A Rape By Any Other Name...

Sometimes I have these little fantasies about buying some huge plot of land somewhere where land is cheap, like the midwest, then I read shit like this...

http://media.www.dailynebraskan.com/media/storage/paper857/news/2007/07/16/News/Judge.Restricts.Use.Of.Words.rape.sexual.Assault.In.Bowen.Trial-2923771.shtml?refsource=collegeheadlines

Have you heard about this? This judge ruled that the witness (the victim) cannot use the word "rape" in court. Not only that, victims of rape cannot use the words "sexual assault" or even "sexual assault kit". This is sooooooo fucked up. Free speech is dying folks and women's rights are going right down the tubes with it.

To help the victims in Nebraska describe their rapes without using the word rape or sexual assault, I give you the following...

-He used his penis as a weapon and violently entered my body without permission.

-He violently used his penis against me without my permission

-He violated my body with his penis

-He robbed my body violently

-He is a sick fucking pig who used his penis to brutally attack me

Well, that's better than calling it what it is, right?

That's Wack!

WACK! closes July 16 so if you haven't seen it yet, you should stop by the Geffen Contemporary in Little Tokyo and see this important exhibition of feminist art during the late 1960's and '70's. I had been meaning to see Wack! since it opened in March but finally had some time off from work (not by choice but by circumstance) and used one of the afternoons off to see this incredible collection of feminist art. I came of age in the period following this group of second wave feminists and looked at these works as ground, the foothold that supports female artists today. In school, we studied these works. We used their language but we questioned and even poked fun at the anger and the frustration--how quaint those pre-global, pre-internet (pre-photoshop) times were! We were the Gen-X third wave feminists tip-toeing across the millennium and we could love our whore just as much as our Madonna because these foremothers had punished themselves enough for all of us and now we were all cleansed and Amen.

But seeing the exhibit and these works as a whole movement rather than selected female pieces was awe-inspiring, difficult, powerful, thought-provoking, and joyful and wrought with pain. This is life and art and the personal was, and I think still is, political. This exhibit argues that these female artists not only influence current female artists but contribute in a profound way to the foundation for all contemporary art, period. No pun intended.

If you can't see the exhibit, you can check out the website:
http://www.moca.org/wack/

The only thing that was weird was the high-anxiety guards in the Geffen. They have at least one posted at every corner of the space and they follow you around and kinda stand next to you when you are viewing the work like they are guarding a prison and you are the prisoner who might revolt. It added a very strange touch to seeing this exhibit.