there's our catastrophe

this is a post about a rapist I know

I just heard that this Rapist Punk Dude’s rich parents paid for him to get surgery to close his distinctive very large stretched piercings and apparently he’s legally changed his name as well?   we don’t know what to yet

the level of support to avoid any consequences that he’s getting from his rich family and his apologist friends is so completely revolting

I’m also upset because I have a really shitty memory for faces (even for people who I’ve known for a while, like this guy) and I’m overly reliant on details like haircuts and body mods to help me remember and spot people like him and kick them out or at least warn people, especially because they quite often have really common names or change their names frequently, and I was confident that this at least was one dude I could spot across a room, and now he’ll have a different face and a different name.  I really hate knowing his fucking money has so drastically compromised whatever ability I had to keep people safe from him

fuck

Racism at the 2013 Femme Conference

engenderandendear:

Aright, so I wasn’t at the whole thing, but there’s at least one post going around talking about what happened. As a person who doesn’t identify as femme, I don’t want to reblog that post; but as an indigenous person and as a person of colour, I do want to talk about what went down. 

Briefly, a white cis male was presenting on his engagements with femme dress (whilst distancing himself from drag, because misogyny and transmisogyny). His presentation was basically a slideshow of his outfits. His outfits included experimentation with turbans, experimentation with racialised makeup - which included ambiguous coloration of his skin colour (I left the room, but a friend said it was yellowface), and the use of sticky tape to slant his eyes or some bs. 

Several people walked out. He was allowed to continue.

During the beginning of the next presentation (read about why this presentation was fucked up here), a member of the Femme Guild organising collective walked on stage to halt proceedings due to allegations of racism. The framing of this was pretty fucking awkward in that it was along the lines of ‘some people have raised concerns that the last presentation was offensive and we should talk about it’ - subtext: I’m sorry to interrupt, but while I didn’t personally notice something amiss, a small number of brown people did and this is awkward.’ 

The Femme Guild member tried to explain why the racism in the dude’s slideshow was racist, but seemed to be struggling. Several audience members expressed confusion as to what was going on and what was racist about the presentation. Several POC expressed their anger and frustration. One (or possibly two?) audience members expressed concerns about the people who had left the room and seemed intent on inviting them back in to explain ?!?!?! 

At that point I signalled for the microphone and tried to point out why that was a fucking heinous idea - e.g. people leave rooms when rooms become unsafe and maybe instead of making poc do all the fucking work, maybe white people could use their brains and think about what could have possibly been racist and maybe why some poc had left the room. and maybe they could begin thinking about how to make the space one that was safe for not-white people.

Conversation continued for a little longer until it was suggested by a poc person that the poc leave the room and talk with each other. I left the room and didn’t return. I’ve been told by a few different people what happened next, but I wasn’t there, so I won’t go into it. Maybe someone who remained can give a first-hand account of what happened whilst the poc were caucusing.  

Anyway, what I mostly want to say is this:

There has to be some collective responsibility taken by (a) the organisers of the conference for not ensuring that the people they were giving a platform weren’t going to be racist, and (b) the white people in that room who were willing to let that racism slide until it was called out by POC. 

The Femme Guild needs to be accountable to the POC who have been asking for like four years that they change their logo because of its colonial and white supremacist connotations. Come on now. You don’t get to pretend you’re anti-racist when something as basic as this request gets ignored for fucking years.

Lastly, for the record, I’m pretty fucking over:

• white people framing allegations of racism as problematic only because some indigenous people/POC got ‘offended’ by it - (if there are no brown people present to a racist thing, it’s still racist jsyk.)
• this use of the term ‘offended’ and its PC connotations - I think I’m going to start using the terms ‘hurt’ and/or ‘injured’ because that’s fucking what racism does: it hurts and it injures indigenous people/POC. We’re not asking you to be politically correct because it’s cool and rad, we’re asking you to stop hurting us.
• the collective complicity of white people en masse of racism in our communities. 

MORE INFORMATION ABOUT BENJAMIN McCULLUGH-DENNIS, RAPIST

everythingbutharleyquinn:

So I got in touch with Molly, the woman who was raped by Benjamin McCullugh-Dennis as she made it clear she had little support from the community at large in what she was doing so I wanted to indicate my support to her as well as my willingness to be involved in spreading information/postering around Newtown and such. 

Through her and information that has been posted at the rapeisreal.wordpress.com (I strongly encourage you to visit that link and read her story, with a major TW for horrible rape and abuse) blog by others as well as in the various reblogs and comments on tumblr, certain things have been revealed that I think it is important to compile for easy, clear reference as it will be of interest to anyone who maintains doubts about Molly’s methods, Ben’s character and the situation in general, as well of interest to those who are invested in opposing rape culture and supporting a survivor.  Molly has read this post and has given me permission to post this information for the knowledge of the general public. A general trigger warning for rape, whorephobia and rape apologism.

• Ben admitted in writing to the rape as Molly described it happening. Molly has records of this.
• Other women have also come forward since with similar stories of rape and sexual assault by Ben.
• It has come to light that Ben raped a sex worker he was dating.
• Furthermore he told that sex worker he raped her because she is a sex worker and he felt threatened by that and needed to “prove” himself. When this was told to his community by the survivor, they said they didn’t think he would say or do something like that, further disbelieving the survivor in favour of Ben.
• Furthermore, he indicated to the sex worker that if she went to the police, he would out her as a sex worker, something that would negatively impact her life to a very high degree. Ben knew that and took advantage of that to have his rape of her suppressed. The anarchist community knows about this.
• The anarchist community closest to Ben have told Molly that if she proceeds with criminal charges (a police report has been filed), they will consider supporting Ben in lying about the rape, even though they were witness to Ben confessing to the rape. Ostensibly this is because they object in principle to prisons and police**.
• Molly is an anarchist and a Woman of Colour from a poor background. She is also opposed to the justice system on principle and has been involved for years in activism against it, including having organised against the jail system, organised for prisoner support, and organised against police brutality and taught cop-watch training. She also has a family history with the jail system.. Her decision to utilise the justice system in this instance is therefore informed and aware and comes from a  long and serious ACTIVE engagement with the justice system that is based on an actual critique of power and privilege. 
• Ben is a white, cis male from an upper-middle class background, who has no physical or mental health issues, no dependents and no criminal history. Molly’s decision in reporting Ben came fully alongside knowing his sex, race, and class privilege and she has stated that if he didn’t occupy even one of these very real privileges, she would have seriously re-considered her decision. 
• The accountability process was initiated 2 and a half years ago, but Ben broke his agreements. Ben agreed to be a part of it again recently and then went overseas to avoid having to deal with it. Ben has agreed to participate in the process yet again and has then consistently avoided it and gone back on his word.
• An anarchist community won’t support a survivor going to the cops to report rape but doesn’t blink twice at a cis white man participating in capitalism to the degree he can up and GO OVERSEAS at a moment’s notice to escape the heat of his violent action?? UM??? Ben’s family is also able to offer him money whenever he needs it/asks for it and he has a stable job with a steady income and is a permanent resident meaning he can access government assistance.
• Molly, meanwhile, has physical health issues, is mixed race,  comes from a poor family who is unable to offer her financial support, is a stranger in this country in the process of trying to immigrate and therefore cannot work or access government assistance or medical care, has been seeing a therapist through CASA which was a limit of six sessions which have now completed so has no access to therapy either and is female.  These obvious power and privilege inequities play a key role both in how this situation played out originally and how it is being treated by the community now.
• When he went overseas, Molly contacted the places he was staying to advise local  women/trans/queer communities of what had happened so they could protect themselves by choosing what degree of contact they had with Ben. Someone in the Sydney anarchist scene actually told her she was endangering women who chose to be close to him because Ben might face retaliatory violence when he was out socially with them.
• Ben has behaved roughly and rudely as a client to at least one sex worker in Sydney, a different sex worker to the one he was dating. He did not negotiate rough service with the sex worker and did not apologise for the way he treated her. Bluntly, I think how a man treats his hooker says a LOT about his character overall.
• Several people who have been pierced by him say that he made inappropriate sexual advances during the process (in which Ben was acting ostensibly as a professional…) and made them feel uncomfortable, including underage girls.
• Ben has initiated sex with at least one client while offering to give her “aftercare.”
• Ben has currently gone on holiday again to avoid dealing with the heat, breaking his agreements to the process yet again. Despite the fact no violent action has been taken or incited, he is provoking pity and sympathy from the community by recentering himself once again by expressing he “fears for [his] safety”. Please also note his significant privilege in being able to remove himself at a moment’s notice. He has been supported by the anarchist community to do this.
• After 2 and a half years of Ben not participating in the accountability process as he agreed to do, alongside the anarchist community advising her that they would stand by Ben over her, Molly finally took drastic action by publicly outing Ben. She did this to WARN OTHER WOMEN ABOUT BEN’S BEHAVIOUR so that we can choose if we interact with him in the future, for our own safety, as he’s repeatedly targeted women for sexual coercion and rape. This was pro-active community-focused action in the interests of disseminating information for the greater good. Whilst I disagree with the specific way the revelation of his HPV status and consequent discussion and focus on that was taken, the information that Ben is a violent rapist is incredibly important for women who may find him in their life.

** I personally believe this is bullshit and is being used as an excuse to continue to support Ben over Molly due to his status in the community. I do not, generally speaking, support the police or the prison system, but I support a survivor always in principle as commitment to my own history and my ethics, and because survivors are generally so minimised and deprioritised overall I believe fostering their autonomy in how they decide to address the assault they were forced to is part of actively recentering them and opposing rape culture.

I also think more complicated dynamics are at work here given Molly is a Woman of Colour calling for support from a community that purports to be focused on the elimination of oppression and yet will actively conspire against someone based on an ideology that does not affect them practically along equal lines. People of Colour face exponentially more discrimination from the judicial system and police than white people (which Sydney anarchist community is predominantly composed of) and yet Molly, as a survivor of violent rape and abuse, wishes to avail herself of that system in an effort to take charge and control of her rape and remove a manipulative serial offender from being able to hurt more women. The Sydney anarchist community would seem to prefer to protect a white man out of a purported loyalty to their political ideology than support a Woman of Colour who faces actual oppression through misogyny, racism, homophobia (as she is queer-identified) classism and ableism. Whether intentional or not, they are therefore engaging in racist and misogynistic action by reinforcing the status quo that the concerns of women come after all else and the concerns of WOC come absolutely last, while the concerns of white men remain dominant. How is this radical or genuinely focused towards anti-oppression principles? No one has any love for the “justice” system but standing against it solely to protect a white man who serially rapes women instead of standing beside someone who faces far greater oppression than he along intersectional lines of race, class and sex, which he knowingly exploited in order to rape her, seems to be incredibly ineffective for those for whom anti-oppression is a complex and layered matter, not to mention racist and sexist.

It has also emerged that Ben got a swastika tattoo under the pretension he was “reclaiming” its “original meaning”. As a white person I DEMAND fellow white people to seriously examine why they feel a compelling need to use this symbol in any way shape or form, regardless of its long and checkered history, precisely because its most recent history is one so tainted with abhorrent, vile, reprehensible racism to the point that symbol can literally not be seen without calling to mind the Nazi Holocaust as well as neo-Nazism and skinheads, practitioners of which continue to perpetuate acts of terrible racist violence against People of Colour to this day. THERE IS NO EXCUSE NOR REASON OF ANY KIND FOR A WHITE PERSON TO GET A SWASTIKA TATTOO and no matter what that person says their motivation is I will assume they are racist because they are putting their own egos and self-interest ahead of the associated and inseparable history of that symbol. The tattoo has apparently now been removed or covered up but this is an example of Ben’s general failure to check his privilege and how he engages in racist behaviour alongside his abusive ones. 

Finally, it should be noted that many people who know/knew Ben are unanimous in having a generally high opinion of him, find him charming, friendly, decent, kind, etc. Ben is not a bogeyman. He is not a moustache-twirling villain. He’s just a guy, like many other guys, who has successfully concealed his abusive behaviour to the point other people refuse to believe he is capable of it, even when he says himself that he has done what he’s been accused of doing. This is not at all unusual in these situations when well-respected or high-status figures in a community are exposed for abuse, rape or pedophilia. This doesn’t mean that underneath it all these guys are demons in human skin, evil people who plot and plan their acts of heinous assault the way a comic book villain plots their world domination scheme.

It means rapists literally can be and are anyone. That even nice guys rape. That even politically sensitive people can be abusive fuckwits. That what creates a rapist or an abuser is systemic and intersects absolutely with misogyny and sexism, as well as racism, ableism, classism, etc.  It means we have to let go of our ideas that rapists can be identified on sight , that they are strangers and outsiders and realise that our friends may be rapists, that they may have raped people that we know and care for, that they are part of our social circles.  

And in realising all of this – believe and prioritise the survivor who is brave enough to come forward.

So if after all this, you still feel Ben should cut a break or that we need to be thinking about him, or that Molly did the wrong thing outing him so publicly, or that people haven’t been incredibly fucked in how they’ve dealt with this and responded to it, or that Ben still needs to tell his side of the story (as stated above – he has – and it was in accordance with Molly’s testimony) or that this sort of action is “dangerous” - look, there’s no hope for you. And you’re a rapist apologist asshole. And we have nothing to say to each other.

The rest of you, spread this information around. People deserve to know.

AND START SUPPORTING MOLLY IN WHAT SHE HAS STATED SHE WANTS AND NEEDS FROM THE COMMUNITY.

And if you want to support Molly? TELL HER you support her. Sometimes the most important thing for a survivor is to know they have been heard and believed. Get in touch with her at rapeisreal.wordpress.com and leave her a message of support and faith.

Ben Has Left The Building

lucy-loveless:

For anyone who’s following the public-outing of rapist Benjamin McCullagh-Dennis in Sydney, and his (laughable) “willing engagement” in a community-based accountability process (which was requested by the survivor a second time after being silenced by his community when she wanted to report the crime to the police) … Ben has ONCE AGAIN left town to go on vacation, breaking his engagement in the accountability process yet again! Surprise. Surprise. Looks like rapists, even “nice guy” rapists, really do run from rape when they’re called out on it.

As for me, I’m disgusted. I say plaster the town in his absence and then greet him with a royal FUCK YOU when he returns. Guess he couldn’t take the heat of being publicly known for what he really is. Fucking pathetic piece of shit.

in things that are making me nauseous

some word has reached me about how the big names in the Sydney anarchist community are responding to this rape and I think you should all be fucking ashamed of yourselves. 

the only thing I can say without spiralling into invective is that if you are worried about how the survivor making his actions public is making one Benjamin McCullagh-Dennis “uncomfortable and defensive” (!), perhaps you should a) consider that he has had over three years to accommodate her earlier requests, and this was a last resort and b) remove yourself from the situation and cut ties with this dude, because you are way too close to him, and he is manipulating you to avoid having to face consequences for his actions, just like he’s been doing for the last 3+ years. 

terrorbull:

One of the most validating things that anyone has ever said to me was when I was 19, and I said, “I dunno, he’s really charming, so no one can really believe that he would do the things that he does,” and this person said, “Fuck charming men. Charming men are half the reason why no one believes rape victims. I’m way more likely to believe that a man is a predatory scumbag once I find out that he’s a charming prick whom everyone thinks is The Shit.”

relevant