The Night Before

So I didn’t disappear after 5am EST without notice because I’m an irresponsible person, or because I’m a person who who fell asleep at her desk. Rather, I disappeared after 5am last night because I’m a person who uses Time Warner’s Road Runner internet service, which in the world’s cruelest irony went out in my [...]

41: What You’re Doing

Until just a month or two ago, I thought that What You’re Doing was a piece of crap on par with I Don’t Want to Spoil the Party and Little Child.
I have no idea what the fuck I was thinking.

Probably, I was thinking that it was on Beatles For Sale, which is largely [...]

40: Taxman

So the eyelids are feeling heavy, the vision is getting blurry, and I really suck at making coffee and am going to have to brave doing so on my own. I need a song with some groove to keep me going.
Also, George is not getting nearly enough love. And George totally [...]

39: Paul Is Dead — OR IS HE????

You have likely heard of the conspiracy theory known as Paul Is Dead. It goes like this: in 1966, Paul McCartney died in a car crash. Worried about the Beatles’ careers, manager Brian Epstein paid off reporters to not cover the story. Knowing that their fans would never accept a replacement band member, they decided [...]

38: Your Mother Should Know

Your Mother Should Know is a song that is only interesting for its Magical Mystery Tour sequence. Which is hilarious.
It’s incredibly entertaining to watch the individual Beatles. Unfortunately the video here isn’t clear enough to make out facial expressions very well, but that just frees you up to watch their dance moves. [...]

37: Let It Be

One of the topics that I was asked to write on via Tumblr was which Beatles song I believe is the most inspirational and speaks to the most generations.
Well, I think the song that most people probably believe to be the most inspirational and which probably speaks to the most generations is Hey Jude. But [...]

36: Beatle to Beatle Tributes

Writing about Ringo’s version of I Call Your Name inspired me, so I thought I’d do a post of Beatle to Beatle tribute songs — songs that one Beatle wrote for another after their death.
First up, the first Beatle to Beatle tribute ever written, George Harrison’s song for John Lennon, All Those Years Ago. [...]

35: I Call Your Name

I Call Your Name is a fairly obscure Beatles track, as it was only ever released on the Long Tall Sally EP with, well, Long Tall Sally and two really bad cover songs (Matchbox and Slow Down). It’s the only original song on the EP. Now, of course, it’s available on Past Masters.

It’s [...]

34: We Can Work It Out

Lots of people who follow me various places will know that I love this song, and that I love this video, because, well . . . I talk about it all the time! Ha.
In any case, I call it one of the best Beatles songs, the best Lennon/McCartney collaboration, and just all around awesome. [...]

33: I’ll Be Back

The final track on A Hard Day’s Night, I’ll Be Back is a lovely little song, and a neglected one. (Actually, I think there are several neglected songs on that album. Several craps ones, too, but you know how it is.)

This song originally started out slower, at a waltz tempo. It was [...]

31: Tomorrow Never Knows

The final track of Revolver — my second favorite Beatles album — Tomorrow Never Knows signals, for those who somehow didn’t get it throughout the rest of the album, that the Beatles were going in new directions. Not content with the rock and roll formula, anymore, they wanted to go off into new genres, [...]

30: Abbey Road

When fishing for Beatles-related Blogathon topics, someone on Tumblr asked me to write about my favorite Beatles album and why it’s my favorite.
My favorite Beatles album is, hands down, Abbey Road. It’s a little difficult for me to explain why, though, without just screaming “medley!” over and over again.
But let’s get to basics, first. The [...]

29: Twist and Shout (Or: CELEBRATE! The Sponsorship Goal Has Been Met!)

Here it is, folks — within the past half hour, the sponsorship goal was met. My original goal was $500. A few days ago, I thought I’d never make it. This morning, I thought I had an outside chance. But now, here we are: $533.42!
THANK YOU SO MUCH, EVERYONE!
It’s time for [...]

28: The Beatles Cartoons

The Beatles Cartoons were a series of Saturday morning cartoons made in the mid-sixties, featuring of course The Beatles’ songs and John, Paul, George and Ringo as characters. The Beatles were always getting into trouble in these episodes, and hilarity ensued! If, of course, by hilarity, you mean eye-rolling, *facepalming* and racism. Yes, a good [...]

27: The Fool On The Hill

Interestingly enough, John Lennon rather liked Fool On The Hill. This is particularly curious to me, as I’ve always seen it as a massive Nowhere Man ripoff. Though, of course, this could very easily be the reason why he liked it.
In any case, lots of other people seem to like it, too. [...]

26: Another Girl

Shot in the Bahamas for the film Help!, as the Beatles admitted, solely because . . . the Beatles wanted to go to the Bahamas! No, really. It’s the same reason they’re skiing in the movie — because they’d never been skiing before and could use the movie as an excuse! There’s a [...]

25: Here Comes The Sun (Or: The Great Beatles Switchover)

Well, here we are — the halfway point! And that means I am officially done blogging about sexual violence and embarking on much more leisurely blogging about the greatest band ever known to humankind: The Beatles!
Here Comes The Sun is appropriate for this post obvious reasons.

First of all, I’m just going to go ahead [...]

24: What Is Justice?

When I was seeking topics for the first half of this very blogathon, Sarah — who blogs over at the SAFER blog, the blog of the organization that I’m sponsoring! — posed an interesting question in the comments:
something i personally have been thinking a lot about—that i would love to read some of your comments [...]

23: Same-Sex Partner Violence

One of the most under-discussed areas of sexual violence is sexual violence in the LGBTQ community. I’ve already written a couple of posts about sexual violence against transgender people, and a bit about sexual violence targeted at gay and bisexual men.* Lesbian and bisexual women can also be targeted for sexual violence as a form [...]

22: Rape and Immigrant Women

Another population that is particularly vulnerable to sexual violence is immigrant women, particularly (but not exclusively) undocumented immigrant women.
It’s a topic much too big for me to cover in one little post that I have 20 minutes to write. But the fact is that when we treat a certain group of people as though they [...]

21: The Intersection of Rape and Race

In America, most recent statistics show that women of most races are raped at roughly the same rates (pdf). There is one exception, and it’s a major one — Native American women are raped at more than twice the rate of other women. The shocking figure is believed to be, in large part, due to [...]

20: Adolescent Sexual Abuse

As someone who was an adolescent when she was raped, the subject of adolescent sexual abuse is close to my heart. But sadly, I’m far from alone in my experiences — studies have shown over and over again that adolescence is the time when women are at their highest risk of sexual assault. Most of [...]

19: “Giving Real Victims a Bad Name”

Yesterday, Amandaw asked me on Twitter what I think of the notion that “women should really be mad at those false accusers out there, because they’re the ones giving real rape victims a bad name.” I decided that I’d answer that here.
First of all, I’ll come clean. I once used to think something like this. [...]

18: Rape and Disability

One of the populations most vulnerable to sexual assault is women with disabilities. Some statistics show that up to 83% of women with disabilities will be assaulted in their lifetimes. Others say that women with disabilities are twice as likely to be raped and sexually assaulted as the general population. Whatever the numbers are, they’re [...]

17: Victim-Blaming Knows No Borders

You’ve quite likely heard of this horrific story, of an 8-year-old girl in Phoenix, Arizona who was raped by 4 boys — aged 9, 10, 13 and 14.
The reason it seems to be getting a large amount of media attention, however, is the news that her family has apparently rejected her and blamed her for [...]

16: Re-Victimization at Its Extreme

So. Here’s one of the most appalling things I’ve seen in a long time.
On the regular blog, I spend a lot of time writing about how people will find any excuse, any excuse at all, even if there isn’t one, to dismiss rape, to pretend as though it wasn’t really rape, and most especially to [...]

15: 59% of Transgender Inmates Report Sexual Assault While In Prison

One place where transgender individuals are particularly vulnerable to rape and sexual assault is prison. In fact, a 2006 study (note: reading the comments is highly unrecommended) showed that an utterly staggering 59% of incarcerated transgender respondents reported being sexually assaulted in prison.
There are a couple major reasons for the astounding and devastating figures. The [...]

14: Transgender Victims of Rape

There are very few statistics available for the rate of rape among transgender individuals. One small study showed that 13.7% of transgender respondents had experienced rape or attempted rape. Another study shows that 50% of transgender respondents had been raped or assaulted by a romantic partner — and among all groups of people sexual violence [...]

13: Rape and Sex Work

It’s pretty much impossible to find accurate statistics on the rate of rape among sex workers. That’s both because sex workers are a hugely diverse group and not particularly easy to survey, but also because many people doing the surveys have an anti-sex work ideology that cause many sex workers to question the methodology [...]

12: 40 Days and 40 Nights

Speaking of apologism for women who rape men, I remember the first time I saw this scene from the film 40 Days and 40 Nights. I was just completely and utterly appalled that they would put this scene in here as not only a plot point, but as something other than rape. I [...]

11: Yes, Women Can Rape Men

It’s sadly still not uncommon to hear the assertion that “it’s not possible for a woman to rape a man.”
Yes, it is. And it happens.
How is quite simple. Just like with any form of rape, it need not involve a penis, and it also need not a vagina being penetrated.
A woman who non-consensually penetrates a [...]

10: FML Fail

By now, most people around the interwebs have likely heard of the website FML. FML stands for Fuck My Life, and is filled with short, humorous anecdotes that make the writer say . . . fuck my life.
But sometimes, the FML submissions (and comments) aren’t so funny. Sometimes they’re instead sad, or upsetting — or [...]

9: Canadian Anti-Sexual Violence Program Focuses on Girls’ Clothing

I’ve recently learned about a new program in Canada that’s allotting over $350,000 to adolescent rape prevention in Quebec. Sounds awesome, right?
Er, maybe.
The latest grant announced by Helena Guergis, minister of state for the status of women, is for a $144,361, three-year project in the Matane region “targeting the hypersexualization of girls as a root [...]

8: California Officer Rapes Woman While on Duty

Recently, a (now former) California police officer named Feliciano Sanchez admitted to forcing a woman who he pulled over during a traffic stop to perform oral sex on him at gunpoint.
Feliciano Sanchez, 34, admitted in court Thursday that while on duty on May 16, 2007, he pulled over a female driver in a traffic stop [...]

7: Male Rape in Prisons

While there’s evidence suggesting that the assumption that most rape of men occurs in prison is false, there’s absolutely no denying that there is an epidemic of rape taking place in America’s prisons. Research shows that around 22% of men are raped while in prison. It’s an utterly whopping figure.
The rape can come in many [...]

6: Male Rape Victims

We talk about it less often due to its less common occurrence (and also because many of us who talk about sexual violence are feminists, and therefore focus on specifically women’s issues), but men can be and are raped, too. RAINN estimates that 1 in 33 men will be sexually assaulted in their lifetime, and [...]

5: New Orleans Police Department Downgrading Rape Reports

News has emerged that the New Orleans police department has been classifying reports of rape as noncriminal:
More than half the time New Orleans police receive reports of rape or other sexual assaults against women, officers classify the matter as a noncriminal “complaint.”
Police, who have been touting a decline in rapes, say the share of noncriminal [...]

4: Rape Jokes

A month ago, Harriet over at Fugitivus wrote an excellent post that just came to my attention. It’s about rape “jokes,” and it’s while it’s a long post, it’s also one of the best explanations I’ve ever seen for why you just shouldn’t make them, because they’re just not funny.
I suggest going over to read [...]

3: 10% of Young Women’s First Intercourse Was Involuntary

A brand new study on sex education (or a current lack of it) out of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reveals an incredibly disturbing but not particularly surprising new number. Almost 10% of young women aged 18 to 24 reported that their first intercourse was involuntary.
This number matters a great deal, for [...]

2: Rape on College Campuses

The work that SAFER does is particularly important because, while rape can be committed against anyone, anywhere, at anytime, college women are particularly likely to be assaulted (pdf). Estimates say that 1 in 4 women have been raped since the age of 14, and rapists assault women aged 16 to 24, years which encompass those [...]

1: Why SAFER?

It seems most appropriate to begin this long journey by asking the question of why I’m doing it. Why spend my usually lazy Saturday blogging in enormous quantities and denying myself sleep instead of going through my blog reader and posting Beatles pictures on Tumblr? I’m doing it for SAFER.
As you likely know by now, [...]

2009 Blogathon

The 2009 Blogathon will begin at 9am EST on Saturday, July 25, and this is the sub-blog of The Curvature where I’ll be hosting it.
I will be continuously blogging about sexual violence for 12 hours, and then the Beatles for another 12 hours, to raise money for Students Active For Ending Rape (SAFER). You can [...]

2009 BLOGATHON

Can we reach the $500 goal?

Support SAFER and Sponsor!

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