*mechanical whirring*

Hurriyet Daily News reports that Albayrak had been hired to photograph the July 5th wedding at Turgut Özal Nature Park in the eastern Turkish province of Malatya. On the day of, when he noticed that the bride-to-be didn’t look like an adult, he asked the groom her age and learned that she was only 15.

“The groom had come to my studio some two weeks ago and was alone,” Albayrak tells the Daily News. “I saw the bride for the first time at the wedding. She’s a child, and I felt her fear because she was trembling.”

Albayrak then reportedly refused to continue as the wedding photographer and attempted to stop the wedding.

The argument soon turned physical when the groom attacked him as he was attempting to leave, Albayrak says. The photographer ended up breaking the client’s nose in the fight, according to local reports.

Albayrak confirmed the reports in a Facebook post, which has been met with widespread approval, attracting thousands of Likes and hundreds of overwhelmingly positive comments.

“I wish this had never happened, but it did,” Albayrak writes. “And if you were to ask me if I’d do the same thing again, I’d say ‘yes.’ Child brides are [victims] of child abuse and no power on earth can make me photograph a child in a wedding gown.”

The legal minimum age for marriage in Turkey is 18-years-old for both sexes, and child marriage is punishable by imprisonment for men who marry underage girls. Despite being outlawed, however, child marriage is still prevalent in the country and remains a controversial political issue.

btw - let’s remind ourselves, americans, that unlike turkey, in the US the legal minimum age for marriage is only 18 in two states. in alabama, you can be married as young as fourteen years old if you have “parental permission”. in california, you can get married under 18 if you go to counseling, have a parent with you when you apply for the marriage license, and appear before a judge. in some states, there isn’t even a specific minimum age for marriage.

the minimum marriage age for girls in new hampshire is 13 years old.

48 states allow child marriage.

Iran’s Alpine ski coach, Samira Zargari, couldn’t join her team for the world championships in Italy last week.

The reason? Her husband barred her from leaving the country.

The reaction on social media was swift, and many Iranians vented their fury by demanding the government change the law to give women back their right to travel internationally, along with other rights stripped away after they’re married.

Based on domestic family law in the Islamic Republic, women give up the right to leave the country, pursue education or even choose where to live and work upon signing a marriage document. The only exception is if a woman’s husband relinquishes those rights, which rarely happens.

The only rights married women retain are limited custody of children and the right to divorce.

Zargari’s case, however, went viral and different hashtags about women’s rights began popping up on social media, including the “right to leave the country” and “no to discrimination against women.”

When asked to comment on Zargari’s case, the International Ski federation provided ABC News with a statement but did not mention Zargari by name.

“FIS sympathizes with any team member who is not able to travel to our World Championships,” the statement read. “However, FIS is also not in a position to dispute the laws of any given nation.”

Zahra Abdi, an Iranian poet, wrote on Twitter: “It is impossible for a society to move towards the future when the hands and feet of half the people are tied up. This is well understood by the developed countries and it is why they fight discriminatory laws against women. Wherever there is a sign of development, this struggle is taken more seriously.”

An online campaign asking to revise regulations on women leaving the country was signed by almost 50,000 people in less than a week.

“The basis of the family law in Iran is that the husband has all the rights,” an Iranian lawyer, who requested anonymity out of fear of reprisal, told ABC News. “Any woman who wants any of the rights back has to swim against the river and prove it at the court.”

Despite the outcry, the Iranian government hasn’t budged.

Responding to the social media campaign, Masoumeh Ebtekar, vice president for Women and Family Affairs, tweeted that in an emergency, women can ask the court to revise a husband’s decision but this can only happen after a judge is convinced the travel is “necessary,” and, even then, the woman would only be allowed to leave “on bail.”

HAPPY International Women’s Day! ♀️

Women are the fastest growing US prison population, at an increase of 834% since the 70s.

Incarcerated women are more likely to enter the system with a history of abuse, trauma and mental health disorders, which prisons ignore or exacerbate.

Most incarcerated women (62%) are mothers of minor children, and are more likely to be the primary caretaker of these children, leading to family disruption/dissolution.

Women are also frequently incarcerated for “failure to protect” convictions - meaning victims of abuse are punished for being abused.

1. Do you have any other disorder?

i have adhd, odd, dpdr, and subclinical schizoid traits alongside my aspd

2. How would you describe the way you perceive feelings? 

usually i don’t feel things mentally. as in, if i’m happy or sad or angry, i won’t think under the influence of that, or i won’t think about how happy/etc i am, and it won’t really change my opinion on things. 

i think i usually feel things physically, like getting shaky hands or the physical urge to run around or hit something when i’m angry, and i can often identify it very easily when i’m happy or angry, but beyond that i sometimes can’t tell what i’m feeling.

3. Have you ever felt love for a person

i’ve loved like 2-3 people out of my many relationships. with the people i wasn’t in love with, i enjoyed spending time with them, and i liked the concept of a relationship, so i started one. with the people i’ve loved i’d say it’s reminiscent of how NTs experience it. 

i love my boyfriend, i think about him a lot even when he’s away, i crave interactions with him, i’m proud of him and want him to be happy even if it doesn’t benefit me. i’d say that fits most people’s perception of love?

4. At what point in a relationship would you break up? 

i wouldn’t break up with the person if i loved them, and my 2 previous relationships with people i loved, they broke up with me. with the people i wasn’t in love with, i generally just stopped talking to them at all, because i decided they weren’t fun to hang out with anymore. i don’t know if i ever clarified a break-up to anyone, either, i guess they mainly figured it out after months of radio silence.

5. Do you think you can spot a person with AsPD by their appearance?

i doubt i could “spot” people by their eyes, since i don’t like making eye contact and i don’t pay much attention to most people’s features while talking to them, anyway. but i might be able to tell that someone’s low empathy, at least, based on conversation.

6. Where do you stand on the political compass? Do you usually have strong opinions or do you stay in the middle? 

i’m a trotskyist and a radical feminist. it’s my hobby to start shit with centrists and attempt to radicalise baby left-wingers.

7. Do you feel anxiety, fear and panic, if so at what intensity and for how long?

yes, but all of them are on a physical scale. i’ve had restlessness and that weird pull in my heart and also hyperventilating etc, but the moment an issue is resolved or the trigger that’s causing it is removed, i go back to normal. so i don’t think i feel those in like.. a prolonged sense.

also, i think my fear reaction is wonky? usually i don’t get frightened of situations like seeing a car speeding towards me on the road, or being nearly mugged etc, but i’ll have a fear reaction to hearing footsteps coming towards my door regardless of whether i know who’s coming or not.

8. Do you find yourself making better choices than neurotypicals thanks to your ability to act rationally?

better in my opinion, yes, but i don’t think the people around me would agree, because we have different moral compasses and concepts of right and wrong.

also, my rationalising is probably overshadowed by me wanting to be reckless and cause drama or something else that’s exciting, so even if i think my choice was good, objectively it would probably be a shitty one.

9. Have you ever been spotted manipulating someone? If so, how did you react?

i mean, probably i’ve been spotted? idk how obvious that gets. i’ve lied to people or attempted to make them do things by suggestion, and they didn’t take the bait, but i doubt i’ve been directly accused with “you’re trying to manipulate me” outside of like a couple incidents.

i try to bullshit my way out of things or play on the opposite person’s emotions (like our friendship or how i’ve helped them out before etc) to make sure they don’t lose their trust in me.

10. Do you have trouble using social media? Do you have a different approach based on your followers/the main topics discussed on the social media?

my main issue with using social media is probably my schizoid symptoms and not aspd, since i find it incredibly boring to stay on most social media unless i’m specifically looking to save images or memes and thus have a reason to be there.

regardless of what’s going on, i like to post controversial content, but i’ll often get bored of debates i’ve started, too, and drop things halfway through. i have fb, insta, reddit, twitter etc and they’re all unused, and if i get back on them i usually only stick with it for like a week before i decide i’m bored again.

discord is the only platform i’m using regularly, and oftentimes it’s exclusively to talk to my boyfriend and debate with people in discourse servers, lol.

11. Do you need to “recharge your social battery” after spending time with people? Do you experience distress after masking (= putting a mask on to make social interactions) for too long?

i don’t mask anymore and i haven’t done so in years, so i don’t really feel distress about it, and i didn’t feel distressed over it when i did mask. but i’m very introverted and while i’ll seek out interactions and hang out with people, i’m going to ghost them the moment i get bored.

if i’m forced to interact with people for longer than i want to, i start getting aggressive and irritated and i’ll probably cause drama somehow. but that hasn’t happened recently, either, since i only befriend people that are respectful of my boundaries.

12. Which are the most common myths about AsPD, false or not? 

probably the stereotype of us being really edgy/selfish/malicious, and i’d say those kind of apply to me? i mean, i’m not edgy in the “i’ll raid your server and call you slurs” way, but i engage in morbid/grotesque and admittedly edgy interests. and i openly admit that i can sometimes be selfish and malicious, even if i don’t act on it, because i think it’d be dishonest of me to deny.

i think some aspd myths have some merit, but they’re taken the wrong way. someone feeling selfish or sadistic or not having compassion for others are just feelings; the person is fully capable of acting in a manner that doesn’t show those traits and displays ‘traditionally positive’ ones instead.

though clearly more often than not those myths are just horror movie fodder and blown out of whack. as in, entirely inaccurate, lol.

13. What are the least discussed symptoms of AsPD?

idk if this is a common symptom, but it seems that most people with aspd i know feel some sort of disconnect from the concept of being human, since they can’t relate to other people. there’s a lot of depersonalisation that goes on, but people generally don’t mention it, because it’s normal to them or they think it’s weakness or they don’t even realise that their detachment is depersonalisation.

14. Do you tend to sympathize more with the victim or the abuser? Please elaborate also based on the gravity of the crime and the way it touches you personally (for example if it’s a trigger or you’re involved somehow)

if it’s something like an abuse case, i’ll support and sympathise with the victim. i kind of have a history of getting very aggressive on behalf of my lovers, since they’re often kinder people than i am, and going absolutely apeshit on people that have hurt them. maybe a bit overboard, but it was fully deserved in my mind.

stuff like sexual harassment or worse, always side with the victim, too. murder, it depends, because if it was out of self defence by someone who has a history of being a victim, i’ll side with them, but if it was an abuse of power and authority, i’ll be against the person who committed it.

i’ve always been told i overreact in my statements about abuse, like “oh, if X did that, then the punishment should be (something severe)”, but i’ve always thought it perfectly justified. feeling sorry for someone doesn’t change the fact that they deserve something equally malicious for their own act of knowingly exploiting and hurting vulnerable people.

15. Do you say “sorry” often? Does it bother you to say it? Would you desrcibe yourself as hostile?

i don’t say sorry that often besides in a joking manner (like “im sorry but i have to kill you” in reaction to a shitty meme lol) or besides using it to mean “excuse me?”, and i almost never use it in real apologies.

i think it bothers me to say it sometimes, because generally i’ll feel that i haven’t done anything worthy of me saying sorry, and saying it when i don’t feel it is an act of submission/makes me feel weak. i’ll use phrases like “i apologise” or “my bad” instead, i think.