has also reiterated to me the importance of listening to others viewpoints and trying to understand what they're saying even if I don't always agree with them.

Abortion

       To start off I'm going to go over just the basics of my viewpoints on abortion to better help you understand the impact of my particular "view changing" instance. Now I have never been totally for or against abortion. Part of me thinks regardless of what stage the fetus is at, it could potentially be a person one day, if all went well with the pregnancy, therefore aborting it is stripping that little being at their chance of life. However the other part of me understands why someone may want to abort their child for numerous reasons as well. There is often the argument of adoption, which in theory is a great idea, however carrying a child for 9 months and giving it up is something I personally would never be able to get ove; it would destroy me to know my child was out there and I had no part in it's life. Then people may say "you shouldn't have had sex in the first place", well I'm here to tell you in life shit just happens. You don't plan on having a baby every time you have sex, and you don't always have sex at an appropriate life stage where if you were to get pregnant you could afford to care for the child. So yes I get why abortion can be handy, but that does not mean I am 100% for it either.

      Growing up and in high school I though I had it all figured out. I was on my birth control, I was careful when engaging in sexual activities, and I always thought to myself if something happened and I were to get pregnant I'd just get an abortion and that would be the end of it. This however until I had my first, and only, actual pregnancy scare. I don't want to go in to graphic details, but bottom line at the time this happened I had been off my birth control because it was the week after the week you don't take the pills and I hadn't began taking them again, and of course the one time this would happen the condum would break. Well my partners was hysterically freaking out so I conforted him and told him what he needed to hear to calm him down for the time being even though I was freaking out inside. The odd thing is when I woke up the next morning I was not consernerd whatsoever; and the same for the following day as well. Internally I was struggling with the decision to get PlanB for some unknown reason. My partner had offered to pay for it and everything, but for some reason I didn't want to get it. Finally on the third day, last minute possible, my friends basically forced me to go get it, so I did. For months after that I didn't drink, I ate all the right foods, and took extreme caution with my body. I didn't get a period for 2 months following the incident so I seriously thought I was pregnant. I eventually took a test and figured out I wasn't thankfully. My partner and I came to the conclusion that we needed to decide what we were going to do if I were to ever actually get pregnant, and after that experience I truly was at a loss of words. Before I would've said abortion hands down, but in those few short months you would be surprised how quickly my maternal instincts kicked in, and I wasn't even really pregnant. All I could say to him was that I hoped that the good lord would never test me in that way, because if he did I really don't think I could go through with an abortion and I sure as hell would never put my child up for adoption. If I ever got pregnant I think I would have to keep it. I really don't think I could deal with the thought of my unborn child, or the thought of my child being somewhere out in the world being raised by people I didn't even know. That small event really opened up my eyes and got me thinking about a lot of things after that.

Objectification

I can't really think of any specific situation or incident where I was seriously objectified, but I feel men in particular objectify women on a daily basis. Most of my very est friends are guys so naturally they're always talking to me about what they did with this girl, or that girl. Not oh she was really sweet and we had a nice time together. They speak of women like objects 9 times out of 10. Don't get me wrong, they don't go around objectifying women like me or any of our friends or family, mostly just females they come in contact with at one point or another and either only see as objects or saw as an object at a specific time and never saw again after.

Any and every time I go out to a club or bar or any place where there are a lot of people drinking guys are seriously on the prowl. I also know this because not only do my friends do it to other girls, I also have it done to me by guys I don't know. Honestly this is why I just blatantly ignore guys in general in these types of situations unless they're people I know aren't going to bother me or I find them attractive; in which case I guess I'd be objectifying them. I mean in these types of situations even though I'm most likely drunk, that doesn't mean I'm going to like you creeping on me anymore than I would while I was sober. No I don't want to make out with you, I don't know you. I also don't want to grind on you so you can attempt to sneak your hand up my skirt. And no I certainly don't want to talk to you so that you can try and persuade me to leave the club with you so you can rape me or do whatever it is you have planned; because I know you're not trying to get to know me. I'm not saying every single guy is like this however, and for those of you who aren't I'm sorry but your companions ruin it for the rest of you. All in all it doesn't bother me if a guy tries to objectify me, not because I don't respect myself, but honestly just because what they're doing and/or saying is just irrelevant to me. No guy who means anything to me is going to treat me in a way I don't deem appropriate and as long as that's the case we're all good.

Show and Tell

http://www.prettythin.com/

In Monday's class we talked a lot about anorexia and bulimia and what those eating disorders entailed in further detail. One of the things Liz Fletcher-Brown talked about also was the existance of "pro-ana" websites. I had neve in my life heard of anything like this at all, and to be honest was shocked that they even existed. With that being said, I became curious to see what these "pro-ana" sites were all about. I expected them to be a bunch of anorexic/bulimic people talking irrationally about how great their "situation" is and how they didn't find it to be disorderly at all, in all honesty. Instead I stumbled upon the Pretty Thin site linked above.

Right off the back it was nothing like I expected. The holder of the site isn't even anorexic/bulimic. Just an average person. His/her friend was the original creator of the site and was actually anorexic herself. She/he decided to take the site over when his/her friend no longer wanted to keep it up. Originally the site was more of a journal for the original owner, but once it was taken over by the current holder it became sort of a live stream for any and everyone that wanted to join. Many of the post consist of everyday struggles and peoples different ways of dealing with them. It's kind of sad to read some of the posts because it seems that some of the people posting take little incidents and do sort of extreme things to help cope with them. Not all or like that, but I definitely saw a few.

I feel like overall this website is a very good way of helping people with eating disorders feel not so alone. The author mentioned in the introductory text that the site was in no way meant to "cure" anyone, but only to help them with what they're going through. Although there are people out there who truly believe that having an eating disorder is totally normal and that there is nothing wrong with their behavior, I also believe that there are people out there that sincerely feel trapped and don't know what else to do. I've never personally had any issues like eating disorders or anything, but I do know what it feels like to feel trapped and just desperately want to be in control of something. My ways of copeing with that feeling were a little less extreme however. I liked eating so that wasn't something I would give up, but I'd do reckless things (not necessarily bad) just things I knew I wasn't supposed to do. I'd purposefulyy defy my parents and I liked it.

I feel like in order for someone to change it needs to be done on their own terms, even if that means never changing at all. It's sad to see people we care about go through not only eating disorders, but anything equally as bad/upsetting. If they're not willing to change than they should at least have outlets such as Pretty Thin to help them with whatever their going through and deal with it in what they feel is the best way possible.

Liz Fletcher-Brown's visit

One of the topics discussed in class on Monday was the high mortality rate of people with anorexia. Before this class I was always slightly confused with the differences between anorexia and bulemia, and I also never knew just how dangerous and even fatal they can both be. They both sounded much like any other type of addiction, only instead of using something they have irrational eating habits.

Like many drug users, people with anorexia and bulemia do not want to be treated because they feel that what they're doing is making their self better. I found this to be particularly shocking. I mean I get the whole thinking you're fat and wanting your body skinnier thing, but all the anorexic people I've seen need to gain weight if anything. I truly do feel bad for people like that. Most all girls, and guys, have some sort of complex or issue with their body but for anorexic and bulemic people their complexs control their entire life. I couldn't even imagine going through something like that.

I also like the thing Liz Fletcher-Brown said about the whole accepting what we can't change thing. I actually think about that allllll the time. I mean don't get me wrong, I'm far from being a porker but my body is definitely not what it was back in high school. But I'm beginning to accept the fact that I don't have 3 hours a day to workout like I did back then, and even if I did I wouldn't even have access to the proper training like I did back then. I do what I can to stay in shape and keep myself healthy, but I can't turn back time, and I will probably never have the body I did back then. While that sincerely bothers me I'm beginning to accept that I need to be satisfied with being just skinny instead of skinny and rock solid with 0% body fat because that isn't happening any time soon. And I'm ok with that!