How do you solve a problem like Maria (Goretti)?

There are millions of Catholic saints, many named, but most not.

Of those that are named, everyone has those that they have an affinity for and those that repel them. Whilst I adore Teresa of Avila and St John of the Cross, I couldn't dislike Therese of Lisieux, Padre Pio or Jose Escriva de Balaguer more. Different strokes for different folks.

But Maria Goretti is something else entirely.

For those who do not know the story of Maria Goretti, here it is in short: born in 1890, it is claimed (with all the smell of a justifying backstory) that she was a particularly God-fearing, pious little girl. On 5 July 1902, her neighbour, Alessandro Serenelli, came upon her sewing and said he would kill her if she didn't let him rape her, at which point she told him it was a mortal sin and that he would go to Hell if he carried on. He choked her, she refused, he stabbed her 17 times. She died later in hospital, supposedly having forgiven her attacker.

She then became the patron saint of those who had been raped and sexually abused.

Do we see a problem here?

Let me sum Saint Maria Goretti up for you in four words: better dead than deflowered.

Several years ago, I sat in church on her feast day, open-mouthed in absolute shock as the priest stood up and waxed lyrical over how Maria had died to protect her purity, how amazing that was, and how she was an example for everyone to follow. My rather politically incorrect thought, and the only one that is vaguely printable, was, "WTF does a woman's purity matter to YOU, you aging queen?"

When I confronted one of his colleagues, who happens to be a good friend, about it, he responded that Maria Goretti's sainthood was about forgiveness, not her chastity. I know he believes that, but I think he's wrong - and here's why:

From Pope Pius XII:

"The value of Christian virtue is so great, so overwhelming, so imperative, that it is worth more than life. Purity is not just a separate part of our being. It belongs to our existence as a whole, it is essential for our life. Purity brings us in harmony of body and soul."

From JP II:

"Maria Goretti, so illuminating with her spiritual beauty, challenges us to a firm and secure faith in the Word of God, as the only source of truth, to remain firm against the temptations of this world."

"Young people, look at Maria Goretti, don’t be tempted by the tempting atmosphere of our permissive society, which declares, everything is possible. Look to Maria Goretti, love, live, defend your chastity."

Oh, and let's not forget the Maria Goretti Society which has cute pink t-shirts that say 'Maria Goretti Society: Purity is worth dying for'. Is it, fuck.

Of course, we all know that being threatened by rape is the same as being tempted by 'permissive society'. It's the same as choosing to remain chaste. I mean, after all, what's the difference between being a child, helpless in the face of someone twice your size or a woman threatened at gunpoint and saying 'No' to your boyfriend because you want to wait?

Obviously, none in the eyes of the above popes, and thus, none in the eyes of the Roman Catholic Church.

So, let's look at virginity/purity. Worth dying for?

Virginity is simply the state of not having had sex - nothing more and nothing less. In and of itself, it is neutral. Value is placed on it by a patriarchy incapable of getting past its animal nature: a virgin bride/woman ensures that any children belong to the man who's sleeping with her (also the reason that a woman's faithfulness is more important than a man's, of course). Perpetual virginity, robbing a woman of her sexuality, makes a woman the eternal girl, meaning that she is non-threatening to the men who idealise her - making it impossible for any living woman to measure up.

I'm sure as hell not dying to protect that. And there is NO way I'd want a daughter of mine to, either.

I'm not saying, 'Wey-hey, everyone, go out and shag mindlessly' - unless that's your thing. You should never give up anything that is uniquely yours - and your body and the way you have sex is that - to win approval, to buy love, to manipulate, to fill an emptiness you can't face. You should give it because you WANT to, because you LOVE what you are about to do. And in that case, when you give it and to whom is no one else's business (unless you're doing it where I and everyone else have to watch).

The problem with Maria Goretti is the message she, and the priests & faithful who idolise her, sends - that those of us who were sexually abused or raped and lived aren't worth a hell of a lot. At the very least, we're worth less than Maria Goretti and those who chose to die.

Read my lips: Bullshit.

Whilst I absolutely respect and mourn those who have died, the courage and power of the survivors never ceases to humble me. Does some sheltered celibate REALLY believe that I would rather have a daughter of mine DIE a virgin than LIVE, having survived a horrific crime? How can you POSSIBLY even THINK that I would rather bury a child than hold her, help her make it through her darkness, teach her to trust, help her to take the steps she needs to heal?

Whilst we mourn and honour the women who chose to fight their attackers and died, we celebrate those who survived. Those who take those baby steps back towards trust, love, being able to be touched. Those who cheer every milestone: the moment a lover can touch you there; the first time you don't freeze or check out during a makeout session or sex; the first time a man coming up behind you doesn't freak you out; the first time you can sit in the middle of a row at the movies; the first time a man can touch your hair without your tensing up and oh-so-many-more things most people take for granted. Those who breathe through the flashbacks; through the two steps forward, one step back; those who wake up from the nightmares.

Survivors become rape counsellors. Survivors learn immense compassion. Survivors can enter almost any emotional landscape. Survivors make a disproportionate difference. And eventually, survivors thrive.

Don't you DARE tell me dying takes more courage. Unless you've been there or been beside someone who has, you know NOTHING. Speak not of what you know not - especially from the pulpit, where your words have immense effect - for good and for ill.

Worshipping a 12-year-old and glorifying what one of my priest friends sneeringly called 'infant chastity' is just *sick*. And making her the patron saint of women who have been sexually abused and raped reeks of contempt. Find us someone who has actually survived, suffered and overcome.

Go on. I dare you.

Maria Goretti's feast day is Monday, 6 July. A day that I can make it to mass. Will I go?

You bet. Why?

Because if one of the four priests most likely to go into raptures over how wonderful it was that Maria died protecting her chastity is up there and opens his mouth, I want him to have to LOOK at me when he says that.

And then, I want him to have to answer to me on behalf of every amazing survivor - man or woman - who has suffered rape or sexual abuse. I want him to understand exactly what his words could have done to someone in his congregation who has been violated in ways he can't even begin to imagine, or to impressionable children. I want him to remember that his vocation is to heal, not expound some twisted ideal - after all, he wouldn't suggest that someone who was mugged should have died instead, would he? No rape/sexual abuse victim bears ANY responsibility for the crime perpetrated on them. The responsibility - EVERY LAST IOTA OF IT - lies with the person who chose to attack and violate.

A small thing - one person, one statement. But a small difference is better than none at all.

And this one's for everyone who has the courage to survive - and find their way back to living, loving and laughing. One step at a time.

Who's really emasculating men here?

I was reading an excellent blog post on the compensation for rape victims being cut if they had consumed any alcohol. I'm not going to redo Melissa McEwan's superb work here.

I read Michael White's piece at the Guraniad and Roger Graef's rant at the Daily Mail. Having reached the target heart rate for my age, I wondered if I needed to exercise today.

Now, I'm HUGE on personal responsibility, ask any of my friends - it's one of my bugbears. So, yes, you need to do as much as possible to keep yourself safe.

BUT IF SOMEONE ELSE *CHOOSES* - yes, *CHOOSES* - TO INJURE, KILL, RAPE OR IN ANY WAY, SHAPE OR FORM, VIOLATE SOMEONE ELSE, THE ONUS OF RESPONSIBILITY IS ON THEM, NO MATTER WHAT THE STATE OF THE VICTIM. IT'S AS SIMPLE AS THAT.

Being drunk may make you a more inviting target. But it doesn't make you RESPONSIBLE. If you fall over and bang your head on a lamp post when you're pissed, your responsibility. If someone picks you up and throws the inebriated you into said lamp post, THEIR responsibility.

I was chewing over the arguments of Michael White, Roger Graef, et. al., and came up with the following objections:

1. They seem to think that rape is about sex. Sex is the FORM it takes, but rape is really about violence and power. Whether it's date rape or stranger rape, you're overriding someone else's free will. That's about getting off on overpowering someone, NOT on having sex.

2. If a criminal is drunk at the time of his crime, he can plead *diminished responsibility*. Yet if a rape victim has been drinking, she is seen to have *increased responsibility* for what happened to her. You can't have it both ways. If someone has been drinking heavily, they are non compos mentis, and *therefore CANNOT GIVE LEGAL CONSENT*. So if she's drunk, the answer is already a 'no'.

3. The cut in compensation can come with the consumption of ANY amount of alcohol - one glass of wine, which leaves even a lightweight drinker like me stone cold sober, could case CICA to cut the compensation by a third.

4. Women should dress so that men aren't provoked into rape. Women should always be stone cold sober so men aren't provoked into rape. Women should walk in a way so that men aren't provoked into rape. Does someone see a pattern here? What's the underlying assumption?

The underlying assumption in all these arguments is that women are responsible adults who can control how men behave by what they do. Men, on the other hand, are creatures who have no control over their actions/passions and need to be controlled/manipulated by the behaviour of others.

Whoa. When I worked that through, my head snapped back hard enough to give me whiplash.

Always, always, men like Roger Graef and Michael White, religious fundamentalists, anti-feminists and the women who support them, have pointed the finger at feminists for making men feel insecure, for treating them like children or objects, for 'stealing from them' and not allowing them to be men.

I almost believed it. But I always thought that if that was the case, the men in question needed to take responsibility and say what they felt, rather than just 'letting women run all over them', or whatever the stock phrase is.

But the underlying feminist assumption is that men and women are *equals*: women should take responsibility for their own lives and the choices they make. So should men. Which means...feminists assume men are capable of taking responsibility for themselves, so if women are drunk, feminists assume that men will choose to either protect them or leave them alone.

Hmmm. Doesn't sound like emasculation to me. Sounds like empowerment.

Maybe it's time to treat all this the way one treats a magic trick: look at the hand they're trying to distract you from. So, what does the patriarchy really expect/believe.

1. Patriarchal societies expect women to act in ways that make them take responsibiity for men - whether it's playing games when dating so he feels 'in control'; bearing the brunt of the modesty injunction of most religions (I once had a rabbi tell me that men and women had to sit apart because "Men can't control themselves."); or pretending to be less smart/earn less so as not to damage his 'poor fwail ego, awww.'

2. Meanwhile, tell men that they're threatened on all sides by people not their own race, religion or gender and that they must defend their territory, especially against those evil temptresses - I mean, after all, look at Eve, right? It's all HER fault we're here. Remind them that they need to be told what to do, how to think (down to what they're allowed to find attractive) and protected from temptation, since they're inherently full of passions they can't control without help from the...patriarchy, also made up of men who can't... yeah, you see what I mean.

3. Tell women that despite the fact they're powerful enough to be responsible for every evil a man commits, they're NOT capable of working, voting, having the rights they give to men - you know, those same men who have to be told what to do/believe/be. Remind them that they are evil and responsible for the fall of the entire human race and need to be contained for their own good.

4. Create such an atmosphere of fear and suspicion that men and women rarely talk and are always at odds.

5. Having created such an atmosphere, slip on velvet slippers, sit back in front of the fire and remain in firm control. Rinse and repeat with other races, religions, political systems, etc.

Is it just me, or does the patriarchy have the lowest opinion of men possible? To quote an exchange between Nick and myself from the Shakesville discussion:

Finally, as a woman, I'm just sick and tired of taking responsibility for men's behaviour by how I dress, walk, glance, whatever.

And as a man, I'm insulted by the idea that I need women to "correctly" dress/walk/glance in order to manage my behaviour and urges. Not raping is easy; it's not a struggle, it's not a dilemma, and I don't need any female help to get it right. I just need a conscience, and it's interesting how it's never the feminists saying I don't have one.

THANK YOU. You know, I've always felt like the finger pointing at women - from Eve to feminists - is a distraction. Maybe it's time we treating it like a magic trick: look at the hand the patriarchy doesn't want us to see. I have a theory we might find that it's the patriarchy, not feminism, that's emasculating men by infantilizing them.

The demand that women should be responsible for the way men behave is insulting* to men - at least to me - as you put so well in the paragraph starting "THANK YOU." (and thankyou for what you said, personally and generally).
* Not that I'm going to dispute that it's an insult which pales beside the unconscionable burden it puts onto women.
But yes, it's never the feminists that paint me as an irretrievably innate sexual predator who needs female help to conquer my evil drives. Feminism puts far more faith in my, and any man's, conscience than the patriarchy does. Which is rather humbling in the light of how many women here have good reason not to.

Boys and girls, I think we've been had. From anachronistic rape laws to forcing women to cover themselves from head to toe to enforced celibacy, it has never been about anyone's good. It has been about making it easier to control someone through fear (think of the erosion of civil liberties post 9/11) or isolation (by keeping people at loggerheads), which makes people unsettled and more likely to look to external authority for rules that give them a sense of security.

That's what cults and abusers do. Women and minorities aren't the only ones getting screwed over here - men are just as wounded, if less visibly. Every time we refuse to allow someone to take responsibility for their actions - white or black, male or female - EVERYONE suffers.

We need to start asking questions, looking at the underlying assumptions, and remember that when someone is generating fear, they most likely want control.

No, it's not that simple. No, it's not a perfect or complete analysis - I've only started thinking it through, and it's only one factor of many, I suspect. Yes, it's more complicated than what I've just written. Yes, there are members of the female gender and minorities who take advantage and play the victim, just as there are members of the male gender and majorities who take advantage. But that doesn't make it ok to live our lives by a system who maintains its raison d'etre by pitting us against one another. We have to start change somewhere.

To quote Twisted Sister and so many others through history:

We're right/yeah
we're free/yeah
we'll fight/yeah
you'll see/yeah

oh we're not gonna take it
no, we ain't gonna take it
oh we're not gonna take it anymore.

So come on, lads, put your hands in ours and let's start walking towards a brave new world.

And should you feel your balls being lopped off, look to those who won't let you grow up.