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Sexual crimes and prostitution

We live in a rape culture

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Im starting the new year writing a lot about sexual crimes, some may find it a bit annoying but hey, deal with it! This is a subject we can never discuss to much. And its also good to write about this when so many men for once care about the safety of women. Even if most of them only seem to care about blaming others its still a start and we do have to start somewhere…

Something most of us women are fully aware of byt men try to deny is the fact that we live in a rape culture. That almost every man if asked directly will dissociate himself from any kind of rape or sexual assault is pointed out as an evidence that rape is in no way accepted and that a rape culture does not excist. If we do accept this way of argueing I feel that i have to point out that no rape culture excist in countries like India, Afghanistan, Eritrea, Sudan etc either. Because even in those countries rape is viewd as a despicable thing and in some of this countires rape is punished with a lifetime in prison or public flogging. The thing about a rape cultur is not the societeys theoretical view on rape but how they treat those who report that they have been raped, and in what is actually seen as a rapecase.

It is to no help at all to hate rape, and in the meantime have the opinion that women who acts is certain ways, dress in certain ways or have the ”wrong” people around them cant be raped and only gets what they deserv. Another problem is the opinion that rape cant be performed in a romantic relationship. The opinions that women have their selfe to blame if they are raped becaus of how they acted earlier during the day/night, or because of their clothes are something thats deeply embedded in the Swedish and western culture. It can be seen in the way people react to reported rapes, in jokes and of course in how the courts reason when they choose not to sentence a man for rape even when all evidence show that they should.

kvinnohat

The comments read, from the top: 1. Its not rape if you are sleeping since you dont fight back and are considered willing to have sex. Stop the whining. 2. Its a ”Suprise Buttsex” so its not rape since te person didnt say yas or no. 3. BTDT, If you have been a couple for a while its common that it is ok to ”hit it” while the other is asleep, ye know, as long as you tell why its leaking out the ass in the morning. 4. Why cant all biter pussys and womens rights activists shut up and start maturbate to Mona Sahlin (Swedish feminist) instead?! This is love on a high lever cant you tell? 5. If she is lying half naked beside him, how in hell can it be rape then? 6. Lets say this was a real event and not a cartoon picture, if the girl did wanted to be wakened this way its not rape right? So to call this a rape only shows how damn stupid you are.

What do you tink, will these normal swedish guys get where the line for rape goes in a relationship if they think that kind of behaviour is all right? If they believe that someone who has fallen asleep beside them automatically have given concent to sex? No, i think not. This is not a unusal way to look at sex in a relationship and that women have some kind of duty to have sex for the ”better good of the relationship” is an opinion that is widely spread. Sex against someones will is always rape, yet professionals in the health care system still give women the advice to suck it up and have sex even if they dont want to so that their partner can get what he wants.

If we look at how courts get to give a verdict of not guilty its almost magical in the ways the courts bend over backwards to fins a way to free a man from rape. Even if the woman have said no, yelled so much she lost her voice about how she dont want to have sex or repeatedly trying to get away from the situation the court can still find a way to deem the guy not guilty. Offen with explanations about how the guy didnt understand the no, thought it was a game or part of BDSM or whats in Sweden is called ”nagging sex”, not rape. The pictures shows some eamples of headlines from articles about rape cases.

First one reads: ”13 year old should have made more recistance”- 16 year old get free from rape accusation after having forced a 13 year old girl to have anal sex. She did want to have sex, just not anal sex and therefor should have been able to make the boy stop…

Second one: 16 year old freed from accusations of rape. The girl got shot by a soft airgun and forced to have sex. ”They where all in on the game” the court explains…

Third: ”He thought No meant Yes. Sentenced not guilty of rape”

Last one: ”The girl tried to out on her clothes and get away. ”She might have said no but that doesnt mean its rape” says the judge. ”The sex might have been against her will but if they didnt put her in a helpless state its not rape”

 

Nice isnt it? This is a big part of the rape culture. The last part is the attitude towards the victims. Something that is everyday life when it comes to rape in Sweden is to blame the victim. In this we also have things like ”well meaning” advice from the police to women to not drink, think about what they weare or not even go alone by taxi in the night. In the same time no advice is given to men in how not to rape…. In the summer a lot of rapes is blamed on the alcohol consumtion on festivals and bars. Women are frequently asked to think about how much they drink and to not end up as the only girl at an afterparty. No one tells te men to lessen te risk of rape by take it easy on the alcohol and not end up at an afterparty whit a lonely girl. No one tells the guys what to do because in a rape culture the women are expected to take responsibility for the mens sexuality. It offen get explained by the fact that it is the girl who get hurt so its in her interest to not get raped, like men dont have an interest in not hurting another human being….

That rape is viewed upon witch such discust is paradoxically abog part to why the rape culture excist. For once the view of rape as the most horrific crime makes it a valid treath towars women and a perfect way to punish someone or show power but putting them thru ”the worst crime”. The threath of sexual violence is something all women have had to learn to deal with in the everyday life, and it starts by learning as a kid that being raped is the worst thing that can happen and that we have to be aware of the risks. Second the view of rape as even worse than murder makes it mor or less impossible for anyone to admit that someone they know and love can be a rapist, or that themself have raped someone. Its so much easier to blame the victim than to accept that a friend, brother, lover or anyone else in their surroundings has commitet the wors crime. Because of that the myth about women accusing innocent guys of rape is spread everywhere. On a right wunged extremist site they claimed that a anonymous police had said that 8 out of 10 rape cases with an unknown rapist was fake accusations made so that the victim could get money. If its true that policeofficers think like that maybe that can explain a bit about why almost every case doesnt reatch a court, and even less cases lead to the offender being convicted….

IN Sweden most people know about what happened in the small town called Bjästa. Two young girls reported a guy for rape. He got convicted in both cases. Even though he was found guilty the whole town of Bjästa stood by his side and started hate campaigns towards the girls, wishing them dead, or ”raped for real”.  One of them had to move 500 km to another town to be left alone. Even if Bjästa was a bit extreme its not at all unusal with rape cases ending with the girl having to move from the town she lives in because of all the blame and hate she receives. The pictures is about vitimblaming, for example a girl that people say is lying about rape because she still hang out with boys and wears somewhat revealing clothes.

 

When a rape has occured its standard that rumors start to circulate about the girl who made the report, about how shes a whore, that she cant have been raped beacuse shes not acting lika a ”real victim” or that she just wants the atention. Those rumors are spread by girls as much as by boys who want to misscredit the girls story. Girls jump on this kind of rumors to get acceptance by the boys and also to give them self a fake kind of security that they are to smart to be raped.

When I repordet a sexual crime commited by a teacher was the reaction both in media, on the internet and locally that I was lying to get attention. It was so obvious to them all that i was lying because everyone knows how girls in highschool are… Amongs the students they started a hate campaign against me talking about how I had sex with teatchers to get higher grades. Im not looking for sympathy im only trying to show how normal those things are.

All of this is what rape culture is all about. To be against rape in theory has nothing to do with if rape culure are real or not, its all about how the victims are treated when a rape is reported. In todays society theres a long way to go, to put it mildley. Those men, and women, who still denies the existence of a rape culture  is part in how this can go on. They are almost equally responsible as the ones doing the rape and they should be ashamed. To deny the existence of a rape culture is to kick one the ones allready lying down: The victims of rape.

Adoptionpolitics

In the land of inbetween.

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To live ”Inbetween” is nothing new but its not offen talked about in Sweden. Thats why i will start the new year of 2016 to write about this. The ”inbetweenship” is what a lot of us adoptees but also children to immigrants has to deal with.

The inbetweenships is about expectations from the society that we are suppose to be part of a culture people _think_ we belong when they see our exterior (african culture, south american culture etc), but in the meantime we are expected to be fully intergrated with the community we live in. The first part make us exkluded from the second part. We are viewed upon as not belonging in Sweden, that we are not ”real swedes” or that we dont have a given place in Sweden, but since we have lived in Sweden and know only the Swedish culture we dont fit in if we should go back to the country where we have our roots. Going back where we, or our parents, was born we are acting, and are treated, like common turists.

As an adoptee the inbetweenship can become extra  visible. Where immigrants and their children can find support and community with each other the adoptee stands alone. We who are adopted offen grow up in an almost white surroundng, missing out on the chance to interact with people we can mirror ourselves in. The representation in media is also extremley white which gives us few oportunities to find characters in movies, TV or books to relate to. To talkt about this as an adoptee is hard, we are expected to not have an need to see children from around the world on tv, or to be able to fins non stereotypical characters fom the countrys we where born in, in the childrens book we are reading. To talk about such topics, about the fact that you dont feel fully att home in the country is a huge risk to take, one easily get pointed out as whiney, egocentrical and ungrateful for complaining.

 

adoption

If your adopted you should only be grateful to be here, to not feel at home because of the racist society is seen as accusations towards those who has adopted. Because of this a lot of adoptees keep silent about how they feel inbetween cultures. Searching for roots to try to find some kind of belonging is a big step to make for an adoptee. Will the adoptive parents think that the adoptee dont like them any more? What will happen if the biological parents are found? Its not unusal that adoptees searching their roots are called backwards going and silly. ”DNA is not everything”, ”Why is what you have enough?” – Thats how it can sound, or worse. If you on top of this also are chritical to how international adoption is performed, or the fact that a lot of adoptees end up in between cultures, than it can really make people go into a spin of pure hatred that you are not grateful enough. We are supposed to be happy and grateful, anything else is wrong and we have only our self to blame if we are not happy with the way society treats us.

To talk about this ”inbetweenship”, especially for adoptees, is also important if we are going to have an understanding for what happens when adoptees, or other, is trying to find an identity in this society. Lately i have seen people of color who have an secure identity in their culture laugh at and make fun of  adoptees and others who try to find where they belong. They are accused of ”faking it”, trying to seem exposed, or in some cases being accused of not being a victim of racism at all since they are not been growing up in the ”hood”. (The hood in Sweden is suburbs to the bigger cities lika Stockholm and Gothenburg with a high population of immigrants)  This fixation of being from ”the hood” have made people romanticize living in the hood. To be from the hood is seen as a evidence that you are ”racialized for real” and suddenly we who are adopted find ourselves once again out in the cold. Most of us who are adopted are not from the hood, many of us have never lived there, but that does not mean that we dont have to face racism, or that we are not racialized. Besides, ”the hood” is something that excist in one way or another in all cities in Sweden, and I can tell you when i grew up I was jealous of those who grew up in Stockholm for example, because they got something i didnt: Somewhere they belonged.

When people who didnt grew up in the hood, but who are racialized, is trying to mimic cultural expressions created in the hood they are trying to find somewhere they can fit in. its not about trying to fake it. Its about finding a place where you are accepted for who you are, where you can see yourself in the people around you and talk to people who allso know about the racism you meet. Guess if it hurts when this search is met with mockery and exclusion? The inbetweenship make us who are stuck between cultures to walt a thin line all the time. If we seek to much acceptance and community white the white population theres a huge risk of internalisize racism and start turning against other people of color. If we try to reenforce our cultural heritage from the coutry we or our parents was born the risk is instead that we make western mistakes, or get accused of faking our roots. No matter what we do we cant make the right thing and get forced back to living between cultures in the lack of a place to fit in.

By talking more about this we who experience being in between can start finding our own comunity with each other, rather than with those who has the privilige of never having to doubt where they belong. Theres not only problem with the mockery of thos who live between cultures, but also a witch hunt on what is called ”identity politics”(idpol for short). Idpol has an important place in the political discussion, not always but often. Its easy for those wo never have experienced a lack of belonging to say that identity is not important, but for those who has never had the chance to fully belong identity matter, and for all of us (even with a strong identity and belonging) that again and again has to hear that our identity is not good enough for this society identiy gets even more important. Its about reclaiming who we are, to belong and to be able to say ”This is who I am and this is where i belong!”

lost

 

To be inbetween is a constan nagging feeling of being lost. To look for your home but never finding it. Its door being closed in your face over and over againg and in the samte time when you try to talk about it having people telling you its not happening, that this is where you supposed to be. To live inbetween is a long line of contradictions and its not easy to get past, but if we start talking about it some more, maybe a few of us get a chance to find their way.