To say it aloud

Trigger warning: this post discusses non-consensual sex, specifically rape.

I was reading about the Clothesline project over on Scheherazade in Blue Jeans, and remembering when I lived in the college dorms and walked past the line every day.

I didn't want to acknowledge it. To look at the installation would be to admit that I had been raped. But this is not about that. This is about the boy I knew in high school who was raped.

He told me one day, about how he was at a party, and drunk. And when he woke up, he was tied to a bed, where two girls refused to let him go, and had sex with him. I wonder, sometimes, if that was why he cultivated the persona of a "player", used drugs, had trust issues... maybe.

But what I was thinking about today was how his story was the mirror image of the one I knew, and how I have never heard another case of a man being raped by a woman. I'm sure it happens... but do they tell anyone?

Who could they tell? How would that fit with the ideas of masculinity as strength, as sexually adventurous, as sexually indiscriminate? Who would they tell?

It's not really my story, but I felt the need to say something about his story, which he may, or may not have ever told again.

Show and Tell Time

The lovely blog Stirrup Queens decided (apparently some time ago) that show and tell is wasted on the young, and decided to kick it web 2.0 style, by having a weekly post where people can post a show and tell on their own blog, and then get rounded up at the weekly thread. So without further ado:

Shadowedge's Show and Tell:

This is a cake (yes, posting about a cake was totally a nod to Stirrup Queen's post about making a sukkah cake) that I made for my very dear friend, Moonkai for her fairy themed birthday party. Now, Moonkai's favorite cake is angel food cake with whipped cream frosting, which is pretty easy to bake. However, it is much harder to decorate. So, I plotted very carefully. I would buy nasturtium flowers at the farmer's market, since they are edible, festive, and would go with the theme. Then, I decided that the cake needed a topper. I went to every party store, scoured the inter net, and could not find a fairy topper that was not a) so far out of my budget as to be laughable (50$ for a cake topper?) or b) Tinker Bell, which was simply not the theme.

I finally saw some pictures of the Schelich fairies, and then had to track them down. I finally found one at a local Target. I was almost done. But the figurine was heavy enough that I was worried it would either squish, or fall off, the cake. So I grabbed a fancy vase, and turned it upside-down in the middle of the angel food cake after I frosted it with the whipped cream. that supported the figurine quite nicely, and the nasturtiums hid the edges nicely. I also, (as you can kind of see) sliced strawbeeries to decort the bottom edge.

Needless to say, Moonkai was appropriately impressed.

Go see the rest of Show and Tell here.