Naked Rambler: We should be ashamed

“We can either end up living a life that others expect of us or lives based on our own truth. The difference is the difference between living a conscious life or one that is unconscious. And that’s the difference between living and not living.” Stephen Gough, letter to Neil Forsyth, 2012

My first and so far only experience with a flasher was in the children’s section of a big bookshop in Edinburgh when I was 14: he was wearing a coat that covered his legs down to his knees and concealed from the adults in the shop that he had his dick out and was jerking off whenever he could catch the eye of a teenager too shy (I was) to go at once to the nearest counter and tell the adult there “That man is exposing himself” or whatever words I could find to explain. Instead, disgusted and humiliated, I tried to get away from him inside the shop and eventually left the shop and went home. I was lucky, on reflection, that he didn’t follow me. iHollaback is an international campaign, recently launched in Edinburgh, to fight back against this kind of assault.

Naturists don’t do this. Specifically, Stephen Gough is not doing this.

Stephen Gough has been sentenced to five months solitary confinement. Again.

Imagine this

From the Skydancing blog: Little Girls Do Not Cause Men to Rape Them:

I have news for James McKinley. Little girls do not cause men to rape them. I don’t care what articles of clothing those little girls are wearing or how much make-up they have on their faces. They are not responsible for the actions of rapists. These young men weren’t “drawn in.” They made their own choices to commit a horrible crime. I frankly don’t give a shit that they “have to live with this for the rest of their lives.” What exactly does McKinley imagine it will be like for an 11-year-old who was raped by 20-plus men? Does McKinley even have the ability to imagine what that will be like? Or does he simply think of the victim as some kind of throwaway? A girl who deserved to be punished for her “dressing older than her age” and talking to teenage boys on a playground?

A little girl enters an empty lift. As the door starts to close, a few seconds later, a man runs down the corridor towards the lift, re-opens the doors, and enters the lift. They’re alone in the lift together.

Girl takes standard safety precaution of standing in front of the control panel, close to the door. She glances over her shoulder at the man standing behind her and to her left, just once. The lift’s security camera can hardly see the man – he’s standing in the corner where he’s out of its direct view. The girl shifts her head, moves her hands, but never looks around again.

About 30 seconds later, the lift reaches her floor and the door opens.

The man makes his move: he hits the button to close the door and grabs for the girl, blocking her exit with his arm.