Why do men?

A fucking global 'rape academy'?!

I have the urge to write. I don’t have a plan, I just have the urge to bash away at my laptop keyboard and see what happens. Whatever follows will be my thoughts & opinions.

Sat at my desk, cup of coffee to hand, staring through my window at the freshly cut green outside. I’m tired, angry, frustrated, overwhelmed, a raft of all kinds of feelings and emotions flooding my brain and my body.

The past few days have been, well, pretty fucking shitty. That’s actually putting it mildly. Many of us have spent much time being incandescent with rage after the CNN report dropped about a ‘rape academy’ for men. An ‘academy’ educating them on drugging and raping women, including their own wives. Yes, their wives.
Wives who they are supposed to love, protect. Wives who thought their husbands were being caring when they brought them cups of tea after a hard day, not knowing that those cups of tea were drugged. Drugged so their husband, a person who they trusted, could rape them, even film them, while they lay unconscious. Consent means absolutely fuck all to these pieces of shit.
And this isn’t just one place, this is GLOBAL.
After the news broke, many women have been sharing their own stories of abuse, sexual assault & rape. Absolutely horrific, heartbreaking stories. Social media has been flooded with fellow women consoling & supporting each other, while raging at the men and society that have let us all down so badly.
We also have the rape apologists, pedantic fuckwads, the ‘not all men’ brigade, the ‘whatabout-ists’, even the ‘clothing is the problem’ twats, shouting their mouths off & daring to get offended & double down when they are called out for it.

It’s fucking sickening.

NB
I want to add here that I know that it isn’t just women who have horrific stories to tell and trauma to heal from. I don’t feel knowledgeable enough to talk about the SA & abuse of men, so I don’t think it’s appropriate for me to speak on this.
I’m not dismissing it, far from it, it just doesn’t feel right for me to speak about it in this piece of writing.

I can, however, talk about how I feel as a woman and a wife.

I remember having self defence classes as part of P.E at my secondary school, back in the early 1990s. We’d have been 14, maybe 15 years old.
Learning the defensive moves, the “shout fire” instead of ‘help’ because more people are likely to come running (which is fucking shocking. To this day, this fucks me off immensely), the keys between your knuckles, etc, etc.

Do you know who didn’t have those self defence classes?

The boys.

Of course they didn’t. I have no idea if they had classes on how not to be a complete fucking bastard, on respecting boundaries, on the importance of consent and basic decent human behaviour. (I could probably hazard a guess & say “no they fucking didn’t”)

We, as girls, as women, have had it drummed into us from a young age all the usual stuff about protecting ourselves…
“be aware of your surroundings”, “don’t walk down a badly lit street”, “keep your keys handy”, “keep your thumb over the top of your bottle”, “don’t accept drinks from someone you don’t know”. In recent years, “ keep your phone handy and switched on” ,“ take photos of the taxi number & id”, “text me when you’re back home”.
The list goes on and on.

We have always had to be the ones on alert. It’s fucking exhausting. And fucking rage inducing. Society has always pushed the narrative that we’re the ones who are responsible for the actions of the fuckwads who decide it’s fun to sexually assault women. Those who can’t control their own fucking behaviour & let their depraved fantasies of power over women to spill into reality. That we have to be constantly aware of possible dangers & situations that could put us right in the way of a predator, as well as having to suss out how to fucking get out of those situations safely if they do occur.
The responsibility should not just be on us women ( & girls). Men need to take fucking responsibility and accountability for this stuff.
I know some men do, a lot of men do, however, this doesn’t remove them from the collective. I’ll link a video at the end of this to explain why.

… Now, I want to go back to that “list” of things us women are regularly told…

This here is where we circle back on the subject of the CNN article.
These men are husbands, partners, loved ones. Men who were known, trusted, loved by the women in their lives. It should have been safe. Accepting a drink from a loved one shouldn’t be something to be afraid of or on high alert about.
But these men decided to take a sledge hammer to that trust. They specifically sort out this information, how to rape their wife/partner while they lay unconscious. They made that choice to take away the consent of their partners. To learn how to degrade and destroy the women these men supposedly loved. They made that choice to drug their wives so they could fulfil sick fantasies of sex without consent… let’s call it what it is… RAPE.
The women who trusted them. The women they promised to protect.

As a wife, this thought destroys me. I 100% trust my husband not to harm me or even think of harming me, but I bet so many of these women felt the same. This makes me sick, furious and absolutely heartbroken.

We’ve all been taught to look over our shoulders & be aware of strangers, yet here we are, once again, raging because the monsters were in the house all along.
It’s too often. Too many women going through utter hell at the hands of the person they loved & trusted.
And far too many fucking men thinking this is okay.
Even one man thinking this is okay is too many.
Things need to change.
Society & attitudes need to change for the better.
Women are sick and fucking tired of being the ones to shoulder the responsibility.

It’s no surprise that we chose the bear.

I leave you with this fantastic clip from Daniel Sloss, on men holding men accountable.