Posts by Lilith __
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In The Mood For Love is a brilliant movie but talk about misleading title! It should be In the Mood For Nothing But Closeups
or In the Mood For Feeling Kind of Hopeless and ConfusedAt least Antonioni knew how to do gratuitous explosions. :-)
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Hard News: Here's one I prepared earlier, in reply to Jeremy Andrew,
The flu shot, it did nothing!
The slightly depressing truth about vaccinations is that they work on a population basis, not necessarily on any one individual. It's the same with pharmaceuticals: a particular drug may be said to "work" if it saves the life of one in a hundred people taking it. I think the protection rate with vaccinations is generally higher than that :-) but it's no guarantee you won't get the illness.
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Everyone secretly likes Wham.
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Hard News: Here's one I prepared earlier, in reply to Greg Wood,
I wrote every single one of those 1.5m high letters with that flax stick myself, and by crikey it felt *good*.
Whoa! Looks great. Must have taken a while!
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Regarding tetanus vaccination - I had one becuase it was required for going on school camp when I was 15. Didn't see school camp, was in bed for 2 weeks with fever and the worst muscle pains I've ever had. I'd had glandular fever from which I hadn't fully recovered, and my doctor said that wouldn't matter.
I think vaccination has some value, but not when you're sick !
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Up Front: Respectably-Dressed Sensible…, in reply to Tamara,
there is a balance to be found between not shoehorning a child into social expectations that do not suit him or her, and teaching them how to get along
While I'm not a parent, I've certainly seen a lot of my friends raising kids, in varying styles. And I'm firmly of the opinion that kids are not miniature adults, and they need firm boundaries about what is Ok and what is not Ok. I've seen loving parents who set elastic boundaries being driven crazy by children who do what they want when they want, in defiance of the needs or wishes of others; I've seen equally loving parents who set firm boundaries and their kids understand that they have freedom in some things, but not in others.
Obviously as kids become teenagers they need to be given more freedom and autonomy, but I believe that a good grasp of boundaries when they are small sets them up to respect other people's boundaries as they grow into adults.
[and as others have said upthread, of course it's vital to help kids learn to empathise and think about the needs of other people; but I think that's hindered rather than helped by too much freedom early on. They don't have the responsibility or judgement to handle it.]
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Not sure if anyone's linked to this already: SlutWalk Stockholm's list of sexual assault prevention tips.
My favourite: "10. Carry a whistle! If you are worried you might assault someone “on accident” you can hand it to the person you are with, so they can blow it if you do."
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I've been thinking about what's so wrong about comparing rape prevention with theft prevention (not walking home alone is like locking your car, etc.)
1) The "stranger danger" myths about rape have been well debunked upthread. You're much more likely to be raped by someone you know and trust, so staying off the street and locking your doors doesn't keep you safe. There's that difference.
2) There's also the rather nasty implication that women, or our sexuality, is a kind of "property".
But I don't think those are the most important problems with the analogy. What I think is , is this:
3) Theft is a crime against property, which causes distress indirectly, whereas rape is a kind of torture directly inflicted on another human being. It may or may not involve violence, but it's always torture for the victim.
I understand that many convicted rapists don't believe they are guilty, because they sincerely believe the victim was consenting. They have had a pleasurable experience without realising the terrible harm they were inflicting.
How a person can reach adulthood without the skills to determine when they are inflicting torture on another person beggars belief, but it does seem to happen.
I'm sure there are some rapists who mean to cause harm, but for all the others, who don't seem to have the foggiest notion of what consent is or how to recognise it, who believe that dressing a certain way or acting a certain way implies consent to anyone for anything...what do we do with these people?
At the very least, I think the concept of consent needs to be an important part of sex education in schools.
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Up Front: Respectably-Dressed Sensible…, in reply to Bart Janssen,
If it was a product of culture it would vary more between different cultures and I don’t think it varies much at all
Bart, this opens a whole biological-determinist can of worms that I think is a distraction from the issue of rape prevention. I don't think using the term "rape culture" - meaning a culture than condones rape - says anything about rape being purely culturally determined. With any behaviour, we can argue whether it's purely learned or purely instinctive or somehere in between, but I don't know the debate can ever be resolved, or if it's a helpful argument to have. Even if that's not the intention, that debate makes rape apologists feel justified.
Sorry, I'd like to say more but I have to go out, I'm finding this thread very valuable, thanks everyone for sharing.
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One finds oneself cheering, and clapping one's demurely-gloved hands! Great post, great cause.