{"id":11122,"date":"2021-03-20T11:12:00","date_gmt":"2021-03-20T11:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cassandravoices.com\/?p=11122"},"modified":"2021-03-20T11:12:00","modified_gmt":"2021-03-20T11:12:00","slug":"the-terrible-truth-about-sarah-everard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/2021\/03\/20\/the-terrible-truth-about-sarah-everard\/","title":{"rendered":"The Terrible Truth about Sarah Everard"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Even after six days listening to the outpourings of grief, shock, and rage, about the kidnap and horrific murder of Sarah Everard in London; of how her life was scrubbed out, a beautiful young woman reduced to \u2018human remains\u2019 in a builder\u2019s bag identifiable only by her dental records; even after story upon story hit the media of how women are attacked, abused, raped and battered, in every country, every week, every day; the words of <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><a style=\"color: #0000ff;\" href=\"https:\/\/zfeeza.com\/RositaSweetman\/status\/1371076415098126341\">Mairin de Burca<\/a><\/span>, founder and creator of the Irish Women\u2019s Liberation Movement in 1970\u2019s Dublin, stopped me in my tracks:<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\"><b>&#8216;Sarah Everard wasn\u2019t wiped off the face of the earth because someone wanted her jewellery, her mobile phone, the keys to a car or home. She was murdered because she was a woman and a man got pleasure from killing her.&#8217;<br \/>\n<\/b><strong>Mairin de Burca<\/strong><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">The<\/span> words were a gut punch. They also felt (horribly) true.<\/p>\n<p>Since forever in our Western culture women have been attacked but murders such as Sarah Everard\u2019s surely mark new levels of depravity.<\/p>\n<p>Where is this depravity coming from? What is driving it?<\/p>\n<p>In one way the answers are so glaringly obvious it\u2019s a measure of the robustness of the Patriarchal system that all of the drivers remain firmly in place: the Patriarchal system itself, the law as it stands, encompassing both police and judiciary, and pornography.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">@RositaSweetman provides new testimonies from survivors of Mother and Baby Homes, and calls for a criminal prosecution of the Catholic Church and full redress.<a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/Tas0iA0BPV\">https:\/\/t.co\/Tas0iA0BPV<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/MotherAndBabyHomes?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#MotherAndBabyHomes<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/motherandbabyhomesreport?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#motherandbabyhomesreport<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/broadsheet_ie?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@broadsheet_ie<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/amandaknox?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@amandaknox<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/AliceHarrisonBL?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@AliceHarrisonBL<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; CassandraVoices (@VoicesCassandra) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/VoicesCassandra\/status\/1352556022808899588?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">January 22, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Let\u2019s take pornography. Instead of being closed down long ago for systematic civil rights abuses, called out for abusing children, trafficking women, cheer-leading sexual brutality against women 24\/7, it is protected. It\u2019s legal. It is also a massive money spinner.<\/p>\n<p>When I was researching <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><a style=\"color: #0000ff;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.mercierpress.ie\/irish-books\/feminism-backwards\/\"><em>Feminism Backwards<\/em><\/a><\/span> I went back and had a look, where is porn at today. For those of you, like me, who haven\u2019t kept up, you\u2019re in for a shock. Where once porn meant large naked ladies with pneumatic breasts in Playboy mags, porn today involves the vicious sexual exploitation of women, is expensively shot, and is <i>everywhere.<\/i><\/p>\n<p><i><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-10691 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/cassandravoices.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/FeminismBackwards-195x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"399\" height=\"614\" \/>\u00a0\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n<p>\u2018Before the internet\u2019 as <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><a style=\"color: #0000ff;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/global-development\/2020\/dec\/15\/how-extreme-porn-has-become-a-gateway-drug-into-child-abuse\">Michael Sheath<\/a><\/span>, child sex abuse expert says \u2018there was a ceiling on how much porn you could consume, maybe your dad had some; you had to go to a sex cinema to watch a film. It was limited in scope and there was a stigma on its consumption.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>In 2021 porn dominates the sexual landscape like a horrible cancer. \u2018Thanks\u2019 to the internet it can be viewed anywhere, anytime. As <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><a style=\"color: #0000ff;\" href=\"https:\/\/overland.org.au\/previous-issues\/issue-207\/feature-gail-dines-sharon-smith\/\">Gail Dines<\/a><\/span> professor, author and long time anti-porn activist says, in today\u2019s porn \u2018you will not see two people having sex, you will see images depicting a level of physical cruelty that would not be out of place in an Amnesty International campaign\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>Porn has become truly vile.<\/p>\n<p>Young men, some starting as young as eight, will have watched thousands of hours of porn, many before they ever have a sexual relationship and porn is now the way most kids, particularly boys, get their sex ed., with every type of porn freely downloadable onto iPhones, tablets, laptops.<\/p>\n<p>So what, you might say. Porn has always been around. It\u2019s just a bit of popcorn on the side.<\/p>\n<p>Wrong.<\/p>\n<p>Porn is no longer about eroticising sex, it is about eroticising extreme male violence against women. Porn sites such as \u2018Gag me then fuck me\u2019, \u2018Anally Raped Whores\u2019, \u201818 and Aroused\u2019 indicate what\u2019s on offer.<\/p>\n<p>As Dines writes \u2018with mind numbing repetition you will see gagging, slapping, verbal abuse, hair pulling, pounding anal sex, women smeared in semen, sore anuses and vaginas, distended mouths and more exhausted, depleted and shell shocked women that you can count\u2019. Young women routinely wrecked by being simultaneously anally, vaginally and orally penetrated, shouted at, whipped, spat at, splattered with male cum, are left with prolapsed anuses, ravaged vaginas and shattered self esteem.<\/p>\n<p>As <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><a style=\"color: #0000ff;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/commentisfree\/2021\/mar\/16\/porn-true-crime-violence-against-women\">Dr Fiona Vera-Gray<\/a><\/span> of Durham University wrote in The Guardian last week, \u2018This is not a problem of niche sites or the dark web, something only found by \u201cbad men\u201d actively searching for this content. This is mainstream pornography on mainstream sites with the mainstream message <i>that sexual violence is sexy.<\/i>\u2019 With porn\u2019s ever growing audience the brutality has to be endlessly upped.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">From porn to true crime stories, we must end the portrayal of violence against women | Fiona Vera-Gray <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/E8cy9KsgVC\">https:\/\/t.co\/E8cy9KsgVC<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Guardian Opinion (@guardianopinion) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/guardianopinion\/status\/1371755128047366147?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">March 16, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Porn, like a lot of other nasties, flourished during the <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><a style=\"color: #0000ff;\" href=\"https:\/\/cassandravoices.com\/history\/gradations-of-evil-neoliberalism-and-neoconservatism\/\">neoliberal<\/a><\/span> \u2018boom\u2019. As Feminism was reduced to consumable \u2018Pink Power\u2019, porn was pushed ever further into the mainstream. Modern \u2018laddettes\u2019 were deemed \u2018up for it\u2019, encouraged to watch it, even \u2018normal\u2019 women were seduced with films such as \u2018<span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><a style=\"color: #0000ff;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/culture\/film\/film-news\/9783777\/50-Shades-of-Grey-is-a-modern-love-story-screenwriter-says.html\">50 Shades of Grey<\/a><\/span>\u2019, dubbed by the porn industry as \u2018A Romantic Tale for the Porn Age\u2019. Sugaring porn\u2019s brutal edges with sensational clothes, stunning interiors, and A List actors, 50 Shades was basically a film that depicted in unbearable detail how to lure a lonely isolated child into \u2018consenting\u2019 to sexual abuse\u2019 (Gail Dines). It grossed $570 million.<\/p>\n<p>As Gail Dines writes in her book <em>The Pornification of Culture<\/em>, porn\u2019s favourite gags &#8211; the objectification of women, the sexualisation of women as girls, of girls themselves, the younger the better, has leaked into films, advertising shoots, video games, glossy fashion and fashion mags. As actress Kathy Burke\u2019s character remarks acidly on Fashion\u2019s love affair with \u2018pre-nubiles\u2019\u00a0 in \u2018Absolutely Fabulous\u2019, \u2018They\u2019ll be chucking foetuses down the catwalk next.\u2019<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Growing Up in a Pornified Culture | Gail Dines | TEDxNavesink\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/_YpHNImNsx8?start=9&#038;feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Second Wave Feminist had few illusions about what porn was. It was \u2018the scene of a crime\u2019.\u00a0 \u2018<span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><a style=\"color: #0000ff;\" href=\"http:\/\/historyapolis.com\/blog\/2014\/03\/18\/pornography-is-the-theory-and-rape-is-the-practice\/\">Porn is the theory. Rape is the practice<\/a><\/span>.\u2019 (Robin Morgan, 1975).\u00a0 Or as <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><a style=\"color: #0000ff;\" href=\"https:\/\/repository.law.umich.edu\/cgi\/viewcontent.cgi?article=1825&amp;context=mjlr\">Andrea Dworkin<\/a><\/span> wrote, \u2018I live in a country (America) where women are tortured as a form of public entertainment and for profit, and that torture is held up as a state protected right.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>Pretty unbearable right?<\/p>\n<p>Try flipping the picture and imagine an industry, estimated to be worth $97 billion, where adult women kidnap and traffic young boys, young men, even children, many of them damaged, survivors of incest or child abuse. The women then film the guys day after day being violently sexually assaulted by other adult women, whipped, beaten, gagged, penetrated with everything the ladies can lay their hands on, physically wrecking the guys physically and psychologically, all for the pleasure and gratification of other women worldwide and making the women at the top of this \u2018business\u2019 obscenely rich.<\/p>\n<p>Not so nice, huh?<\/p>\n<p>Would the male judges, male barristers, male politicians, male academics, male policemen still turn a blind eye?\u00a0 Would they still argue that porn and it\u2019s \u2018consumption\u2019 are an inevitable part of life and cannot be regulated, never mind stopped? That it is protected under Free Speech?\u00a0 And that anyway it doesn\u2019t affect real people\u2019s everyday behaviour?<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_11115\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-11115\" style=\"width: 654px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11115\" src=\"https:\/\/cassandravoices.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/KylieBax-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"654\" height=\"436\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-11115\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sports Illustrated swimsuit model Kylie Bax wearing a Playboy shirt, with Donald Trump, Bill Clinton and Melania Trump.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>In a week where in London a Metropolitan policeman savagely murdered a young woman walking home through lit streets, almost certainly tricking her into getting into his car by using his police ID, where another policeman guarding the site where her poor body was found sent obscene images \u2018as a joke\u2019 around his police mates, where another London policeman was released (today) <i>without sentence<\/i> after brutally attacking a woman, wrestling her to the ground in a headlock while screaming she was \u2018a fucking slut\u2019, where yet another policeman who had viciously killed the Mum of two he was having an affair with had his \u2018manslaughter\u2019 sentence reviewed because of the levels of injury to her, where a whole bunch of policemen brutalised women attending a peaceful vigil for the woman one of their mates had slaughtered, and that on the way home from that vigil yet another woman who ran to a policeman for help as a man exposed himself to her, was told to get lost, he wouldn\u2019t deal with people attending the vigil, where in America this week six Asian women were shot down in two separate spas and the US sherrif said the shooter was \u2018having a bad day.\u2019 That he had a sex addiction and was \u2018removing temptation\u2019.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">A met police officer exposed himself to a woman in a restaurant<\/p>\n<p>He was not fired<\/p>\n<p>3 days later he abducted &amp; murdered <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/SarahEverard?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#SarahEverard<\/a> <\/p>\n<p>There is currently an immense crisis of confidence in the police<\/p>\n<p>And THIS is how they react to tonight\u2019s peaceful event<a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/OIFdEf5f8u\">pic.twitter.com\/OIFdEf5f8u<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; \u0280\u238a\u1d1c \u0280\u1d07\u028f\u0274\u238a (@RouReynolds) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/RouReynolds\/status\/1370863936430555139?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">March 13, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>I mean come <i>on<\/i>.<\/p>\n<p>If, as the porn industry is forever saying, porn doesn\u2019t affect normal living why is it that violence against women is now a worldwide pandemic with two women killed every three days in the UK? Why is it that the police are not only ignoring women\u2019s pleas for help, but appear to be actively involved in their brutalisation? Why is it that rape convictions are at an all time low? With only <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><a style=\"color: #0000ff;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/law\/2019\/jul\/26\/rape-cases-charge-summons-prosecutions-victims-england-wales\">1.5% going to trial<\/a><\/span>? Why is it that in a rape case the victim is the only person in the court without legal representation? How in the name of god has it been deemed legal to force <i>her<\/i> to hand over, to the rapist and his legal team, all of her notes from counselling or therapy, if she\u2019s been lucky enough to get counselling or therapy?<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s<i> bullshit.<\/i><\/p>\n<p>With visits to Netflix, Facebook, Amazon and Twitter <i>combined<\/i> outnumbered by visits to porn sites, maintaining the nonsense that the porn industry doesn\u2019t affect everyday would be laughable if it weren\u2019t so dangerous. Does the <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><a style=\"color: #0000ff;\" href=\"https:\/\/cassandravoices.com\/society-culture\/society\/the-secret-model-subtle-complaints\/\">fashion<\/a><\/span> business not affect normal life? Or the food business? Or the drinks business?<\/p>\n<p>Even as we become more \u2018civilised\u2019, more caring, more <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><a style=\"color: #0000ff;\" href=\"https:\/\/cassandravoices.com\/science-environment\/environment\/go_vegan_world_a_call_for_animal_rights\/\">vegan<\/a><\/span>, women are to accept porn\u2019s violence against women, its endless, ferocious violation, without question, while the Justice System and the police stand by?<\/p>\n<p>With Sarah Everard\u2019s terrible death at the hands of a policeman, who had, incidentally, four days previously exposed himself in a fast food restaurant, and shockingly was not demobbed, his badge, gun and car immediately removed, thereby saving Sarah Everard\u2019s life, but was allowed to carry on, women\u2019s anger has reached boiling point.<\/p>\n<p>This is women\u2019s George Floyd moment. See what they are doing to us? Enough. <i>Enough<\/i>.<\/p>\n<p>The Patriarchy, and its porn addiction, are costing women their lives. Their latest victim is Sarah Everard. In her name. In the name of all women &#8211; Black, Asian, White &#8211; murdered and destroyed by men fuelled on porn\u2019s poisonous meth, shut it down.<\/p>\n<p>In the name of us all, shut it down.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Even after six days listening to the outpourings of grief, shock, and rage, about the kidnap and horrific murder of Sarah Everard in London; of how her life was scrubbed out, a beautiful young woman reduced to \u2018human remains\u2019 in a builder\u2019s bag identifiable only by her dental records; even after story upon story hit [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":241,"featured_media":11117,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[218,3241,3334,3550,5782,7287,7393,7982,8127,8129,8130,8243,9029],"class_list":["post-11122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-current-affairs","tag-50-shades-of-grey","tag-feminism-backwards","tag-fiona-vera-gray","tag-gail-dines","tag-mairin-de-burca","tag-playboy","tag-pornification-of-culture","tag-rosita-sweetman-feminism-backwards","tag-sarah-everard","tag-sarah-everard-murder-and-porn-culture","tag-sarah-everard-porn-culture","tag-second-wave-feminism","tag-the-effect-of-porn-culture"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/241"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11122"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11122\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/casswp.eutonom.eu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}