This outfit ain't askin' for nothin' but pneumonia

Slutwalk went well, despite turning cold, windy and rainy. Good turnout. Some seriously sexy outfits, some demure ones, some nice warm comfy ones, all as it should be.

I wore my cute lowcut tshirt, my just-above-the-knee corduroy skirt, my cropped denim jacket, and strappy black sandals.

In lieu of carrying a sign, I went a bit nuts with the Sharpie:



JUST SAY "DO YOU WANT TO?".

Anyone who tells you that rape vs consensual sex is more complicated than that... is trying to get away with something.

Didn't get any good pictures of my legs before they got rained on and blurry but they said (well, they still sort of say, but I'm about to jump in a very hot bathtub):

Left outer calf: Sexual Being not Sexual Object
Left inner calf: If you think my skirt is saying yes, have sex with IT. [1]

Right outer calf: Oh God Yes Yes Yes Oh Yes Yes Like That Right There Oh Yes... means YES.
Right inner calf: Does Length Really Matter? (up to my hemline)

And I had yellow Caution tape as a belt and wrapped around my skirt just under my butt.

I got my legs read a fair bit. Quite politely, even on the bus on the way to the march.

I also got catcalled on the way from the hardware store to Slutwalk, which ... yeah.

[1] I sort of wanted to rephrase that one halfway through but Sharpie in skin is hard to correct. rottenfruit said "what if I wanted to have sex with your skirt RIGHT NOW?" and I said "well, since it's YOU..." and went for the fly buttons. She said "You know what I mean", and indeed, I did. And do.

This post was originally posted on Dreamwidth. where there are comments. Comment here or there as you prefer.

It's at times such as this she'd be tempted to spit if she wasn't so ladylike...

I am so seriously worn out.

I don't know if it's the getting really cold and then getting warm again, the not having been well all winter and getting old, or the sheer sense of bloodyminded exhaustion from realizing that it's 2011 and we're still out there saying "um, maybe we could try reducing rape by NOT RAPING PEOPLE?"

I mean, whenever this crap about women dressing sexy and getting drunk comes up I always feel like everyone has this image in their head of a woman in a cute little black dress wobbling slightly on her four inch spike heels and flirting with everybody and then regretting it later for some inexplicit reason.

And then I remember finding the court case that established that it is not, in Canadian Law, a defense against a charge of sexual assault to claim that you found the victim passed out in a snowbank and thought she was dead. And that's an extreme case but it's a lot closer to the reality of cases where women have been out drinking and get raped.

When men sexually assault women who are wearing sexy clothes, or women who have been drinking, or women who are in places where 'respectable' women aren't supposed to be, or women with 'bad' reputations, it's not that those things make the men any more confused about whether or not that woman wants to have sex with them. It doesn't.

It's actually pretty easy to tell whether or not someone wants to have sex with you. And if you're at all confused, you can always just ask.

They just know that in that situation their odds of getting away with it go from 'pretty good' to 'pretty much a dead certainty'.

Maybe I can't stop rape. But I can help stop that.

It just, you know, makes me tired.

This post was originally posted on Dreamwidth. where there are comments. Comment here or there as you prefer.