Need Carnival Nominations

Tomorrow night at 11 pm is the next deadline for the Carnival Against Sexual Violence so please take a few minutes and nominate a post you've written or a post you've read.

A few people have had trouble with the official nomination form, if this happens to you, please let me know by email (my address is in my profile) with a subject line of carnival nomination or leave a comment with a link to the nominated post as soon as possible.

Together we can help reduce the acceptance of rape and the myths related to sexual violence which support rape and injustice against rape victims.

Murderer Who Responded To Successful Appeal By Bragging About His Crime Seeks To Stop His Execution

From the Stafford County Sun:

Lawyers for a Virginia inmate scheduled to die next week for killing a 16-year-old friend are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to stop the execution. Lawyers for a Virginia inmate scheduled to die next week for killing a 16-year-old — then bragging about it to prosecutors when he thought he couldn’t face the death penalty — are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to stop the execution.

Paul Warner Powell’s lawyers argue that he was unconstitutionally convicted twice for the 1999 murder and attempted rape of Yorkshire teen Stacie Reed.[...]

Thinking he could no longer face the death penalty, Powell wrote a profanity-laced, taunting letter to prosecutors offering graphic detail of how he tried to rape Reed before he stabbed her three times and stomped on her throat until she quit breathing. “Do you just hate yourself for being so stupid and for (messing) up and saving me?’’ he wrote to Commonwealth’s Attorney Paul Ebert in 2001.

Most of the time when I read about efforts to stop the death penalty from being carried out the lawyers and the defendant claim that the defendant is innocent and someone else committed the crime, but in this case the certainty of this man's guilt seems to be what should spare him from a sentence which matches the actual crime he committed.

This case contrasts in another way as well. In the other cases, procedure is treated as something which must always be less important than the truth. The rules are described as something which must always be put aside in favor of justice because the rules are there to uphold justice.

However, in this case the defense attorneys want the truth to be less important than procedure and they want justice to be put aside in favor of the rules as they are interpreting them. From the details of the gloating letter this man wrote he has absolutely no respect for other people's lives and that attitude could make him an active danger to other inmates and to prison personnel.

I am almost always against the death penalty since there is so much inequality in the way it gets used. For me the death penalty should only be used for public safety purposes. Some murderers simply have so little respect for the lives of others that imprisoning them only changes which lives are at highest risk.

The fault here seems to belong to Powell who viewed a successful appeal of his original sentence for murder as the end of the process and who then couldn't wait to gloat about the cruel details of the multiple crimes he committed against a teenage girl. He confessed not only to the murder of which he'd been convicted of committing, he confessed to the separate crime of attempted rape. This confession gave the prosecutors evidence of a crime which they didn't have when the original charges were filed.

If this appeal is successful it sets a dangerous precedent which puts public safety at risk and not just from this man. If someone who committed multiple crimes including murder against the same person or during the commission of a crime spree and is convicted of one or more of the lesser crimes such as check fraud then that person, under this interpretation of the constitution, should be immune from prosecution for murder if subsequent evidence implicates that person.

If while in jail a convicted check forger is recorded confessing to murdering someone whose checks were forged then that person should not be protected from prosecution for that murder under double jeopardy rules. And just as check forgery and murder are separate crimes so too are attempted rape and murder.

Arrogance which causes someone to feel superior to the law should not prevent justice. Powell's confession to that separate crime was not coerced and if he didn't want it used against him he should have conferred with his attorneys prior to sending it.

Retired Pro Footballer Steve McNair Victim Of Murder Suicide

From the Washington Post:

NASHVILLE, July 8 -- Former NFL quarterback Steve McNair was shot four times and killed by his girlfriend Sahel Kazemi, who then used the same gun to shoot herself in the head, according to a Nashville police investigation and Tennessee Bureau of Investigation report.

As public pressure mounted to solve the July 4 murder of the one-time star of the Tennessee Titans and Baltimore Ravens, Police Chief Ronal W. Serpas, at a news conference, portrayed Kazemi, 20, as despondent and increasingly tormented by a rush of personal problems culminating with the discovery that the married McNair was also seeing another woman.

The majority of intimate partner murders are committed by men against women (in 2005, 329 men were victims compared to 1,181 women), but the violence is just as real and just as wrong when the person murdered is a man and when the person who commits that murder is a woman.

There are other ways for people, men and women, to deal with financial hardships and personal or relationship stress other than violence. From the details of the crime scene there is no way that the shooting of McNair was an act of self-defense. Instead the police believe that he was asleep when he was shot.

Kazemi bought a loaded 9 mm pistol from an acquaintance shortly after she was arrested for driving under the influence which was about 2 days before the murder. After that purchase she apparently talked about suicide, but it's unclear if the person she bought the pistol from broke any laws through the sale or had any hint that she was considering using it. What's also unclear is whether anyone who heard her talk about suicide was aware that she'd purchased a weapon.

Too often people who hear someone talk about suicide or even murder don't take any action because they assume that either the threat isn't real or they believe there is nothing they can do since no crime has been committed. This is why domestic violence and suicide hotlines are so important. Bystanders can call and seek options.

Sometimes the best efforts by everyone around people considering violence cannot prevent that person from crossing the line and sometimes the people considering violence can present themselves as incapable of violence. But sometimes bystanders can see signs of violence and can help someone see and take a non-violent path.

Designer Anand Jon Alexander's Rape Conviction Upheld After Juror Misconduct

From the LA Times:

A Los Angeles County judge upheld the sexual assault conviction of Beverly Hills fashion designer Anand Jon Alexander on Monday, ruling that a juror's contact with the defendant's sister before the verdicts did not prevent a fair trial. Attorneys for the Indian-born designer argued that the conviction should be thrown out, alleging that the juror sought sex or money from the defendant's sister toward the end of last year's trial and voted to convict her brother when she refused to meet him alone.

Superior Court Judge David S. Wesley ruled that the juror, Alvin Dymally, committed misconduct by approaching Sanjana Alexander twice in the courthouse and speaking to her on two occasions when she phoned him. Wesley also said he believed the juror lied when he denied under oath ever speaking to Sanjana Alexander before the verdicts. But the judge found that Dymally's actions did not affect the jury's guilty verdicts. [...]

Alexander, 35, who goes by the professional name Anand Jon, was found guilty in November of raping one woman and sexually assaulting six other girls and young women. The conviction carries a mandatory life prison sentence.

This ruling makes sense to me as does the decision to hold both the juror and Anand Jon Alexander's sister in contempt of court. If Ms. Alexander felt this juror was endangering her brother's due process rights she should have reported him immediately.

What this feels like is that Ms. Alexander saw this juror's interest in her as an opportunity and decided not to do report this juror in the hope that leaving him on the jury would result in a deadlocked verdict if the other jurors all believed the prosecution had proved her brother's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt and if her brother was found guilty then this contact could then be used to try to undo this trial.

Her statement that if she had agreed to meet in person with this juror that her brother would not have been convicted supports this theory. If any of Alexander's legal team was involved in recording phone conversations between Ms. Alexander and this juror those people should also be held in contempt of court for not reporting this juror's misconduct before closing arguments.

In the recording which was transcribed Ms. Alexander responded to the juror's request to meet after the trial with, "Definitely, we will."

This type of misconduct on behalf of the defendant should not be rewarded.

Rape Defendant Commits Suicide While His Trial Underway

From the Seattle Times:

In the months since Sankarandi Skanda demanded the right to represent himself in court against charges of rape, robbery and burglary, his intensity appeared to wane.

On Thursday, the lanky man with thick eyebrows and close-cropped hair sat quietly at the defense table asking few questions of the state's witnesses. It was a far cry from the early days of the trial when he fashioned a defense based on a claim — which some called far-fetched — that he was being falsely accused by a woman who once asked Skanda to kill her husband.

Skanda, also known as Franklin Antill, was found dead inside his cell at the King County Jail early Friday. Authorities say that a noose he fashioned out of bedsheets was tied around his neck and a hefty stack of trial paperwork was jammed against the cell door in an apparent attempt to keep jail staff from getting inside.

This man's suicide came after Skanda, acting as his own attorney, violated court rules in his questioning of the rape victim in this case. From the interviews done with some of the jurors this man's accusations against his rape victim were viewed as completely non-credible and they would have found him guilty if the trial hadn't been halted because of Skanda's death.

If he had been convicted he likely would have been sent to prison for the rest of his life. The defense attorney who acted as his advisor described him as a man who wanted to be in control and the way this case ended was in Skanda's control while it seems to have been clear to him by his changing manner as the trial progressed that the verdict was out of his control.

I had noticed this case and was waiting until the trial ended to blog about it.

From the ABA Journal:

Skanda is accused of breaking into the accuser's Wallingford home and raping her at knifepoint while her children slept nearby. Skanda is also known as Frank Antill. He used that name until, while serving prison time for a similar assault in Idaho, he converted to Hinduism.

According to the Post-Intelligencer, when Skanda began asking questions on topics that the court had previously barred, Prosecutor Kays objected.

She argued, "This is a court of law, not a court of terror for him, and I can't help but believe he is getting off on terrorizing this woman again. He is thumbing his nose at this process and he's using it to terrorize this woman."

With the improvements in DNA technology more stranger rapists cannot rely on claims that the visual ID process was faulty and that the DA charged the wrong man. So when the evidence of sexual contact is overwhelming, it is tempting for stranger rapists and many attorneys representing them to use the stereotype about how women lie about rape as the defense.

This isn't the only rape trial where there has been no evidence to support the criminal allegations against the alleged victims. Unfortunately, sometimes a baseless counter accusation results in an acquittal. This often relies on assumptions about whether an alleged rapist understood that consent was absent.

This strategy is a tougher sell when a stranger rapist enters the rape victim's home. Jurors who believe that the person who doesn't want sex has the legal obligation to clearly communicate that lack of consent don't have the same expectation in burglary rapes. They understand that in this scenario that the victim may be raped before there is a chance to say no or that fear may prevent the victim from speaking or fighting. What many jurors fail to understand is that the same can happen in non-stranger rapes.

Supporters of this strategy of making counter accusations without supporting evidence may point to a case (as happened in the comments of the ABA Journal article) where the alleged victim or victims were arrested to support the defense's counter allegation that the original rape report was fraudulent, but that makes as much sense as supporting the prosecution of men on rape charges without evidence because other men have been convicted based on credible evidence.

Notably people who support casting baseless doubt on alleged rape victims repeatedly fail to mention cases where rape victims have been falsely charged or falsely convicted. Many times a lack of conviction of the alleged rapist is used to claim that that person might be innocent while that possibility of innocence is ignored when girls and women who reported being raped are described as false accusers despite a similar lack of conviction.

Too Good For Feminism Which Fought Legal Injustice Against Women?

From an opinion piece in the Independent UK by Ellie Levenson:

Most women my age don't like the word feminism and don't choose to identify as feminists. I know this because I have spoken to many women born in the Seventies and Eighties over the past couple of years as research for my book, The Noughtie Girl's Guide To Feminism, which is published today. [...]

Because feminism in the past has been characterised by po-faced earnestness, It is a movement where all too often humour has been missing. [...]

A man I know nobbled me at an event this week. He had recently started to work at English PEN, a writers' organisation that campaigns on behalf of persecuted authors around the world. As my own book comes out this week, he suggested that I join, which I will gladly do.

This commentary dismisses all the activism by feminists who helped Ms. Levenson have the many legal choices she so flippantly takes for granted.

She is furthering the stereotype that feminists who worked or are working to prevent injustice against women such as rape are nothing more than humorless women who are against gendered injustice only because they hate men.

Women who worked tirelessly on behalf of other women and girls who were raped or murdered by men are bad feminists -- who must be repudiated -- because when they did this work they didn't have enough humor.

Levenson says in her commentary that women can make any personal choice they'd like but by her repeated slams against older feminists this is clearly a false statement. Any choice which could get a woman labeled as humorless is the wrong choice.

When men organize to end world hunger or when people organize to fight a particular deadly disease I hear no criticism that when these men speak out against those harms that they lack humor.

To end this commentary by elevating men's humorless activism against the persecution of writers shows how little Ms. Levenson understands about the work of the feminists she disdains. In the end she's the one who comes off as humorless.

Michigan Appeals Court Rules That Rape Victims Cannot Be Sued For Wrongful Prosecution

From Detroit News:

The appeals court reversed a federal judge in Detroit Wednesday and threw out 21 of Jeffrey Moldowan's claims in a federal lawsuit he filed in 2005, including his malicious prosecution and other claims against the Jane Doe who accused him.

The woman, who was severely and permanently injured in the attack, can't be sued for malicious prosecution, even if she testified falsely, the appeals court ruled.

Although the woman's identification of Moldowan, a former boyfriend, as one of her attackers "was critical to the Macomb County Prosecutor's decision to prosecute him, her statements were only part of a broader, independent investigation," the appeals court ruled in a published opinion.

Also, "victims of crime, especially the types of crime that occurred here, must feel secure that cooperating with the police will not expose them to lengthy and invasive civil proceedings," which "re-exposes them to significant emotional trauma." Such victims should have absolute immunity from civil litigation for their testimony, the appeals court ruled.

This ruling is the correct one. Crime victims are not the people who do the prosecuting and many times their testimony and their wishes related to prosecution are ignored.

Because of this woman's permanent injuries there is no dispute over whether she is a genuine crime victim, but in cases where a wrongful prosecution is alleged because the defendant claims that no crime was committed, protections need to cover all those who report crimes unless they are convicted of filing a false police report.

Criminal convictions are overturned when defendants are exonerated (proven factually innocent), but they can also be overturned even when defendants are guilty as charged. Failure to prove someone guilty in a court of law is not the same as proving someone factually innocent. The misuse of forensics such as bite marks can cause a conviction of someone who is factually guilty to be considered wrongfully convicted by the courts.

Many news stories confuse these two situations because in both cases people who were convicted have those convictions overturned.

Another man, Michael Cristini, convicted of participating in the same rape and who was released because of doubts about the same expert's testimony was arrested on new sexual assault charges related to alleged crimes against a child which began about 6 months after he was released from prison.

Moldowan and Cristini were both retried in Macomb County Circuit Court and acquitted after controversial bite mark evidence used by prosecutors during the first trial was called into question.

The case generated even more attention when a federal grand jury launched a probe into campaign contributions given to former Macomb County Prosecuting Attorney Carl Marlinga during his 2002 congressional campaign, including one given to him by Realtor Ralph Roberts, who had employed Moldowan’s sister.

The investigation focused in part on a brief Marlinga had submitted to the Michigan Supreme Court discrediting the bite-mark evidence used in the Moldowan trial. Marlinga was accused of taking an $8,000 campaign contribution from Roberts in exchange for using his position as the Macomb County prosecutor to influence the criminal case.

Marlinga wasn't convicted so there is no proof that there was any wrongdoing involved in the actions which freed these 2 men. Eliminating the bite mark analysis didn't, however, prove these 2 men to be factually innocent. They may in fact be innocent of the crime they were convicted of committing, but they weren't proven factually innocent.

That means the victim's testimony could have been both truthful and accurate. If the juries in the retrial heard evidence which only showed that these men could be guilty then they were correct to acquit them.

Because of all of these issues related to how cases are prosecuted and because of the burden of proof, crime victims must be protected from these types of civil lawsuits not just by the courts but by lawmakers so that victims don't have to worry about how individual judges or courts will rule.

Jeffrey Marsalis Expresses Sorrow At Sentencing Blames Drink For His Crime

From KIVI TV:

Jeffrey Marsalis, 35, was sentenced Tuesday by 5th District Judge Daniel Hurlbutt Jr., who said Marsalis must serve at least 15 years before being eligible for parole in the date rape case.

Marsalis was extradited to Idaho last fall from Pennsylvania, where he is serving a 21-year sentence for 2007 convictions on two counts of sexual assault. Prosecutors say Marsalis drugged the the victim's drink while the two were at a bar. [...]

Marsalis' father, Forrest Marsalis, appealed to the judge for leniency before sentencing, and Jeffrey Marsalis apologized to the victim for his actions.
"I am sorry," Marsalis said in court. "I was drunk."

This excuse for this crime is nonsense and not a true apology but it is nonsense which is grounded in and supported by the distorted way many non-rapists view the relationship between alcohol and rape. This view helps rapists like Marsalis to rationalize away their responsibility.

Alcohol use by rapists is often referred to as the cause of rape when rapists commit the crime with alcohol in their bloodstream, but this is incorrect. Boys and men who rape while consuming alcohol are too frequently described as being out of control so that their rapes are presented as actions which just spontaneously happen. Sort of like a loud fart which might have been let out in a controlled manner when sober. An unpleasant mistake, but not a crime.

We certainly don't jail boys and men for uncontrolled farting since that is a basic bodily function. But rape is no more a basic bodily function than pushing a man to the ground and then kicking him in the crotch are basic bodily functions.

This excuse insults every man who has been drunk and who has chosen not to rape. In the months after I was raped the first time by my boyfriend I was self-medicating with alcohol and I was raped by others who had been drinking. However, most of the time when I was just as vulnerable I wasn't raped even though all the boys and men around me were drinking or drunk. Most of the time when I said, "no," that answer was respected. If getting drunk caused boys and men to rape I would have been raped hundreds of times.

The relationship between alcohol and sexual assult is a complex one and some of those complexities are described in this article from 2001. As the article highlights stereotypes related to sexual responsibility and consent can contribute to rapes by those who have consumed alcohol and against those who have consumed alcohol.

People who say things like, "If you don't want to be raped don't go out drinking," provide backhand support for rapists and potential rapists. Going out drinking is assigned the meaning that the person wants to be raped and if you want something that makes it consensual. This meaning is accepted by many people who view themselves as against rape and can be seen when they assess a report of rape by judging only the choices of the person who did not consent.

A big judgment is over the assumption that girls and women who are raped while under the influence of alcohol failed to properly communicate their lack of consent. This assumption causes people to talk about girls and women who only think they were raped. This is a rapist friendly definition of legal consent and explains why some rapists work to get their intended victims to the point where they are physically unable to clearly communicate lack of consent.

Marsalis' sexual violence can be shown to be something that didn't just happen. His crimes were repeated and involved premeditation since all his alleged rapes, including those committed in Pennsylvania, are believed to involve drugging the women to incapacitate them. Alcohol use may have helped Marsalis feel good about his criminal actions or it may have simply given him a convenient excuse in case his victims reported his rapes to the police, but alcohol didn't cause him to rape.

Many other rapists who share Marsalis' mindset and excuses are still frequently dismissed as people who did not intentionally commit a crime. They might be described as jerks but for many people rapists who rape in certain situations should never be treated as real rapists. A self-admitted possible date rapist who goes by the username doovinator responded to an article by Moe Tkacik titled Why I didn't report my date rape.

A woman once took me home with her; I thought we had some real, if drunken, feelings for each other after we'd met at a party. She took a shower, joined me in her bed, things progressed the way you might think they would, and I thought we had a lovely encounter, though she seemed a little bit tense and I mentioned it to her. She responded, "well, you'd be tense too, if you'd just been RAPED!"

Wait a minute, I said, that's not how I saw it AT ALL. We didn't exactly discuss our intentions beforehand, but she joined me in bed, nude and apparently willing, and hadn't offered any resistance when I made my advances. She may have whispered "no" once or twice, but didn't make any effort to stop me or even slow me down much. Some may call it "date rape", but I really liked her, thought we were doing fine and would have loved to have had a further relationship. That didn't happen.

In later comments he continued to defend his actions which he presented in the best possible light and he used his drunkenness as an excuse while making it clear that other men would have made the same choice he made to ignore, "No," if they were alone with a girl or woman in that type of situation.

The "may have" in this comment related to "no" is nonsense. If she never said "no," he wouldn't have used her "mixed messages" as an excuse. He would have described being immediately falsely accused. If he had genuine consent all the messages would have been positive. And this is his spin on what happened so the reality could have been much harsher than his version of what happened.

The doovinator described in another comment that he successfully shifted his responsibility for his actions onto this young lady that night because of her mixed signals. That follow up action compounded the harm he did to her by ignoring her lack of consent.

Those who make generic claims about consent (being together on a bed is legal consent) can only speak for themselves so their rules only apply to people who want to have sexual contact with them.

If a woman is planning to have sex with a man and something he does scares her or hurts her or simply disregards her as a fellow human being she is not legally obligated to endure actions which will be unpleasant at best. Yet too many people disagree and approve of rape in this scenario or at least believe that these rapes should be legal.

The doovinator said he wanted to have a relationship with this woman and I believe him. Yet his actions and his choices before, during and after rape undermined his longer term goals. This is a reality which too many rapists ignore or blame on their rape victims.

Those rapists who refuse to label their criminal actions as rape are not people who didn't intend to rape. They are people who didn't intend to be rightfully seen as rapists. They wanted the payoff of committing rape and the only consequences they support is rape as a consequence of the victim's actions.

Carnival Against Sexual Violence 73

Welcome to the July 1, 2009 edition of the Carnival Against Sexual Violence.

I'm now on Twitter as Abyss2hope so if you Twitter please follow me and then let me know you arrived from this blog through the @ reply or DM.

Thank you to everyone who nominated a post or who wrote a post against sexual violence whether it was nominated/selected or not. Nominations that came in after the nomination deadline will be considered for the next edition of the carnival.

If you support the purpose of the carnival, you can help get the word out about it and all of the posts included in the carnival.

Here are the selections for this edition of the carnival against sexual violence:

legal

In Scotland's New Sexual Offences Bill Passed posted at Sheffield Fems, we get a discussion of new legislation designed to reduce the amount of injustice felt by victims of sex crimes.

In Taskforce to Strengthen Sexual Violence Laws in Liberia posted at Vital Voices Blog, we get a discussion of new sex crimes laws and the other changes needed to reduce the rate of sexual violence in Liberia.

In Prosecuting Rape is too expensive - when you have to lock up all the druggies. posted at Sadie's Soapbox, we get a discussion of Oregon rape laws which benefit rapists whose victims were intoxicated or unconscious.

In UK Officials Assigned to Fight Rape Actually Promote Rape Myths posted at The Curvature, we get a discussion about how those who are supposed train police forces in how to respect victims and uphold the law can instead slander victims and undermine the law.

In Rape in India - The safest crime? posted at Any Excuse to Write..., we get a discussion about why committing rape is a low risk activity from the criminals point of view.

In Landmark Domestic Violence Judgment by European Court of Human Rights posted at Feminist Law Professors, we get a discussion of the ruling in Opuz v Turkey about governmental responsibility under the European Convention on Human Rights.

In US Supreme Court Rejects DNA Testing Request On Behalf Of Alaska Man Convicted Of Rape posted at abyss2hope: A rape survivor's zigzag journey into the open, I discuss the case behind the US supreme court ruling and how during the initial trial competent defense attorneys can choose not to seek the best DNA tests because it is in the best interest of their client and how that relates to post-conviction requests for advanced DNA testing.

In ...And Justice for All? posted at Living the Scientific Life, we get a discussion disagreeing with the US Supreme Court decision which rejected William G. Osborne's petition for advanced DNA testing.

In Playing Dead posted at Feminist Jayhawk, we get a discussion of the typical psychological response to danger is to go "outside" oneself, to go into survival mode and to try not to make the trauma worse and how this survival reaction is too often misunderstood by those who expect everyone to fight unless they are consenting.

In "Sexting Culture" Leads to Rape? posted at Speaking Out., we get a discussion of comments made by Salem Superior Court Judge Howard Whitehead who was overseeing a case involving Kyle Fuchs who was found guilty of rape.

media watch

In Treat Rape as Rape posted at Girl on the Bridge, we get a discussion of where news stories about the rape case against Bollywood actor, Shiney Ahuja, have focused their coverage.

In A Moment of Madness posted at Cold SnapDragon, we get a discussion of a article by Vinita Nangia in the Times of India which dismisses serious crimes which are often planned as nothing more than moments of madness while blaming some victims for causing this madness.

In Video selected as winner of Massachusetts teen dating violence PSA project posted at War On Abuse, we get a discussion of the PSA “Cry for Help” which was selected by a vote of over 1,000 students in Middlesex County MA.

miscellany

In Adapted Aquatics Teacher Suspected of Sexual Assault posted at Gender Across Borders, we get a discussion of the story of a special needs swim instructor in the Netherlands suspected of sexual assault, and why the disabled are especially susceptible to such abuse.

personal stories

In The aftermath of abstinence-only education posted at 2 B Sophora, we get a discussion about how the focus on virginity can cause victims of rape to feel that silence is required.

In Bureaucracy is not on my good list... posted at youth4change, we get a discussion of a visit the Calgary Court House to witness multiple cases which highlighted how the system works and where it needs additional work.

raising awareness

In Domestic violence and pregnancy posted at Feminist Mums, we get a discussion about the need for professionals to screen for domestic violence even if there are no signs that a particular girl or woman is being abused.

In Report back From the 2009 SFWAR Walk Against Rape. posted at fem.men.ist, we get a discussion of an awareness and fundraising event which included discussions about how men, and more specifically men of color can be an ally to women in the effort to prevent sexual violence.

In Not For Sale Media Project; Downloadable Posters posted at NoPornNorthampton, we get information about a current awareness project.

In When isn't a Rape Outright Rape? posted at The Confluence, we get a discussion of troubling statements made by officials at the University of the Pacific related to a report of rape made by a student.

In Is consent complicated? posted at youth4change, we get a discussion of how certain types of questions about communication related to consent or lack of consent are misdirections which guide the topic away from understanding genuine consent.

In Strip Club Hires Kidnapped and Assaulted 14-Year-Old Girl, Then Sues Her posted at The Curvature, we get a discussion of the lawsuit filed by the Cheetah Club in Corpus Christi which shifts the club's responsibility for hiring a minor onto that girl and her parents while declaring the club to be the victim of that girl because of the way she was dressed.

In Six Feet Under, Feminism and Rape posted at The Apostate, we get a discussion about teaching girls and women to live in fear sparked by an episode of Six Feet Under where a woman was struck and killed after running in fear from a group of men.

research

In New College Alcohol/Assault stats posted at Change Happens, we get a discussion of the newest report from the US National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism on alcohol abuse and alcohol related crimes on college campuses.

In Men, no women, are responsible for rape posted at Vagina Dentata, we get a discussion of a study where psychologists at Leicester Uni asked men to consider themselves in various scenarios with a female acquaintance and find out if or when they were more likely to coerce a woman into sex and then we get an example of how the results of that study were twisted to imply that women's choices lead to rape.

solutions

In Raising a not-rapist posted at Raising My Boychick, we get a discussion about the importance of parents not merely hoping their sons won't rape but instead making sure to teach boys about healthy non-sexual boundaries.

In Diners Club Ends Relationship with Mail Order Brides Service posted at End Human Trafficking, we get a discussion about how an awareness campaign caused a corporation to change their practices.

In Highlighting Norms Can Reduce Crime posted at Prevention Works, we get a discussion about how norms and the presentation of those norms can undermine the intended message in crime prevention campaigns and what can be done to get the intended message across effectively.

In One in Nine Campaign Aimed at Improving Rape Survivors’ Access to Justice in South Africa posted at Akimbo, we get a discussion of efforts being made in a country where where it is estimated that approximately 50% of women will be raped during their lifetime unless the rate of sexual violence drops significantly.

In Advice For Fathers Who Want To Talk To Their Children About Dating And Safety posted at abyss2hope: A rape survivor's zigzag journey into the open, I discuss several resources for fathers so they will have tools to help them discuss issues related to violence with both their daughters and their sons.

In Update on Sexual Assault Service Program (SASP) Funding posted at CALCASA Public Policy, we get information on funding at the federal level for FY 2010.

That concludes this edition of the carnival against sexual violence. Thank you for taking the time to visit this carnival and thank you to the authors of all the posts included in this edition.

To nominate a post (your own or someone else's) to the next edition of carnival against sexual violence, use the carnival submission form. If you have any problem with the form, please let me know so your submission can be considered for the next edition.

Links to everything related to the carnival can be found on the blog dedicated to this carnival, http://carnivalagainstsexualviolence.blogspot.com/

Marcella Chester

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