CRS
Chandler, Arizona, United States

There's an old saying. If you don't want someone to join a crowd, you ask them, "If everyone were jumping off of a cliff, would you?" Well, I have. So my answer would be "Yes". True story.
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Sean Hannity And Preventing Rapes With Guns, Because That Works

Sunday, July 21, 2013

this entry brought to you by gorillaz, "clint eastwood"


There was a woman named Zerlina Maxwell on Sean Hannity's Fox show; she is a writer and television commentator, as well as a rape survivor. And, predictably, Sean Hannity said that if a woman has a gun, she can protect herself, and prevent these things from happening.

Now, Maxwell had a very smart, eloquent answer for that. Much smarter and more eloquent than I would have. Her approach to preventing rape isn't to teach women how to avoid being raped, because it doesn't change why it happens. What we need to do, she correctly says, is to teach men not to rape. We need to raise awareness of what rape culture is, we need to raise awareness of what "consent" means.

For some reason, there is a psychotic conservative mentality that Hannity was displaying that MORE GUNS SOLVE ALL PROBLEMS ALWAYS, and her response to MORE GUNS SOLVE ALL PROBLEMS ALWAYS was the following, paraphrased:

The picture of rape that Hannity, and most people who do not understand rape culture have, is a very specific, and exaggerated, almost cartoonish form of rape, and while the man waiting behind the bush does in fact exist and happens, most women are raped by men they know. So for example, if a woman is at a party and proceeds to be coerced into drinking too much and then raped, how would a gun help in that situation? Maxwell's answer is that guns are a totally different situation and she'd rather not even acknowledge them when it comes to the conversation about rape. The answer is to stop the mentality that creates rape.

This answer is much more eloquent and reasoned than mine. Mine would have been "Women in the military get raped too, you fuckin' idiot."

And then I would wait a moment for Sean Hannity to say something, and whatever his response was, I would interrupt and say "And in the case of the rapist jumping out of the bush, that guy probably has a gun as well, only he wouldn't have to reach into his purse to retrieve his gun, you fuckin' idiot."

After she told Hannity her reasoning for not necessarily believing MORE GUNS SOLVE ALL PROBLEMS ALWAYS, and saying, rightfully, that education is the answer, he said "You cannot educate evil. Evil will be evil. A gun will stop evil."

I want to point out that Hannity was not being his usual smug, condescending self, and his tone was the most compassionate and caring tone I've ever heard him use, but his reasoning was still as fucking condescending as could be. Her response was to ask why in the world he kept using the word "evil". A girl out with friends is not thinking about evil. A girl at a party is not thinking about evil. The 15 year old in Steubenville was not thinking about evil. Now, after the fact, these women could be thinking about evil at every opportunity. But how does that work as a preventative measure?

Using Hannity's logic, if a woman does carry a gun and still manages to get raped, it's her fault because she wasn't staying frosty. Didn't she know that she has to stay ever vigilant at all times, even when she's with someone who, up to that point assumed she could trust? Ladies, if you get raped in the military, how can you be vigilant against Al Qaeda if you can't be vigilant with one of your brothers in arms who you would expect to have your back and would never betray you?

Twenty-two year old, how can we expect you to be taken seriously at a job if you go out with your friends and weren't totally and completely ready at all times for some stranger to slip something in your drink and proceed to take advantage of you? Why weren't you prepared for that? How could you have left your house without expecting someone to violate you? Eight year old, why weren't you packing when your older brother took advantage of you? Hmm? Is it because you're unwilling to accept that freedom has its cost and evil can't be reasoned with? Well then that rape was your fault.

Afterall, men are gonna rape. There's absolutely nothing we can do about that.
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with love from CRS @ 4:24 PM 

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