Things that bother me on Pinterest

Hello, Readers!

For today's edition of Things Angry Ally is Angry About, we are going to talk about one of the things that bother me on Pinterest. This particular "cute" post was pinned by someone I follow:

Now, the issue I have with this, besides the fact that I hate these "misunderstood quirky girl" posts, is that it promotes rape culture.

(I hate to go all serious on you and use the "R" word, but really, I don't. If you knew me, you'd know that I like to angrily use the phrase "rape culture" a lot.)

What is Rape Culture? I'll save you the trip to Wikipedia:

Rape culture is a concept used to describe a culture in which rape and sexual violence are common and in which prevalentattitudes, norms, practices, and media normalize, excuse, tolerate, or even condone sexual violence.
Examples of behaviors commonly associated with rape culture include victim blaming, sexual objectification, and trivializing rape. 

Now you know.

So a post like this one, which says "She'll scream and fight you, but secretly, she'll love it," promotes the Scarlett O'Hara rape myth that victims like to be raped.

Scarlett O'Hara and her husband in Gone With the Wind.

This is not true. Victims NEVER like to be raped. 

And, as a Feminist and a frequent victim of tickling, I also hate "Tickle her, even when she says stop." Okay, well, that's just horrible. All the years of health teachers and PSAs trying to teach men that "no means no" just completely undone by this post.

Now, you're all going to ask me what tickling and throwing girls into pools has to do with rape. You probably see it as one of these: 

But teaching young boys that it is okay to physically overpower girls in a playful situation can easily escalate (ha) into other situations. It is never okay to teach boys to ignore girls when they scream or say "no."