Year: 2013

by Chris Bodenner

Readers continue the sensitive thread:

I’m uncomfortable with the term “gay rape”. Men who identify as straight rape other men. Rape is at least as much about power as it is about sex. I have a straight male friend who was raped while hitchhiking in 1991. His rapist gave no indication that he was gay and I’m guessing would not want others to identify him as gay. They met at a stadium concert, and traveled together for a few days while following the band from city to city. On the second or third day, his rapist followed him into a public bathroom at a gas station and raped him during a fill-up stop. Afterwards he refused to give my friend his belongings back (which were in his car), so my friend continued to ride with his rapist until the next stop at a concert venue. Preparing to run, he brought all of his belongings with him and made a dash for it.

I found out what happened to him when he got home. Most people he told didn’t believe him, or they told him “that’s what you get for hitchhiking”. I was surprised that our female friends were no more sympathetic than his male friends. One of our mutual friends was an anti-rape activist who trained women in self-defense techniques and rape prevention. I was astonished that she was totally unsympathetic, even going so far as to tell him that he shouldn’t tell people what happened to him, since it would make people less sympathetic to women who get raped.

I lost track of him a few years later, but during the time I knew him, he never really got over it. I never saw him in a sexual relationship again, and he was clearly traumatized not only by what happened to him, but by how what happened to him was received by his peers.

I’ve never laughed at a prison rape joke since.

Another:

First, I’m a subscriber, but this issue still freaks me out and so I am sending this to you anonymously.  I just created this account for this email.

I am married.  And mostly happily so, though I am in a utterly sexless marriage.  We stay together mostly because we are best friends and have two beautiful children who’s lives don’t deserve to be impacted by their parents inadequacies. That of course, is important because like many married men I have in the past cruised anonymously for gay sex (that might be a worthy series of posts in their own right).  For awhile, Squirt, Grinder, and other sites provided an easy and safe outlet.  I was always oral and never had an inclination for anal (either giving or receiving).  But whatever.  The point of this email is that about four or five years ago, my wife was out of town and I decided to meet up with someone at the Key Bridge Marriott in Arlington, VA.

He, in turn, had someone else he was chatting with who was also at the hotel. So we walked down to this other guys room and decided to get some group play going.  After a while, the first guy left (he couldn’t keep it up), and the second guy who was literally twice the size of me (probably 6’6″ and 300 lbs of muscle – and as massive a dick as I’ve ever seen – compared to my 5’9 160 lbs) continued on with me.

After a bit, he became much more aggressive and soon pinned me down and was attempting to insert himself in me. He was on me, had my legs apart, a rubber visible on the nightstand but clearly no intention of using it, and he told me very calmly that “it was time to fuck my sissy ass.” I can still remember the smell of his breath as he calmly looked me in the eyes and told me how he was going to rape me.  I told him no, struggling, and he just ignored me, spreading my legs further and attempting to enter me.  Which was incredibly painful for me, but must have been so for him too.  He continued to hold me down and proceeded to stick his fingers in me to loosen me up.  Somehow, I managed to twist out from him.  And, frankly, I have no idea how I escaped, but somehow I did.  And I ran.

Luckily, being in Virginia, I can carry a gun.  And I had one in my pants pocket.  As I was running to the door, and as he was charging me (it seemed like forever but must have taken place over less than a second or two) I was able to grab my pants and my gun in the front pocket, where he didn’t know it was, and pull it on him (I’m still not sure how I did it so seamlessly). He didn’t expect this and the entire dynamic of the situation changed remarkably. He backed up, trying to calm me down, as I kept the gun square on him and calmly walked backwards to the door, unlocking it behind me and stepping into the hall where I put my pants on as I continued walked backwards to the elevator running through the lobby shirtless and shoeless.

Being married, and with a job in DC where I wasn’t sure how they would respond to publicity over me like that, I was petrified to report anything.  And who would I have reported it to? Would they have believed me or simply told me what did I expect?

I’m lucky I didn’t have to use the gun. For one, that would have raised more than a few questions from my wife. But also, I didn’t have a bullet in the chamber.  I’ll never make that mistake again.  Screw the know-nothings who say guns should be unloaded.  An unloaded gun is a paperweight.  Had I not moved at the right moment, or not had a gun available, or had to pull the trigger on an empty chamber, I have no doubt he would have raped and assaulted me and left me in a terrible physical condition (and likely exposed to HIV and a surefire hospital visit).

I’ve significantly changed my behavior after that incident.  But I still get traumatized over what happened.  And of course, that’s both an attempted rape AND a defensive gun use that like so many others will never be officially tabulated.  And it all makes me question how common this problem is, especially among the large segment of married men who seek to cruise anonymously.

In hindsight I set myself up for it with terribly risky behavior.  And it’s a miracle I’ve not come down with HIV.  But it’s not something I could ever ever report because of the impact it would have on my life and those I am closest too.  I just pray that this monster was turned in by someone who was in a position to turn him in.  Otherwise, he remains at large.

by Doug Allen

Tim Maly calls attention to a non-profit called ColaLife that is leveraging the popularity of Coke to deliver much-needed medical supplies to remote African villages:

You can buy a Coke pretty much anywhere on Earth. Thanks to a vast network of local suppliers, Coca-Cola has almost completely solved distribution, getting its product into every nook and cranny where commerce reaches. There are places in the world where it’s easier to get a Coke than clean water. In the 1980s, [ColaLife founder Simon] Berry was an aid worker in Zambia, and when he looked at Coke’s success, he saw an opportunity. …

The result of [ColaLife’s] efforts so far is the AidPod, a wedge-shaped container that fits between the necks of bottles in a Coca-Cola crate. For the pilot program, they are using the AidPods to distribute an anti-diarrhea kit, called “Kit Yamoyo” (“Kit of Life”).

The effort is helping local businesses as well:

By working with [Coca-Cola wholesalers], ColaLife gains a connection to locally trusted businesses. “They know about inventory control, security, how to store products properly, and retailers in the district know where they are,” says Berry. “We’ve created a desirable anti-diarrhea kit. We’ve priced it and we’re marketing it at a level where these retailers who deal in other products can make money out of taking it to their villages and selling it.” For the ColaLife operational trial in Zambia, everybody on the ground (wholesalers, distributors and retailers) is making a profit. Recommended retail for the kit is 5,000 kwacha (about $1). Retailers make 35 percent profit, while wholesalers make 20 percent profit.

by Brendan James

Kevin Ashton claims the meme had “nothing to do with community and everything to do with commerce”, noting that one of the first imitations of the original “Harlem Shake” videos was from a company called Maker Studios trying to promote itself, and that soon after the song’s record label, Mad Decent, got in the game as well. Then came the advertisers and media companies:

[T]hese companies started posting and promoting their own “Harlem Shake” videos. They included College Humor, a website owned by IAC, a publicly traded company that also owns Newsweek; Vimeo, a YouTube rival also owned by IAC; and BuzzFeed, a viral content website that promoted its video with a story subtitled “If you haven’t done one yet, you better get on it right away!” (The Huffington Post also ran a story, “The Harlem Shake: A ’00s Classic, Having Another Moment“). Thousands of “Harlem Shake” videos were uploaded during the week of Feb. 11, many of them from businesses with something to sell.

This is abnormal. “Single Ladies,” “Somebody That I Used To Know,” Carly Rae Jepson’s “Call Me Maybe,” and Psy’s “Gangnam Style” were made by professionals and first imitated by professionals–Saturday Night Live in the case of “Single Ladies,” indie Canadian band Walk Off The Earth in the case of “Somebody That I Used To Know,” and Justin Bieber in the case of “Call Me Maybe”–then later by fans and amateurs. “Harlem Shake,” was a meme made by an amateur, George Miller, but its rapid replication was driven by media and marketing professionals, led and orchestrated by three companies: Maker Studios, Mad Decent, and IAC.

Leor Galil yawns:

It’s an interesting theory, and Ashton has a great handle on the evolution of the “Harlem Shake” meme from its beginning … through its viral comedown, but the underlying statement is loaded in a way that skirts certain details—like the fact that fan-made “Harlem Shake” videos amassed several hundred thousand views, a number strong enough to be considered “viral,” prior to any “corporate” involvement in the meme. Ashton also goes to great pains to point out the corporate ties for some of the outlets responsible for contributing to the “Harlem Shake” meme that directly benefited from its popularity while glossing over the fact that the meme, like many before it, got its footing through corporate-funded channels: Maker Studios got wind of the meme after employee Vernon Shaw discovered it on uber-popular social site Reddit, which is owned by monolithic media empire Advance Publications, and all the fan-made videos were largely uploaded to a hugely popular corporate entity, YouTube. While Reddit and YouTube foster unique digital communities and everyday contributors have the ability to affect every denizen that doesn’t negate the fact that they are corporations.

by Chris Bodenner

The results of our Urtak survey show that 7% of married readers have had a prenup, 24% of unmarried readers say they plan to get a prenup, and 24% say it would be a dealbreaker if their intended spouse insisted on having a prenup. Regarding the question graphed above (where orange means “no” and blue means “yes”), male and female readers were both evenly split. A reader writes:

I write in response to the reader who had to declare bankruptcy after a divorce, I don’t think a prenup would have helped his case.  First, it’s not realisitic to think that a guy who couldn’t afford $10k for a divorce lawyer could afford to pay a lawyer for a prenup.  Second, I’m not sure a typical prenup would include a “no getting credit cards without the consent of both parties” clause because, if you need one of those, you probably shouldn’t get married.  Third, a prenup can be challenged in court, and a good divorce lawyer can find ambiguities in the prenup to drag out litigation.  So he could have been faced with $10k in legal bills even with a prenup.

Another:

I have a bit of a different perspective on prenups in one niche demographic group: Orthodox Jews.

You see, Orthodox Judaism is a patriarchal religion in which women have less rights – or, as it is sometimes spun by the “Modern Orthodox” wing of Orthodoxy (as opposed to the haredi, or fundamentalist, wing) – “different” rights.  When it comes to divorce, an Orthodox woman cannot get a religious divorce (and therefore cannot remarry) unless her husband grants her the divorce. When a man refuses to do so, the woman is referred to as an agunah, or a “chained woman.”  They can still get a civil divorce on the woman’s initiative, but not a religious divorce.

When I got married, my rabbi required me to sign a prenup that stated that in the event we get a civil divorce, I am required to grant my wife a religious divorce.  Many Modern Orthodox rabbis will not perform a wedding unless such a prenup is first signed.  It is impossible, in the view of Orthodoxy, to change the religious divorce requirements, but they are using the modern prenup as a way to equalize the power between men and women and ensure that women do not become chained.  For an example of what happens when such a prenup is not entered into, one needs to look no further than the US Congress.