(RED)

I've seen two different (RED) things going around, and somehow I managed to conflate the two. The first is (PRODUCT)RED, which is a commercial venture/brand, by which, your purchases send money to help deal with AIDS in Africa. The second was just a national awareness day, on October 31st, to wear red and protest violence against women of color.

In my twisty little brain, I managed to somehow assume that by purchasing (RED) products, some of your money went to help women (colored or white) who were victims of sexual assault, violence and abuse.

I suppose it's not the strangest thing to confuse. (PRODUCT)RED gives diseased Africans anti-virals. I'm honestly unsure as to whether they also give them condoms, but if they don't, they absolutely should, so as to better treat both cause and effect. I once anecdotally heard that red condoms were, by far, the most popular in Africa -- but it doesn't change the fact that a lot of men don't use condoms. Women are looked down on for pressing to use them. Women are more likely to contract AIDS then men during sex, but they are far more highly penalized for having the disease. Even though there's been a redesign of the female condom, there's a lot of fear that it won't be highly adopted. Not only are women more likely to contract AIDS from sex, but if a woman pushes to use a female condom with her husband, it implies that she's been unfaithful (as opposed to protecting herself against her husband's extraneous engagements). So some women may not push for condoms at all. Not to mention, if you're raped, or taken advantage of, how can you insist that your attacker use a condom? Even in the USA, that can be interpreted to imply that you gave your consent.

I hate how all these things get glossed over. Fight AIDS in Africa, buy things. And no where is there a whisper about sex. Or irresponsibility. Or educating women, elevating their status, and changing cultural and sexual mores. For the love of Christ, there are men out there that think sex with a virgin will cure their HIV, so they rape infants. There are men that feel like invulnerable sex-gods, so they have unprotected sex, but beat their wives for wanting to use condoms. Women avoid prophylatic methods for protecting their children against HIV so that their husbands won't find out, because they're afraid for their lives. Black women are more likely to get HIV than white women, of course, women of color are more likely to be under-educated and stuck in backwards, controlling sub-cultures. The social psychology of sex and power is completely fucked.

And it's not just the 3rd world countries or poor blacks, or latinas, or minorities in urban centers, or the white-trash rural south. There's just this incredibly fucked up culture of silence about sexual abuse. I don't understand it. What the fuck is going on? Why? By the time I was 13, three of my close friends had been raped; two by their step-father, one by a farm-hand on her parents' ranch. By the time I was 18, that number more than doubled. It started including the ever-confusing acquaintance rape/date-rape. Girls are told it's not rape unless it's violent, there's enough ambiguity over consent vs violation vs bad idea that Cosmo created "gray rape." I've never been violently raped, but I've had (and for the most part, narrowly avoided) my own fucked up encounters. I mean... who hasn't? And isn't that the real kick in the teeth. Who hasn't?

Also, in all of these cases, from the incest to drunken not-so-consensual sex-- everyone knew, but no one said a God-damned thing. Maybe, sometimes, we wanted to pretend everything was okay, or we even felt like we or our friends had somehow deserved it/asked for it. A girl made a bed, so she had to sleep in it. And all these things go beyond middle-school or high-school hearsay. In fact, they just keep going. I now (peripherally) know women who have been assaulted in their own homes and been mistreated by the system when they tried to prosecute their rapists. They aren't just women you read about in the newspapers. God, it makes me scared of what I don't know about. And the older I get, the worse it gets, even here in enlightend New England with all the privileged kids and empowered, educated women. I'm 26 and I'm still learning how get over the Midwestern mores that good women 'act nice,' and are 'tolerant,' and are 'polite,' and learn to stand up to assholes who don't deserve the time of day. Yet, I'm also completely affronted when I find out one of my friends tolerates sexual harassment at work, or didn't punch some creep in the balls who deserved it.

I give money to Planned Parenthood and the ACLU, but I never walk my ass down to the women's shelters and volunteer my time. I suppose it's because no matter how much I try to support people, I have no idea how to solve the root problem. Yet, I still get into a boiling rage every time I'm in a club and some asshole tries to stick his crotch in my face, or grind up against me without my permission, and then calls me a slut when I give him the cold shoulder. And I'm supposed to ignore those things -- let it wash over me -- pretend like it's a routine part of being an adult woman... but it's not. It shouldn't be. Why does the routine have to mean putting up with everything from being touched by uninvited persons, or having the man next to me on the bus masturbate while he looks at me? To having to deal with boyfriends who push for unprotected sex (maybe to prove you trust/love them, as opposed to having common sense), with the girl having to be the one to constantly say 'no.' To going out on dates with guys who inexplicably think it's okay to not be sexually screened in-between partners, who expect dinner and a movie to get them laid (and of course, being accused of leading them on when you consequently don't put out). To having to tolerate being called a "little lady," at work or in school when gender has nothing to do with your skills, to worrying about whether a friend will get promoted or fired because she's pregnant... and then to getting to hold a close friend while she cries hysterically because she's terrified of men after being sexually abused as a little kid. Even when I can rationalize each individual scenario away in my life or the lives of the women I know, the overwhelming prevalence of crap is to make me run screaming. Nothing in there should be part of a typical routine.

Rape victim cries every day and sleeps in clothes. I should not have first-hand experience enough to say, "Yeah, that sounds about right." In fact, I'm seeing red.