Sen. Sessions needs some schooling on assault

A clueless Jeff Sessions thinks it's not sexual assault to grab a woman by the genitals. I have news for him.

A clueless Jeff Sessions thinks it’s not sexual assault to grab a woman by the genitals. I have news for him.

In nearly every instance, I’m committed to nonviolence, but that doesn’t mean I can’t think about what I would like to see happen to a man who thinks grabbing a woman’s genitals isn’t sexual assault.

I would like to see someone grab him by the genitals and twist until they come off.

I would like to see him attacked as he walks to his car at night and then told it was his fault because his tie was too sexy or he shouldn’t have been alone in the parking garage at night or he looked suggestively at his attacker during Congressional testimony that afternoon. And then I would like to tell him myself that he should just get over it.

I would like to see him sent to a re-education camp staffed entirely by women who have survived sexual violence.

Would I actually do these things? No. But I can dream.

I am a survivor, and I am so deeply offended by the potential appointment of this miscreant to the office of Attorney General of the United States that all I can do is think about what I would like to see happen to him.

For me, the sexual violence began when I was just 3.

That’s right, I was still a toddler.

I have never known a time when my body was my own to do with as I pleased. I didn’t know what it was to say no to sexual advances, even as a little girl. My body belonged to my assailant until I was 11 and I finally found the courage to say no.

I later was raped as an adult, and I believe part of the reason was that I still wasn’t convinced my body really belonged to me. I have since decided it does, and that I will defend it.

So, I have some expertise in this area, and I have a few words for Mr. Sessions:

Until you have been objectified and grabbed because some man thinks he has a right to your body, you don’t have any idea what sexual assault does to a woman.

And, yes, grabbing a woman by the “pussy” is assault.

In nonviolence training, we’re taught that even touching someone can be classed as assault, so if I can be charged with assault for putting my hand on your shoulder, you certainly are guilty if you grab my lady parts — any of my lady parts.

You are not superior to me, nor do you have any rights over my body. You may think you do, but I’m telling you the only time I am even tempted to do violence to another human being is when a man thinks he has dominion over my body.

This means I will believe any woman who tells me she has been assaulted because even though there are cases of women lying, those cases are rare.

My body is mine and mine alone and neither you or any other man will tell me what I can or can not do with it. You will not touch me without my express permission. You will not tell me I can’t have birth control. You will not tell me I can’t choose to terminate a pregnancy.

These are my choices.

Women’s bodies are not pleasure palaces for your penis, Mr. Sessions. My “pussy” is mine, not yours or any other man’s. I will decide who can touch me and who can not. I will decide what happens with my body because I claim dominion over it.

We are not going back to the days when you could claim us as chattel. We are going to determine our own destinies.

We will decide when and if we want you to touch us in any way.

We will decide whether we want to bear children, and when.

We will have control over our lives and we will shun despicable characters such as you, Mr. Sessions.

 

 

 

The anti-life brigade

anti-lifers

I went to a rally last night in support of women’s health, reproductive and otherwise.

Let’s just remember first of all, that abortion is legal, and it needs to remain so.

When I was advised to have an abortion, I chose not to, with the operative word here being chose. But then his heart was stopped by a system that refused to give him the medical care he needed. When we fix that, we can start to talk about abortion.

After promising he wouldn’t sign any new restrictions on women’s right to choose, Gov. McCrory signed new restrictions into law, and now more restrictions are about to hit his desk. We’ll see if he breaks his promise again.

Of course, as soon as the anti-abortion folks heard about the demonstration, they showed up with their signs and intimidation tactics (they stood nearby, taking photos of us, I guess for their web sites). We responded by taking photos of them.

I decided to engage. I asked whether they supported the right of every human being to have access to health care. At first they didn’t want to talk because a television reporter was interviewing one of them.

I repeated my question.

“Well, that’s a matter of opinion,” one of them said.

“So’s your cause,” I said. “What’s your opinion?”

“But it’s aboutĀ babies’ lives,” another man said.

“My son was a baby once,” I said. “He died at 33 because he couldn’t get care. He did nothing wrong. What about his life? What about the lives of the five to seven people who die in North Carolina every day because we won’t expand Medicaid?”

“It’s about the babies,” the man said.

Mothers’ lives don’t matter. The already-born can drop dead for all they care.

“Then stop calling yourself pro-life,” I said. “Life continues after birth, and if you don’t support it, you’re not pro-life.”

This isn’t just about babies. It’s about the lives of mothers and about the lives of grinding poverty many of these babies face after they’re born because their parents can’t find decent jobs.

These anti-lifers want nothing more than to force women to pump out babies. Many of them are also against contraception and support allowing a boss to fire an employee for using it. Some of them want to force women to carry non-viable fetuses to term; some also want to criminalize miscarriage.They say rape is wrong, but many support a rapist’s parental rights after they have forced a woman to have his child, keeping him — and the trauma of the crime he committed — in her life forever.

These are not reasonable people, but their out-of-the-mainstream views are becoming law in states across the country.

Many media people are trying to make them sound reasonable. In fact, last night the media paid more attention to them than to the demonstration.

When women’s clinics close, they’re labeled “abortion clinics,” even when abortion is only about 10 percent of what they do. I write a letter to the editor every time I see that, but the letters are’t always published, and I’m sure they’re not read in numbers as great as the original story.

Planned Parenthood was my health care provider for several years when I didn’t have health insurance. I don’t know what I would have done without that clinic. I had to walk through some screaming meanies to get to my checkups and cancer screenings because the media perpetuate the myth that everyone walking into a women’s health clinic is there forĀ an abortion. Planned Parenthood helped me avoid an unwanted pregnancy.

I know some who oppose abortion also support helping poor families cope, feeding children, paying their parents a living wage, are anti-war and against the death penalty. Those people are in the minority of a movement that wants to subjugate women more than it wants to protect babies.

Unless you are willing to support life after it emerges from the birth canal, you are not pro-life and I will call you out.

It’s part of my mission to educate people.