When Coffee Can't Even Keep Me Silent About The World's Lunacy. (Update x2)

I need to avoid the news when I wake in the mornings, certainly so until after I've finished my coffee.

I didn't follow that maxim this morning, and now I'm left shaking my head over the way the world has lost its damn mind.

The Columbia University Mattress Girl, Emma Sulkowicz, has now created an amateur pornography video called "This is not a Rape," though from what I've heard some of it is designed to look like sexual assault.  The video was filmed over her winter break during her final year at Columbia University, and is now making its way to the Internet.  I will not link to it here, and I'm not even giving the actual name of the film, because I'm not going to give this young lady any more press than she deserves, especially not for this little disturbing outburst.  Besides, this is in some respects created about family law, entertainment, and I still decide to maintain some semblance of respectability when I behave like a jackass.   If you want to view such things, figure out how to do it on your own.

For the "performance art video" (because apparently you can couch pornography in those terms now), Sulkowicz created an "introduction," which states that this isn't about her "rape" in August of 2012, and that it's not about the man who was repeatedly found to have not raped Emma Sulkowicz.  No, this is now about the viewer participating in her faux sexual assault, and "objectifying" her to make it about the situation if her words are disregarded.  Mattress Girl then proceeds to give the viewer a series of questions to ask themselves about her porn film, including whether or not the viewer is denying her agency and victim status by viewing her having sex.  It's not good enough for her to create a fake rape porn film; she has to turn it into an academic exercise for viewers by giving them a list of things to ask themselves during the viewing.

"If you watch this video without my consent, then I hope you reflect on your reasons for objectifying me and participating in my rape."  Sulkowicz was never raped.  That's what has me shaking my head about this entire exercise in public lunacy.  The man she falsely accused of raping her was cleared by both Columbia University's kangaroo court and actual law enforcement of ever participating in any form of sexual assault against Sulkowicz, and yet she continued to smear a young man's name and career for the purposes of "performance art."  Her "Carry That Weight" piece at Columbia University earned Emma a seat at the State of the Union address and Columbia a lawsuit by Paul Nungesser for failing to live up to their confidentiality policies and participating in this harassment.  None of this was enough--now she's got to see the world participate in a sexual assault that never happened.

The video Sulkowicz created makes it explicitly clear that both parties who participated in this pornography were consenting adults, and yet if you watch it without Emma Sulkowicz saying that it's OK, then you've sexually assaulted her.  But Sulkowicz created this video and asked that it be distributed.  So what specifically defines consent to stop this very disturbed young woman from saying every single hit on the video is a new rapist?  Will she eventually demand the IP addresses of every single viewer and ask police to prosecute each for rape?  Is this going to create a brand new version of a federal crime for sexual assault, since the video can be viewed across interstate lines?

Enough is enough.  I generally tend to keep quiet about such things, and I had made it a point to stay silent when it came to the Columbia Mattress Girl, because I didn't want to give her any more attention, but this is where things have reached a point of absurdity that they need to be addressed.  It wasn't enough for her to demand that everyone believe she was sexually assaulted.  It wasn't enough for her to smear a young man's name for her thesis.  It wasn't enough for her fabrication to fly in the face of the world and cause a ruckus at Columbia University during graduation.  The escalation point was when she had to fabricate the rape that never happened and publicly share it with the world.

I get that I will probably be vilified by the few people who read this and decide to tell me i'm a bad person for saying such things about an alleged rape victim.  I've been called terrible things in my life, and I'm sure it won't stop here. I also get that this may generate at least one comment about how the definition of "rape" was coined by old white men who write the history books and the dictionaries, and I don't care.  There comes a point in time where one has to speak out for one's convictions, and this is that time.

Rape is a crime that happens far more than it ever should.  Rape is also statutorily defined for a reason--because it establishes what constitutes a horrible, terrible sexual assault.  You don't get to change that definition just for the sake of "art," and you don't get to accuse people of that horrible crime because you want to propagate your own porn film.

She wasn't raped by the definition of the Columbia University Kangaroo Rape Court, and it wasn't enough.

She wasn't raped by the legal definition, and it wasn't enough.

The world embraced her loud protests of victimhood, and it wasn't enough.

She had to fabricate her rape, film it as "performance art," distribute it on the Web, and then accuse people of raping her if they watched something she filmed and propagated with the world.

This is when the world loses its damn mind.

Someone please get Emma Sulkowicz some help.

UPDATE: I asked earlier if there was a definition for Emma Sulkowicz's new form of "consent" when viewing this video.

Yup.  There is.  She wrote it herself. H/t to Ace of Spades for this special blend of Looney Tunes:

And what constitutes "consent"? That you watch it on the terms she demands, in support of her beliefs. That is, if you emotionally affirm her, then you have not raped her.

If you do not emotionally affirm her, then you have raped her, even though she has quite clearly given her consent. She's just deciding that your lack of emotional affirmation can invalidate her consent (and thereby render your own actions "rape")....

It's amazing to me, too, that this Rape Monger does a piece about rape and then says if you see rape here, it was about your determination to make this all about rape.

Wow.  I have no further words beyond Ace's: "It is difficult, at this point, to believe that Emma Sulkowicz is anything more than what she appears to be, a liar and lunatic."

UPDATE x2: The video has now made its way to a major adult video site on the internet.  I will not link to it, but you can go find it yourself.  So much for continuing to call this "performance art." And remember, if you view it without emotionally affirming Sulkowicz or understanding why she did it, then you have raped her.

Sunday Morning Meditation: Anger Is A Weakness, Not A Gift.

The Internet Outrage Machine never stops.

One week, we get a story about a Muslim woman who was targeted by "Islamophobes" because she couldn't get an unopened can of coke on a flight.  The next week, we get a story of people who are offended by backwards words on public transit. Another week, stories circulate of students who file Title IX actions against people who offend them. Every single week, I find another people in dire straits of being "offended," and how the actions they take following that offense become national--and sometimes international--headlines.

I just don't get it--the notion of continually piling on offense and outrage over the tiniest of gaffes, the continued piling on of hate for individuals who commit "microagressions" for failing to share the collective world mindset, and the seeming personal policy we all must have that if you commit the crime of contrarian thought, you must apologize to the offended immediately without questioning the offense or taking issue with the offended.  Nothing but complete, unwavering support is the mentality we must adopt for those who claim themselves as "victims," and if you are the offended you must immediately start a Tumblr blog and a creative hashtag campaign to get the offender fired.

Maybe it's the white male privilege in me.  Maybe it's the fact that I have kids, and it's really hard for me to get offended about something when I spend a morning barking and mooing at a nearly two year old child just for the sake of hearing her giggle.  Maybe it's the fact that I've got a wife that loves me and seems to think even when I ballooned into the "dad bod" that seems to be the new standard of cool that I'm worthy of getting stared at with a bit of lust.  Maybe it's because I spend some time taking out my frustrations and anger on weights in the gym instead of sitting behind a keyboard or phone screen attacking others.

This culture of offense has reached a point where Chris Rock and Jerry Seinfeld refuse to play college campuses because they know their material will be seen as racist, sexist, ableist, cis or trans-phobic...the list goes on and on.  Louis C.K.--a comedian whose style borders on making people laugh uncomfortably--was branded "offensive" for a rather brilliant SNL monologue involving bits about child molestation, racism, Israel and Palestine, and more.  When this becomes an issue that divides us--in a medium that intends to heal--comedians are told to "take their work seriously." 

I wonder if any of these people understand they're removing their own power, and giving it to those they hate so very much.  By the continued strains of outrage and anger, they're taking away their own strength and giving it to those they target.

Let me explain this small nugget of wisdom from a very wise man who I love and respect: Hate and anger are weapons of power and control. When you hate someone, or they make you angry--and I'm talking ready to come to blows angry--they've taken over your life.  They have power over you, because they're now the center of your thought patterns.  They have control of you physically, because you're directing efforts and your time in getting others to notice your anger and join in your collective Two Minutes of Hate.  You now no longer have control of your mental faculties, your physical abilities, or your emotional state.  They do.  By devoting that much mental energy to your target of hate, you have given them power over your life.

When you relinquish that hate, when you decide to respond in love, you take a different tack.  You now exercise the control.  You can respond in kindness, or you can simply use humor to ridicule and deflect the situation.  The difference is that you've now taken the power back, and really "disrupted" something by using a positive mechanism to attack the negativity someone attempted to make you feel.  You've gained power in the world where you didn't think you had any.

It's hard work, this kind of loving response in a culture that thrives on fear and hate.  You have to actively examine yourself to figure out why you hate so much, and tap in to a new kind of skill--self examination--to learn where the real target of that negative emotion lies.  It's a practice that takes time and dedication to truly master, and I'm still working on it myself, but when you finally get to that point where someone attempts to make you hate them and you respond by draining their negative energy through humor, you will understand a new means of peace and control over your life that you've never seen before.

I end this by saying that I direct this to the people who are offended and outraged out of a sense of true powerlessness, those who are honestly in a moment where they've been stripped of their power by someone attempting to make them lose control over their own life and want to fire back with negative feelz. If you are of the other lot--the ones who attempt outrage for the sake of what is now being called "shame storming" or you use your manufactured offense to affect someone else's life negatively, then I have no recourse for you.  You're just an asshole.