White She Devil and Whore of Babylon

I am a sexual assault survivor. Chants like "no means no" at VGK games are nothing more than social justice cosplay, and this performance is a very unfunny farce.

Want to make a real difference? Do actual social justice.

Donate to the local women's shelter.

Vote out the GOP/GOP equivalent in your country. (Vote in your local elections, because that's where those fuckers first take root.)

Insist that there be actual, comprehensive, medical fact based sex ed in your school system. Young people have the right to know about their bodies, what healthy sexuality, and what healthy relationships look like. (Sex ed I assure you the Hockey 5 never got.)

Sex ed that covers:

*Issues of consent, like power dynamics

*how consent is an ongoing process -- check in early and often

*the fact that nobody is owed sex, EVER

*that consent can be withdrawn at any point in an encounter -- a person's body is their own and they have the right to stop anything that doesn't feel good or feel right for them. (Yes, even when it's your spouse. Yes, even if they're a sex worker.)

*if you are too drunk/high to drive, you are too drunk to consent to sex. You don't have to be reeling drunk to be too drunk. (Everybody in that room was too drunk to consent!)

*"slut shaming" is a tool of oppression and is toxic to both men and women. (EM's allegations can also -- understandably -- be seen an attempt at reputation repair. She was a "good girl" and a good girl could never, ever want to have a group sex encounter, doncha know?)

*never do anything that could be taken as preventing somebody from leaving an encounter. If somebody wants to leave, let them go.

Do anything but trivialize sexual assault down to a chant meant to get in the opposing team's head and smugly pat yourself on the back for having done your good deed.

Imagine replying with this to somebody (who was violently sexually assaulted*) when they make a post about don't trivialize sexual assault for the purposes of getting into somebody's head, because that is not social justice it is social justice cosplay.

I pray that this person fixes their heart. And soon.

*EM did not say no to almost everything that happened in that room. The records are very clear about that. Which doesn't mean that what happened in that hotel room wasn't awful, but it wasn't a "no means no" event.

To give an an idea of how complicated it can get? Kyle Beach actually orgasmed during his sexual assault. Trivializing all sexual assault down to "no means no" plants the wrong ideas about what a sexual assault can be; that if a person didn't say no (because they were too afraid to, or otherwise coerced into saying yes/going along with it, like Beach) it's not a sexual assault.

If you really want to understand why none of the Blackhawks Leadership should ever have been allowed to return to the NHL, listen to this interview with Kyle Beach about how his being raped by a member of the coaching staff impacted him, and how it allowed that coach to later abuse several others, including a teenaged boy.

This article at TSN details the timeline of what happened with the Blackhawks, including a link to the investigation that happened when Beach brought his lawsuit. There is a link at the end of that article to the investigation, and that is a very disturbing read.

I am a mandatory reporter for my job. Had I acted as the Blackhawks Leadership did, I would be fired and barred for ever working in my field again, or for working for any state/county/city agency in my state.

Gary Bettman punished the Golden Knights more harshly for missing some press opportunities than he punished the Blackhawks.

(It's also spoiling my attempt at enjoying this fandom because now *I* have to worry about every little fucking interaction poisoning the rumor well or some shit. This fandom isn't even a real fandom yet because it's for a game that's not even officially released - at least five characters don't even have actual designs yet! but it's infested with them already and they're reinventing discourse I thought we'd left behind in 2015 with "these are eighteen year old minors so you can NEVER EVER do anything untoward with them, not even a little bit" and it's exhausting.)

Like kowtowing to antis NEVER FUCKING WORKS, and I keep telling them that, because said antis will just use whatever sin "infraction" you've committed against you until they either have you browbeaten and compliant, or until they've driven you out so they can turn and do the same thing to the next member of the community.

(It's just conservative ideologies with a "progressive" language coat of paint slapped on top. It's always been this. They don't actually care about protecting marginalized identities or minors or whatever they just want to lash out and bully someone else.)

Made this weird drawing—thanks to all the goalies for their hard work in the 24–25 season, and thanks to my friend Chen for the help.

*No goalies or animals were harmed

OH MY GOD

That is a monster (respectful) If it was a lizard it would be a dragon.

They can be bigger than the biggest grizzly bears. They are about the size of a horse, just without the stilt legs. And their faces are hiding teeth like this (sorry it's kind of gross but it shows the teeth best)

Here's a leopard seal skull next to a horse skull

they can get as big as 12 feet and can weigh like 1,200 pounds. They can swim 35 miles an hour and eat only meat - regularly eating giant penguins that weigh more than 100 pounds each, and anything else they feel like they can kill. And they're pretty smart. Only an Orca is a more dangerous hunter in arctic waters, and even they usually leave a leopard seal alone.

If you think "children should not be allowed in this space," you HAVE TO reckon with the fact that you are now excluding parents (and very often women specifically) who don't have access to childcare. You are isolating people who are poor, or rural, or single parents, or any number of other factors that might prevent someone from having on-demand childcare. You are cutting them off from being able to exist in public. You are denying parents and children the ability to fully participate in society.

My mom spent several years only leaving the house to buy groceries or take me to school, and even then, people would still come up to her to complain TO HER FACE about how she shouldn't bring a crying toddler to Walmart. Entitled strangers would literally try and demand that my mom leave and come back without the kids.

"Why can't your husband watch them?" Because he was at work, usually working extreme amounts of overtime so we didn't get evicted, because landlords don't like it when you stop paying rent.

"Why can't you send them to daycare?" Because that costs money.

"Why can't your teenager stay home with them and babysit?" Because I also deserved to be able to leave the house for something other than school, and taking me to the grocery store was how my mom taught me to manage a household budget, shop sales, and meal plan.

"Don't bring your kid in public if you can't CONTROL them and make them stop crying!" Kids cry when they're upset, and being dragged around a store is upsetting! Don't be an asshole! Children are human beings who are still learning how the world works, and they don't have a lot of agency. You'd cry, too.

"Spank them until they learn to stop crying!" That's just straight-up child abuse, Jesus Christ.

I have blocked multiple people who went on tirades about how I'm a "horrible breeder" who is "contributing to overpopulation" and how I and my "spawn" deserve to be trapped at home. (I am infertile and my foster kid is an adult now, so I don't know what breeding and spawn they think they're talking about.)

One person asked if I was posting ragebait for fun because "this isn't a real issue." Several have asked if this "really happens" and told me that my "experience isn't universal." (There are multiple parents in the comments who have agreed with me and talked about how hard it is to navigate the world with their kids.)

Children are an oppressed class who are treated like absolute vermin. Parents are given absolutely no support in caring for them. Good parents are set at a disadvantage even when they have all the best intentions, struggling parents aren't given resources to improve their situation or get community assistance, and blatantly abusive parents don't get caught because hitting and screaming and controlling are considered perfectly normal ways to treat a child. Communities would rather shut kids away where they can be ignored and forgotten and mistreated, all for the sin of "being annoying in public."

Youth liberation is vital, regardless of whether you, personally, like kids. You cannot ban children from public. You cannot shut children away in isolation and expect them to grow into happy, healthy, well-adjusted adults who can function in our society. You do not get to demand children be removed from every corner of public life all for your personal comfort.

And I mean, I GET it. It's a long ass day, you're tired and cranky, and you just want to [accomplish task] before returning home and that fucking baby/smol child just will not STFU no matter what their parent/caregiver does.

I mean, I once spent 6 hours on a crowded plane with a screaming 4 month old as its parents did everything possible to soothe the infant. (FFS! folks, make grandparents come to you, if possible, so much easier on baby!)

The most empowering and soothing thing you can do for yourself is to give them a kind word, an understanding smile, maybe make a silly face at the kidlet, and offer whatever bit of help that you can. Seriously, it feels good to help. We're pack animals, we're hardwired to contribute to the pack.

It meant the world to that stressed and exhausted mother (dad was holding baby at that moment) when I said I appreciated how hard they were trying and sometimes these things just happen. Made me feel better, too.

But the other thing is, for all the times, I've seen a parent/caregiver working to soothe/corral a child, I can point to just as many times where somebody thought it was appropriate to let a little one scream/run amok all through a movie at the theatre, a classical music performance, a guest lecture, a nice sit down restaurant, with no consideration for anybody else. RUDE AS FUCK!!!