“[TW: rape culture, victim blaming]
Men who want to flirt with women have to realize: Women live in a state of continual vigilance about sexual safety. It’s like having a mild case of hay fever that never goes away. It’s not debilitating. You’re not weak. You’re not afraid. You just suck it up and get on with your life. It’s nothing that’s going to stop you from making discoveries, or climbing mountains, or falling in love. Sometimes you can almost forget about it. It doesn’t mean it’s not there, subtly sucking your energy. You learn to avoid situations that make it worse and seek out conditions that make it better.
If a female stranger is wary around you, it is not because she suspects you are a rapist, or that all men are rapists. It’s because a general level of circumspection is what vigilance requires. Don’t take it personally.
If this frustrates you, try to remember that women are blamed for lapsed vigilance. If a woman does get raped, everyone rushes to see where she let her guard down. Was she drinking? Was she alone? Was she wearing a short skirt? Did she go to a strange man’s room for coffee at 4am?
A woman must be seen to be vigilant as well as be vigilant. If she is deemed insufficiently vigilant, she will be at least partly blamed for any sexual violence that befalls her. If she’s regarded as downright reckless, that “evidence” can be used to completely exonerate her rapist. If it comes down to a he said/she said dispute over whether sex was consensual, as so many rape cases do, the dispute becomes a referendum on whether the woman seems like the sort of reckless person who would have sex with a stranger.
If a woman does go back to a strange man’s hotel room at 4am, even if she only wants a coffee and conversation, she’s more or less given him the power to rape her. No jury is going to believe she went up there for anything but sex. So, don’t be surprised if a stranger reacts badly to that suggestion.
” —Attention, Space Cadets: Do Not Proposition Women in the Elevator (via sugarbooty)
I reblog this a lot but I do like it.
(via historicalslut)(via historicalslut)
Game of Thrones nails!!!
Nintendo launched the DSi XL with the purpose of attracting elderly consumers with bad vision, gamers who sought a portable reading device, and people who wanted to play with the handheld in social settings. But there’s a new market segment that also seems interested - gorillas.
So this little boy was just walking around the San Francisco zoo, doing what every boy who is dragged to the zoo tends to do - play video games - when he accidentally dropped his DSi XL into the gorilla habitat. And wouldn’t you know it, a professional photographer happened to be right there…
(Source: dduane)
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Robert’s Inbox, circa Robert’s Rebellion
Sidebar: I DID NOT REALIZE SO MANY PEOPLE WOULD LIKE THE FIRST ONE. Thank you so much!!!! I’m definitely going to keep making these, so please make requests :D
(seriously, though. ajfalksjefo;ijsfesio. so many notes! THANK YOU)
(via arya-snark)
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“Castamere” is misspelled in the track listing. The last time I hated a letter as much as I hate that “o,” Ramsay Bolton wrote it.
Hee!