Wearing my spiffy winter hat. <3
01/07/2012
Homemade tuna casserole. Yes I used potato chips as a topping…hello, I am Southern after all. (also had sweet tea to drink with supper that night)
01/04/2012
My picks at work for the month of Jan.
This time I picked ones that all feature the amazing Raven Alexis. <3 to her in her battle against cancer.
01/03/2012
366 - a photo a day for all of 2012.
I tried to do this last year, taking and posting a photo a day for a full year, and yes I am going to try it again this year.
Why? Because I was going through the photos on my phone and I realized that I have only taken at least one photo a day already this year.
Plus, it’s a great use for this tumblr. ;D
<3 Bex
my speech from SlutWalk San Diego
No matter what, I will forever feel blessed that I was a part of making this movement happen in my hometown. This is the speech I gave that day.
SlutWalk San Diego 11 June 2011
Slut; it is a word that no one seems to like much. It is considered a “bad” word, a dirty word. It’s a word that many hate, yet many are willing to use. It is a word that we aim to reclaim; something that others say can’t be done. To that I say, that’s ok, YOU don’t have to reclaim it, but WE are going to. Some of us, myself for example… already have, but then I’ve always loved using all of the naughty, nasty, dirty words that polite women aren’t supposed to use.
As I sat down to write this speech, I thought about keeping it generalized – keeping it about the word slut, and why we use it for our movement. As I did, I realized that part of the movement has been and will continue to be voiced more eloquently than I believe I could, since I don’t really consider myself eloquent. That and today is not about the word slut. This movement has never been about the word, it has always and will always be about how the word is used against victims and that needs to END NOW.
The main focus of our movement is the radical belief that those who experience sexual assault are not the ones at fault, without exception. As a victim it sickens me that in this day and age we are still playing the “blame the victim” game. Sexual assault of any kind is not about sex or attraction; it is about power, rage and control.
One of my dearest friends gave me this quote when I started working on SlutWalk:
“You need only claim the events of your life to make yourself yours. When you truly possess all you have been and done, which may take some time, you are fierce with reality.” - Florida Scott-Maxwell
Today I am fierce with reality as I stand before you to voice the truth of sexual violence. To tell you just how much damage the bullying tactics of slut shaming will have on a victim.
Victim blaming is just another form of bullying; to me personally, it is worst form of bullying. To take someone who has been victimized and humiliate them further by implying that they are in any way to blame for what happened to them by using any of the disgusting reasons that people trot out to justify sexual assault. Yes, I said justify, for when you make statements like “Well, look at the way she dresses.” or “He was totally flirting and coming on to him, it wasn’t really rape” you have just given their assailant a reason, a defense. The simple reality is when you say things like that, when you place the blame on the victim in any way you are saying loudly that it was okay to assault that person, that there was a valid reason for someone to commit a crime, to commit violence against that person. This is the message that every single person out there has heard over and over again to the point people have become scared to come forward when a sexual assault happens to them. They have been guilt tripped and emotionally bullied into staying silent. I know this, because I was. I stand before you today as a proud part of SlutWalk San Diego because I’m done being bullied, I’m done being silent.
I am the victim and survivor of childhood sexual abuse, as well as multiple sexual assaults as a teenager and during the course of my first marriage. Every act of sexual violence that was committed against me was an act of control and rage. Afterwards I was blamed for each and every act in one way or another. This is my personal sign; for those of you who can’t read it, it says: It was summer. I was 10. How was it my fault?
As I was making this sign, multiple people said to me “Who’d blame a child?” I’ll tell you who will blame a child, in my case the first time it happened - it was a member of the Anaheim Police Department. When I was 10, it was discovered that my sisters and I had been systematically abused, mentally, physically, and sexually, by our overly Christian, and my case biological Father. While we were at the police station giving our statements an officer said to me; “Why didn’t you stop him? Good little girls don’t let people touch them like that.” That broke something inside of me.
33 years later and if you ask it again; who’d blame a child? The answer today instead of being just one cop, is try a whole town. In Texas an 11 year was gang-raped by up to 18 adult men, many whom videotaped it, and they blamed HER. The NYTimes article about the attack painted the attackers as well-meaning “boys” who were “drawn into” the horrible violence, one woman quoted was dismayed that “these boys have to live with this the rest of their lives.” and describes the victim as dressing “older than her age, wearing makeup and fashions more appropriate to a woman in her 20s.” The victim blaming just got worse from there.
It normally does… for me it did the next time I was sexually assaulted by a family member when I was a teenager. After it happened, for a moment I had that fear; that fear that every assault victim has; the fear that no one will believe them. I finally said something because I had history on my side, I’d already been assaulted once, why would I lie? So I told my family knowing that they would believe me … yet no one did. They all said he would never do anything like that, that I must have made it up or misread something. Again, something in me broke. Then I confronted him about it - at first he said it never happened, which then changed to him saying that I had come on to him. Until that day I had considered him considered him family. After that day he became the bastard.
This is the reality of victim-blaming; I was bullied into believing that it was somehow my fault that my father had raped me at the age of 10, because I was told that things like that don’t happen to “good” girls. Years later I was then bullied into silence when I spoke up but wasn’t believed about being assaulted. It was a ‘he said, she said’ and he won. Then as a parting gift or something he was allowed to blame me for what had happened. The silence, the disbelief, the guilt and the blame took root in the broken places of my soul. I was something worthless. It is why I never bothered reporting any of the other times that I was sexually assaulted. I suffered through assault after assault and started to believe that was love.
I know differently now. I used to hate myself, and I used to hate my sexuality. I have learned how to change the voices in my head to something healthy and loving instead of hateful. Part of that was coming to understand that I WAS a victim. That was something that I fought against being, victims are weak and survivors are strong. But to truly heal I needed to accept every part of who I am, so as much as I am a survivor; I am a victim as well. What happened to me was done to me, against my will and I truly did nothing to cause those things to happen to me.
And to all of the victims out there NEITHER DID YOU.
The other part of my healing was learning how to embrace and reclaim my sexuality. As I said before I’ve always been comfortable with the naughty words, but there are quite a few women who are offended by the word slut, just as they are also offended by the word cunt. Personally I choose to embrace both words to remove the stigma that they are “bad”.
I am comfortable with being called a slut enough that I consider it a nickname, just any other nickname such as “Doll” or even simply put, my name in short form, Bex. I don’t mind being called one, because I enjoy being one. I discovered that sex is amazing when it is Safe. Sane. Consensual. If I was a man, I’d be a stud, but because I’m a woman I get called a ‘bad’ word. I am outspoken about the fact that I love sex, I love men, I love women, I love dressing up and looking irresistible. I love porn, and I honestly truly love having sex. I have finally learned to have a healthy love of my own body even though I am far from perfect, and to have an active sex life of my own choosing with the person I love. That is how I chose to reclaim MY life and MY sexuality…not everyone is the same, but I will NEVER EVER tear down the choices and dreams of others just because they do not believe the way I do. To all the victims out there; this is my process, my journey of healing; YOURS will be different, because it is yours. Remember that quote and learn to possess all you have been and done, until you are fierce with YOUR reality. Remember this above everything else: IT WAS NOT YOUR FAULT.
I stand before you today because I could no longer stand by and be silent any more. I am joining the ranks of thousands of women worldwide who are publicly reclaiming the word slut. No more will we allow you to use words to shame us into silence. No longer will we let you bully us; no longer will we let you blame us for crimes committed against us.
As a part of SlutWalk San Diego,
We are proudly taking a stand against sexual violence and the bully tactics of victim blaming.
We believe that all of us, regardless of gender, need to recognize that by allowing the publicly shaming of victims by using their appearance or sexual history against them, it creates a society that accepts and justifies acts of sexual violence.
We recognize that we need to end not only the acts of sexual violence, but the excuses that allow that violence to continue.
We believe in the simple concept that everyone deserves to be respected for who they are.
Thank you to my husband and best friend Christopher, thank you for being the boot to my ass that I need from time to time and teaching me that life doesn’t suck.
Rebecca Trichel
A E.R. nurse’s thoughts on an instigator’s “apology”
Ambulance cars line the streets outside of St. Paul’s Hospital’s emergency triage centre for those injured on the night of June 15. Photo credit: Andrés Goñi
Tim,
Just because you can string an apologetic sentence together does not mean you are sorry. Perhaps i should make you aware of the consequences of your action. To you, it’s just an overturned car that you set on fire. To me, it’s walking into an overflowing ER and helping treat a girl with a severe asthma attack because she was exposed to the noxious, acrid smoke of a burning vehicle. To her, it was just a chance to be a part of a group cheering for her team. Little did she know that later on, we were thinking of sticking a breathing tube down her throat if her condition did not improve.
To you (yes, I am lumping you with all the douchebag rioters in the ER that night) it’s a chance to congregate in the ER waiting room, pounding on the triage window demanding to be seen for teargas exposure and cuts from looting and fighting, while posturing and bragging about how you kicked the crap out of somebody and smashed shit up. To me, it’s taking my time away from the little old quiet lady having chest pain or taking time away from the person you “shit-kicked” for trying to stop the looting.
To you, it’s just a fight. To me, it’s the ER social worker looking for a teddybear to console a 4 year old girl because she just witnessed her dad get a broken nose as he was trying to get his daughter out of the hotzone.
To you, it’s writing a letter saying “you will do whatever it takes to help clean the city.” To me, it’s walking home after a long shift and seeing all these people at 7:30 in the morning armed with garbage bags cleaning up YOUR mess and realizing that these people have more class in their pinky finger than you could ever muster in your whole life.
To me, it’s getting home to shower, only to have my elderly neighbour knock on my door and ask me if he should make an appointment to this doctor because he was experiencing shortness of breath which later turned to chest pain in the morning. He did not think about leaving his window open as he went to bed at 9 o’clock. The smoke from all the burning cars made it to our building, into his room and triggered his asthma, which then raised his heart rate, which then became a small heart attack. I asked him why he didn’t go to the ER, and he answered, “I turned on the tv this morning and saw the rioting, I did not want to be a burden.” To you, it’s just an overturned car that you set on fire.
Why am I blaming you for all this? Because you are the instigator. You ask people to leave your family, friends and co-workers alone?! I think they need to know how much of a colossal douche you are. Remember that your parents worked themselves to the bone so they can move to this country and give you your god-given right to flip cars over and set them on fire.
You, Tim Kwong, are a douchtard. Apology not accepted.
— from a E.R. nurse
