Do the Commies Have a Point?

A personal saying I try to follow is; "If advice is good, its good, regardless of where it came from." This is true of quotes, as well. So to that end, I have to ask; do the damn dirty commies have a point when it comes to Occupy Wall Street and the American government's reaction to it? For clarification, I have to point to two clips, one from the Chinese state news agency Xinhua and the other from former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev.

Protests reveal US 'messy house'
Xinhua said they showed "a clear need for Washington, which habitually rushes to demand other governments to change when there are popular protests in their countries, to put its own house in order."

Gorbachev calls Wall Street protests just; Flaherty says they have a point

The Americans, he [Gorbachev] said, need to ensure that everything is right in their own country "before trying to put the house in order in other countries."

In Ottawa, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said the American protesters decrying the income gap between rich and poor have a point.

Stop and give thought to the dawn of the Arab Spring. Remember when we first started hearing about the uprisings in Iran? The USA told them to listen to the people. Same then happened with Yemen, Syria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Libya. When the people there started taking to the streets and demanding a change to their systems, the USA was behind them every step of the way whether they wanted it or not. And now our own people are rising up, demanding change and equality and economic security so loudly and so passionately that the fires of anger we've started have spread to every state in the USA and has kindled on the other side of the Atlantic to spread through Europe...

...and the American government is turning a blind eye to the suffering and demands of it's own people.

How to Legitimatize a Movement

It seems that Occupy Wall Street is, far from my expectations, not dying out but actually growing. As it turns out, it's growing to the point that it's going international. There are protests cropping up in New Zealand, London, Frankfurt, as well as all over the USA. With this profound of a political movement cropping up it was only a matter of time before someone got the bright idea to call it the "Tea Party of the Left." Privately, I have to roll my eyes at pundits trying to associate the two , but it seems to have struck a nerve with the Teabaggers.

[Link]
The tea party isn’t about to make room for the new protesters on the block.

Big tea party groups have launched an attack against the Occupy Wall Street protests, challenging the line that the anti-corporate uprising is the “the tea party of the left.”

Tea partiers and their allies are looking to de-legitimize the protests circulating in the anti-Wall Street crowds, hunting for evidence of union ties, fringe rhetoric and bad behavior — ranging from news of arrests, to recordings of incendiary speeches, to tales of littering, drug use and debauchery.

They’re posting what they find online, like a photograph of a demonstrator apparently defecating on a cop car that has circulated widely, and are accusing the mainstream media of ignoring extremist elements.

This actually makes me chuckle a little. The idea of such an astroturfed movement getting a bug up their asses over another movement is hilarious in its own right, but what is just rib ticklingly funny is what one commenter pointed out;

Michael DiZazzo
"Nothing legitimizes a protest movement nearly as much as it's opposite number attacking it. True believers are terrified by the sight of their opposite pole."

Rarely do I find myself in agreement with a comment on Yahoo News. as I said before, the Yahoo News comments section seems to be a bastion of conservative knuckle draggers. However, this seems to be one of those rare comments that cuts right to the truth of the matter. What happened when the Arab Spring started sweeping the Middle East? They were largely written off until people started to actively attempt to discredit them or put down the movement through force. So guess what Mayor Bloomburg tried to do.

"If Bloomberg really cared about sanitation here he wouldn't have blocked portapotties and dumpsters."

On Thursday afternoon Occupy Wall Street called an emergency General Assembly down at Liberty Plaza to deal with the announcement that Friday will see a cleanup of the park by the City, starting at 7 am. Representatives of Brookfield, the company that owns the park, said in the clean-up notice that everything left behind will be thrown away. On Thursday it was also revealed that Brookfield had sent a letter to police commissioner Ray Kelly asking the NYPD help clear out the protestors. A group of New York civil liberties lawyers warned the CEO of Brookfield that forcing protestors from the park violates their first amendment rights, stating, "Under the guise of cleaning the Park you are threatening fundamental constitutional rights. There is no basis in the law for your request for police intervention, nor have you cited any. Such police action without a prior court order would be unconstitutional."

And guess what he failed to do?

A planned cleanup of the Lower Manhattan park that has been home to the Occupy Wall Street movement since September 17 was delayed just hours before it was due to begin by Brookfield Office Properties, which manages the publicly accessible park.

The move averted a possible showdown between police and protesters who viewed the cleanup as a ploy to evict them. Protesters loudly cheered the decision, and several hundred set off marching toward the city's financial district.

Police arrested 14 people, but there were no widespread disruptions.

"This development has emboldened the movement and sent a clear message that the power of the people has prevailed against Wall Street," Occupy Wall Street said in a statement, estimating more than 3,000 people had gathered in the park.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, in his weekly radio address on Friday, said his office was not involved in the decision to postpone the cleanup.

"My understanding is that Brookfield got lots of calls from many elected officials threatening them and saying, 'If you don't stop this, we'll make your life much more difficult,'" said Bloomberg, who added that he did not know which officials had called the company.

So thank you, Teabaggers, 1%ers, and righties of all stripes. You've done more to validate OWS than anything the left ever could have done.

Liberalism and the Second Amendment

During a discussion today I've been reflecting on the idea of being a liberal left-wing progressive and yet also being rabidly pro-Second Amendment. A lot of people would view this as such a contradiction (no, not the Starburst commercial kind), the sort of contradiction that would make a person do a double-take so quickly they'd hurt themselves.

In my own mind, it's not a contradiction to be a progressive and also pro-gun ownership. I'm a believer in responsible, legal firearms ownership provided a person can be safely trusted with a firearm through appropriate background checks as described in the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution. I'm not going to trot out the old "Hiter was pro-gun control" nor am I one of those people who'll be able to keep a straight face when told it's an obsolete Amendment because we don't have to worry about the Redcoats anymore. I don't expect to ever need to take up arms in a civil war in the same way I don't believe I'll need them to fight back against commies or terrorists; but I do believe it is my right to be able to own a firearm should I need one in a worst case scenario. In this case, I'm thinking along the lines of a mugger or home invasion or stalker or any number of far more realistic threats we face every day in the USA.

Also, what do you expect me to use for the zombie apocalypse? A butter knife?

Fun With Math

Hey kids, wanna see something fun! Pull out your calculators, get a #2 pencil and a sheet of paper and use the graph on the blackboard here:


Now for the problem: In the lowest paid non-agricultural field of work, according to the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, is the "Leisure and Hospitality" industry. The average weekly worker pay there in September 2011 was $343.95 dollars. Using the table above, what is the average weekly pay for a CEO in the Leisure and Hospitality industry?

If you said $163,376.25 a week, you get an A+ and a feeling of seething anger at the inequality (assuming you're not a deluded conservative). But, okay, let's say that is a worst case scenario. Let me switch charts:

From AFL-CIO:



Now, let's try this problem using the same $343.95 dollar base, shall we? If your second answer is $117,974.85 a week for the CEO, you get another A+, a gold star and a handful of Goldfish crackers that you're probably too poor to afford.

Lower or Higher Standard of Living?

Shortly after I woke up I hopped onto YIM and checked my mail when I noticed one of the articles was entitled: "Unemployed seek protection against job bias". The article itself was talking about how many companies, when looking at applicants for a job opening, will automatically discard any one of them who is either unemployed or has been unemployed for longer than 6 months. This is not something that is unheard of for me, I've known for a while that this is fairly common practice and it seems to be so well known that President Obama has even included a provision in his jobs bill that would ban companies from excluding the unemployed when considering applications. But that is actually just background for the real thing I want to address in this post.

A while back I heard someone asking in confusion about the general attitudes of the common person during the Wisconsin protests; "Why" they asked, "is it that when they hear about union and government employees making X amount of money an hour and get Y days off and Z benefits that instead of demanding equal treatment by their own private sector employers they instead demand union and government employees to take cuts?"

It was a question that I couldn't answer. I puzzled over it for a long while and honestly, I could never find any answer that didn't sound like some variation of "Fuck the right wing." I didn't want another outlet for my contempt of most things conservative, I wanted a real damn answer. Eventually I gave up and put it out of my mind. Until today.

When reading the Associated Press article linked to above, I made the mistake of looking at the comments. I'd almost forgotten that YahooNews has become a bastion of right-wing knuckle draggers. As I was reading, quite a few of the comments were, surprisingly, agreeable. And then I found one from the user 1Spirit;

The point I am trying to make in my post is that we, the unemployed, are trying to hit a mercurial moving target in regards to jobs in our respective ares of expertise. Yes, we can
accept a jobs below our personal income requirements but, this only slows the ratcheting down of our standards of living. The probability of losing our homes, our marriages are only minimally diminished. Many, if not most of us, will still have thousands of dollars in student loans to pay for to which have no effective value. Collectively, this affects us all through the cascade effect.

This actually strikes me as quite a reasonable post. Why should we, the majority of America, have to sacrifice our standard of living so the richest fuckers out there can keep hoarding their cash? And why should we be excluded from employment because we can't find work in an economy where 65 year-old's are still working full time and unemployment is still hovering around 9%? And then I find some oh-so intelligent [/sarcasm] replies to this post.

Jim
Your standard of living? Are you kidding me. You are worried about the pride of losing your standard of living.Get out there and get a job and take care of your family. If they don't have a job in your area, move. You do what you have to to take care of your family you idiot. You lazy moron, get out there and go to work. Do anything you can. Businesses hire people that are willing to do what ever it takes. I delivered pizzas when I had to. My son told me the other day, Dad, you taught me a valuable lesson with that. The pride is in taking care of your family. You can't accept a job that is below your personal income requirements. You lazy sot. And your spouse buys that crap? I paid every dime of my son's tuition and housing because I worked second jobs. I had yard sales, I did what it took because that is who I am. You are part of what is wrong with this nation now, it does not meet your personal income requirements and ratchets down your standard of living. You moron. You voted for Obama didn't you.

Charles B
Took a job that pays less than 1/2 of what I was used to being paid.... it is a regular paycheck.

I then cut out completely ANY AND ALL entertainment expense. I no longer have steak for Dinner (maybe 1 X /month). There is about 50X of ground beef in the feezer, and some chicken breast.
Before I lost my job and took the new one, I hadn't had a hamburger at home in ayear.... Now it is on the table 3 of 5 nights, disguised as manwich or salsbury steak..... or tacos or what have you.

SO I stepped down on all of my standards of living to be able to SUPPORT MY FAMILY!

I have "NO" sympathy for any of you that will not take something less to delay to lowering of the standard of living. GROW UP..... HAVE PRIDE.... ANS SUPPORT YOURSELF. We went from a 4 BR 3BA home that had 4.5 acres of land to a 3 BR 2 BA home that looks like a shack.... and well... it protects us from the elements. BUT WE DID IT!

BTW; I have TWO DEGREES.... and I am working in a field that only mildly corresponds to one of them..... BUT I AM WORKING!!!!! Adapt and overcome- stop being a poor pitiful pearl that expects others to supply your life's needs. YOU ARE AN AMERICAN.... You have the opportunity to succeed and fail.... now that you have had the failure, pull up your pants get on your shoes, and get back up on that first rung and begin moving back up...... IT CAN BE DONE BY EVERYONE BUT THE ENTITLED!
Stop hating those who have made it (RIch)- Stop demanding that they pay more so that you can continue to work less....... GET UP AND REACH FOR IT.... expect many steps, expect to have to give things up, expect to have to struggle.... expect to wonder what is happening next week...... but above all do not allow the government to take away that freedom!

Kevin E
I gotta cut my standard of living! Oh noes! Really? Well here's a dose of reality for you, sometimes when times get rough you have to cut out things that aren't necessary so you make ends meet until you can afford the luxuries. That's the problem with Americans today, they can't make cuts themselves and survive without nanny government to look out for them.

Ilona
The good jobs are long gone sorry that is the reality right now, get off your high horse and work a crappy job like most everyone else does before they all disappear too. maybe good jobs will return maybe not, whining won't help

I read these and went off to get dinner started. As I was heading to the kitchen I has a eureka moment. People don't want to admit that they are being taken advantage of. To see others who are fairly well off but not in the top 5% of income earners seems to gall them. Another person who is doing fairly well off but by no means rich seems to be an insult to those who're pissed off at their crappy job but can't seem to grow the stones needed to demand better conditions.

This is the sort of thing I find to be not only really sad, but is also an insight into why people will actively vote against their own interests by, among other things, supporting union busting legislation.

Yummies

So, I found myself in possession of a huge sack of boneless skinless chicken breasts and a whole head full of cooking ideas. Today, I shall lighten the over-all tone of this blog by sharing one such idea.

After thawing out two chicken breasts...well...one, but the fucker's large enough that it looks like it ate one of the others so I cut it in half, I decided to marinate it. So, I looked in my pantry and decided to pull a marinade out of thin air and ended up mixing in a small bowl;

• Dry Sherry
• White Vinegar
• Sweet basil leaves
• Rosemary
• Minced garlic
• Italian seasoning
• A pinch of salt

Mix well and marinade in a medium sized ziplock bag or a large bowl.

No, I don't have measurements because I didn't measure. I just eyeballed it, but it's a cheap enough marinade that you can season to taste. The most expensive part is the Sherry. I'll update this later tonight with a result of how it turns out.

*ADDENDUM*

It turns out that it is a good recipe. If you do it right you'll get a sharp taste of Sherry that's complimented by the herbs. I had the chicken with potatoes au gratin and fresh green beans boiled and seasoned with chopped onion, minced garlic and a pat of butter. Boil the water for the green beans and add the garlic, butter and onion to it and let it boil for a while to let the flavors mix before adding the green beans, if you care to try it.

We Are the 99%

Yesterday I posted an entry in which I included accounts of people who are suffering for the greed of the rich and powerful. That website, entitled We Are the 99%, has many stories of people suffering from no economic security. But what shocks me is the number of people who say they're grateful for their minimum wage no benefit we-can-replace-you-at-the-drop-of-a-hat jobs. They call themselves the lucky ones.

I understand that people are desperate and will take anything if it means having maybe enough money to feed their kids and themselves and keep a roof over their heads, I want it to be known that I understand it. But what I can't understand is why anyone would be grateful to be taken advantage of? Long hours, low pay, no medical, and not enough pay to keep yourself fed and still keep your debt from growing seems to be the order of the day for these grateful people. Consider yourself lucky, yes, but don't feel grateful to be exploited, underpaid and overworked.

I guess I'm still just reeling over how bad things have gotten for people these days...though I shouldn't really be surprised. Things have been horrible for years now, but out of control poverty isn't dramatic enough to warrant media attention until it gets bad enough that people start marching in the streets, and even then it gets very little coverage.

I think my surprise rests mostly with how ignorant I've been of these things until now.

One Demand

One of the biggest questions about the Occupy Wall Street is; "What is their one demand?" It seems a lot of people *coughrepublicanscough* just can't understand why all these people are pissed off enough to get out and protest, much less protest without having a specific reason in mind. But it seems to be difficult for them to understand that you can protest injustice, even if you don't know exactly what that injustice is. Only, these protestors do know what injustice they're facing; greed.

We are living in an era where the vast majority of wealth in the USA is controlled by an insultingly small number of people. Over 95% of Americans are struggling to make ends meet, many aren't. People are going to college, coming out with crushing debt and finding out that if they're lucky enough to find a job it won't likely be much better than minimum wage. And gods help them if they have to use a credit card to buy anything. In many cases people are only able to pay the minimum, but often the monthly minimum is less than the fees and interest rates so even though they're paying, they're finding their owed balance growing. But while people are being bled dry of everything they own, the banks aren't exactly crying in their beer knowing that some poor (literally) sap out there will be paying them off for the rest of their lives.

How bad does it have to get when you have lawyers telling you to just stop paying credit card companies?

The way the fees are now imposed, "people would be better off if they stopped paying" once they get in over their heads, said T. Bentley Leonard, a North Carolina bankruptcy attorney . Once you stop paying, creditors write off the debt and sell it to a debt collector. "They may harass you, but your balance doesn't keep rising. That's the irony."

Now we have an influx of people getting out of college and can only buy food on credit and they're quickly finding out they're likely worse off than if they're just stuck with a high school education; by and large the only jobs out there are low-level minimum wage jobs which they can't get hired for because they're "overqualified" and it's hard to find work in their field because they don't have enough experience. They're caught in an endless cycle of You're-Fucked.

Now add insult to injury; the wealthiest people in the country are sitting on trillions of dollars and a rich republican congressmen is whining that he only has $400K ($400,000) a year left to live on after taxes and expenses. Cry me a motherfucking river, he's got it so hard, doesn't he?

Contrast that with 13 year old Allison who's parents can't afford for her to see a doctor after showing signs of Schizophrenia and whom has been hiding her need for sleeping pills and going without enough food because she knows just how poor her family is. No kid should ever have to face that kind of reality, much less before they've finished middle school.

This is supposed to be the greatest, richest country on earth so how can we allow our kids to go hungry and without medical care?

So what is the One Demand from Occupy Wall Street? They'll release lists of their demands, but whatever it is, it will be variations on the same thing; we want economic security.

I never believed in the American Dream, but it is still shocking to see that people are perusing it overseas. In a first world nation like America, nobody should ever have to work two jobs and still have to resort to prostitution to make ends meet. No one should ever have to work 80 and 90 hours a week just to pay for their own chemotherapy.

That is the One Demand; we want this injustice to stop. How can any government leader or millionaire look at themselves in the mirror and not be horrified by what they see when things are allowed to become this bad?

New Banner

Yes, it is simplistic, but I am very pleased with how it turned out. I also wanted to give thanks to Hades. Were it not for his messing about with the flaming letter "P", I wouldn't have been able to put this together nearly as well as I did.

In case you're wondering, the reason there is a flaming P.I. up there is not because I am a Private Investigator (I'm not). It is because "Progressively Irritated" was one of my final two choices for the title of my blog, which I ended up using as a web address. And yes, flames because I am that hot headed at times.

No Still Means No Even if The Person Saying It Has A Dick

I was linked to a story that was one of those times where the blatant double-standards risked blowing a vessel in my head. I want to point at the states of Florida and Michigan scream "FUCK YOU!" but I can't really pin the blame on just those state. I also have to fault most everyone who's commented on this story in the main article.

I'm looking at you; Men-can't-be-raped troglodytes.

The story I was linked to is about a young man now 23, who was raped when he was 17 by his then 18 year old girlfriend. That alone would be bad enough, but things seemed to take a turn for the truly bizarre.

On Jan. 6, 2006, when he was still 17 and she was 18, they had sex in the back seat of a car and made a baby she named Joshua.

A paternity test confirmed Kris was the father.

Kris was not present at Joshua's birth.

He did not contribute anything — not time, not money — to Joshua's care.

Jessica never asked Kris for help.

In March 2009, Kris got a letter from the state of Michigan. Jessica had moved there and gone on welfare and Michigan wanted Kris to start paying child support.

Kris hired a lawyer. He said he shouldn't have to pay child support because he never wanted the baby.

Jessica, he said, raped him.

Stop and try to picture this for a moment or three. You're going about your business, doing your best to put that time of your life behind you, wanting little more than to forget The Night when you find a piece of mail in the box addressed to you from the government of another state. They're wanting you to pay your attacker. Wow. Honestly, I can't imagine anything more surreal than that.

Well, no...there is something more, also from the same article.

Around the country there are plenty of cases of underage boys who got a woman pregnant and then tried to avoid paying child support. The 15-year-old in California who was seduced by the 34-year-old mom next door. The 13-year-old boy in Kansas who had sex with his 17-year-old baby­sitter. The 15-year-old boy in Florida who impregnated a 20-year-old.

It baffles me that the courts would actually order minors to pay child support. I'm sure the 13-year-old's school lunch money will pay for a few bottle of apple sauce.

But that aside, let's go back to the issue at hand. Let's reverse the genders, shall we? If this was a man who was fingered as the aggressor and it was a woman who was being coerced, would we even be debating whether or not it was even rape? No, of course not. But, you see, men suffer from a mind-boggling double-standard. See, because a male has Tab A to insert into Slot B, somehow that means that only we can insert Tab A into Slot B but never, ever can Slot B be wrapped around Tab A without Tab A's permission. That's just for guys in general, but what about this kid? While the public at large may dismiss his claims, surely his parents would support him or at least give him the benefit of the doubt...right?

In February 2006, Kris said, he and Jessica sat down on the soft brown couch in the living room of his parents' home in Brooksville.

They told his parents that Jessica was pregnant.

How did this happen? his mother asked. The doctor had told them to be careful. They had agreed to refrain from sex.

Kris, his mother and his father all say that at that moment, Jessica admitted that she forced Kris to have sex against his will.

"I made him," Connie Bucher recalls her saying.

Kris' dad, Steve Bucher, was initially skeptical, but he didn't say anything.

"How does a girl rape a guy? I just couldn't see that," he said in a recent interview.

Well...hmm...you know, that's a good point dad. Let's see...how could a woman rape a teenage male? I must be a freak of nature, but I could remember back then it would seem to come up on it's own. I mean, I didn't look at those old National Geographic pictures of the Honkin' Hooter Tribe of East Africa and think "Wow, look at those cans!" in fact, I wasn't ever really attracted by those pics but I'll be damned if pinky didn't pop up anyway for a look. Surely it must be a purely voluntary thing, right? Here's let's preform an experiment;

"ARISE, PENIS!"

...huh, nothing. Odd. Let's try something else.

"GO, GO, GADGET GIGGLE STICK!"

Well I'll be damned...nothing. Okay, one more.

"PENOR! I CHOOSE YOU!"

Well shit...maybe it's not voice activated. Maybe it's touch activated. Let's see, they call it a Belly Button, maybe if I press it I can trigger the Cock Up ability...surely that's the key. Hmm...no, nothing. Well, I kinda gotta pee now. Oh, wait, what's this?

Experts say it is physically possible for a man to be raped by a woman, or, put another way, to get an erection without wanting to have sex.

"Teenagers, in particular, often have an uncontrollable genital response," says Debby Herbenick, a research scientist in sexual health at Indiana University and author of Because It Feels Good.

"Many men, for example, recall getting erections when they felt scared, angry, or even nervous — like having to go up to the chalkboard to write out a math problem," she said. "And certainly seeing someone naked could lead them to get an erection."

Well, fuck me sideways. You mean a cock coming up isn't always within the man's ability to control? Why, shocking! Scandalous! Unheard of! That time I got hard looking at the tile in the bathroom wasn't because of some involuntary bodily function that just happened to strike when I was washing my hands, it was because that tile was trying to seduce me! It's nothing but a white hexagonal hussy, I tell you! Or, maybe, just maybe, guys get hard for no fucking reason, so it's not a stretch to see a guy can get it up when someone's pawing at his crotch, even if he doesn't really want to. Still want to debate it? Let's see the fucking definition of rape:

Rape
[reyp]   Origin
rape
1    [reyp] IPA noun, verb, raped, rap·ing.
noun
1. the unlawful compelling of a person through physical force or duress to have sexual intercourse.
2. any act of sexual intercourse that is forced upon a person.
3. statutory rape.
4. an act of plunder, violent seizure, or abuse; despoliation; violation: the rape of the countryside.
5. Archaic . the act of seizing and carrying off by force.
verb (used with object)
6. to force to have sexual intercourse.
7. to plunder (a place); despoil.
8. to seize, take, or carry off by force.
verb (used without object)
9. to commit rape.
Origin:
1250–1300; (v.) Middle English rapen < Anglo-French raper < Latin rapere to seize, carry off by force, plunder; (noun) Middle English < Anglo-French ra ( a ) p ( e ), derivative of raper

Okay, okay, so, why didn't he fight back? Well...

What happened in the weeks after the miscarriage, and specifically on the night of Jan. 6, 2006, is where the couple's stories begin to diverge. Kris told his version at a child support hearing in Brooksville in 2010. Jessica was not present.

Kris testified he wasn't ready to be a father. And the doctor told them Jessica would now be particularly fertile, so they decided to avoid sex.

On Jan. 6, 2006, Jessica and Kris fought and she broke up with him again. He was in love, he said, and he begged her not to leave him. So she invited him to her church youth group meeting that night.

Their friends drove, but the church was closed, so they headed to Hudson Beach in Pasco County. The other couple went for a walk.

Kris and Jessica sat in the back seat. He said he was looking out the window at the smooth water when she got on top of him and said: "You know you want me."

The passenger seat in front of him was tilted back at a 45-degree angle. She used one arm to pin him down, he said, the other to unzip his pants. At the time, he said, he was 5-foot-7 and 150 pounds and she was heavier.

"At any time do you make a statement to her about you will not have sexual intercourse with her?" asked his lawyer, Kerry O'Connor, at the hearing.

"I told her, 'No, I do not want this.' And that's when she said, 'It's going to happen.' "

"And did you specifically use the word 'no'? "

"Absolutely . . . several times."

He said he tried to push Jessica off. He said he tried to pull the door handle to open the car door. He said she slammed her hand over the lock. He said it was over pretty fast.

He got out of the car, sat on the tailgate with his head in his hands. Their friends returned and he said nothing. They dropped him at his house.

Okay, sure, but why didn't he go to the cops? Well...

Did you go to the police immediately? his lawyer asked.

"No, I did not," he responded. Kris said he called the Sheriff's Office a few weeks later and spoke to a deputy. The deputy seemed to doubt him but said he would follow up. He never did and neither did Kris.

"At this point, I was a senior in high school. I didn't want to lose respect amongst friends. I was in a respected position in JROTC. I didn't want to lose that. I didn't want any kind of unwanted attention drawn to me."

Now, I feel I must provide a little background as to the effects of rape on men. I could paraphrase an articlefrom the National Center for Victims of Crime, but for fear of botching it up, I'll simply quote it;

Male Rape
Victims' Response

It is not uncommon for a male rape victim to blame himself for the rape, believing that he in some way gave permission to the rapist (Brochman, 1991). Male rape victims suffer a similar fear that female rape victims face -- that people will believe the myth that they may have enjoyed being raped. Some men may believe they were not raped or that they gave consent because they became sexually aroused, had an erection, or ejaculated during the sexual assault. These are normal, involuntary physiological reactions. It does not mean that the victim wanted to be raped or sexually assaulted, or that the survivor enjoyed the traumatic experience. Sexual arousal does not necessarily mean there was consent.

According to Groth, some assailants may try to get their victim to ejaculate because for the rapist, it symbolizes their complete sexual control over their victim's body. Since ejaculation is not always within conscious control but rather an involuntary physiological reaction, rapists frequently succeed at getting their male victims to ejaculate. As Groth and Burgess have found in their research, this aspect of the attack is extremely stressful and confusing to the victim. In misidentifying ejaculation with orgasm, the victim may be bewildered by his physiological response during the sexual assault and, therefore, may be discouraged from reporting the assault for fear his sexuality may become suspect (Groth & Burgess, 1980).

Another major concern facing male rape victims is society's belief that men should be able to protect themselves and, therefore, it is somehow their fault that they were raped. The experience of a rape may affect gay and heterosexual men differently. Most rape counselors point out that gay men have difficulties in their sexual and emotional relationships with other men and think that the assault occurred because they are gay, whereas straight men often begin to question their sexual identity and are more disturbed by the sexual aspect of the assault than the violence involved (Brochman, 1991).

To say it simply, there are many factors as to why this wasn't investigated; not the least of which was being met with disbelief by the fucking authorities. There's also the very real feeling that he not only wouldn't be taken seriously by others (as was evidenced by the sheriff and his own fucking father) but the real chance of facing ridicule from his peers, a possible own engrained belief of his own in the old Men-Can't-Be-Raped bullshit among other things. To be honest, after all this, I find it amazing that not only could he move on, but have gotten married to a woman with two kids of her own. And he's trying to support them on about $21K a year.

And now he's being hit with an order from another state to pay child support to his attacker.

Wow.

Just...wow.