Ahh, to be famous...

**Trigger warning for discussion of sexual assault, rape and victim blaming**

What do the President of the IMF, the former Governor of California, an information 'freedom fighter' and a Hollywood Director have in common? Why, sexual assault of course!

I know what you're thinking. "No, no Ms. FC, you mean sexual assault accusations." Ahh yes, pardon me! Rape accusations thrown at famous men because womyn are opportunistic whores. Ahh yes, my bad.

So the President of the IMF, Mr. Dominique Strauss-Kahn (DSK) has been arrested on charges of at least 1 sexual assault of a hotel room cleaning staff. He's also been accused of sexually assaulting at least 1 journalist a few years ago. In fact, Mr. DSK was known as being quite the 'charmer'.

Then you've got the Governator himself who is not only filing for divorce from his Democratic wife Maria Shriver over allegations of cheating (and fathering a 'love child'), he also has a well documented history of being well... grabby.

Julian Assange was accused of sexually assaulting two womyn, but we all know that didn't happen because he's a lefty who wants to take down the greedy government, so it's clearly all just a big old conspiracy to take him down.

And Roman Polanski? Look dude might have anally raped a young girl that he had plied with drugs, but her mom shouldn't have let her come over anyway and it was such a long time ago. Plus, have you seen Chinatown? Cinematic gold!

FYI - This list fails to include athletes, although we could easily talk about Kobe Bryant, Ben Roethlisberger, and Check-Out-Photos-Of-My-Dick Brett Favre.

See, when it comes to sexual assault, you're pretty much off the hook to begin with, but if you happen to be famous? You're in the clear, my dear!

Every time these 'scandals' come out, we hear the same victim-blaming bullshit, we have other 'celebrities' coming out to 'support them' and we have this whole conspiracy theory machine that states that they're being unfairly scrutinized because they're rich and famous.

To which I say - so what?

Why are we appalled that Paris Hilton only spent a few days in jail for drinking and driving but we're downright infuriated that DSK's case is being investigated at all?

Sexual assault, unlike most crimes, is rife with stereotypes. There are stereotypes around who commits sexual assault, who is actually sexually assaulted, who 'cries rape', etc.

According to the myths, who commits sexual assaults? Well, old men with mental illnesses, of course! They are always strangers to the victim in question, have some sort of sick sexual fetish and in many cases are a person of colour/Queer/disAbled, etc.

Does that mean that never fits the profile? Absolutely not. But the % of people who sexually assault who fit this very narrow and specific profile is slim.

And because we continue to perpetuate this same sadistic bullshit, we are equally appalled by the profile of the rapist as we are by the crimes themselves.

Need I remind you of Colonel Russell Williams? People were SHOCKED that a decorated Colonel in the Canadian Armed Forces committed such heinous crimes and yet, it makes perfect sense. Here is a man with ample amounts of power who leads a secretive life where people who know him fully understand that they don't really know him. Not to mention how he was trained to do just that.

And because we continue to perpetuate the stereotype of who is a rapist we continue to victim blame those who are assaulted by someone who doesn't 'fit the profile', because we just don't believe someone like them could do something like that.

Newsflash, skeptics: Rapists come in every size and flavour. They are decorated military colonels, actors, directors, governors, weight lifters, city councillors, janitors, fathers, sons, cousins, colleagues and people of every background, ethnicity, age, socio-economic status, ability and sexual orientation.

Maybe we don't want to believe this because it's too scary to think about. Maybe we want to believe that rapists are easy to spot so that we can sleep better at night, knowing that our radar is on the right people. But this isn't helping anybody.

This mentality is blaming womyn unnecessarily, it's framing men of colour/queer men/ disAbled men/ poor men as sexual predators and it's allowing rich, entitled, privileged piece of shit dudes walk away, consequence free.

I don't know about you, but I don't want to live in a world in which we let people get away with sexual assault just because they wear a nice suit and have cushy bank accounts. I gotta believe that we are better than this.

** I'm willfully interchanging the words sexual assault and rape here just for the sake of being concise **

Oh Pope, You've Got To Be Kidding Me

I've said it before and I'll say it again, sometimes the jokes just write themselves. This lovely headline is a perfect example

"Future priests should undergo psychological screening: Vatican"

Paging Captain Obvious!

Naturally, I think anyone who considers a life of priesthood, that is a life of poverty, celibacy and a whole lotta misogyny should be evaluated for mental stability. I mean let's face it, the job description isn't exactly enticing.

So when I first read this headline, I thought "WOOHOO! The Vatican is on to something!" and then I realized, surprise surprise, that they weren't.

You see, these "psychological tests" are the Vaticans response to the multitude of lawsuits they've received because of child sexual abuse. Let's be honest. The stereotype of a child molesting priest came from somewhere. So instead of examining the types of people who want to become priests or changing the rule of strict celibacy, they decide to "test" potential priests.

What exactly are these tests looking for?

In a nutshell, homosexuality. Yes, that's right - homosexuality.

"The Vatican, in a 2005 document, said men with "deep-seated" homosexual tendencies shouldn't be ordained, but that those with a "transitory problem" could become priests if they had overcome them for three years. The Vatican considers homosexual activity sinful.

The new guidelines say priests must have a "positive and stable sense of one's masculine identity" and the capacity to "integrate his sexuality in accordance" with the obligation of celibacy."

Translation: They don't want child touching homos.

Which is ironic, you know, because I know lots of gay men and well none of them are child touchers. And every pedophile I have ever known, heard of or dealt with was a self-identified heterosexual man.

And of course, a man in a long dress with a gold hat who lives in a giant castle with a bunch of dudes is really the one to judge. (Cue Margaret Cho)

Naturally, gay rights groups are up arms for the way in which the Vatican is not only continuing their homophobic attitude of being anti-gay but also for conflating pedophilia with homosexuality.

Hey Pope, here's a lesson for you:

Homosexuals are people who are attracted to people of the same sex. They engage in sexual activities with similar, consenting adults. Pedophiles are people who are attracted to and engage in sexual activity with unconsenting children.

Let me just make this clearer for you. I know Pope, you're old and senile so sometimes you need a little extra help.

HOMOSEXUALITY = GOOD
PEDOPHILIA = BAD

Homosexuality and pedophilia DO NOT GO TOGETHER. Kinda like how Catholicism and common sense don't go together.

Get it? Good. Now go back to bed.

**Now I know that this picture is of the Old Pope, but I mean c'mon.. this picture is amazing.

Lullabies for Sexist Criminals

Sometimes, I'm rather naive. I read that a Canadian womyn successfully sued her Meth dealer and thought "Good Lord, the courts can't get any worse than this!" Oh, how I was so, so wrong.

Crown prosecutors are currently attempting to have sexsomnia declared a mental illness. Sexsomnia is pretty self-explanatory. Apparently some people sleep walk and well.. screw. They get out of bed, completely unaware and boink somebody (or something).

The reason why this is in the courts is because an Ontario man sexually assaulted a womyn and then claimed that he was suffering sexsomnia and had no recollection of the event. Yeah. Pause on that one and read it again. Done? Okay, let us move on.

Luedecke alleges that during a party at a Toronto home in 2003, he got drunk and fell asleep on a couch.His lawyers maintained that while Luedecke was in a dissociative sleepwalking state, he went over to a woman who was sleeping on an adjacent couch, lifted up her skirt, put on a condom and began sexual intercourse with her.

Okay.. it clearly states that he was drunk. Now maybe he doesn't "remember" because he was three sheets to the wind? Or maybe it's just a convenient goddamn excuse? Yeah, I'll choose option B for 500$ Alex.

I'm not a psychiatrist or a Crown prosecutor, but I am a support worker who works with sexual assault survivors and I can tell you that these kinds of bullshit excuses are used all the time. Mostly because there's way too much evidence to disprove that it happened so they come up with some kinda crap story about being asleep, too drunk to remember or in some sort of trance.

Who exactly is our justice system protecting?

Seriously. This is 2008. In Canada. And we're going to declare sexsomnia a mentall illness? This is such a slippery slope. We acknowledge that and then we'll be acknowledging "Your honour, I was listening to some really intense Backstreet Boys music and I just got so into the music, I couldn't help myself". Give it a year. It'll happen.

Trauma-Rama

There's a story of intense complexity emerging out of Manitoba right now.

It's incredibly complicated but what I wish to focus on here is this: A former soldier, who had served in Bosnia, admitted to having sexually assaulted a 14 year old girl upon his return to Canada. He was let off without jail time because his lawyers argued that he suffered from post-traumatic-stress disorder (Good o'l PTSD). Now, they are ordering a new trial because apparently his previous lawyers had failed to prove that he did in fact suffer from PTSD. So right now there's a re-trial.

This case is important because it's the first time someone successfully used war-related PTSD as a defense and won. This is important to note because:

In 2003, an Alberta judge rejected PTDS as a defence for a former soldier who rammed his sport-utility vehicle into a military office and assaulted a military police officer.

Now... I have many many critiques of the medical model of care, especially in issues of sexual assault. But those are for another time and another day. My issue here is hum...

- Man comes back from war, rams his car into a military structure and assaults an officer and this is deemed NOT RELATED TO HIS TIME AT WAR

- But, buddy sexually assaults his friend's 14 year old daughter and that is deemed completely related to PTSD.

Someone stop this train wreck and explain that to me.

Now I'm not naive and I do know quite a bit about PTSD and even more about the critiques of it (mostly how it's a giant umbrella term thrown over everything that ranges from war to incest). But I have a really, really hard time understanding how this guy was able to prove that going to war, and in this case Bosnia which relatively speaking, was pretty tame for the Canadian soldiers, made him sexually assault an innocent Canadian girl. Especially considering the events he said led him to become so scarred for life are now being dis-proven. Buddy didn't even have proof that the events he claimed made him go loco even occurred.

This case is so unbelievably complicated. Did he, in fact suffer from PTSD? Can PTSD make you sexually assault someone, considering the trauma this man claims to have been suffering from was not in fact sexual in nature? As in, he didn't suffer PTSD from ritual abuse or incest, he witnessed the desolation of Bosnia. And if he did suffer from PTSD and it was (although I highly doubt it) the reason for his assault, who's responsible? The Canadian government for sending him there? The military recruitment office, for encouraging him to be there in the first place?

Who is truly responsible in this case? And is that what even matters?

*ponder*