Quick thought on women in elevators

Now, if you don't occasionally wander through the godless corners of the internet, you might have no idea, but a vlogger named Skepchick posted a video where (right about the 4:30 mark, if you're in a hurry), she mentions an encounter she had.

Basically, she'd given a talk explaining that when men sexualize her, it creeps her out. So, when a guy (later established to have been present at that talk) followed her onto an elevator and asked her up to his room, she was uncomfortable.

And that blew up, with a lot of people trying to claim that she was calling all men rapists, and women should just chill out, and on and on. Because... well, because men are dicks, mostly. I should know - I happen to be one myself. Some of us repress that side of our personalities, but far too many don't.

(In the midst of all this exaggeration, a world-famous atheist tried to poo-poo the whole thing, essentially saying that women in Muslim countries have it far worse, so women in America should stop complaining. You know, something like claiming that people are blown up in Jerusalem a lot, so if you get knifed in Boston, just walk it off and quit whining.)

Now, I just have one thing to say about this (of course, I'm going to take way too long saying it, but that's just me). And, actually, it breaks into two parts.

First, that's not what she said!! Christ, the video is right up above here, and I told you where to look! Go watch the fucking thing!

* ahem *

But (he continues in a calmer voice), since you brought it up, yes, women do, in fact, get raped in elevators. In fact, one guy in New York enjoyed it so much that he went out and tried it again. Which inspired copycats.

(Pro-tip: when googling for examples of "elevator rape," be sure that SafeSearch is on. That also happens to be a twisted fantasy for some guys. Which should actually tell you something.)

Also, two fairly common justifications for this dickish attitude on the part of guys:

1. Well, elevator rape isn't very common!
Yeah, asshole. Neither is homosexual rape. Do you want to be the lucky one?

2. It's stupid to worry, because elevators have security cameras!
OK, rich boy. First, no, many of them don't - cameras are expensive. Second, many of the places that have cameras don't have them monitored in real time - that's also expensive. And third, even where the camera has been installed (and here's a dirty little secret of the security business for you), they often don't work. It's just that the people in charge don't want you to know that: they're hoping for a placebo effect on crime.

So, fuck you very much, you fat, privileged, self-important pricks. Women get raped every day. And sometimes it happens in elevators.

I hope that nobody you care about becomes a statistic.

Weiner's wiener

Dear Representative Weiner,

I appreciate everything you've done for America, and more so since Alan Grayson was pushed out: you’re outspoken, you aren’t afraid to call a lie what it is, and you aren’t scared to stand up for your convictions. We can't afford to lose you.

You’re probably aware that your penis is in the national news right now. See, this is the kind of "news" that even the less-partisan networks love – it's got strippers, it’s got scrotal references, it has somebody in a position of power looking bad. They're not going to let it go easily.

So the word is that you tweeted a picture of Weiner's wiener to a coed. I don't care what the reality is, the rumor is that your cock is flopping across the internet. You should probably deal with that.

And unfortunately, you're hurting yourself a little bit, too. Dealing with this like the Republicans do (deny, shuffle your feet and feign outrage) would only work if Democrats had a dedicated network pushing their agenda (* cough * Fox) and a battery of top-rated right-wing radio blowhards lying to the public.

I'll admit, the fact that Andrew Breitbart was the first person to air the story makes me instantly assume that it's a lie. Unfortunately, you aren't really coming across in interviews well with your "I can't win answering questions" attitude. And I've got to say, when you go on Rachel Maddow's show, and instead of saying "that's not me," you say:

"Well, it could be or it could have been a photograph that was that's taken out of context or manipulated or changed in some way... So, maybe it did or maybe it's a photograph that was dropped into an account from somewhere else, I mean, I can't say. I don't want to cast this net wider by saying it's someone else."

That just doesn't look good. Kinda makes me itchy, and I'm on your side.

Instead, perhaps you should point out the following fascinating information, turned up by Charles Johnson over at Little Green Footballs.

Apparently it’s possible for anyone to post a picture to anyone else’s account at the yfrog.com picture hosting site — without a password. The trick is to email a picture from a Blackberry to the user’s yfrog.com email address, with the word “@subject” in the text. This results in the picture being posted at yfrog — and a tweet being posted at Twitter with a link to the picture....

It turns out that you don’t have to email from a Blackberry — you just need to use MMS to send the picture, from any device that supports the protocol. I’ve now confirmed that this technique also works on an iPhone... It also turns out that this is not really a security hole in yfrog; it’s a documented feature that’s been public knowledge for at least 2 years.

Interestingly, yFrog has since closed off access to this particular "feature."

There's more to it, but I'll let you do your own research. In the meantime, stay strong, and for the love of G_d, just say "That's not me. I have a penis, but that one isn't mine."

See? Was that so hard?
__________

Update: No answer (not that I expect one - they never call, they never write...), but I'm finding my eye drawn to more stories about the Crotch of Doom, which I'd been ignoring up to now.

For instance, Joseph Cannon has some interesting points, on lawsuits, the origin of the picture, and why the GOP is pulling this particular chain as hard as they are (you know, outside of the obvious...)

If the condom breaks, it's gotta be rape.

Sitting in a doctor's waiting room for three hours yesterday morning, I had to listen to "Liberal" CNN chewing endlessly on the two stories of the morning: the terminal illness of Elizabeth Edwards and the sex crimes of Julian Assange. Whatever your opinion of the man and of Wikileaks; whether it's black and white or very mixed, as mine is, I think we have to disassociate the propriety of publishing government communications with what just might be another US government inspired crime of equivocation and slander.

CNN used the word rape, more times than I could count yesterday and true to their unjournalistic habits never once proposed to delve into exactly what acts, according to Swedish Law, the alleged rape of two " consenting" women consisted of, although they did establish the need to do so by repeating that both women had willingly had sex with the man from Wiki. A disturbing dissonance at least. It appears that in Sweden, it's rape, or more accurately even if more peculiar: "sex by surprise" not to use a condom, or even if the condom breaks, according to Swedish prosecutors. That's it and that means there are a hell of a lot of rapists out there, many of whom are gloating over the imprisonment of Mr. Assange for something that's a crime nowhere but Sweden. Even in that feminist paradise, it's only a $750. fine. So why is theUS so hell bent on extraditing him for something on the order of a speeding ticket and why are the media so intent on calling him a rapist?

So I'm going to suggest, in full expectation of the customary response, a conspiracy. It's not just that CNN and others are crying rape when it isn't, but CNN and others would have us completely oblivious to the identities of the willing but uncondomized women as though it didn't matter that they both may have ties to the US government, the CIA and organizations supported by them.

Is this another of the seemingly endless appeals to the end sanctifying the means and if so, can we call ourselves a free country when the laws are bent, spindled, folded and mutilated to create the crime? With all the synthetic furor in some conservative states, about applying foreign laws in the US, are the same conservatives gleefully doing just that in order to more readily conceal shady dealings? Can we call that rape too?

No, I'm not sure that Assenge was doing anyone a favor by revealing sensitive targets for terrorists, and if he was guilty of that, he's certainly no friend to the US, but the practice of trumping up charges and paying witnesses to make them is not new here and certainly not a foreign practice to political parties trying to cripple an opposing president, but there's a certain foul odor pervading the news reports and it's not just the smell of spilled beans. If one thing is sure, it's that we need some fresh air here and some real information before we can conclude that our "free" press is worth saving.