Day of Blogs

Highlighting yet another of my all-time favorite bloggers: Marcella Chester.  Those of you who read me regularly will know that I have sung her praises before, and will continue to do so.  Marcella blogs about sexual violence at Abyss2Hope.  She also spends what I’m sure is a huge amount of time putting together the Carnival Against Sexual Violence every two weeks.

It is my opinion that Marcella is brilliant.  She writes eloquently and calmly on sexual violence, spending great deals of her time smacking down rape apologists with arguments that I myself regularly steal.  Because they’re good.  She is able to vocalize that which I know but can’t put into words — she teaches me and others how to.  I believe that I have learned more about the epidemic of rape apologism and fighting it from Marcella than from any other person.

We were lucky enough to have her guest-blog for us over at Feministe, and today she put up her last post there.  It was brilliant as per usual, and contained a reproduction of an old post giving advice to rape survivors.  Just a snippet:

Making sexual decisions for someone else is rape. The creation of “pure” motives is nothing more than the selfish rationalizations of a rapist. If that rape victim says nothing afterwards that is not a sign that the rape victim consented or approved anymore than if a hospitalized rape victim were quietly raped by a doctor, nurse or other hospital employee and then says nothing afterwards.

A repeat of a quiet rape is another rape and is not a sexual relationship. Because of the trauma rape victims have experienced and the muddiness that can come from that trauma many rape victims may question their perceptions. Their rapists have a clear motivation for trying to distort reality and they have the benefit of not being traumatized.

Go read the full post and be sure to check out Marcella’s blog.