in case you missed it | Sluts strut their stuff

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Sluts strut their stuff

Sluts showed up in force in Denver’s Civic Center Park on Saturday, July 2, to protest sexual assault and victim-blaming at an event aptly titled SlutWalk Denver. Many participants chose to dress provocatively — corsets, bras, short shorts, miniskirts, lingerie — to drive home the point of the protest: nothing a person wears excuses or justifies rape.

SlutWalks have been held in more than 75 cities worldwide with organizers and participants working to reclaim the word “slut,” a word the ignorant and bigoted use to shame and blame rape victims. The first SlutWalk was held in Toronto earlier this year in reaction to a Toronto police officer’s bogus assertion that if college women don’t want to get raped, they shouldn’t dress like “sluts.”

Organizers — Emerald Green, 23, Felicia Sheumaker, 24, and Bethany Feret, 24 — hoped the event would help to shift the focus of our public dialogue about sexual assault from teaching women what to do to not get raped to teaching men how not to rape.

Although it was great to see so many women, many of them rape victims, standing strong against victim blaming, it was even more gratifying to see so many men representing at the event.

One man carried a sign that read, “My dick has good manners.”

Another had painted his body with the words “Her slut” with an arrow pointing to his female partner.

Another carried a poster that read, “This is me not raping the hot chick. See how easy it is?” Next year’s event promises to be even more exciting.

Cars instead of kids

If you live in India and you’d give your left nut for a car, then you’re in luck. Health officials in the Indian state of Rajasthan have launched a campaign to reduce population growth in their drought-prone, overpopulated region.

Hoping to lure both men and women onto the operating table, the government is offering big prizes, including kitchen appliances, televisions, motorcycles, and, yes, cars to those who are willing to undergo permanent sterilization.

Granted, the car they’re offering isn’t a Porsche — it’s an ultra-compact Tato Nano, the world’s cheapest car — but it is still a car. And it gets 60 MPG, which is better mileage than most of the crap we drive here in the United States. And you won’t ever have to change its diaper.

Supreme Court sides with rich again

The U.S. Supreme Court once again demonstrated its love for the wealthy by deciding 5-4 that the free speech rights of wealthy political candidates are unfairly burdened by Arizona’s 1998 Citizens Clean Elections Act.

The Arizona law gave candidates the option of funding their campaigns with public money, giving them additional tax-funded cash infusions if their privately funded opponents — the rich guys — spent more.

But in its ruling on Free Enterprise Club v. Bennett, the court tossed out a key provision of that law. Now, thanks to the court’s Citizen United ruling that gives corporations the same rights as people, rich candidates who whore themselves out to Big Money will be able to buy more votes than ever, while those with less money but perhaps more wholesome ideas will be left to hold bake sales.

It’s clear with these two rulings — Free Enterprise and Citizen United — that the Roberts court is a friend of the super-rich and that dirty, corporate-funded politics is going to remain the order of the day here in the United States. Too bad, because we were hoping to see our nation become less of an oligarchy run by corporate robber barons and more of a democracy.

Respond: letters@boulderweekly.com

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