V1@grA and @fghan1stan

Am I the only one who is more than a little angry at the U.S. government/CIA handing out Viagra to warlords in Afghanistan for their cooperation against the Taliban?

In theory, I suppose I could come up with some arguments justifying this "strategy". Let's start with the fact that Viagra was invented to treat a legitimate medical problem. Even if it wasn't just for the ED issues, what's the harm in a man having a little fun with one of his wives? They all look so damn sweet in the commercials in that "show your wedding ring pre-coital" pose in the bathtub (can we talk about that double bathtub on the cliff thing? WTF?").

So let's get down to what is seriously pissing me off about this issue.

1. In Afghanistan it is estimated by human rights agencies that approximately 25% of women have been subject to sexual violence.

2. Rape, especially the rape of children, in the post-Taliban Afghanistan is becoming an epidemic.

3. Hundreds of women are serving terms in Afghani prisons for the crime of having sex outside of marriage. Whether that means she ran away from her husband she was married to at 7 years old or whether she was raped by soldiers. The interpretation of Sharia that they are using calls for a woman to be imprisoned for sex outside of marriage.

4. Now for their cooperation, let's give these men some boner-makers. Which I'm certain makes some very happy men and some rather terrified women.

For objectivity's sake, I can imagine a nice 60 year old warlord who is having trouble getting it up with his four consensually married wives and they are, all five of them, thrilled for the opportunity to have intimate marital relations once again with the old man.

I can also imagine the other extreme. And I'm having a really hard time believing that women are not being raped on a more regular basis thanks to our CIA.

Semantics/Semiotics/Propaganda

The way we speak, how we refer to certain things affects the way we behave.

AIDS/HIV
18 years ago, when I started working in the HIV field, I was amazed at how the media ignored the science to go with the vernacular - for instance, "AIDS victim" and "AIDS virus". A person who has HIV is a person with HIV, not an AIDS victim and it's HIV, a virus that may cause AIDS. The first is an unbelievably sensationalist term and the second prevents effective education about HIV transmission, prevention and treatment. I spent years undoing the damage that was done around that term.

I won't go into all of the media misuse of scientific terms because it could be an entire textbook.

SEX/RAPE
Recently, Liss at Shakesville has been championing the cause against the defiant misuse of "sex" when the word that should be used is "rape". When a man has forced sexual intercourse with his daughter while keeping her in a basement, it is rape and should be considered as such by the media. I imagine it is search engines looking for the word "sex" that makes CNN continue using the "forced her to engage in sex acts" when the more concise term would be "raped her".

ABUSE/LOVE
What brings up all of this rumination on semantics is this survey, commissioned by Liz Claiborne Inc., which polled 1,043 "tweens" ages 11 to 14; 523 parents of tweens; and 626 teens ages 15 to 18.

The article, published by Reuters was entitled, "Young love often marred by abuse."

In the survey, among youths who reported sex by age 14, 33 percent said they had been hit, choked or punched, while 58 percent had been verbally abused. In comparison, about 10 percent of all 15- to 18-year-olds reported physical abuse by a partner, and 29 percent reported verbal abuse.

I don't know if author, Julie Steenhuysen, wrote this headline or not but what is described in this survey is not young love. When a teen hits another teen while in a relationship, it is violence. When the abuser apologizes and promises never to do it again, it is the beginning of a long road which often leads to someone being seriously injured or killed and too rarely results in the abuser going to jail. Romanticizing it as "young love" serves no further purpose than sensationalism.

Rape as a weapon of war

Major General Patrick Cammart, Former Division Commander of MONUC:

"It had, therefore, probably become more dangerous to be a woman than a soldier in an armed conflict."

Rape is being used as a weapon of war. It is not new and it is always disgusting. And it has exploded. The UN Security Council today demanded an end to persistent sexual violence during armed conflict, calling it a war crime and a component of genocide.

Approved by all 15 members, Council Resolution 1820 "demands the immediate and complete cessation by all parties to armed conflict of all acts of sexual violence against civilians with immediate effect."

It also urged that "all parties to armed conflict immediately take appropriate measures to protect civilians, including women and girls, from all forms of sexual violence."

Rape is used to instill terror in the civilian population, humiliate and degrade them, destroy group bonds and further agendas of cultural and ethnic destruction. Children of rape survivors often are abandoned and shunned by their families.

This isn't just occurring in one or two places. It is happening in:

• Sudan,
• the Democratic Republic of Congo, where, of the 15,000 survivors of sexual violence treated at Panzi Hospital since 1999, one-third are children
  
• Colombia,
• Sri Lanka,
• Haiti,
• Rwanda,
• Myanmar,
• Algeria,
• Cambodia,
• Sierra Leone,
• Iraq,
• Afghanistan,
• Peru,
• Bosnia and the former Yugoslavia
• El Salvador
• Uganda
• Chad
• Liberia

I wish I could name every country in which a woman was subjected to rape as a weapon of war. I wish I could type each of their names so they wouldn't be forgotten.

No one is doing enough though. Except Stephen Lewis (who is my hero). According to the New York Times, every day, 10 new women and girls who have been raped show up at Panzi hospital. Many have been so sadistically attacked from the inside out, butchered by bayonets and assaulted with chunks of wood, that their reproductive and digestive systems are beyond repair.

This is a direct quote from CNN.com

With U.N. officials calling for more female officers to better educate women against rape and women saying they won't feel safe until the under-equipped and undermanned United Nations force is strong enough to protect them, the situation shows little sign of improving.

I want to know, how, exactly, women are supposed to be educated against rape. I tend to respect Nic Robertson's reporting but this may have been the stupidest statement I have ever heard. This is Robertson repeating a press release, not reporting!

I haven't read the U.N. resolution (I can't find it on the internet and if someone can - please email me I'm reading it now I haven't found anything yet...), but if they actually say something about educating women against rape when armed gunmen hunt them down while collecting firewood or escaping their burning homes I have little hope.

Honorata Barinjibanwa, 18, said she was kidnapped from a village during a raid in April and kept as a sex slave until August. Most of that time she was tied to a tree, and she still has rope marks ringing her neck. Her kidnappers would untie her for a few hours each day to gang-rape her. Here is one face. One face of thousands.

She was being treated at Panzi Hospital, which has 350 beds, and though a new ward is being built specifically for rape survivors, the hospital sends women back to their villages before they have fully recovered because it needs space for the never-ending stream of new arrivals.


Eve Ensler, founder of the V Day Project and author of the Vagina Monologues is building a center for survivors who have been left without family, community or the capacity to have children in collaboration with UNICEF and Panzi Hospital. City of Joy will give them a safe place to live while providing an education, leadership training and a chance to earn income. To donate or learn more, go to V-Day.

I close with another quote from Major General Patrick Cammart. Putting the responsibility in the hands of the UN, he testified that:

"You [the United Nations] have the responsibility to protect them
and to take real and effective measures to put an end to this."

Speaking of rape

Rape has been on my mind.

I was raped almost 20 years ago to this day. For the next 15 years, I said nothing. There was no evidence. There was nothing to do, I thought, than get over it. Move on. But every so often, it came screaming back to me, usually in the form of other women suffering.

This week, rape, in many of its forms has been all over the news.

This morning, the New York Times reports on girls being initiated into Central American gangs for protection from abusive households by rape. One girl reports that she was told that all she had to do was talk to the leader and he would induct her into the gang. "Before she knew what was happening, though, her new family members were disrobing and lining up to have sex with her."

The rapist and murderer of Lance Cpl. Maria Lauterbach was finally found and arrested in Mexico last night.

After Lauterbach accused Cpl. Cesar Laurean of rape, it took the Corps 7 months to investigate. According to Rep. Michael Turner (R-NC), "The actions taken by the Marine Corps to protect Lance Corporal Maria Lauterbach were totally inadequate."

Turner said he is reviewing the Marine Corps' response and sharing it with fellow lawmakers similarly concerned about the way the Marines handle allegations of rape.

Attorney Merle Wilberding, who represents the Lauterbach family, said Marine procedures seem to ignore the emotional trauma suffered by the victim. (my emphasis)

The charred remains of Lauterbach and her fetus were found buried in Laurean's backyard in North Carolina in January.

In Texas, 419 children were removed from a compound from which boys are expelled to make room for girls who become the wives of older men. It seems a number of the female children are pregnant. Meanwhile, the Associated Press is called out by Melissa McEwan (again) for calling it sex.

A second KBR employee (formerly a subsidiary of Halliburton) has come forward with allegations of being gang-raped in Iraq by soldiers and other contractors.

Unfortunately, despite having come forward, the perpetrators may never be prosecuted in criminal court because of Order 17, which states that U.S. defense contractors in Iraq cannot be prosecuted in the Iraqi criminal justice system. While they can technically be tried in U.S. Federal Court, the Justice Department has shown no interest in prosecuting the first case, which occurred in 2005.

According to the article in The Nation (April 3)

"Prosecutorial jurisdiction for crimes like the alleged rape of Jones is easily established under the Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act and the Patriot Act's special maritime and territorial jurisdiction provisions. But somebody has to want to prosecute the cases."

And apparently, nobody does.

Stephen Lewis, a man I believe is one of the greatest heroes of this generation, gave a speech in September about the "litany of horror" occurring specifically in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) where U.N. Emergency Coordinator and Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs, John Holmes, characterized sexual violence against women as “almost unimaginable” adding that the intensity and frequency is worse than anywhere else in the world.

When I wrote the post on the t-shirt, I wasn't really thinking about responses, but rather about what I needed to say. I hadn't read any responses to any of the other posts around the 'sphere either. Later, I looked around at what people were saying. On one feminist website, I was a little surprised at some of the comments posted.

Yeah, I don't know if people would want to wear this t-shirt. Don't you want to forget that it happened?

Yes. But that ain't gonna happen.

I mean, let's say I saw you wearing that shirt, what am i supposed to do about it? Am I suppose to be like OMG You were RAPED? Please tell me all about it. Or am I supposed to be all OH NO You were raped? I am so sorry.

What are you supposed to do about it...?

Cuz that shirt is just flat out awkward. If I saw someone wearing that I would probably start sweating and wondering if I should look up or down or say something or give them a hug or a high five or start a converation or give them a 'knowing' nod....just too awkward lol.

Really - did you need to end with "lol"? I don't even have a response to this, but another person did.

You know what? I really couldn't care less if MY rape makes YOU feel awkward and uncomfortable. Know what's awkward and uncomfortable? BEING RAPED. So if I want to shout it from the rooftops, plaster it on billboards, or wear a t-shirt, I CAN and I WILL.

After reading all of those, I started to get worried. Do people think that I'm a "Debbie Downer"? Is my writing so depressing, so grim and out of touch that I should stop, but then I got such a lovely and honest response from Will Pillage for Yarn.

"I can't say that word because it is so loaded and charged and painful. I can't say it out loud. Or wear it out loud. I'm too ashamed." and that is a looong way from where I started the thought process and is probably a more honest place for me to be in.

I couldn't wear the shirt, but I'm really grateful to have the opportunity to have that conversation with myself and to read your thoughts and the thoughts of the women who posted comments here.

Thank you.

I know we don't want to talk about it. I know it's not fun. It doesn't amuse. It's depressing.

I don't care.

I was raped.

Jennifer Baumgartener wants to force rape into everyday conversation. She is selling t-shirts with this logo on it on Scarleteen. One of the biggest problems Baumgartener sees is that talking about rape is considered "too much information".

The founder of Scarleteen, Heather Corrina, a rape survivor, asks her, "What do you think young people, particularly, can do to help disable rape culture?" I love her answer. She says:

I think women can practice saying "No!" a dozen times a day--yelling it or not, but looking someone right in the eye and saying "No." Because it's hard for women to--I don't know, disappoint? Be seen as mean? Be unfriendly?--a very clear no is an important muscle to have to interrupt rape culture, which relies on women being polite and not trusting their instincts or believing they can have boundaries. I think we can talk to men about our rape experiences. One woman in the film tells her son about being raped; another tells her father. Being honest and inviting men to understand and sympathize will undermine rape culture, too, which is based on silence and no one thinking they know people who've been raped.

Why wear a shirt that says “I Was Raped”?

• Because wearing it lets others know that they aren’t alone.
• Because wearing it invites conversation about a silenced experience that so many women and men share.
• Because rape is a crime that someone did to you, against your will.
• Because, as Maya Angelou says, “I can be changed by what happens to me, but I refuse to be reduced by it.”
• Because you shouldn’t be ashamed that you were raped; the perpetrator should be ashamed.
• Because being public shatters the very silence that enables rape to be so common.
• Because naming what has happened is the first step toward changing the reality of rape.
• Because legal redress is rarely served, so it’s crucial to find our own justice and acknowledgment.

~ Jennifer Baumgardner, “I Was Raped” project, 2008

Safety on the Road

It's not that I'm soooo brave. It's not that I'm an idiot either. I travel alone very, very wisely.

Here are my tips for traveling alone.

On the road:

• When I'm stopping in a town, whether for gas, food or sightseeing, I park out in the open. I don't park behind trucks. I try to park on the end so I can watch my car from where ever I am.
• I only drive during the day. Driving at night especially across long highways is pretty unsafe in general. Too many sleepy drivers. If I'm going on a day trip, I make sure I am back by sunset. After all, sunset in the canyon is so beautiful - I try never to miss it.
• Go to family friendly places - when I say truck stop, I do not mean a huge parking lot of 50 trucks and my PT Cruiser. I mean a Denny's, Cracker Barrel-type place. Especially if it's not a chain. My favorite! Sometimes the souvenirs in those places are freakin' priceless!
• Triple freakin' A. I've had a membership since before I started driving (I'm serious). I could change a flat if I needed to, but getting on my back on the highway is not my idea of a good vacation.
  
• Don't roll down your window for anyone. I don't help strangers stranded on the side of the road - I'll keep driving and call the police but I won't get out of my car. Even for a woman. I don't accept help from strangers. You never know. Sad but important.
  

In the Canyon:

• Scope it out beforehand - I went to the Grand Canyon with a pack of queers before going by myself. I had no idea I would love it so much. About half-way through my trip I decided to come back alone so I could explore at my own pace.
• The National Parks cost $$ to get in. You can't just drive up and assault someone without people knowing you're there. This makes things quite a bit safer since the output of $25 bucks just to do something illegal seems ... somewhat futile. Anyway, it tends to screen out some sick people. Also, you can't camp without a permit so there aren't a bunch of crazies out there in the night.
  
• Since I have been there before, I know where I am going so I don't tend to wander around lost.
• I walk confidently. Walking like you have somewhere to be is a big turn off to criminals. They usually aren't going to chase you down and they don't know who is expecting you.
  
• I don't look like I have wads of cash. My shoes are not new. My sweatshirts are certifiably antique and my jeans are every day jeans. I would not be a prime target, since I don't look like I've got anything good to get. If there are people paying $25 bucks to rob the tourists, I don't look like I have anything worth their effort. Believe me, there are busloads of tourists who DO look like they have stuff worthy of robbing.
  
• I know where the closest ranger point is. If I need to run, I know which way to go.
• I have a pretty heavy backpack and a fine imagination of what I could/would do to anyone who tried to throw down. Water bottles in a backpack is an excellent weapon. So is your elbow.
  
• I park in open areas and take the shuttle. The Grand Canyon has a natural gas shuttle that runs from dawn to after sun-down. The drivers are all lovely and I won't get out with someone creepy unless there's a crowd. The drivers also don't care how long you ride...you can ride around for hours if you want.
• I take knitting and headphones. If there's someone weird, annoying or loud on the shuttle, you can always pretend not to hear them.
  

Honestly, most of the time I don't worry. Even on a quiet day in the canyon there are plenty of other tourists around and I generally stay within the confines of the park for the majority of my trip. I've met people from all over the world but I'm there to be with myself so I am mostly by myself. Although some people have tried, mostly older couples who feel sorry for me, I don't allow myself to get dragged along into other people's adventures.

It's not for everyone but if you have a desire to travel on your own, I can tell you it is worth every moment.

Follow up on the Bulgarian nurses & Palestinian doctor

One week ago today, the 6 Bulgarian nurses and one Palestinian doctor known as the Benghazi Six were released from Libya after being accused of infecting over 400 children with HIV and sentenced to death.

Despite testimony from some of the top scientists in the world that the children had been infected long before the medics arrived at the hospital, they were imprisoned for eight years. During this time they were tortured for their confessions.

Drs. Luc Montagnier and Vittorio Colizzi testified in person that through hospital records, and the DNA sequences of the virus, they traced it to patient n.356 who was admitted 28 times between 1994–97 in Ward B, ISO and Ward A, and theorized that this patient was the probable source of the infection. The first cross-contamination occurred during that patient's 1997 admission. The report concludes that the admission records of a total of 21 of the children

"definitively prove that the HIV infection in the Al- Fath Hospital was already active in 1997"

The epidemic snowballed in 1998 to well over 400 children. Montagnier and Colizzi both testified in person at the trial of record for the defense, and the report was submitted in evidence.

Ultimately, the Libyan court system would not listen to HIV experts around the world, 114 Nobel Laureates or the U.N. The medics were only released when money from various countries was promised to the Libyan government for hospital upgrades and training for medical staff in addition to $1 million USD to each of the families of the HIV infected children.

The names of the released are:

Kristiana Malinova Valcheva
Nasya Stojcheva Nenova
Valentina Manolova Siropulo
Valya Georgieva Chervenyashka
Snezhanka Ivanova Dimitrova and
Dr. Ashraf al-Hazouz

They were raped, threatened with their families deaths and the rape of their family members. They had electric shocks applied to their genitals and were bitten by dogs. They were all injected with a substance and told that they had been intentionally infected with HIV.

They are home with medical problems and psychological issues that will last a lifetime. But they are home.

I wish for them:

• peace
• a place to express their anger
• loving family and friends
  
• dreamless sleep
• and gentle days.

Welcome home.

Safe spaces

I had an enormous revelation last week. Needless to say, it was preceded by some fairly maladaptive behavior, but if I'm paying attention, I learn from my idiotic mistakes.

For a long time, I thought that the reason I didn't do certain things was because I was being lazy. It's not that I didn't want to go to the market after work to get a nice, healthy dinner - I just didn't go - I didn't feel like it. Then I'd go home and binge. I'd put off or avoid other situations too.

What I've learned this week is - often it's because I don't feel safe.

Usually not unsafe like, "I might be attacked in the parking lot." although sometimes that may be the reason. Usually it's a feeling of not having the energy to put up the big wall around me that says

"Motherfucker - stay the fuck away from me."

without ever uttering a sound. It's a skill but sometimes I'm too depleted and I can't make myself face the bad guys.

I've had a few bad guys in my life.

Strangers, acquaintances and family members have been bad guys and it gets kind of hard to trust people, which is why I leave my bed every morning with an enormous shield around me.

The big bright spot in my world is my husband. Sometimes he's clueless. Sometimes I'm just not giving him any clues to go on - but he's done a pretty good job of making my world a safer place to live in.

At Passover this year I was telling my family about the house and all of the work I've been doing around the garden. Someone asked, "Well, what does Michael do?" I told them, "He pays for everything!" It shut everyone the hell up (and is a lot easier to understand than he makes me feel safe). Whether he pays for everything or not, he makes me feel like home is a good place to come to.

• I don't feel like my mistakes are going to be thrown back at me.
• I don't feel like I'm going to have to justify my existence.
• I'm not afraid that he's going to be unpredictable when he gets home.

Safety is such a huge thing for me. I'm not sure if the whole concept makes much sense to others - it didn't make a whole lot of sense to me before I started therapy. I know now that I have never felt safer in my life.

It's damn near blissful.

It wasn't always like this. Jeff died 7 months before we got married. I wasn't sure of anything except that I was there to support Michael. About two years later, after moving my grandmother into assisted living, starting a business, and leaving my job, Michael and I started to realize something was not right on Planet Faith.

I went through some very scary stuff, most of which involved me feeling like the world was slipping out from under me. I think one of the things that got me through was the night Michael showed up in my room and said, "I'm not going anywhere." Basically, he informed me that I would have to leave if we were going to split up. It was the beginning of finally feeling like I had terra firma.

At the time, I didn't know that I needed him to say that, but I believed him there and then, and I have never doubted it a moment since.

My husband may go play in Chicago and Palm Springs and Calgary (shout out to the Canadians!) and then he comes home. I may have friends in New York and Palm Springs and from one end of Los Angeles County to the other, but there is something that Michael provides that I don't get from them.

He's far from perfect (and I'm no June Cleaver) but we've got this relationship thing down pat.

Sometimes we'll tell people about our relationship and they'll say, "Oh, but you're not really married."

I just have to look at Michael - it doesn't matter what other people think about how "really married" we are or are not - we know.

Purim (and dirty little secrets)!!!!!

This weekend is Purim, one of the big celebration holidays on the Jewish calendar. The best part of the holiday is that you are supposed to drink until you can’t tell the difference between the good guy of the story (Mordechai) and the bad guy (Haman).

Seriously, proscribed drunkenness!!!

Anyway, it’s a long story and it can all be read here but I’m going to give you my take on Purim as it relates to me right now.

There are two women in the Purim story. One is Vashti and the other is Esther. For the story to work, we must get rid of Vashti in the beginning so that Esther can become queen and the heroine of the story. Therefore, Vashti needs to be the villain but really, she isn’t. She decides that she doesn’t want to parade around for the king’s drunken buddies in nothing but her tiara and so, off with her head.

Great.

Then to Esther. Esther becomes the queen, but she has many secrets.

Many, many secrets.

Secrets which could have her killed. She frets over this. She fasts (because that’s what they did in the olden days when they had a decision to make – apparently) and she finally decides that to save herself and to save the Jewish people, she will have to put her life at risk, and tell her secrets to the king.

I lived a lot of my life with big secrets and a lot of shame. I was protecting myself at the time, but over time, it caused me to curl up in a ball and not get out of bed for a year, not to mention the crying and the driving into brick walls.

Aaaanyway....

As I started getting better, I started telling certain, trusted people my secrets. I risked a lot to do this. They might have rejected me. They might have said something stupid – and some did. But ultimately, getting those secrets off my chest (and stomach and thighs and heart) has been such an incredibly healing process.

Secrets suck. Even the really shameful ones that make you feel like a bad person inside.

We all want to look unblemished. Some of us (ME!) want to look/seem perfect but that just is a big ol' lie and makes everyone wonder what you're hiding (don't drink, don't smoke, what do ya do?) and the cracks in your veneer that will eventually come out seem all that more glaring.

I'm a mess. Glad to share it with ya. And in the end, Esther tells her secret, saves herself, the Jewish people and gets the bad guy (Haman) hung on the gallows.

The End.

The moral of this story is that when you share a terrible secret that has been burdening your soul and making you eat a loaf of bread and a dozen tortillas a day and you get it off your chest it becomes less and less shameful. It weighs less and becomes easier to manage. Perhaps someone will say, "I'm so sorry, I didn't know." or "That happened to me, too." And you realize that you're not the only one with a terrible secret.

Have a hamentaschen for me!!!!

Human Rights Nightmare

Five Bulgarian nurses and a doctor born in Egypt but living in Libya have been sentenced to death for a second time by a Libyan court. The trial alleges that the nurses and doctor infected over 400 children with HIV. Despite testimony by Dr. Luc Montagnier, the researcher who originally found the virus showing that the epidemic began before these nurses even arrived in Libya, they have been kept in a Libyan prison for seven years.

During their imprisonment, the defendants were tortured daily for the first three months of their captivity in efforts to elicit confessions -- torture that included electric shocks, being threatened by barking dogs, falaqa (beatings on the sole of the feet), and in the case of two nurses, rape, according to Amnesty International.

The first time the medics saw a lawyer was February 2000, after their trial had already opened.

Kristiana Malinova Valcheva
Nasya Stojcheva Nenova
Valentina Manolova Siropulo
Valya Georgieva Chervenyashka
Snezhanka Ivanova Dimitrova and
Dr. Ashraf Ahmad Jum'a

have been sentenced to death. Please write your senators and cause an uprising about this human rights nightmare.

Here is my letter:

Dear Senator Boxer:

Six medics have been sentenced to death in Libya for a crime they could not have committed. Kristiana Malinova Valcheva, Nasya Stojcheva Nenova, Valentina Manolova Siropulo, Valya Georgieva Chervenyashka, Snezhanka Ivanova Dimitrova and Dr. Ashraf Ahmad Jum'a are being held and tortured for allegedly infecting hundreds of children with HIV. They have all been tortured and at least two of the women have been raped.

This is a human rights outrage. Please condemn these acts by the Libyan justice system and try to do everything that is in the power of the United States Senate to assist the Bulgarian government in releasing these six individuals.

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,

Faith