Amazon Sold a Date Rape Guide and the Conservatives Want Stricter Punishments for Rapists

Women are the only group expected to totter around in shoes with pointy sticks affixed to the bottom, literally just waiting to break our necks. Photo via.

Breaking news: if you’re the proud possessor of a vagina in this world, you have a hell of a laundry list of obstacles to face. And, chances are, much of your agenda is thoroughly cockblocked because, even still, all things are not equal between men and women.

I’ll state first and foremost that I’m not a man hater—because I know you’re already wondering. You could actually say I love men a little too much and a little excessively, like a pet dog (often to my own detriment). I write to you because I, like every woman, have suffered my fair share of abuse, embarrassment, and silencing at the hands of patriarchy. So I have cleared the dust away from this previously quiet corner of the internet to discuss lady business in this brand new column for VICE.

By lady business, I mean the political, social, and environmental standing of we, the ladies. (To those of you expressing consternation at being called a lady, I understand your pain, but I also quote Shoshanna: “Yes you are, you’re the ladies.”) I have a particular interest in how women are treated under the justice system, so there will be a focus on law and order, especially in Canada and the US. I will also gripe about insane cultural restraints, like the aggressive suggestions that women shave their armpits or feel guilty for eating cake.

So here, a brief sampling of the stuff we can’t afford to ignore this week:

A screencap of the cover of the horrid book Amazon was selling last week.

Date Rape Is Permissible to Someone at Amazon

This week in “don’t worry, women are not human they’re just walking cum receptacles,” a date rape guide written by some unfortunate, sick fuck named Vincent Vinturi (who is sad about never getting laid) made its way to Amazon and right back off again. The book is called LMR Exposed: How to Overcome Her Last Minute Resistance To Sex, Turn ‘No’ Into “Yes” And Get The Lay!

Get. The. Lay. Are you fucking serious?

The intro promises: “With the knowledge you’ll gain in this course, you’re going to learn how to turn “no” into “yes” and bang a lot more (attractive) girls who initially seem opposed to the idea for having sex with you for whatever reasons.” Um, because you are a filthy cretin intent on jamming your dick inside an unwilling person’s body? I curse your very DNA, Vincent Vinturi.

Calgary West Conservative MP, Rob Anders. Photo via Facebook.

Conservative MP tries to protect women fill more jails

Parliament heard the first reading of Bill C-570, a private member’s bill, on Wednesday calling for the reinstatement of the word “rape” in Canada’s criminal code. What’s fishy is that the bill comes from Conservative MP Rob Anders. Ostensibly, he wants to bring the word rape back into the equation because rapists should be held accountable, and they should be given longer sentences than someone guilty of, say, “groping,” as he told The Current's Anna Maria Tremonti. The word got scrapped 30 years ago, because to charge offenders with ‘sexual assault” could cover so many other abuses other than just penetrative ones. The thing is, the only one who can say for sure how heinous an assault was is the person who experienced it, not Rob Anders.

Anders said he wants the so-called “victims” to be at least somewhat vindicated by seeing their attackers face longer incarceration times. Essentially, though, he admitted he actually just wants to fill up dem jails. He said rapists should do more time and rehabilitation and that, currently, as a result of the overarching “sexual assault” charge, 98 percent of the very slender percentage of those who are convicted, weasel away with “watered down charges.”

Feminist writer, scholar, and activist Jane Doe, was raped in Toronto by a serial rapist, caught her own rapist by issuing warnings the police refused to issue, and then sued the police for negligence. She says Anders’s claims are utter bullshit and not to be trusted.

“This needs discussion and consultation. It doesn’t need Rob Anders, whatsoever. He needs experts to advise him on the intricacies of the matter.”

While many women on the receiving end of sexual violence don’t want to see their partners locked away for years because they love them or are just financially dependant on them, I have to say I think this is a discussion worth having. While all forms of sexual assault can be traumatic, if we don’t define rape and shame those who commit it, it’s as if that rape doesn’t exist. We erase it from our vocabulary and our minds, when what we need to combat the crime is the exact opposite.

Photo via.

That Woody Allen Child Molester Story

Woody Allen’s adopted daughter Dylan Farrow spoke out in an open letter Saturday outlining the pain and fear caused by Allen allegedly sexually abusing her when she was seven years old. Woody himself has called these claims “untrue and disgraceful.”

I obviously don’t know what happened, but I do know people tend to disbelieve women who make these claims, dismissing them as hysterical or conniving. Especially when the alleged abuser is wealthy and powerful. “Well, maybe he did it, and maybe he didn’t. But like, he made Annie Hall, so…” While I wasn’t there and can’t verify Farrow’s claims, I can confirm that, contrary to popular belief, women don’t make up stories of rape and sexual assault as a fun pastime.

This debacle has caused cinema fans the world over

to question whether or not it’s okay to like Woody Allen. Are we comfortable sanctioning an alleged child molester’s actions, excusing him on the basis of artistic merit? The internet’s angry reaction points to a resounding “no,” but the Golden Globes suggest otherwise.

A celebratory Terri Jean Bradford at a press conference after the superior court struck down laws regulating sex work in Canada, via Facebook. 

Long live sex workers’ safety/down with prostitutes! Despite the recent superior court strike-down of laws regulating sex work in Canada, municipalities are still working to ensure any professional sexy times are literally pushed to the fringes of society. Members of Regina’s planning commission just approved by-law amendments to keep strip clubs restricted to industrial areas. They must be separated 182.8 metres from residences, schools, and parks in order to keep respectable folks protected from filthy prostitute germification. And in Toronto, licenses for body rub parlours insist that the businesses operate in industrial areas, too. There are plenty of unofficial, unregulated ones, but the 25 with official city licenses must operate in industrial zones, no questions asked.

In order for sex workers to operate in a way that makes them feel safe, all levels of government have to agree to “permit” them to organize their businesses as they see fit. Sex workers themselves are the ones who know how they feel safest, not elderly, white male politicians.

Are we going to treat sex work like a legit business whose practitioners deserve safety and respect? Or not? One level of government can’t leap ahead to better the situation while the others balk and reverse any progress. Legislative overlap like this just makes for the most humiliatingly ineffective political teeter tottering. Perhaps our various levels of government would do well to consult with one another and with a few people in the industry to come to a conclusive answer, because pushing people who have sex for money into the bowels of industrial areas is cruel, discriminatory behaviour, not to mention ridiculously prudish.  Chanelle Gallant, a spokeswomen for the Toronto sex workers action project Maggie’s, says the laws and ghettoization are essentially dehumanizing: “Treat sex workers like humans deserving of protection,” she says, “not a dirty secret.”

It really is repulsive to hide human beings away like this because we inject their means of earning a livelihood with our own moral compunction. Pushing sex workers to secluded areas makes their work unsafe by nature. Let’s hope the feds are listening and make a better decision than those our cities are making—though Justice Minister Peter Mackay sounds very eager to unveil his government’s new sex work bill. 
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