Kaitlyn Hunt, a high school senior in Florida, is facing a choice between going to trial and potentially serving up to 15 years in prison as a sex offender, or accepting a plea of two years under house arrest and a year on probation. All this for dating a girl in her school who was 15 years old. Her parents assumed that her girlfriend’s family was aware of the relationship, but apparently things were a bit more complicated.

With no previous attempt from Kaitlyn’s girlfriend’s family to communicate their disapproval of the relationship, the 18 year old high school student was arrested in February, in her home, and taken away in handcuffs. The lack of attempt at talking things out one family to another, and the very serious felony charges brought up against Hunt (lewd and lascivious battery on a child ages 12 to 16), seem to point to a hysterical outburst of homophobia on the part of her girlfriend’s parents upon finding out about the relationship. Your first reaction to your daughter’s fully consensual relationship isn’t to call the police, unless you’re in the middle of a freakout. Most rational people will at least try to have a conversation first.

“Use taxpayers’ money to prosecute REAL criminals, not a high school student who has never been in trouble a day in her young life, all because she had a mutual consenting relationship with someone who has bigoted parents,” said Kelley Hunt Smith, Kaitlyn’s mother. The irony of this case is that, in asserting statutory rape laws, Kaitlyn Hunt is being held to equal standards as anyone else would be in a heterosexual relationship. Of course, that equality is lost when it comes to marriage rights for many same sex couples across the country.

As for rape of any kind, let alone statutory, since 97% of violent rapists never go to jail, it seems a bit arbitrary to consider sending anyone to jail who was in a completely consensual and non-violent relationship. The thought of a criminal justice system in which police will handcuff an 18 year-old girl and haul her away like a violent criminal, while so many actually violent criminals walk free, is frankly disturbing. Two girls, three years apart, in a consensual relationship warrants an arrest and potentially 15 years in prison? The Steubenville rapists were only given one year, just for being minors, because apparently before you turn 18 you’re an impressionable idiot but on the day of your 18th birthday the Adulthood Fairy comes and taps you on the nose with the Magic Wand of Accountability and Maturity. We underestimate youth too much sometimes.

While statutory rape laws are indeed there for a reason, they also come with a lot of problems. Statutory rape laws are complicated, because while they are meant to protect minors, they also restrict a lot of freedoms. A relationship is more influenced by shared bonds, such as culture and maturity, than by age, because age has limited influence on the intellectual and emotional aspects of a romantic connection. An 18 year-old high schooler dating a 16 year-old is someone who still lives at home, and is part of the same culture as their partner. An 18 year-old in college is someone who probably lives in campus housing, and has a much more independent and adult life than even an 18 year old who is still a high school senior.

In the end, this isn’t a unique case, it just involves a same-sex couple. This kind of press doesn’t happen when a parent calls the police on their 16 year-old’s slightly older partner. In a way, it’s refreshing to see so many people allied with Kaitlyn, because her case seems so strongly tinged with homophobia. There’s a Change.org petition to help Kaitlyn’s family with legal fees. This is a good time to rethink not only bigotry, but how accountable minors are, as well, and perhaps to stop underestimating them.

Featured Image via RawStory

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An NRA vendor has been selling what they call “The Ex” — a shooting target that is basically a mannequin that ends just above the vagina, and oozes real-looking blood when you shoot it. Because what could be better target practice than a woman who broke up with you for no good reason, other than you wanting to use her for target practice?

Look at it. I mean… if this isn’t the best marketing idea ever, then my name isn’t Nancy Kerrigan:

K yeah, my name is definitely not Nancy Kerrigan.

Fun detailing (aside from the blood):

- The realistic wig that’s not janky at all!
- The way her boobs hang out of her bra, which hangs out of her torn tank top! Because you’d probably still do her one last time before killing her. It’s not violent if it’s not sexy, right?
- No eyes! Dehumanize the wench so she’s easier to wreck.

“What? It’s just target practice.”

After the internet went insane upon seeing this true American hero of sexist violence a$$hattery, the company decided to stop making it.

There’s your lesson, kids: take your culturally destructive, cycle-of-violence-enforcing products off the shelves for the sake of not having bad PR, not because you have any semblance of humanity whatsoever. If you did, you’d never come up with these brilliant ideas in the first place!

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Smart is now a sexual violence prevention advocate, and recently spoke at Johns Hopkins, where she offered insight not only into her own reactions in captivity, but into what exactly we often teach girls and women about their sexuality. Having been raised in a culture that prized sexual purity and taught abstinence-only sex education, she said she “felt so dirty and so filthy” having been raped, that she didn’t even want to run. She felt she had no one to run to – her purity had been put on such a high pedestal, that she felt worthless as a person, and as a woman, when it was violently taken from her. Imagine feeling that your family does not want you home, safe, and with them, because someone violated you — that the place, which should offer comfort and hope, could reject you for something you had no control over.

“I thought, ‘Oh, my gosh, I’m that chewed up piece of gum, nobody re-chews a piece of gum, you throw it away” Smart said, referring to what a school teacher once taught her class, in which premarital sex was equated with chewing gum. You know, like the whole why-buy-the-cow-when-you-can-get-the-milk-for-free thing, because marriage is just buying people so you can f*ck them. Sanctity of marriage! Quick, protect it!

“That’s how easy it is to feel like you no longer have worth, you no longer have value. Why would it even be worth screaming out? Why would it even make a difference if you are rescued? Your life still has no value,” continued Smart. Even social psychologists and sexual abuse counselors will tell you that a comprehensive sex education (ie. giving people the knowledge they need to make informed decisions for themselves) can help prevent sexual crimes. Even something as simple as teaching kids how to accurately define their genitalia.

Because abstinence-only education programs historically go hand-in-hand with slut-shaming, while failing to teach about preventing STD’s. Let’s be clear: if you don’t want to have sex, don’t. If you do, go nuts. Abstinence is an option for everyone, but it is not the only option. It’s no coincidence that its teaching is connected to a mentality that takes slut shaming to the level where a 14-year-old girl sees herself as so worthless after being raped, that she sees no point in getting out of a violently abusive situation. Moreover, prizing female sexual purity above all other aspects of being, I don’t know, A PERSON, inevitably creates a power structure in which a woman’s autonomy can be snuffed out with a single rumor, let alone rape.

Which, really, is the most jarring thing we can take away from Elizabeth Smart’s horror story, like we could from Steubenville, and like we could from Savannah Dietrich, and countless others:  slut shaming is inseparable from violence. It does more than hurt feelings, it perpetuates a culture in which women are at higher risk of sexual assault, and often assigned the blame instead of their violent attackers who chose to act as they did.

Victims of sexual assault did not choose to be attacked. And every time we glorify the sexual purity of a girl, which is a personal and intimate thing, every time we shame girls who don’t match virginal standards that diminish their value as an intelligent, independent human and instead assign their worth to their vagina, we are also encouraging the destruction of their lives at the hand of a sexual assailant.

Featured Image via NBC News

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Actually, no. It’s not just CNN (they’re just leading the charge, having broken a story about a suspect in custody that turned out to be completely false). It’s the majority of news media, led by 24-hour news networks. CNN just enjoyed a huge ratings spike during the Boston Marathon Bombing and its aftermath of a manhunt on Friday, and I think it’s fair to say that they had a deliberate hand in using the crises to gain viewers. From reporting stories that have not been properly verified (as proven by the fact that they turned out to be egregiously false), to irresponsibly claiming that police have what CNN vaguely described as a dark skinned male in custody, news reports added to confusion, fear and racist retaliations in an already tense situation.

When you are mid-crisis and have the attention of a large, nervous audience, you have a responsibility to report verified facts. You also have a responsibility not to report sketchy ideas about dark skinned anyones, because you should know full well the racially charged history of the country you’re reporting to, and the inevitable repercussions of pointing a finger at a variety of marginalized ethnic groups to an audience in a prime state for scapegoating someone. What in the name of all that is f*ckery is wrong with CNN? While they’re busy trying to win the ratings war, they’re losing every last crumb of credibility they have left (and that’s just because Fox News exists).

After photos of a pair of Boston Marathon Bombing suspects were released, Twitter and Reddit were abuzz all of Thursday night about a student from Brown who had gone missing – Sunil Tripathi. One of his classmates from high school thought she recognized him in a photo of the suspects, and the internet followed suit, despite the fact that the resemblance was a pretty far stretch. Personally, I find it fascinating that even when the two suspects in question were white, the good people of Reddit and Twitter managed to find a brown-skinned man to accuse.

The original Reddit post was based off of a police scanner recording that referenced Mike Mulugeta (also a false lead), and which had nothing to say about Tripathi. If his name was mentioned on the scanner that night, it certainly wasn’t linked to the Boston Marathon Bombings (and if he had been missing from Brown for a month, perhaps the mention of his name was related to a search for him as a missing person, not as a suspect — all speculative, since his name is not mentioned on the scanner recording).

It’s bad enough that the mob mentality that emerges in a crisis runs amok like this on social media. But when a dozen news vans are parked outside someone’s house, harassing their family because Reddit and Twitter went after them with torches and pitchforks, it’s apparent that legitimate research and verification is no longer part of the journalistic process. There was aboslutely no proof against Tripathi, other than one mistaken ex-classmate and perhaps the color of his skin. When NBC’s Pete Williams broke the story of the two main suspects identities being that of Chechnyan brothers Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev (who are as Caucasian as you can get, being literally from right next to the Caucasus Mountains), it was after verifying and confirming it with reliable police sources. Because that’s how it’s supposed to be done.

The news used to consist of fact-checked information. Journalism meant conveying verified stories without editorializing them. The line between pundit shows and news reporting on 24-hour cable news is hazy, if there at all.

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Hansen was responding to a fellow NH State Representative’s floor speech on gun control, in which he talked about retreating being a better approach than using deadly force. Below, the gemiest gem of a paragraph from Hansen’s email, which he had sent to several colleagues as part of an email debate:

“What could possibly be missing from those factual tales of successful retreat in VT, Germany, and the bowels of Amsterdam? Why children and vagina’s of course. While the tales relate the actions of a solitary male the outcome cannot relate to similar situations where children and women and mothers are the potential victims.”

I guess someone ditched the State Capitol sexual harassment seminar (and English class) eternity years in a row. Or 9th grade bio where, among other revolutionary scientific principles, they teach that the female body is, in fact, comprised of various elements in addition to the vagina (it’s true, I looked it up). For example, I am currently typing this with my non-vaginal fingers, which are comprised of non-labial bone and tissue.

Both State Republicans and Democrats replied immediately, noting their offense at Hansen’s choice of words. State Rep. Rick Watrous called him out, saying, “Are you really using ‘vaginas’ as a crude catch-all for women? Really? Please think before you send out such offensive language on the legislative listserve [sic].” State Republican chair Jennifer Horn called Hansen’s choice of words, “disrespectful and shameful.” Let’s just rewind and marvel at how Hansen wrote something this ignorantly offensive to a STATE LEGISLATOR LISTSERV.

Hansen’s response:

“Having a fairly well educated mind I do not need self appointed wardens to A: try to put words in my mouth for political gain and B: Turn a well founded strategy in communication into an insulting accusation, and finally if you find the noun vagina insulting or in some way offensive then perhaps a better exercise might be for you to re-examine your psyche…”

Listen. You can’t throw apostrophes around all willy-nilly like confetti at a parade, misuse capitalization, write run-on sentences until the grammar fairy dies a death so horrible that no amount of clapping can bring her back, and then try to win an argument by claiming to be well-educated. With regard to turning “a well [--> - <--] founded strategy” into an “accusation,”

As for finding the word vagina offensive, Hansen clearly missed the point. The word itself isn’t offensive – it’s a medical term for lady brambles and it would be nice to see a Republican politician not running from it, if he knew how to use it correctly. The offense here is that he used female genitalia to refer to all women, in essence reducing them to being identified solely by their reproductive bits. And that is some f*ckery, which we will not have.

Once enough people had taken offense to Hansen’s comment that it started taking up more of his time and energy than he was interested in giving, he softened his reply to a flimsy apologetic statement:

“Can there be any doubt my comment is being misinterpreted and taken completely out of context? It was not, and is not, my intention to demean women at any time. It is apparent that the intent of my remarks has been misinterpreted, the true goal of the message lost and for that I apologize to those who took offense.”

Please note that he doesn’t apologize for having been an insensitive, derogatory sexist of a public representative in a public space. He’s sorry you were offended. It’s your fault for being an oversensitive idiot and not knowing the he has nothing against vaginas women. Who dares to quote an entire paragraph from an email that his State Congress did a collective spit-take to? Clearly the problem is that it’s “out of context.” Whether or not Hansen feels remorse for his crimes against grammar remains to be seen.

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Time magazine recently published an article about a study, which showed that women (who fall between 0-5 on the Kinsey scale, I assume) prefer men with big penises. What gay men are into doesn’t matter because bla bla bla heteronormative bullsh*t zzzzzzzz.

“The researchers, including those from Monash University and Australian National University, asked the women to view life-size video clips of computer-generated images of naked men who varied in height, body shape and flaccid penis size, but not in other qualities like facial attractiveness and hair. The women gave each image a rating from 1 to 7 on total sexual attractiveness, rather than assessing individual characteristics.”

If I get a bunch of ladies in a room with some ipads full of naked Sims, can I get it funded as a study, too? Though I probably wouldn’t go with pictures of flaccid dachshunds if I’m going at this from a sexy angle. Looking through a catalogue of limp shake weights doesn’t sound all that enticing. What about the growers-not-showers? As long as the computer generated images were video, they couldn’t throw that in? How long were these videos? Were they just thirty seconds of apathetic bananagrams hovering awkwardly and questioning their pixelated existence?

Research conducted “studied how 105 young Australian women rated attractiveness in males.” So basically, what we just learned is that Australian women like big didgeridoos. Also, what kind of Australian women? Were they all white? Were they of diverse backgrounds? Who knows, let’s talk about dudes’ nerf bats more!

“…height was equally important. Shorter men with larger penises were ranked as more attractive than shorter men who were not as well endowed, but they still remained on the low end of the scale for overall appeal.”

We have now learned that Australian women aren’t into short dudes as much as sizeable fluffernutters.

“The size of a model’s member, for example, had a greater influence on attractiveness if the model were tall, since proportion may have been an important factor in how appealing the men appeared to the women. “A change in penis size has a larger effect for taller men than it does for other heights,” Mautz says. “This result could be because penis size was smaller when assessed relative to the height of a taller man,” the authors note.”

Someone alert the 14th century, perspective exists! I’m just kidding. Even the Ancient Egyptians knew about this sh*t.

But wait, there’s more:

“It turns out there may also be a threshold for the ideal size, which may also work against the vertically challenged; the study found that above about 3 in., additional enlargement in genitalia doesn’t make that much of a difference in attractiveness, regardless of a man’s height.”

So it’s all about the boys that grow, and yet the study stuck to dead logs. Amazing what science can teach us these days.

In the end, the study came up with following amazing conclusion:

“While size may matter, the findings don’t suggest that only size matters.”

A real breakthrough. Women care about more than just a dude’s bangers and mash! Like the rest of his body. Not featured in this study: any relevance to personality, intellect, or any kind of soul. Eff that stuff! It’s all about what kind of funcessory a man is hauling, amirite?

Guys. Lean in for a second, this is important: your Hogwarts Express is probably fine as it is. We’re really not all that caught up in how far your fruit by the foot can roll. As long as your bacon and eggs are fully cooked, we’re happy. You could be rocking a skyscraper in your pants, as long as you’re generous in bed, pick up on cues well and know what to do with your Grabthar’s Hammer, it’s all good. Women care less about your d*ck than they do about you not acting like one.

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Most of us have a general idea of the United States’ history with North Korea, though it’s probably limited to that M*A*S*H episode where Alan Alda is sassy and then gets all serious in surgery, says something deep about war, and then finds out he’s Jack Donaghy’s father. The US and Korea have been all over the place going way back to the 19th century. Like the General Sherman Incident in 1866, which is this funny story where a US gunboat went to Korea to negotiate a trade treaty and instead it got attacked by Korean forces who killed the crew after both fired guns for a while because the boat defied instructions (and then the US retaliated with the Shinmiyangyo attack). This is why we use our words, guys.

Things almost took an uphill turn in 1882 (settle down class, we have a lot to cover), when the US and Korea established trade relations. Cut to 0.010 seconds later and the Russo-Japanese War (1905), in which the US negotiated peace, and then five years later the US was all “whatevs” when Japan annexed Korea. Korea was not amused.

So then WWII happened (well, WWI happened, and the Great Depression, and a bunch of other stuff, but I’m trying to keep this brief), and when it was over, the UN divided Korea into North and South along the 38th parallel. The US occupied South Korea, and a few years later when Kim Il-sung came back from exile and took over the country, he declared the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (heretofore referred to as DPRK because my carpal tunnel is kicking in already). The US didn’t give the DPRK diplomatic recongition, but Soviet Russia did — probably because they had installed Kim Il-sung as leader of the country in the first place.

If you’re ever lived in a Soviet satellite country, like the one I was born and semi-raised in (Hungary), then you know that the main takeaway from the whole thing is that sh*t was cray. The government was a bureaucracy that ran on bullsh*t, red tape, incompetency and occasionally executing people who argued with you. Korea didn’t vote Kim Il-sung into office, and the 2 leaders of the country since then have been his son and grandson. The Korean War was started by North Korea invading South Korea, approved by Stalin (you know it’s a bad idea when Stalin approves).

There were a few years of violent stalemate, and once the Korean War ended, Kim Il-sung’s approval rating – especially in the USSR – wasn’t exactly stellar. In fact, part of the reason he was allowed to remain in power at all was that the Soviets were too busy in 1956 dealing with the revolution in Hungary (there’s this painting from my grandparents’ house that still has bullet holes in it) and couldn’t be bothered to get rid of him. The Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, the US removed the last of its nuclear weapons from South Korea, and we could finally start catching up on Dallas and MTV in Hungary.

In the late 50s, North Korea (can I just call it NoKo? No? OK just checking) started building massive underground fortifications, and in ’63 they asked the Soviet Union for help with nuclear weapons development but got shut down. Since then there have been a number of ups and downs with nuclear non-proliferation treaties, negotiations, sanctions, and a lot of “no we’re not making nuclear weapons” followed by “except the ones we plan to aim at your house.” The UN has been trying to keep everyone on the playground away from the dodgeball court, and both Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton have gone to North Korea – as non-representatives but civilian intermediaries – to try and smooth things out.

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I just want to say up front that I’m a straight woman who has always identified as the gender I was assigned, and have no intention to speak for a community I am not actually part of (but sure do love!). I would also like to politely remind you, kind reader, that our comments section is a place of respectful conversation and debate. It is not a space that welcomes abuse, rudeness, or proselytization. Thank you for respecting that.

The Supreme Court is currently making some big decisions about the Defense of Marriage Act. A lot of people support it, and a lot of people who it won’t actually affect oppose it. There is a lot of yelling, and inevitably, Facebook feeds overflow with a fresh bounty of brilliant memes. Like this one:

I have an idea. Let’s stop invoking the sanctity of marriage in the same-sex marriage debate. Let’s not try to validate one person’s choice by invalidating another’s, even if it is a Kardashian, or even Newt Gingrich. We all know he’s on his third marriage, but you can’t advocate for one person’s choices by judging another’s. Maybe couples can decide for themselves how sacred their own marriages are, or if they want to save the sanctity for their wedding, since marriage is just the legal union part.

There’s also this gem:

Let’s try not comparing same-sex marriage to interracial marriage, the civil rights movement, or any other historical injustice. Yes, there’s a common theme of ignorance hindering social progress, but beyond that, all of these struggles were and are their own battles and deserve their own place in history. They’re not all a giant pool of oppressed people sharing the same experience, and it’s doing a disservice to people who are already marginalized to lump them in with other marginalized groups throughout history.

While we’re at it, let’s also drop the whole same-sex-marriage-leads-to-marrying-animals thing (seriously, what is it with that?). I get it. My goat and I can never get married. Never will we file taxes side by side, plan our retirement together or refinance our mortgage, hand in hoof. We can still share our little home where I pay bills at the kitchen table while Goat makes chévre tartes. After dinner we catch up on Doctor Who and talk about how much we miss David Tennant and then oh wait, no we don’t because animals ≠ people.

Besides, Goat is more of a Matt Smith fan, so this thing clearly has an expiration date.

What is it that the Supreme Court is currently ruling on, then? Marriage, ie. what’s basically a legal contract. No one is going into religious institutions and force-marrying anyone. People are going to have to work that part out with their respective religions, because separation of Church and State.

Here are some things that legal marriage provides for a couple:

Filing joint tax returns! Dividing business income among family members! Estate planning benefits! Social Security benefits like Medicare and disability benefits for spouses! Military and Veterans’ benefits for spouses! Health benefits through a spouse’s employer! Taking family leave to care for a spouse during an illness! Workers’ comp and retirement plan benefits on behalf of deceased spouses! Hospital visitation rights for spouses! Making medical decisions for incapacitated spouses! Consenting to after-death procedures and funeral arrangements for spouses! Filing for adoption! Applying for joint foster care rights! Spousal or child support, child custody, and visitation rights after a divorce! Lease renewal rights on leases signed by a spouse! Receiving family rates for insurance! Receiving tuition discounts! Rights to sue a third party for wrongful death on behalf of a spouse! Visiting rights in jail!

Marriage is about super boring things that are only interesting when they’re relevant to your personal daily life, or the occasional family emergency. This is not about the Bible and it’s not about sanctity – you’re thinking of a wedding.

So why can’t same-sex couples be fine with civil unions? Well, why can’t you be fine with eating store-brand yogurt while all the other kids get Brown Cow with the cream top and fruit on the bottom? While marriages are recognized worldwide, civil unions might not even make it across state lines. What you’re asking is, “why can’t people just be fine with being second class citizens?” Why should they be?

The current debate about same-sex marriage is about legal rights — you can rail about religion and family values and sanctity until your ears turn blue and you fall over and hit yourself in the face with your protest sign, but that won’t change the fact that we are denying certain people rights that are extended to others. This is the direct opposite of equal rights (see: US Constitution).

If the State is required to respect its separation from the “Church” (ie. religion in general), then to keep the system functional, the “Church” must reciprocate. Government should not intervene in religious weddings, and religion should subsequently stay out of legal marriages. This is how we keep from punching each other to death. It’s called civilization; it will win you points at Scrabble.

So can we please agree to mutually respect one another and ensure we all have equal rights? Great.

Featured image via: … I don’t know you guys, it’s a meme, you need to start watermarking this stuff with your name or something.

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