Navigating Solutions and Darkness

In order to escape accountability for his crimes, the perpetrator does everything in his power to promote forgetting. If secrecy fails, the perpetrator attacks the credibility of his victim. If he cannot silence her absolutely, he tries to make sure no one listens.”. -  Judith Lewis Herman,  Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror

The threat of further violence - the threat of death as a punishment - is very clearly an effective deterrent when it comes to women reporting rape as a crime in India.

"I've got anxiety worming its way through my body..."

"Let Karma take care of it," one of my friends says, before launching into a gory story about how somebody she knew got what was coming to her. I hem and haw in response, not being a great believer in anything that I can't see a logical structure in place for. If it's a Karma thing, then consider me more than happy to be Karma's agent on Earth. Karma might work in mysterious ways, but in my case, there would be no mystery about Her workings. And he did. Yesterday, for the first time, I felt very little anger. In fact, I felt the traitorous, "chuck it" creep into my mind. Briefly. On the positive side, this is a sign that therapy and time are doing their work. On the other hand, that is just bloody depressing. Because the thought that someone should get away with what they've done is... sickening. When someone goes to great trouble to lie, cheat, gaslight and erase history to adapt the narrative towards their own convenient means, simply let...

I adore Jessica Jones. The show and the character. In my opinion, it is hands down the best show in the entire Defenders universe. My TV tastes aren't usually shared by those in my immediate social circle - I have only to mention The Vampire Diaries,  for instance, for the eye rolling to start. This is partly because the women I'm friends with have no great interest in the fantasy/ sci-fi genres, and the friends I have that like fantasy/ sci-fi all seem to be men. As a result, men who like sci-fi now are, to me, the most infuriating species of all time. They will happily tick off their favourite shows - Supernatural (no women characters, except for when Jody Mills turns up) and  Stranger Things (aka this one girl is so much powerful than everything else so the ration of roughly 2:1 ratio is totes cool) are common faves. It's supremely rare to find a guy that has even heard of Once Upon A Time , let alone one who counts it among his faves. TVD  and Teen Wolf are scof...

CONTENT WARNING: RAPE, NON-CONSENT - DISCUSSION Photo by Isaiah Rustad on Unsplash I recently went through the unfortunate experience of having to sit a grown man down and explain to him why his sexual encounter had been non consensual, and what he should have really paid attention to. He was shocked at the allegation, but also, to my great relief, open to the conversation. He didn't deny it, didn't attempt to shift the blame, apologized profusely, and made it all better. Rape is now yet again at the forefront of our news cycle, and the outrage wave seems to be growing in strength. This time, it's because of a couple of high profile cases in which children were brutalized and murdered. Horrifying, yes. And predictably, everyone* is very vocally anti rape and anti child rape. *Everyone that isn't utterly disgusting by nature, or would like to think they aren't. Be that as it may, I'm yet again reminded of the hypocrisy that once led these outraged to blame t...