Kavanaugh Hearings

I am so full of emotions I don't even know where to begin. I am grateful I work in a mostly female office and we could watch and yell at the TV. I felt truly scared by Lindsey Graham. This is who we have governing us? This angry, powerful toddler? How dare you ask if the probably assaulter has gone through hell. His life is not ruined. At the end of this he will be in charge of my life or be filthy rich and underemployed. I do not feel sorry for you.

My brain does not compute this level of lying. He must have forgotten? There is an alternate reality? I believe Dr. Ford. Why would she lie? Have I lied before? Have I been confused before? He is so sure. I was raised to think people are good, so when people lie so confidently I start to believe them too. A girl I went to summer camp with was a kleptomaniac. There was proof on proof of everything she stole. Our counselors had us sit in a circle with her. I still don't know why--hoping for confession? Hoping for forgiveness? She lied and lied and cried and lied and I said, "Okay, I believe you. I am sorry. I believe you." There's no way she didn't do it. I just didn't understand how she could be so strongly dishonest. I could never. I don't understand.

I don't care you got into Yale and have good grades. I don't care you have friends who are girls. You'll notice your victim didn't need to spend an hour reading letter from people saying she is honest. Because that's nuts. She is honest because it didn't occur to her she wasn't. I hope your lies eat you from the inside like mold. You couldn't stop yourself from lying even to admit you watched Ford's testimony. It came so easy to you. You want to control my body. You lifted weights and had difficult football camps. I don't care. I don't care. I don't care.

I asked my co-worker, "What would you do if you were him and it was true?" She said kill herself. I say I'd step down. If it weren't true, if it might be true, if I don't remember I'd step down. This is bigger than you. The country doesn't revolve around you. You are lucky to have been considered now can we please have someone Good? It's not fair. You would know that if you hadn't been given every privilege in the book. Sometimes you don't get the job for a reason you can't control. Sometimes you don't get the job for the best reason there has ever been.

I try to organize my new bookshelf but I lay down and read all the women coming forward with their stories. It is disgusting we have to band together to share our traumas to make some people believe there was a possibility Ford experienced hers. A writer shares her rape on Instagram in the morning and smiles coming in an hour later. It's our job to make you know we are okay. I don't want to be seen as overdramatic or too gloomy. I cry on the bed and when I finally come up for air I say, "I'd be down for a Purge."

All Stories Are Valid Part Two: An Unfortunate Story

The new Murakami book Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimmage came out this week. I haven’t read it. Full disclosure.

I have already seen multiple people on the internet disgusted by this novel because the main character is a man who was falsely accused of rape by a crazy woman. While I obviously have major suspicion about any rape case involving a woman people dismiss on the vague and usually sexist grounds of “crazy,” it does happen. From time to time. It’s obviously the worst thing ever because even one instance of a false accusation is all anyone can remember every time someone is legitimately asking Help. Please.

Perhaps we don’t need more stories about evil-rape-fiction people. They permeate bigoted brains. Why add fuel to the fire? Well, maybe if it’s a good story. Or an important story to the author. Writers have responsibilities to their audience and culture as a whole, yeah, but they are still artists and get to do what they want.

Hey, I for one think it would be really really hard to be a man falsely accused of rape. Just because many men lie about a woman lying doesn’t leave the truthful ones in any less pain. Metaphorically, be wary. In considering what the world has already heard, use care.  ALL STORIES ARE VALID.

This Is Out of Character for Me?

Spent a solid twenty minutes defending a comedic rape scene to my advisor today. I'm really trying to understand how to approach rape in art. I think it's important. Rape is a thing that happens. A complicated thing that happens. And complicated things are meant to be unraveled--not shut into shoe boxes.

Rape is also really in right now--as slang, jokes, perpetually in young adult lit. As a writer, I need to explore it. As humans we should all explore what we think rape means--how we can uplift our communities from it, how we can help victims heal and avoid. As a comedian, it's in my personal philosophy that anything can be funny. Not that everything is. But that anything can be. So. I'm paddling in strange oceans. I am in school. This is the time to take risks. I don't appreciate being told there is a topic I simply must avoid. Especially when the same professor assigns Anne Bogart's "Embarrassment" essay to me. LEAP?

During college I was a champion for all rights all the time, and I was a stickler about a lot of things...but it's complicated. It's complicated to give ideas power by rolling them into punchlines and also complicated to give ideas power by only accepting them in episodes of Degrassi.

Someone will be offended. Of that I can be sure. But someone always is.

On Rape in Conversational Context

I think anything can be funny. The whole tragedy + time = comedy cliche is true. Like, Holocaust jokes. They happen. People laugh. That said, I don't think rape is funny. I can't think of a time when it has been.

Actually. I take that back. Sid tells a lot of rape jokes in his stand-up, and I laugh loathingly into my arm.

But, it's certainly not funny in a "throw around" kind of way. Now hold on, I think rape, like all violence can be glorified. Like, people can get all moody and be like it's the Worst Thing Ever. And, I'm not saying it's a walk in the park to be raped...although that may be how it starts (HEY-O). I'm just saying, sometimes I think the harsh seriousness with which it can be treated almost seems melodramatic and then, well, the opposite effect is achieved? Like the girls in high school Speech who did The Lovely Bones so s-l-o-w-l-y and de.lib.er.ate.ly. UGH UGH UGH. Just made me make fun of them/rape with my friends after the round let out.*

Anyway, the point is, today our Level Three teacher said we should rape our scenes. It was a ham-handed way of saying A) bring intense energy and B) don't accept failure. I get that. But everyone laughed, and I stuck in the mud. Frowning. Yeah, I'm that dude.

I guess I just feel it wasn't necessary. Like, can't there be other ways to say it? Other ways that aren't so stark and "wrong" that people laugh? It's a cheap laugh at that. And I KNOW some people say "It's just words" but I think that's a ridiculous sentiment because we LIVE BY WORDS. I'm in an improv intensive. Take away the words, and we're next to nothing. Words are at least 60% of us. At LEAST more than half.

And other people are like if you DON'T say the word, it becomes powerful. I'm not saying don't say it. I'm saying, say it when you're actually discussing the weight of rape. People act shocked about this Colorado movie theatre shooting, but, come on. I tell people I'm going to kill them on the reg. That DOES something to our brains. That DOES something to our souls. To say you're going to rape whatever whenever just because it's a clumsy word that can generally mean anything? That DOES something.

And this is not to even consider the possibility of mentioning rape in the presence of someone who has been and then must privately wince at the thought.

*Hunny, SVC, and I STILL mimic this one girl's intro that LITERALLY began, "Have you ever been raped? Yes? No? Well, I haven't. But the character in my piece has." WHAAAAT THE WHAAAAAAAT?