One of my new years' resolutions was to be more consistent with maintaining my blogs and keeping things up to date.
In light of that, my plan for today was to write about feminism and victim blaming, something that was sparked in my mind by someone I know and a friend of hers, whose outrageous views on women and children's responsibilities for their own assaults shocked the crap out of me.
It started with my this person I know, "A" posting on Facebok about reading that a woman or child is missing, then seeing their picture and seeing that they were dressed, as she put it, "like little whores". The rest of her post made it pretty clear that her main objection was in fact to parents who allow their pre-teen children to where sexual clothing and their refusal to actually parent their children. I agree with her about the fact that kids shouldn't be dressed in sexual clothing, that there's no reason for a little girl to own a thong or walk around with her ass hanging out of her skirt, so I didn't comment, because I assumed that she had just articulated her thoughts in a way that made her come across as a victim blaming nutcase.
How wrong I was. Some of her friends did call her out, and her responses pointed to a complete lack of understanding of what leads to rape and child abduction. So I pointed out to her that a woman's attire has nothing to do with her likelihood of being raped and that scumbag rapists use this kind of reasoning as an excuse after the fact.
One of her friends, B, chimed in with some completely ridiculous (and borderline incomprehensible) garbage about rape being natural (because, dolphins!!!), "This feminist bullshit doesn't work in the real world" and the Bible says that thinking is as bad as doing ("BAMM BITCH!"). She also made it clear that she disagreed with me, because children shouldn't be dressed like that, blah, blah, blah and "parenting needs to be necessary".*
I reminded B that I had already stated (by this point repeatedly) that I do not think that little girls should be allowed to dress in overly sexual clothing. I also pointed out that thinking can't possibly be as bad as doing, that thinking a thing hurts no one (this earned me a "good to see you're not a christian of any kind"), but that people who have sexual feelings toward children should seek professional help. And of course, yes, rape happens in the animal kingdom, where animals have no concept of nudity, so clothing (or a lack thereof) could not possibly make any difference as to the choices they make.
And I suggested that I would have thought the "feminist bullshit" would be appealing to two girls who dress less-than-conservatively and buck the status quo. This earned me reprieves from both the B and A, along the lines, of I've met A and she's always covered up, cosplay and modelling don't count and I'm always covered up except when I'm on a photo shoot, Thank You very much, Sister.
I would like to think that my and some of A's other friends' comments made her realize how completely backwards her views were and were what shamed her into taking the whole thing down, but sadly, I think it had to do with how much of a giant hypocrite she looked like, when I said that, though I have no problem with her clothing choices or the way she presents herself, always being covered up (which she usually is), except when posting pictures of herself half-naked online or going to anime conventions in costumes, isn't the same as always being covered up.
I wish I could have posted the entire thing on here and dissected, piece by piece. Not to point out how ridiculous A was being or how unable B is to form a coherent sentence, but to try to figure out how two women, in their mid-to-late 20s, in 2014, have such ridiculous and puritanical views of female virtue (and how, at the same time, are loud, in-your-face, swear like sailors and dress in clothes that - in their own words - are skanky, slutty or those of little whores.)
I was thinking of closing this with a picture of A in a spiked bra, a spiked collar (which I believe she stole from me), a pair of boxer briefs and what appear to be crotchless leatherette pants, but despite the fact that this picture is available online, as are many, many more like it, I think it`s up to her to be indiscriminate regarding who sees it, not me.
*I should point out, that the reason for the play-by-play is the fact that I was going to post screen caps of the whole damn mess, but A deleted the whole post (I'm guessing because she couldn't delete only my comments?) at some point either yesterday or this morning.
