shieldingc-blog

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New Patreon Account To Help Me Activist

https://www.patreon.com/user?u=9380599

#ImasurvivorAnd I want representation on TV. Show me male survivors who do better things than serial-killing. Show me female survivors whose function is not martyrdom. #ImasurvivorAnd I want to know for sure that when I try to have my adoption records unsealed the judge will consider just wanting to know who raped me is a valid health concern.…

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A Merely Canned Beauty

Maybe because

I was young

I held onto

Old men winking

You, and roses

Never will be ordinary

  Funny how we can’t let go

Of promises

People with winters

That come and leave

Are ready for the air that hurts

Taking it all in stride

When the land where we live rises up

To attack us

Never just thinking we might go back

To where the summer stayed

  The dirty, open secret is

That air of our painless…

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Black Mirror Hates Rape Survivors

That Black Mirrorcontinues to be a popular program after the first horrendous episode is proof that survivors of sexual violence need more than the general aegis of feminism for our protection.  We need and we deserve a movement specially geared toward our interests as a community.  Non-survivors don’t know how to recognize threats against us and are not prepared in any way to address those…

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Hey Survivors - Let's Form a Faction.

Hey Survivors – Let’s Form a Faction.

Hey survivor – pay attention.  We are under attack.

I know right now you think it’s not that big a deal.  You probably think, like I did once, that you can shrug it off forever.  But you’re wrong.  We all have our limits, and I don’t want you waiting around to find out what they are.  Believe me when I say that you could die.

It wouldn’t be an accident.  It’s what the world expects.  In movies,…

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I'm Pro-Choice and So is the Virgin Mary

I’m Pro-Choice and So is the Virgin Mary

Regarding the issue of abortion, the Catholic Church is in error.

It is no blaspheme to say so.  Theological standards require that infallible doctrine apply to the entire Church, and never target an individual or a particular group of people.  The Church’s pronouncements against abortion, however, remove rights deemed universal exclusively from the pregnant.

The error applies specifically to…

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Allegations ARE Coming Out Now Because of Politics

Allegations ARE Coming Out Now Because of Politics

I get pissed when I read threads on twitter patiently explaining why survivors take decades to tell our stories.  I get pissed because, as true as it is may be that fear and trauma and societal pressure can keep survivors from speaking, there is a greater pressure no one wants to mention.  It’s the pressure that keeps you from listening.

The first time a survivor’s tale goes viral is never the…

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The Virgin Mary is Pro-Choice

The Virgin Mary is Pro-Choice

The gospel of Luke begins with two announcements.  First in a conversation with an old priest named Zechariah, and then in a meeting with Zechariah’s cousin, Mary, the angel Gabriel declares that there will be another baby born, to change the fate of the world.

The first annunciation (Luke 1:5-20) is set up as a foil for the second (1:26-38).  Zechariah and Mary each ask the angel how could they,…

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Jesus is a Whore

Jesus is a Whore

If you’re a Christian who thinks it’s wrong to be a sex-worker, here’s a counter-reason you probably didn’t consider:

Jesus is a whore.

Terms chosen to explain the deeper spiritual meaning of the crucifixion are consistently transactional.  Christian theologies explicitly state that our sins were all paid for by Christ’s physical body.  This isn’t an accident.  It’s an accurate throwback to stark…

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Chicken

“Um – Excuse me…Laci?”

The woman in green sweatpants looked up quickly from her bed of half-repotted geraniums.  She felt the wide-brimmed back of her hat push against her neck, displacing a few wisps of hair in front.

“Hello, Tina…”  Laci smiled uncertainly at Evan’s Mom.  Tina was standing at the end of the driveway with both arms folded.

“I hope you haven’t been avoiding me.  I left you a few…

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You Hate Kim Kardashian Because Sexism, The End.

You Hate Kim Kardashian Because Sexism, The End.

When I say hate, I don’t mean, “You find her irrelevant and over-rated.”  I don’t mean, “You recognize racist implications in Jean-Paul Goud’s photography and you think she needs to do more privilege-checking.”  I mean that she was robbed at gunpoint in Paris last year and you were giddy-glad.  Every time a celebrity dies you meme-plead with God on the internet to take a Kardashian instead. You…

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Spring Ahead

I saw you on the highway’s other side

Just as fast and blessed by knowing, where you go cannot be stolen

Your feet declare, and the world comes to you

Birthright of three hundred million kings

Where our paths cross, where we pass

The island in the middle of us creaks

  There are flowers between us

Big ones bend on stems we’ve shaken

Drinking in our dirty air

We’ll worry for them all the whole…

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Hear Us Go On

To Hear Us Go On

This night howls laughter at me

This is how we always talk

But to hear us go on makes you afraid

You watch spattered stars heave beneath my mountains of doubt and think

Of ways to keep me company

  The night and I have known each other longer

Though curling clouds smear spans between us

Laughter howls

My language

I, caught alone curl under

The cloud of my own shining

Counting on the strength of…

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Help Me Talk About Rape

Help Me Talk About Rape

Awhile ago, I invented a really fun game.  This is how you play: Within thirty minutes of reading these words, you have to walk up to a total stranger, and tell them, “I was raped.”

You get 50 points if you can do it, and it doesn’t count if you say afterward that you were joking or this was all a test.  25 points if you can only do it using an intermediary device like a letter or the internet. …

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Confessions of a Buried Survivor

This all my shit. Kind of terrified to share it. More terrified that no one else will.

My burial began the day that I was kidnapped.

I was two then.  Blonde-haired, blue-eyed, and categorically adorable.  If my parents were the home-owning sort, maybe I’d be news.  As it was, I had a schizophrenic father in jail on a dine-and-dash turned assault-on-a-cop.  I lived in a foster home.  My drug-addicted mother took me and disappeared, along with a six-month-old baby.  There may have…

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The Hero Spell - Botched Recipe #44321

The Hero Spell – Botched Recipe #44321

The old wizard’s house was ordinary.  Catherine dodged a stray sprig of rhododendron on the way to his gray-blue door.  It felt good to ring the bell, and wait, as the dog started barking inside and its owner made calm shushing sounds.

“Yes?”  Said the wizard, finally opening up.  He was wearing an ordinary blazer and square-rimmed glasses, and looking the normal amount of annoyed at the sight of…

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This Old Man

This old man, he played one He played knick-knack on my thumb Knick-knack paddy whack Give the dog the bone This old man came rolling home.

This old man, he played two He played knick-knack on my shoe Knick-knack paddy whack Give the dog the bone This old man came rolling home.

This old man, he played three He played knick-knack on my knee Knick-knack paddy whack Give the dog the bone This old man…

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Mary Had A Little Problem

Mary Had A Little Problem

Mary had a little lamb, little lamb, little lamb. Mary had a little lamb, its fleece was white as snow.

And everywhere that Mary went, Mary went, Mary went, and everywhere that Mary went – the lamb was sure to go.

It followed her to school one day school one day, school one day. It followed her to school one day, which was against the rule.

It made the children laugh and play, laugh and play,…