Last year, prominent Los Angeles photographer Paul Rusconi was arrested on suspicions of lewd acts with a minor and possession of child pornography. Rusconi had posted a photo of him with his two young daughters in a bathtub on Twitter. The girls’ nanny saw the snapshot and immediately called the police, accusing Rusconi of rape. The accusers were given ...
When A Clockwork Orange was published in 1962, the term sexualized violence wasn’t in use. The distinction between sexualized violence and erotic sex was, in law and in everyday discourse, blurred. This is why Anthony Burgess’ novel led us into a dark, yet honest place. Though the elaborate and often unreadable cruelty in the novel ...
Four Melbourne teenagers were arrested after police say they sexually assaulted a 16-year-old girl. The group, which consisted of three males aged 16, 19 and 21 and one girl aged 16, video taped the assault and posted the footage online. The attack took place at a party, according to police. The four have been released from ...
Achmat Dangor’s novel Bitter Fruit begins in post-apartheid South Africa, when Silas spots the police lieutenant who raped Lydia nearly twenty years before. The novel follows the lives of the former activists, now married and seemingly settled into middle class life with a teenage son and a close circle of friends. The central themes are ...
Women who engage in consensual sex have the same vaginal tears as women who have been raped, acccording to a new study. Researchers compared vaginal samples from 39 rape victims and 110 nursing students. The result: vaginal injuries occurred in 36 percent of rape victims and in 34 percent of nursing students — regardless of if ...
Clothing is never an invitation to rape, even if it is deemed “provocative.” Though the SlutWalk protest marches have been met with controversy, they have become worldwide movements with a positive message. Scantily-clad women walk to show that showing skin doesn’t mean you’re open to sexual assault and that blaming victims over their perpetrators is ...
Idaho lawmaker Chuck Winder is on to women. He knows that we have been duping America to get rid of our pregnancies guilt-free. He knows that we are just a bunch of scheming, lying women’s libbers. Or at least that’s what his latest bill makes it sound like. Winder said Monday that women use rape as ...
On Saturday, Moroccan women gathered outside the country’s parliament in the capital city of Rabat. Hundreds of women protested against a law that allows rapists to marry their underage victims to avoid prosecution. The Moroccan government has said it will review this law in light of the recent tragedy of the suicide of a 16-year-old ...
It was one of those headlines that makes you look twice. I questioned my own powers of comprehension as I read over the words referring to a case that went before the British justice system: “Woman fails to quash conviction for falsely retracting rape claim.” A woman was convicted for falsely retracting a rape claim? ...
Garry Trudeau’s Doonesbury cartoon strip which compares the vaginal ultrasound Texas women are forced to have before an abortion (in addition to an imposed waiting period) to rape has been pulled from several newspapers. I’ve yet to hear a sensible explanation for this decision. Trudeau is one of many voices in the United States objecting ...
It’s that time of year, when spring blossoms counteract the car pollution, beer gardens are filled with humans on...
The latest film in the American Pie series, American Reunion, contains a shocking scene – male full-frontal nudity including...
Dear Madame X, I have just started seeing this girl. She seems great, but she recently told me she...
Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved arrived in my hands via a public library, when I was a broke teenager with...
My attention was drawn this week to an article about the reaction at a Canadian university to proposals to...
Airport security. Bloody nuisance. Also a conspiracy designed to subjugate women. Allow me to elaborate. Despite flying quite a...
The Cannes film festival has kicked off this week with controversy over the lack of films made by women...
Dear Madame X, I seem to be only attracted to men who are macho assholes. I like them at...
