By Kelsey D’Auben
In late November, porn-actress Stoya accused her ex-boyfriend and fellow porn-actor James Deen, of rape via her twitter account.
She tweeted “That thing where you log in to the internet for a second and see people idolizing the guy who raped you as a feminist. That thing sucks” followed a few minutes later by a second tweet saying “James Deen held me down a fucked me while I said no, stop, used my safe word. I just can’t nod and smile when people bring him up anymore.”
That thing where you log in to the internet for a second and see people idolizing the guy who raped you as a feminist. That thing sucks.
— Stoya (@stoya) November 28, 2015
James Deen held me down and fucked me while I said no, stop, used my safeword. I just can’t nod and smile when people bring him up anymore.
— Stoya (@stoya) November 28, 2015
Since then, nine other women have come forward saying Deen had sexually assaulted them; one of whom is Farrah Abraham, former Teen Mom who co-starred with Deen in a pornographic video in 2013.
“Stoya knew that if she were to name one man who did, in fact, violate consent, then the entire industry would be assumed to be complicit.”
Once deemed “porn’s feminist sweetheart” Deen is now being called the “Bill Cosby of porn” and has recently been dropped by several major porn distributors.
Deen strongly denies the allegations and said in an interview with the Daily Beast that he was “completely baffled” by what the women were accusing him of.
In the time since her tweets were published, many women have rallied together in support of Stoya using the hashtag #soldarityforstoya.
Fellow porn-actress and co-founder of the pornsite TRENCHCOATx, Kayden Kross, had a personal essay published with Nylon Magazine titled “I am Stoya’s partner, and I stand with her.” In the essay she expressed her ultimate support of Stoya as a fellow porn-actress and woman.
She also shed light on the issues facing sex workers who are victims of sexual assault and abuse.
“Already our industry battles the constant din of claims that the women, simply by showing up to work, are victims,” Kross wrote in the Nylon Magazine piece. “Already we battle the claims that porn is rape, that consent is questionable, that no woman given a fair choice would engage in it. Stoya knew that if she were to name one man who did, in fact, violate consent, then the entire industry would be assumed to be complicit.”
These incidents have sparked a lot of conversation on the Internet asking many forms of the same question- “can a sex worker be raped?” The answer is quite obvious- yes.
Any person can be raped. Non-consensual sex of any kind is rape. We as a society have a hard enough of a time grasping this seemingly concept on it’s own. But when sexual workers fall victim to sexual violence, especially when their work is involved.
Take for instance a case in Philadelphia in 2007, which was also referenced in Kross’ essay.
A 20-year-old woman agreed to have sex with a man she met through Craigslist for $150.
When she went to meet the man, she was gang-raped at gunpoint by him and three other men. A judge later charged the men with “theft of services” because, according to the judge, “she consented (to only the first man) but didn’t get paid.”
Women working in sex need protection from instances such as these. Sex workers face many dangers on a day-to-day basis. Not only because of the dangerously unregulated line of work, but also because of the negative public perceptions of prostitution and pornography.
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Y’all, We Really Do Have To Talk About These Damn Clowns
By Courtney Anderson
Creepy clowns have been popping up all over the country.
There’s been so many sightings, heavy.com has compiled a list of states that have reported clown sightings. And it’s a long list.
So far, at least 28 states have reported weirdness in the form of people in clown costumes intimidating and even assaulting people.
And most of the states have reported varying degrees of violence and intimidation from the clowns.
While some the police departments in some states have found the clowns to be just annoying hoaxes, some have had it much worse.
In Memphis, Tennessee, someone in a clown mask robbed a bank and threatened customers with explosives.
A couple of weeks earlier, students at the University of Tennessee received an alert from the university stating that students in clown costumes were physically assaulting students who on campus after dark as a part of a “Purge” re-enactment.
A Georgia news site reported that someone in a clown mask tried to lure children into a wooded area.
The article on Heavy.com reported an 11-year old girl in Athens took a knife to school to protect herself from clowns that had been spotted in the area.
A 10th grade student in Pennsylvania was fatally stabbed after getting into a fight with someone in a clown mask, according to Pennsylvania news site Pennlive.com.
Police have been arresting many clowns, but it hasn’t stopped many others from popping up in their place.
It’s got to be one of the strangest—and most frightening–trends, but it’s not a trend that’s entirely new.
In 2014, California dealt with creepy clowns.
According to a report from CNN, while California is sans-clowns in 2016 (as of now), Bakersfield police had about 20 reports about clowns threatening people in the area.
And then there is the 2013 clown sighting in England that turned out to be a “performance art” stunt.
Not to mention the various reports of “Ain’t Clowning Around” social media accounts that have been created and deleted or proven to be hoaxes over the past couple of years.
One major question regarding these sightings is “why?”
Why are people deciding to dress up as clowns and terrorize people?
People.com tried to answer the question in its article “Why You Shouldn’t Panic About This Year’s Clown Panic.”
In the article, author of Bad Clowns, Benjamin Radford states that many of the creepy clowns are “copy cats,” taking inspiration from previous reports.
Radford also said that social media has been a “powerful amplifier” for the sightings.
And he doesn’t really see it going away permanently, especially with the escalating reactions to the clowns.
“These archetypes are in our culture, they are not going away,” Radford said to People.com. “I guarantee you there will be another phantom clown panic – maybe two years, maybe five years, but it’ll happen again.”
Well, as long as the sightings continue, so will the creepiness.
RISE NEWS is a grassroots journalism news organization that is working to change the way young people become informed and engaged in the world. You can write for us.
Cover Photo Credit: Coconut Cove/ Flickr (CC By 2.0)
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Exclusive: The Rent Is Too Damn High Guy Is Running For President In 2016, And He’s Totally More Reasonable Than Trump
Jimmy McMillan is best known as the founder and leader of the Rent Is Too Damn High party in New York state.
He is also a perennial candidate for public office, having run for Governor of New York in 2010, President in 2012 and in a number of other races dating back to the early 1990s.
He is running for office again in 2016, this time for president as a member of the Republican Party.
Perhaps only in the strange show that is the 2016 GOP primary for president would McMillan’s candidacy actually make sense.
It still doesn’t, but in a race with the likes of Donald Trump, Ben Carson and Carly Florina leading the pack, McMillan actually sounds like a viable alternative.
He has a plan to unite young people to form a quasi-conservative counterweight to the Tea Party in the GOP.
He also really doesn’t like Democrats; believing that the party manipulates minorities to vote for them and blames President Barack Obama for much of the nation’s issues.
If you close your eyes and ignore the periodic conspiracy theories that he spouts in a reserved tone, then you can almost envision McMillan on the debate stage next to Bobby Jindal and George Pataki. (If not Ted Cruz and Mike Huckabee.)
In a phone interview with Rise News, McMillan said that he was running as a Republican so he could reach out to young people.
“My job is to put the presidency in perspective. They’re [his opponents] all contributors to the failures of this nation,” McMillan said in a phone conversation last week. “We’re at the crossroads right now where the candidates running for president don’t really know what’s going on in America.”
McMillan came to national fame in 2010 when he basically hijacked a debate for New York Governor and pressed his famous message, a screed against the high cost of living in the City into nearly every answer he gave- “the rent is too damn high!”
Five years on from that viral campaign and McMillan is back to being being a fairly obscure figure. But his message and ideology have remained pretty consistent. He wants to lower the high cost of living in the country and things that statewide leaders are clueless on how to get it done.
He has special scorn for the current and former governors running for president in 2016.
“If they [governors] would have reduced the cost of living in their states, then we’d be in a different position but they didn’t do that,” McMillan said. “The governors need to come to my class to learn how to create jobs in their states.”
McMillan said that he also has an agenda for how to take America back over from “third world countries”, something that he contends is a legitimate thing.
Greg Fisher, a teacher from Long Island is his running mate. Because why not?
Here’s what a McMillan/Fisher administration would bring to America:
-Supports canceling student loan debts for all Americans.
-Wants to bring martial arts to the White House for national demonstrations.
-Supports reducing the cost of living while also encouraging wealthy people to spend more money to spur economic growth.
-Improving the Veterans benefits system.
If you look past the martial arts thing, those are actually legitimate, close to mainstream political views.
So why should we take this person any less seriously than Donald Trump?
Like Trump, McMillan is also really quotable. Here’s some of the best verbatims from our 45 minute conversation:
“I endorsed Deez Nutz, he’s only 15 but he sees what’s wrong with this nation.”
“We have a precedent right now, not a president,” McMillan said in reference to President Obama being the first African-American president.
“The Democratic Party has used the minority people to get elected. The’ve used ministers, who I think are the biggest nincompoops in the world to brainwash minorities.”
“I have nothing to say about Trump. He’s not saying anything about policy, he’s just talking about Trump.”
Photo Credit: dumbonyc/Flickr (CC By 2.0)
” When I ran in 2012, I wanted Donald Trump to be my running mate.”
“Here in New York, you have a mayor and a governor who are stuck on stupid.”
“I’m a Vietnam vet. The Viet Cong almost caught me but I knew two things: how to speak Vietnamese and how to smile.”
“Even if the whitest guy in America found out that he has that nigger in him then it would make a difference,” McMillan said while talking about educating all Americans about our common African ancestry.
“I’m not African-American. I’m Jimmy McMillan, I’m a Vietnam veteran.”
“We’re not trying to reach out to conservatives. We’re trying to get young people to vote. When mommy and daddy go to the polls, try to put some butter on the ground or a banana peel on the ground to get them to slip so they don’t vote.”
“I want to talk to the people in the street. I want to be the father of the country. It’s time for daddy to say its all alright. I’ll be daddy.”
Well what say you America? Ready to call Jimmy McMillan daddy? That probably beats the hell out of calling Donald Trump Mr. President.
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Cover Photo Credit: Paul Stein/ Flickr (CC By 2.0)
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