Look, Don't Touch. In Fact, Don't Even Look.

I have just read about a girl who was raped and beaten in the early hours of the morning, after a night out. This happens more mornings than not, and though we can tut and shake our heads, unless you've been through it, like childbirth, it's hard to put yourself there, and why would you want to.
This case, unlike any other though, has made me want to comment on my blog rather than the usual Twitter and Facebook rounds.
It's remarkable, for a few reasons.

• Survivor had been refused her journey home on the night bus because she was short of the bus fare
• The girls Mum found her, whilst looking for her, and left the scene because she didn't recognise the beaten up girl as her daughter
• The sniveling, pathetic, fuckery that the bus company has put out in 'defence' of the driver, namely, the justification of his actions in a 'non-statement' by saying 'he didn't breach any laws'

It's hard to know where to start with this one.
I've never been violently sexually assaulted.
However, I have had unwanted male attention a lot, and two 'did that just happen?' occasions of  sexual harassment.
The first time I was 17, and two men pushed me into a phone box and grabbed at me. The second was in broad daylight when I had got talking to an elderly man about the weather and all of a sudden, he grabbed my boob, which was covered in a high necked dress and a cardigan.
Nowhere near as traumatic and life changing as the survivor in this case.
So, in case you aren't aware, I say on behalf of her, and everyone else in the world without a dick

"keep your hands off us, and our daughters and our Mums and our friends"

I don't hate men.
My best friend is one.
Honest.
He is sweet, kind and good-natured. But he is all about the sex.
I have male cats.
They're all about the sex.
My sons and ex husband know/knew better than to show it around me, but they're probably all about the sex too.
If a man is not all about the sex, he's probably just not all about the sex with you.
Which is a fucking relief to be honest.

I was a teenager in the 80s.
We were showing signs of becoming really enlightened.
Pop was political, newspapers were becoming free of political affiliation and so, becoming extremely political.
We were opening up to global problems and finding solutions.
We were wearing our DMs as a sign we were not to be fucked with.
We were becoming doctors, mps, engineers in numbers never seen before.
The seeds sown a century ago by our suffragette sisters were bearing fruit.
Want a picket fence and 2.4 kids? Have it, whether or not a man was around.
Want to go around with no makeup on? Feel free sisters.
Want to live on a commune with your lettuce loving life partner and shun all conformist hygiene products. That's fine too.
This 'alternative' lifestyle, was, in Manchester at least almost becoming the norm. Every other person you saw was a hippie/indie/earth mother/punk or rocker.
Even the 'normals' had James t-shirts on.

What happened, to dispel this Utopian dream?
A mogul came up with a way to sell porn openly and market it so well, that even the girls end up thinking it's only a bit of fun.
The Daily and Sunday Sport.
I blame that.
Or more accurately, the governing bodies that granted licenses to such a vile, worthless, insulting to trees, piece of shit rag.
When any body of people become aware, and in threatening numbers to the status quo, sex is sent in to stop that nonsense straight away.
It's the equivalent of the bombing commanders dropping propaganda leaflets on a bombed cities residents. It's the quickest and cheapest way to distract  nation from what's really going on.
Why do you think they have skimpy dressed girls in boxing matches? Not just to give the men a reason to stay focused (3 minutes is a long time)
So we have a rag full of tit and ads in the back for those who pictures of tit isn't enough.
We have the female 'entrepreneurs' more than happy to sell their selves and their sisters out for a detached house and as much pink shit as China can produce.
We have generations raised thinking this is normal.
Don't get me wrong, porn has its place.
Top shelf-ed, covered in plastic, and causing as much embarrassment as possible to those who wish to purchase it.
It's just an orgasm.
If you can't sort it out with your imagination, a hand, a willing partner or a piece of soft fruit, then fuck you.
You lose.
You do NOT have permission to prowl our streets looking for a lonely, vulnerable girl, whatever crap you've exposing yourself to, or were exposed to, may lead you to believe.

I'm sick of it.
Sick of a world where a bus driver thinks its perfectly standard to leave a girl stranded in a city in the middle of the night for the sake of small change and then refuses to give a statement.
Sick of a world where every decent conversation has to end with some reference to someones 'prettiness'.
Sick of a world where 'porn star' is printed on t-shirts and television stations think its 'witty' to use puns on porn to name their shows.
Sick of men, and their football shirts and their stupid loud cars and judgement and their 'bro-codes'  and their every need still being met without having to work for it.

And really really sick of bus drivers.


Okay. That's that. Back to the make up.