Dear Paris,
You seem to have got quite a bee in your bonnet about rape of late. Generally that is a good thing, as rape is still so prevalent in British society and of epidemic proportions in some cultures (e.g., South Africa). It is not, however, a good thing when you use rape as a way to make smart comments to spruce up your writing. There are some subjects that do not lend themselves to humour, such as The Shoah (aka The Holocaust), terrorist atrocities, serial murders, and, yes Paris, rape.
Rape is not a metaphor.
I will leave that in a paragraph on its own in the hope that you will not miss the message. What, Paris, only skim reading, okay, I will repeat it again, rape is not a metaphor. In case the point is not getting through, or you think that you see a loophole, let me make clear that rape is not a simile, rape is not an illustration, rape is not source material for humorous articles, and rape is not a riposte to use in a flame-war.
Rape is rape.
There is nothing like rape, so it is certainly not a simile. It is not like anything else. It is not even like murder, although that is often the follow-on from the rapist, or the threat to let the rape proceed without the victim fighting back. Rape is not an illustration to explain something else, as a rape victim often spends the rest of her life trying to explain to herself why she suffered it. Nor are arguments that have their place in a discussion of rape appropriate ripostes to defend your views on something other than rape in an online flame-war. Rape is not fair game for humour, any more than what the victim wore made her fair game. Rape is not a game and it is not fair. Rape is not humorous.
Rape is a life sentence.
Victims struggle to fully move on from rape, the memories are always there just waiting to ambush you when you think that life is going well, just waiting to embarrass you as you thought you would be taking that tube journey without bursting into tears, just waiting to re-surface because a journalist thinks that rape is a clever metaphor and a source for humour.
Mercia Josephine
Note to Editors – do not let Paris Lees write about rape. Oops, too late, Jane Czyzselska, editor of Diva has already done so. The unfortunate result was “Sorry (Forgot My Rape Whistle)” in the December 2010 edition of Diva. Maybe this example of foolhardiness was down to Jane feeling generous to a young journalist in the run-up to Christmas. Or maybe the opening sentence fooled her, where Paris opined “What effect does the drip drip of rape-avoidance advice have on those unlucky enough to have been sexually assaulted?”
That opening would suggest an article that had the interests of the victims at heart, but the only interest at heart in the rest of the article appears to be Paris Lees. If the victims were her concern, then the article would not be replete with allusions to penetration. After the victim positive opening we are treated in the next paragraph to the notion that purveyors of rape defence gadgets are “trying to insert their products into our glossy folds.” As Paris gets up a head of steam about the various girly-coloured gadgets she mocks the notion that a rape free future is possible because “candy-coloured key-rings are shoved with special Christmas force into young girls’ stockings.” She then accuses one of the gadget makers of crossing the line by implying that their attack deterrent will give a woman confidence because she knows that she can defend herself.
No line that should not be crossed has been transgressed by the marketers of this deterrent. I am not a victim of advertising because my keys are adorned with a heart shaped fob that is actually a personal attack alarm provided by Greater Manchester Police at Sparkle 2008, nor the fact that my handbag is never without the attack alarm provided by Camden LGBT Forum at London Pride 2009. I am a victim, who does not want to repeat the experience. Although carrying these alarms does not fill me with confidence as I had one with me the night that I was attacked, but I was too scared to use it.
The line crossing has been done by Paris, who purports to protect victims of sexual assault from misplaced guilt and feeling responsible for their own rape. It is not, however, the marketers for rape defence gadgets from whom Paris needs to defend the victims – they need protecting from the cheapening of their experience in Paris’ writing, and it is not just this article that gives vent to Paris’ rape fascination.
On 13th March 2011, Paris sought to establish her transsexual activism credentials by creating a Facebook group called “Julie Bindel’s Genitals” and posted in her blog (http://lastofthecleanbohemians.wordpress.com) an article of the same name. The article has since been renamed on the blog as ***** ******’s Genitals due to negative reaction to the original post (which I never got to read). Other items were removed from the article as well as the renaming of the article. The Facebook group was closed the same day that it was set up. Paris claims in a comment on the blog post that this was because she did not have time to vet the wall posts, but much more likely Facebook closed the group as it contravened the Statement of Rights and Responsibilities by being a group created to attack an individual. The blog post contains a claim that Julie would probably describe the article as being a form of rape, which is an attempt by Paris to indulge her fascination with rape as metaphor, while trying to pass the buck to Julie Bindel, who is well known for campaigning for rape victims. More importantly, Paris responds positively to a post that describes the experience of being a pre-operative male to female transsexual as being continuously raped by her own body. To Paris that viewpoint is interesting, because she only wants to protect rape victims from gadgets designed to prevent a repeat attack, she is not interested in protecting them from those who chose to cheapen their horrifying experience.
Paris’ fascination with the metaphor of rape is in evidence again on a minor flame-war she engaged in on the Facebook group for Trans Media Watch. She is one of two administrators for the group and had to be reprimanded by the other administrator for her comments. [EDIT: One of the administrators has deleted the thread that contained this comment, so I shall remove reference to its details here, as it is no longer publicly verifiable.]
Paris cannot be trusted to write about rape. Editors, especially Jane, I trust that you have taken note.
It’s always funny, and ‘topical’ to write about, until it happens to you.
Unfortunately there’s only one guaranteed way for Ms Lees to find this out, and that’s to go through it.
Until that time, though, all we can do is hope that she (and others like her) will STFU.
Dear Mercia
I am disappointed that you interpreted the thrust of my op-ed in DIVA this way. I was questioning the reason behind asking women to take responsibility for avoiding rape rather than educating the perpetrators, men and telling them that rape is unacceptable. I was also trying to point out that rape is more frequently carried out by men known to the victim, rather than strangers on the street. Who will hear a rape alarm at home when a woman or a girl is tragically more likely to experience this despicable act?
As a survivor of sexual harrassment I know very well this is an incredibly serious issue. As such, I would like to apologise unreservedly for any offence my words may have caused. I would also point out that, anyone who wishes to, is welcome to contact me on my twitter account, through TMW, or on facebook if they would like to discuss my ideas.
Finally, the blog to which you allude was ‘edited’ soley by blanking out a person’s name. The content remains otherwise untouched.
Your sincerely,
Paris Lees
How many times does this have to be re-quoted?
“All transsexuals rape women’s bodies by reducing the real female form to an artefact, and appropriating this body for themselves. [...] Transsexuals merely cut off the most obvious means of invading women, so that they seem non-invasive.
….
I contend that the problem with transsexualism would best be served by morally mandating it out of existence.”
Janice Raymond.
In other words, ‘we didn’t start it’. The ‘raped by your own body’ comment is one trans-woman’s attempt to respond to that accusation in the language that its made. If someone feels violated, like they’re carrying an alien parasite, if they wake in the night from nightmares of something crawling on them, if they close their legs sat on the loo and look up while in the shower, if that sense of physical horror sometimes makes them just want to cut. IT. Off. And then they find that they’re being accused of being a rapist just by existing? How would you suggest that feels? Yes, the comment was clunky and could have been better phrased, but deserving of ridicule or abuse? No. A sign of a very honest sense of real distress? Yes.
Charlotte, just because Janice Raymond said it does not make it right. On that basis, as well as agreeing that rape can be used as a metaphor, because Janice says so, presumably you also think that transsexuals should be mandated out of existence, because Janice says so. I take a different view, something is right because it seems the fair thing to do, not because someone told me to do it. I also acknowledge that you are quoting what Janice wrote in 1979, and she, like Julie Bindel, is more interested in writing about sex trafficking these days.
Who is this we? Have a look around this site, it is about trans matters from a trans perspective. If you must know, I was seeing a surgeon today and got the final go ahead for GRS. The Bindel Baiting Brigade seem to think that we (transsexuals) translates to we (transsexuals who happen to agree with us and woe betide you who dare to critique our comfortable agenda). That Bindel Baiting Empire is now crumbling, and those of us who campaign to actually change trans people’s lives for the better hope that you will join us in actually doing something productive for the trans community.
“presumably you also think that transsexuals should be mandated out of existence”
Obviously not, thats a bit of a logical leap. Ok, well you’re more of an activist than me, and closer to surgery than me, good for you. I’m merely saying that if someone uses rape as a metaphor to attack my existence then i’m going to respond to that using their metaphor in the same way that i might respond to someone who says their deity of choice hates gay people by saying ‘no he/she/ve doesn’t and here’s why’ rather than ‘your deity doesn’t exist. And yes, thats a bit of a logical leap too, but thats what my head does, and thats how i debate.
I’m engaging with the ‘trans people are all predators’ brigade debate using their language as a way of explaining just how much pain it causes. If someone says my existence as a trans woman makes them feel like they’ve been raped, who there is incorrectly using the metaphor?
Dear Paris,
Thank you for your unreserved apology for any offence that your words caused, for they did deeply offend me. I am not a survivor of sexual harassment. Just before I moved from living on the edge of Manchester’s Gay Village, one of the harassers finally got me. Although in another sense I am a survivor of sexual harassment for all the previous times I suffered it without worse consequences as I walked down Canal Street.
I have re-read the Diva article in question, and I cannot find a single reference to domestic rape. As a very experienced marker of student essays , and possessor of a PhD on textual hermeneutics, I am a good analyser of texts but this domestic rape angle is evading my attention. Maybe it just is not there. What leads me to suspect that I am correct is that the box-out of humorous guidance to stop men raping women is entirely about men who have been out drinking being helped to not rape women who also happen to be outdoors at the time. Maybe you or other commenters can help me find the needle in the haystack, but your op-ed appears to be devoid of reference to domestic rape.
I would be alarmed if the blog post that I allude to was certainly not changed more than in asterisking out Julie Bindel’s name. For the article’s opening sentence states “NB: Following mixed reactions to the orginal [sic] version of this post, I have chosen to remove some of the more offensive terminiology [sic].” If nothing else was changed does that mean that people found Julie Bindel’s name to be offensive terminology? If so, why was her name not edited in the comments – maybe you cannot do that I heartily recommend switching to WordPress if that is the case. Wait a minute, it was changed! You respond to a comment calling you “narrowminded [sic] and bigoted” for denying non-trans people the right to be called radical feminists as follows: “You’re totally right. Have amended the text. Thank you for pointing this out!”
The unreserved apology for the offence that you caused to me and possibly to other victims is graciously accepted. [EDIT: See next comment for why my acceptance of the apology has been withdrawn.] I do not, however, accept your defence of what you wrote as it does not seem to actually be what you wrote.
Paris Lees is now acting in a very odd way for a journalist. Rather than living by the writers’ dictum of publish and be damned, she is using the security mechanisms of social media to hide the truth. The Trans Media Watch flame-war thread mentioned in the above article has now been deleted (Paris is co-admin and has the power to do that). In fact, I thought that Paris had left Trans Media Watch as she no longer appears as an admin, but I have learnt through other sources that she has been blocking me and several other people on Facebook and other online forums, and that is why I can no longer see her listed as an admin. This is deeply unprofessional behaviour, as it is in response to a critique of an article published in the print media. Apparently, Paris’ dictum is publish and block critics. My gracious acceptance of her unreserved apology is now withdrawn and in its place is the only true response to the apology, which is that it was full of crocodile tears that were wiped away with a tissue of lies. Nice line I think I will write an article with that as the title.
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