in response to the dailydot article (and several others) regarding the consent app...

 i find this incredibly frightening and offensive. it leaves way too much open for interpretation.

for example, i just thought of this and had no plans to add it, so thank god i thought of it (atheist here, BTW): i'm an alcoholic. my father and both grandfathers and so on as far as we know--drunks/alcoholic. so i don't drink too often but sometimes i can drink 7 beers and have a fantastic, rowdy time, have a few glasses of wine or some shots, maybe all that, 11 drinks, i'm just fine.

sometimes i have three glasses of 9% beer and i'm just fine--for one hour and a half, then i am GONE, i mean DRUNK AS FUCKING HELL and sometimes blacking out, and guys would follow me around the west village, even getting out of their cabs to approach me and laugh when i picked up bottles and threw them at their feet to keep them away until i got to the 1 or got to where foot traffic and lights were heavy around union square.

okay, so put that into perspective. how often are you supposed to be consenting via app? consent can change at any second. what is this bullshit that NOBODY HAS FUCKING USED JOURNALISTIC INTEGRITY TO FUCKING SAY SO YET!? we're talking about how epidemic anal rape is among generation y, and i tell you, there have been five guys who did that, so i fucking ditched them, no dating, no friendship, nothing ever except seething hatred and scorching Hell. why is this app something that can be used in court to blanket consent? it's stupid to expect that that can do it. or are they going to patent it and have people sign agreements bound by federal law that no matter what happens once you click we're good to go!--

--shit, okay, great, you can't report to the cops that you're missing half your leg because the asshole decided to cannibalize ONLY part of you, thanks, fuck my app contract.

like, that's extreme, i know, but think of every single variant in between. when i was 15 i wanted a french kiss and got the worst pain of my life when the guy put his finger in my ass. do i want an app to cover consent to fingering my ass without warning or the specific request for consent?

my most hated rapists are the skullfuckers, no matter their length or girth. the puniest penis will find its owner cut out of my life, no matter how many beatings and rapes i have to endure while i tell roommates never to let those assholes back in to rape me and e-mail and push away the shitheads. they want to rape by forcing any girl or woman they choose to gag and even vomit. not my game. it's my life and my body, and you will get the fuck out of both forever if you do that to me once. you are a danger to all women and i wish we could blacklist you publicly because i would warn everyone in the world of these shitheads.

that is not gonna be covered by this app, no sirree bob, and you see it in porn, the girls are crying and scared, pissed, heartbroken, and if that's what men get excited over and want to cover in this app, girls...girls...women, ladies, womyn, gals, oh, you are not thinking if you want this app too.

it's a fucking misogynistic app. i have sex when i'm drunk. i have been raped when i'm drunk, and i have been raped when i'm just about blacking out or while i'm asleep, while i'm blacked out, then come to during or after, and i will tell you one fucking universal truth, and you will not fucking deny it.

ENTHUSIASTIC CONSENT IS VERY EASY TO RECOGNIZE. 

when things are consensual, here's what happens. BOTH people give each other warm looks, and then there is TINGLING. there is no tingling in rape, not all-over tingling, uh, no. penis tingling, ego tingling, anger tingling. do. not. count.

then there are touches, small ones. if the first one is rejected, that's that. the next touch on THAT VERY OCCASION will be the other person's later on, if at all, and maybe there are still dates to go on, maybe not. but it will be the person who rejected the first. do not tell me i'm bullshitting. why do people not ever bring this up?

then there is! most people usually or always kiss; when two strangers, remember, this is all about strangers and the consequent familiarity that MAINTAINS the level of consent...anyway, when two strangers do not kiss, that isn't necessarily a bad formula, but if one person likes to kiss so much that this is a shock or turn-off, this is the optimal time to say, "no, i don't like this." i've done that twice, and i've been raped both times. that is bad, bad, borderline evil, evil borderline on malignant.

the sex. the sex can include fingering, rimming, cunnilingus, fellatio, anal sex, vaginal sex, foot-sucking, anything anybody wants. does the app cover BDSM? hell, why would you expect an app to cover someone tying you up and flogging you bloody? but if the other person has that in mind as you sign the app, then--the app is still open to interpretation and would not stop someone desperate, an MRA even, from thinking, "ooooooooo YOU SAID YES FUCK YOU GODDAMN YOU I WILL FUCKING GET WHAT I PAID $70 FOR TONIGHT"

what if you say yes, and the guy says, "go down on me!" but he won't eat you out, and you want to say no? will you feel scared that you already signed a consent form? will you worry that he will remind you about it? will he grab you by the hair and push you down, ranting that you said yes? rapists are many and tempers run short. 

what if you consent and then the guy forces you to go down on him but he has smegma? or has chlamydia but doesn't feel like going to the doctor? or the man has sores on his penis? or doesn't use a condom? flip that to apply to women, and then add on either side the risk of HIV and pregnancy.

really, yeah, so much could go wrong, and i am just shocked at the dearth of earnest argument like this; it's important to remind people who don't really think that this is a dangerous portent.

besides, all this bullshit--why isn't anyone just addressing what it all comes down to? people who slut-shame, including men after they've raped, are saying ONE thing, and we must stop it forever: "what happened to the long dresses and the high necklines? what happened to proper victorian/puritan values?" you are misremembering history, and perpetuating the false notion that there has ever been one entirely prudish culture. low necklines vs. nudity vs. sheer sheaths vs. zero panties vs. netted dresses (ancient Egypt) vs. fig leaves over the pubis vs. jeans vs. short skirts vs. the puritans, who didn't always wear high necklines, and who encouraged heavy petting between courting couples to ensure a good sexual match, and then encourage a healthy, joyful sex life.

this is one of the most oppressive GLOBAL eras. globally we're too aware of each other's shame and adopt too much of each other's anger as well. grow the fuck up, prudes and MRAs...life is bigger, history is vast in our middling brains, and there are more important things in the world, which all cultures knew until electronics, and celebrated, than sex.

and therefore rape.

the deepest caverns of the bluegrass plains in the ragnarok of universal shame

mine.

mine is...it's the one thing i can't understand.

unless it's got to do with mosi being the very first man i had a relationship with

that was pretty fucking awesome, frank, open

and the four-letter word (i can tell because he wrote me an apology note i still have at home, and because he said it was a burden i was permitted to be honest about. i just didn't realize it would

bleed

this copiously

nine years

and mosi's moss's dust, he's really quite ridiculous, acting like rape is only allowed to hurt if the man doesn't romance you for three months afterward--and i was out of love like that, our last IM conversation clincher of clinchers:

he's a fucking slimeball, and i was right to move, move, run, leave for the lights of the coast

and i won't let a slimeball last

and that's what ty said was bad about me, that i had to actually talk to slimeballs

that it's my fault slimeballs talk to me at all

that being ugly determines my status in life as poor, homeless, invisible nobody

that my intelligence means nothing because my face vanquishes any brain cell i've got

his face too frightening for me to see what he really meant: this is the truth

this is your self-fulfilling prophecy and because you won't let me beat that into your head every day for five years now, and you dare leave me when i am the person who fixes you because i am the person who can heal, and you are the example of my success i cannot make this up, the only words of this that aren't verbatim are 'and because you won't let me beat that into your head every day for five years now'

oh, i laughed; i thought i was enough to have that licked

there's no way, jeez, you are not even doing this right--i'm the one who gets to do me, and if i write a novel over a year on my own, then that's how long it takes. if it's eight years, that's how long it takes. you don't get to tell me anymore how jealous you are of my spontaneity, my cleverness, my writing, my writing...my writing, telling me it's me who should be famous because of my fucking awesomeness and my writing...

and scream at me online for hours every other day

it's not enough!
it's not ENOUGH!
that's not enough!
more! more! more! 
it's not enough! that's only two pages! 
MORE! 

knowing i'm on the other end screaming and blubbering and cutting my arms because (but not knowing it's the face, the one i remember on you, bunny, at gallaudet, the one when we met and you were so angry that people wanted you to date an ugly fuck like me...then telling me about how the woman who looks almost exactly like me was easy to use for sex years later, trying to dissuade me from an attraction you always get so angry about that doesn't exist. as soon as i saw you i felt exactly the same way. no fucking way am i going to date someone who is clearly a manipulative wave of charisma and judges me instantly because he hates my face?

i got jon b., you idiot, a fucking hot piece of ass...because...when we saw each other...the spark was clearly deeper than one brain together. you--you do not look into people. floyd looked into me and saw

not my rapes, not you constantly reminding me how ugly and disgusting i am, telling me i'm "eww" and "gross" and "some guys like soft girls."

all of you, trying to tell me i was never thin, that i was never normal, bunny--and you were the worst! chanda was the one who was fawning all over me, the resident butch bisexual, cooing about how i'm actually beautiful and that i can never go back to glasses--god, i'm glad i realized i have always had cha on my side, and that no one can tell me what we had didn't exist, the secret society of brainiacs, sneaking off for two hours to delight in not having to dumb down a fucking word for anybody. but i don't think it's anyone's fault, just something we needed. maybe that's where i've been getting my airs)

but

all my life

all my life...people have called me ugly

so what's his deal?

this:

ty's a slimeball. oh, he told me he would make sure i never got better. but i said he really was. because nobody who isn't a slime ball threatens you like that.

so. what if

because i was with mosi i was able to see that accepting the bad about my abusers didn't make my life worse, only better, right, this is fact--

therefore the equal and opposite reaction is my natural tendency so i don't feel too "smug"--

people say i like to lord fake rape over everyone, that it's a brandishing sword i love to say is mine

but i don't. i want it gone, and it was gone, but it came back--

so something didn't quite heal, and maybe--

it's partly because i actually ran to new york to keep anyone from knowing i had been boxing up my possessions and writing suicide letters to everyone

since the first nice truly sexual connection i had ever had was marred by rape

and he's the one i started writing terrified long e-mails to. i never wrote e-mails that didn't need to be sent

but everyone who scares me the way mosi scared me gets terrified e-mails because i am so terrified of being raped by that person, and right now it's my BVR counselor

and my intro to shakespeare professor one day because the flashbacks just were not stopping since my BVR counselor's last e-mail, and i told the professor in the end that i supposed i would just cut my losses and move on with thursday's assignment, and that was the end of that

so if i know there are important things that require that i stem that flow

right

i think i've traced it right to the source

right

and maybe...it's...that's the only rape that still fucks me up, the others really don't, right, the others are made peaceable by my understanding of life

but since that was the pivot of my pivotal change into a radical anti-rape ugly-ass motherfucker who can get shot to death, in other people's view...

...and i have come to really like this me, but i have never, ever, ever stopped wanting to put mosi in jail

and i ran and ran and ran

and i would love to see the bastard in jail

because he is a serial rapist and gender and age indiscriminate

he boasts about rape

so i'm not sure i've got much time left

and i'm just pushing it all out so i know i'm me by the time i run out of time

honeydew: skankier than it smells

well, this is relevant.

so it belongs here, not at hearingpeoplesuck.

i'm freaking out big time. the problem is that i keep wishing i had my mom to talk to, a mom who would support me. i just asked for a couple of thousand dollars and a co-signed lease; i said i was tired of pretending i'm okay because she likes to shame me, that i'm tired of letting her tell me i'm no good for the money dad left me and the money i threw away in gobs and wads to keep from having her determination that i deserved the incest all over me, because i had goals and they were good, but everyone said each individual idea of what had to go and what should stay was the only correct one, that everyone including me had it all wrong if i didn't do it x way or z way or mv way. 

so it all made me panic and feel worthless, then i figured out how to stick to my groove, how to turn off the rapists' voices and all the friends's voices saying, " if you don't do what i, as opposed to 50 other people and yourself, say, you are lying about being raped and all you do is worthless."  i have tons and tons of work and ideas done, and i was creative without wanting to be. i was terrified of being stupid or silly, and sometimes i only made stupid stuff because i was too scared and suicidal to think i could do better, but as long as i made junky earrings i wasn't completely divorced from myself.

right?

so i've had three men and one woman try to kill me for saying no to sex.

and i don't want to live because that means writing this, and this means greg will hate me forever too.

but greg is there and i'm still in my body, and i don't want to let that scare me anymore. i will never forget how horrible floyd's disgust feels. i made two small mistakes and one huge fucking blitz of an error in one night, and i realized exactly what went wrong when he mentioned it, but

i just feel giggly stupid and "how naive i was!" and suicidal. i didn't fuck up.

and i never, never, never went back unless i had been trying to kill myself for a few days and was really in need of a friendly face to help me deal with a few months of sexual harassment all over the city. then, right, it was mostly greg. and i love greg.

so serene. it was zen. just so gentle and so nothing, no friendship, nothing but wondering and wonderment about each other, gazing at each other and trying to see what we could never cast into another's person.

it was healing in a different way, and it sapped him none. he literally made it crystal clear that i could sit there anytime he was there. this was the man who glowered at me and tried to force me to leave just by flaring his nostrils at me like i was the devil in a sweet shoppe. i don't think there's any reason for me not to love greg for his acts and hope that he's a lovely person and gets wonderful things in life.

so...all this is happening at once: stuff i can't share without going on for ten pages, and my BVR counselor just isn't letting me be a rape survivor, one who thinks she has finally found a bottom to her hell, one who realizes that her looks make dozens of men look at her, me, like no one would miss me if i were raped and killed to silence me.

but i'm cool, funny, smart, a great cook, an amazing friend, want to adopt two wonderful little boys who would never have to worry about being hit or abused, a writer, a real writer, not a shitty one, i love myself--and i don't want to die

except

i can't get any money from my mom, who says my life is about swindling people out of money, that i lie about everything because i learned it gets me money

but i have tried to kill myself so many times to protect my abusers, my parents included...and many, many times...to keep floyd from ever reading any of this...not asked for help, tried to help everyone else because apparently i just keep causing trouble and am just good for being mocked, right?...so it doesn't make sense. suddenly i'm being treated like someone who just wants to milk my family dry when i'm only trying to stop letting everyone who says it feels amazing to watch me fail because they're so intimidated by my intelligence that it feels great to have more than i do...WIN.

i want a car because i'm in danger. i won't tell anybody who seems like the biggest threat but i am constantly in danger at night of being abducted, and of being raped, and since i'm treated like a menace for being white in my neighborhoods, i would like a car, just to know i won't be falling down on ice and snow and being dragged away.

it's happened 3 times that men have tried to make me get into their cars, and once that my therapist said i had to go on a date with a man who scared me and abducted me that way.

that's why i love greg so much. i got over the abduction and didn't really like going anywhere for a while, so i'd go sit there even when he clearly wasn't there any longer either, except maybe on call, and the calm at that bar didn't affect the brusque redhead gawker attitudes from the new kids. i knew exactly who i was.

so. i just tried to make myself die a lot; when i told ty that i was done with that and that he was done feeding my panic attacks and gorging me so that i fell apart and he got to play therapist every single fucking day...he said...because i wasn't pretty and didn't deserve a good job, money, or anything, because only beautiful people do...i would never be anything but completely deserted and destroyed. that i was only raped because i'm too weak to fight off my rapists, and that that was such a failing i was too pathetic to be respected or allowed anything nice.

he knew, i cried out, that i had been BEATEN and HELD DOWN by my rapists. that i tried to make them stop, that i just couldn't keep running in dorm hallways at night, that it just took a toll on me having guys wait until i was out of high school so they could have their turn.

i never had sex, not properly, not sex without rape or beatings, or at the very least truly violent statements about how ugly my face was, that i would never find a man who wanted me to have his children because of it. my body they literally mooned over, babbled about, once they got me naked. but sometimes after orgasm--i'd find out so much more than i ever wanted to understand--

i've tried to get rapists to kill me. i've tried to be silent so you don't think me insolent, you two. i've tried so hard to stop existing, but i miss writing and drawing, and i miss being fun--

not until 2010. i mean, thank you for that, for giving me the courage to do what every deaf friend of mine who has ever said to me, who has mentioned my looks in a derogatory way, which is: "you can only date ugly men," have actually threatened and hit and pinched and slapped me over, even men who get jealous of my relationships with other men, would not want: i trusted in my worth and uniqueness and zaniness enough to only focus on men who are physically gods and mental giants, men who are so secure in themselves that they want more than looks in a woman, in a sexual partner, and actually base looks on character...and brains and confidence...and do not respond with violence to miscommunication, anger, or mirth. even happiness was a problem for a lot of the guys i did not choose.

so all i'm thinking is...i want to live, and i want to give back to the communities i've had a lot of time to understand or realize are neglected by society and urban planning. that's all. so i'm not sure why BVR refuses to allow me to own my diagnosis of PTSD due to sexual, emotional and physical violence--it really shocked me to the core when i realized that men out there have no problem trying to kill me, and it makes me more determined to work with survivors as well as immigrants as a lawyer--i was told i couldn't handle law school and that i wouldn't be considered if i wanted a career in law due to my PTSD diagnosis and now it's apparently a deterrent to being a nurse--so now i am just freaking out because i don't get why my BVR counselor is telling me that because i was raped i'm no longer me, no longer a productive member of society.

i never knew until 2009 what men wanted to do to me. i thought it was just a bad mix of high school kids who heard rumors about who i wasn't, that the real world would be much kinder.

why do men relish raping me? i don't talk about the things they say. i don't talk about the ones who laugh, the ones who imitate my crying and insistence that they stop because it hurts. i don't talk about the ones who tell me i'm ugly during the act, just before or after.

why is it not allowed for me to feel devastated that i'm targeted by men who want to make me feel bad about myself for my looks? sometimes i'd show up and the guy would get up to leave, saying, "i just came to tell you that you should never date anyone. you're repulsive, you're dog ugly, so please stop trying to act like you're worth dating."

i don't know how to stop hurting over that except to become the person i wanted to be: self-reliant, self-assured, an amazing editor, a writer, an educator, an artist. ever since first grade.

so maybe i deserve that car. maybe i deserve to live somewhere safe. one or the other, or both. if i want to stop living in a state of panic why wouldn't the person who gave birth to me understand that i would pay her back within a year or two?

is it because i'm "the most boring person [she's] ever met"? i was seven then; my parents were married and she said that at the dinner table because she wanted me to shut up. because i'm "so ugly no man would ever marry" me? i was twelve then and she pulled over to laugh at me for my bell's palsy on the way home from the hospital when she finally saw it for herself. she said that i already wouldn't have had an easy time finding a husband and that that ensured that i wouldn't ever get one, not with my face melting. she mocked me, too, pushing half her face down and mooing. my mom doesn't actually see me as human or worth anything. who knew?

so i'm going through something huge right now. and this is really scaring me. what do i do to stop feeling crushed? i just want to be successful, but some people really think i don't have the face to be an artist. since when do artists and writers have faces to the general public?

chiming, chiming

i've been punching myself in the jaw and around the brain really hard for a week now. it's all flooding back and it would be okay but the eyes i see

aren't working, i stopped seeing them for years, no more flashing back like this

except one night in L.A. and then until i met jason, the best friend i could have hoped for, the one who wouldn't let me let my friends bully me into accepting abuse

and now since last tuesday it's been

so

i can't stop it, i can't end it

because

intro to shakespeare is inextricably linked to sexual abuse

audism

and i just panic and try

to kill myself--the story unfolds and i'm just not there anymore

i thought that i didn't need it

that locking eyes and smiles

would keep the devastation at bay, guiding

me into a new skin

it's like you went zen in the time i learned i was alone

i can't stop it because i threw it all away

why do i have to see the eyes

to drown out your gray

everything's connected

and right now it's 

but i'll find a way

to hang on

i've been staying alive

even if i'm afraid it'll mean greg won't see me

as anything but stupid and ugly, which i am

but didn't think i was for so long...now i get it

because how could anyone let something so much smarter

thrive? it threatens the hierarchy and it's not a blunder 

that they want me blazing out a whimper

not the thunder that made me

**

the magic 8 ball book is incomplete

i can't find a keychain to attach

and i can draw a better one, not so afraid

can i please stop trying to die now?

can i please...just...be a good person with that just a part of my life?

pestilence and best-i-cans

i've been trying to kill myself for almost four years, i may have said four going on five, but it's been three going on four--

--actively--

--since i tried to go sit at fort greene park to just stop remembering the rapes

stop worrying about how to ask for greg's information and not be creepy, because dominic didn't believe he'd given it to me in the first place and refused to ask for it again

i swear, the rapes didn't hurt anymore; i was learning how to just be happy being me and not letting these men keep me down, telling me i'm too ugly to say no

but that one, i don't know how to explain, it killed my hope, not because of the rapist

but because my heart finally sang when it saw someone's smile and my pussy was all, "totally just got wet, feel that in your panties?" and my brain was like, "then maybe it could become a friendship or even something...something good"

and i knew that i'd been fighting to stay alive for me and that it'd been a good thing, and that the person who saw me at my most terrified and least able to cope

loved, loved, loved seeing me at my best one night

--and how does something so happy--

survive a rape? i was doing some really important things and making great connections

and it was all--

but i see the rape, i see it, it is the only one i still see

and i came here to become someone new, but what makes me a good me is still here

what makes me a smart me and fun me and fuckable

is still here in spades

and my therapist will understand, she will understand why i'm so afraid of disappointing someone i don't know, a bartender named greg who used to frighten me but then turned into the best ally i could have the summer i was being sexually assaulted, saying i could come when he was tending bar

he has my soul more than floyd

and if i tell

he's going to want me dead, just like floyd

but 

it's not me being bad