most rapists start out as peeping toms. lest anyone gets confused: most of men taking these types of photos, are probably not rapists. but rapists do start out by engaging in peeping tom type behavior wherein they are taking from an unwilling victim in some way--upskirt shots, rubbing up against some woman on the subway, copping an unwanted feel somehow. the behavior gradually gets more and more aggressive as more and more is taken, and there are no consequences.

yes, you cannot probably criminalize the activity of standing under a subway gate looking up at a woman in a sundress, and nor should you.

but the behavior here is of taking what has not been offered. if i wanted to show the world my underwear, i would. but i don't. so i put on a skirt.

also, the fact that these posts have focused on what women wear and if space should be public and if so how public ignores something very important and interesting--namely: who the fuck DOES this? a lot of people? some people? do they need mental help, or are they actually "normal" people responding to a pathologically misogynist society? why do they say they do it? are they otherwise normal people?

part of me would want to beat the shit out of some guy who did that to me; part of me would want to get out a clipboard and ask him a million questions just to understand why someone would do this, ranging from "what is your relationship with your mother like" to "do you feel that you do not find yourself turned on by consenting sexual relationships, and if so, why?"

this is the only country in the (industrialized) world where a divorce hangs on health care. as krugman pointed out today in the new york times, one in three jobs in the united states pays $11 an hour or under and offers no benefits. perhaps with a graduate degree, the Other Woman may be so lucky as to snag a job in the remaining 66%, but if she lives in the state of CA, for example, with its massive budget crisis and education layoffs on top of the horrible national economy on top of the awful global economy, it is no wonder she has not been so fortunate.

in any case, if he really wanted to leave her emotionally, he could do so, and still legally be her husband so that she could continue to benefit from his health care. i know a couple that married young and remain married because it is too expensive to get divorced, and because she doesn't want him to lose his health care while he struggles to start his own business. they are on great terms, so it works. they MADE it work.

if he wanted to stop playing the role of husband, and act instead as a supportive friend and health insurance provider and be your boyfriend until she figures out the story with her health care, he could.

he may not want to. he may have been lying about all of this other stuff. he may, as some suggested, have told you everything through a lens that skewed everything and he's made everything up and she's this perfect devoted wife. who knows. you could ponder this forever and ever and not know. only he and she know what happened between them.

the point is that if he wanted to figure out a way to be with you, he would. if he wanted to let her go completely, on an emotional level, he would. he hasn't. that's all you need to know.

this is like the blacks-are-good-at-basketball argument but dressed up a lot better, and with women instead of a minority. thus it is deemed not only worthy of publication, but for some reason, inoffensive. imagine, if you will, a similar article explaining why black people are good at basketball and asians are good at math and jews are good at banking. imagine it being taken seriously, not only by the editor, but the writer, who endeavors to knit his or her brow in seriousness as s/he explains very earnestly that blacks are good at basketball because they have more fast-twitch muscle fibers, and asians are good at math because they invented the abacus, and jews are good at banking because they emerged as money-lenders in predominantly muslim centers where charging interest was haram.

it would be just like this article. only no one, with the possible exception of people like rush limbaugh, would deem it worthy of publication, and the writer would risk public humiliation and shame.

for some reason, however, it remains perfectly acceptable to pontificate in this manner about women's inferiority to men: we aren't funny. we can't drive. we can't do science. we make bad choices in our careers. and so on. and They say there is no longer need for a feminist movement...

...between reproductive rights and slavery.

i mean, if i'm forced to bear a child i can't care for who was possible the fruit of a union between me and a date-rapist or a one- night stand, i'd say my body is not my own to manage. and if i'm deemed incapable of making decisions about my own reproductive destiny, preventing me from fully participating in society, then my life is not my own to manage either.

i don't want to make light of the horrors suffered by the victims of human trafficking (which is a fancy word for "slaves") or the plight of the Africans in the 16th- 19th centuries from whom I'm descended.

however, if the Bible as interpreted by Huckabee--in which abortion is never mentioned, by the way, except to say that life begins at "first breath"--has more control over a woman's body than she does, i'd say there's someone in bondage. and it's not the fetus. it's the woman.