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Sydney Australia celebrated its 30th Gay Mardi Gras last night! The Mardi Gras Parade is quite the huge event, and draws up to half a million people, both residents and tourists, each year. It is, without a doubt, one of the largest LGBT pride events in the world. The original 1978 march took place when homosexuality was illegal and resulted in police violence. Now, it’s one of the city’s biggest tourism draws.

I went one year while living in Australia — 2003, I believe. It is quite the blast. The floats in the parade mock everything imaginable, particularly those who would like to see them go away, like the Australian government and Catholic Church. They also promote social justice. This year, they focused largely on same-sex marriage rights and the environmental crisis. Oh, and they also had Rupert Everett lead the parade and a float with 250 men dressed up as Aussie pop star and gay icon Kylie Minogue. And I can only assume that the shirtless Dykes on Bikes made their usual appearance.

Of course, the Christian groups like to whine every year about the existence of the parade, and handful turn out to hand out pamphlets. But they don’t get a lot of airtime. The religious fundies have a lot less political power in Australia than in the U.S. I remember being awed and thrilled every year by the open promotion and acceptance of the event by the mainstream media and the dismissive (or outright lack of) attention given to those who want the event stopped.

Is this partially motivated by the huge amount of money that the event brings in for the city? Of course. Does it mean that Australia is some kind of hugely-accepting gay haven? Absolutely not — I ran into a lot of homophobia myself, particularly regarding one professor at uni who was openly gay, proud and, as he liked to say, camp (he was also brilliant, the best teacher I’ve ever had in my life, and a big reason why I’m a feminist). But the fact remains that we’re many years away from this kind of general public acceptance of sexual pride and flamboyance in the U.S.

So happy 30th, Mardi Gras! Did anyone reading this attend? If so, let us know about it in the comments!

(Thanks to Patrick for the head’s up.)

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A man in London has just been arrested on charges of drugging and raping women he picked up in his taxi cab. Though there are countless published stories about the case, the information is exceedingly limited in all of them. Here is the gist:

Up to 35 women may have been drugged and raped by a London taxi driver, police said on Monday.

Thirty women have come forward after a man was arrested last Friday in southeast London on suspicion of rape.

Police were initially investigating five attacks in which victims were picked up in a black cab near Oxford Street, King’s Road or London Bridge.

The suspect is accused of attacking his passengers after offering them spiked glasses of champagne which he said were to help him celebrate a lottery win.

The most recent reported attack took place on February 5 after a 33-year-old woman was picked up near London Bridge Station.

“Every case is being linked,” a Scotland Yard spokesman said.

Knowing full well that the Mirror is about as far from a reputable news source as you can get (don’t worry, the facts are the same in every story), I chose to use their article particularly because of the confounding nature of the first sentence. “Up to 35 women.” Well, 35 women in total have come forward. And instead of reaching what I would deem to be the logical conclusion — that if 35 have already come forward, just think of how many others there are — the Mirror has apparently determined that when 35 women come forward with rape allegations, that’s the definitive total, and at least a few have to be liars.

It’s funny, because it seems to be a theme recently. No, not just calling rape victims liars, since that’s pretty much a theme of living in the world as a woman. I’m talking about women being raped in cabs — and then having it implied that they are liars or to blame for the assaults.

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Lest we think that Jets fans are the only ones who form drunken mobs for the purpose of sexually harassing and assaulting women, a new story shows that Australian car enthusiasts partake in the activity as well. Click over to see footage of the mob and a slew of frightening pictures, but be warned that some contain nudity.

The Summernats car festival takes place in Canberra every year, and lovers of souped-up cars gather to watch legal “burnouts” — the practice of spinning car wheels to create a huge cloud of smoke, for the apparent pleasure of destroying one’s tires. As most car cultures are, this one is extremely stereotypically macho. And what does “macho” mean? Well, apparently it means getting really drunk, forming a mob of a couple hundred, give or take, and marching through the streets demanding that women display their breasts.

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Steve Carter, the Queensland prosecutor who called the gang rape of a 10-year-old Aboriginal girl “childish experimentation” and didn’t recommend jail time for the rapists, has finally resigned.

Former Tasmanian police officer Steve Carter was hired as a Crown prosecutor in Cairns in 2000 but demoted to legal officer 18 months ago over unspecified work issues.

Last month The Australian revealed Mr Carter had not pursued jail terms for nine males who gang-raped the girl at Aurukun in 2005, prompting Director of Public Prosecutions Leanne Clare to launch an internal investigation.

Not being a member of the Queensland Law Society nor the Queensland Bar Association, Mr Carter had no one to defend him against the international outrage, unlike District Court judge Sarah Bradley, who received support from various quarters.

Mr Carter, whose daughter was upset by the public reaction, denied he was the “the fall guy” but claimed the full story had yet to emerge.

He suggested the girl, who had been abused as a child and let down by the Department of Child Safety, was highly sexualised and consented to sex “in a non-legal way” in exchange for alcohol and cigarettes.

Mr Carter was stood down on full pay and asked to show cause why he should not be disciplined. He had until January 14 to respond but yesterday morning tendered his resignation, effective at the end of the day.

Acting Attorney-General John Mickel yesterday said the review of cases involving sexual offences on Cape York over the past two years would continue.

Mr Mickel said barrister Steve Davis was due to report by February 11, while an appeal against the sentences handed to the nine offenders was expected to be heard early next month.

It’s something, I suppose. I’m still quite certain that he should have been fired within a couple of days of this story breaking. That he wasn’t must leave someone working for the government with a lot of explaining to do.

As for who the hell defended Judge Bradley, I’m not sure. And I’m too weary to look it up. But her head ought to roll, too. There’s absolutely no excuse for this kind of conduct. What fuck is the “whole story” that Carter’s daughter claims has not yet emerged, I obviously don’t know. But I’m sure that whatever it is, it will be incredibly depressing and remind me that I yet again accidentally managed to reacquire some faith in humanity by the way that I’ll be forced to lose it.

H/t Lauredhel.

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Several weeks back, I wrote about a new NSW, Australia rape law proposal that would use the affirmative consent standard — an absence of no does not mean yes — and no longer allow the intoxication of one or both parties to be used as a defense in court. The NSW Bar Association, apparently believing in an extremely misogynist system, argued against the bill, saying that it would “turn our sons into criminals.” When really, it would just send your son who actually is a rapist to jail.

Anyway, the good news is that despite all the “criticism” (which basically amounts to “do you realize this will make it illegal to fuck unconscious women????”), the law is going into effect on January 1st. No, the Bar Association hasn’t stopped their fear-mongering and profuse rape apologism. They’re still whining that “a person accused of rape could be found guilty under the new laws even if they honestly believed there had been consent.”

So basically, men in NSW can no longer legally “believe” there has been consent with absolutely no basis for doing so. Unless they want to risk rape charges, they now actually have to make sure that the women they’re fucking want to fuck them back. They’ll have to do horrible things like communicate with their sexual partners and stop to find out what’s wrong when a woman is not actively engaging with and responding to their advances. They’ll be forced to ruin the romance by saying totally unsexy things like “do you want me?” and “do you like that?” instead of just shoving it in and grunting and thrusting away like there’s not another person there.

In short, a legislative body has finally decided that men deserve to be held to the standards of basic ethics and humanity. And a large section of men are mightily upset about that.

But I’m very pleased with the parliament members of the Australian state in which I used to live. With other current problems with the Australian legal system’s treatment of rape victims, it’s a welcome relief.

I can only hope that the new law will be actively promoted. It really could be turned into a great anti-rape/rape awareness campaign, telling men who sadly need to be told what actually qualifies as rape and encouraging women to report because the chances that they will be believed have increased. I hope like hell that the law will be a success and other governments will feel encouraged to apply the same standards. And if I allow myself to be truly optimistic, I can dream that eventually — not over night, but over many years — this new legal definition of rape will change public attitudes towards women, sex and consent, that it will wake people up to the “she was asking for it” myths and destroy their faith in them.

I know, it’s a crazy long-shot. But please, let me feel hopeful that this world can change and people can be better . . . if only for today.

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I don’t know what the hell is in the water in Australia, lately (is there a chemical known to cause the blaming of child rape victims?), but Lauredhel has yet another frightening story about a judge declaring that the gang-rape of a child was not actually rape. Only this time, the child is a boy, and the judge has made this distinction before the trial is even over. But there are indeed eerie similarities to the case of gang-rape against a ten-year-old female — namely that both the victims and offenders are all Aboriginal, a mix of adults and teenagers committed the assaults, and all five attackers have pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting the 11-year-old boy.

The judge in a child sex assault case being heard in the Northern Territory Supreme Court has told reporters in the courtroom not to use the word “rape” in relation to the case.

The case involves two adult men and three teenage boys who sexually assaulted an 11-year-old boy at Maningrida in Arnhem Land over a period of months last year.

Two of the accused have pleaded guilty to sexual penetration, one through oral penetration and two to fondling the boy.

Justice Trevor Riley told the court the case is not about rape because there is no issue of consent.

He said while the crime of sexual intercourse with a child was very serious it was not rape.

Sentencing submissions were due to be given in court today, but they have been delayed because Aboriginal interpreters have not turned up.

The psychological report has been presented for each of the accused and one of the defence counsel, Greg Smith, said the combination of cannabis, pornographic videos and little to do in the community led to the sexual offences.

That’s right — not only another case of a judge declaring that sex with a young child can somehow be consensual, but also another judge who has tried to ban the word “rape” altogether. Though I have to say that the particular arrogance displayed here in telling the media how they must report on a case of sexual assault against a child is pretty damn original.

What’s not original is the argument that this is just what Aboriginal males do when they’re bored — commit sexual assault. Clearly, the high instance of sexual abuse against children and rape against adult women in Aboriginal communities tells us that there is something about the social conditions in many of these communities — poverty, addiction, other effects of racism — that leads to a prevalence of sexual assault. Surely, this needs to be explored. And yet, that’s somehow nowhere near the same as saying “hey, they’re black and they were bored.”

Seriously, how do these people obtain and keep their jobs? Children cannot give consent to sexual activity, and sexual activity without the consent of one or more parties is what we call rape. You’d think that this wouldn’t be a difficult concept to understand, and yet somehow the inability to grasp it seems to run rampant throughout the judicial system. Of course, “Romeo and Juliet cases” (one sexual partner just above the age of consent, the other just below) are tried as “rape” all of the time. But hey, when we’re dealing with children of color who are victims of rape, that’s a whole different story, right?

All I know is that there is a case in this judge’s courtroom of an 11-year-old boy being raped and otherwise sexually assaulted by five older males, and his greatest concern is over the accurate language that the media might use to describe the crime. And that’s pretty fucking frightening.

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An article caught my interest today with a headline about how a new Queensland, Australia government ad campaign is targeting male violence and enlisting women to help. So imagine my surprise when I find out that the campaign is about violence against other men.

The $800,000 One Punch Can Kill campaign, launched today on the recommendation of the government’s Youth Violence Task Force, aims to reach Generation Y through MySpace, Facebook, Yahoo, Hotmail and radio.

The slogan “I support blokes who don’t fight” will attempt to get young women to discourage men from responding to heated situations with violence.

Police Commissioner Bob Atkinson said many assaults resulted from a mix of alcohol and a “perceived insult”.

“Sometimes as well, that perceived insult relates to a girlfriend, so the theme of this advertising … is to encourage young women to help in those situations where violence is a potentiality,” Mr Atkinson told reporters in Brisbane today.

“It’s smart, it’s intelligent, it’s cool, it’s sensible and it’s not lacking masculinity in any sense to say, `I’m going to walk away from this and step back from it.”’

Premier Anna Bligh said the message was particularly important in the party season.

“Holding your temper, learning how to deal with arguments without resorting to violence is important,” Ms Bligh said.

“One punch cannot only seriously harm or kill somebody else, it can ruin your life forever.”

She said young men should understand the consequences of violence.

And I have to say that this annoyed me. You see, women are not only responsible for violence by men against themselves and other women, they’re also now apparently responsible for violence that men commit against other men.

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Again: all kinds of trigger warnings.

Via Lauredhel, more disturbing information has come to light about the Australian case of the ten-year-old girl who, according to a judge, “probably agreed to have sex” with the 6 youths and 3 legal adults who gang-raped her. Brace yourself.

The child - who had been living in a Cairns foster home before the department decided to return her to Aurukun, in Cape York - has been diagnosed as “mildly intellectually impaired” and suffering from fetal alcohol syndrome, having been born to an alcohol-dependent mother. [. . .]

An eight-month investigation was conducted into the April 2006 multiple rape and submitted to the Department of Child Safety, resulting in one senior officer being sacked and two others suspended for 12 months on full pay - a situation that still exists.

A senior departmental official yesterday told The Australian that the child involved was sexually abused at age seven and, as a safety measure, was put with various foster families, eventually ending up in 2005 with a non-indigenous family in Cairns. But she was returned nine months later to Aurukun, where she was gang-raped by the nine males. [. . .]

The investigating committee also reported that the Child Safety officers took no remedial action when the girl threatened to commit suicide. [. . .]

The committee also found the child had first contracted syphilis in April 2002 when she was aged seven and was raped by five juveniles in Aurukun, receiving severe genital injuries.

I don’t even know what to say. The girl was gang-raped at the age of seven. She was then removed from her community, because it was believed that she would not be safe there. Child Protective Services then moved her back from her foster home because of concerns over the historical and social impact of Aboriginal children living with white parents. The government is now calling this “rubbish” and trying to blame the situation on some kind of racial prejudice against white people, though it’s never explained why the girl could not have been placed in foster care with Aboriginal parents or simply in a different Aboriginal community. [Note: I do not know enough to say one way or the other whether or not the girl should have been removed from the care of the white family. What I'm saying is that blaming the call to remove her doesn't fly, because many other actions could have been taken that would have put her at less of a risk for danger.]

It gets a lot worse, though. It turns out that, though the judge is certainly to blame, she cannot bear all of the responsibility for the atrocity of this ruling. Why? Because the prosecutor in the case told her that the rape was “childish experimentation.” No. Not the defense attorney. The prosecutor. The one who is meant to act in the best interest of the ten-year-old, mentally disabled, previously sexually abused rape victim. He also called her and her rapists “naughty.”

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As Feministe reports, an Australian judge has failed to imprison 9 males who gang-raped a 10-year-old girl. And though it sounds like it can’t get any more horrible, her justification is the worst part:

Cairns-based District Court judge Sarah Bradley did not record convictions against six teenagers and gave suspended sentences to the three others over the 2005 gang rape at the indigenous Aurukun community on Cape York. Three others were given suspended sentences.

The girl had “probably agreed” to have sex with the nine, Judge Bradley said during her sentencing remarks.

Yes, the judge is female. And apparently a highly respected judge a that. I hope that all of us understand that a 10-year-old cannot agree to have sex. Because she is 10. Any “sex” with a 10-year-old is rape. And even if children that young could agree to have sex — which again, they can’t — 10-year-old girls in that horrible alternate world who could agree to sex of their own free will certainly would not do so with 9 significantly older males. She was 10. Here is all of Judge Bradley’s contact information, which I encourage you to use:

Address:

Judges Chambers
District Court
PO Box 7515
Cairns Q 4870
AUSTRALIA

DX 41349
CAIRNS

Telephone : 07 4039 8909
Facsimile : 07 4039 8006
E-mail: associate.bradleyjdc@courts.qld.gov.au

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[cross-posted from Feministe]

Via Laurelhel and BFP, today is the International Day of Action Against the Northern Territory Intervention. The Northern Territory is a territory in Australia that is sparsely populated and largely made up by Aboriginal people, whose ancestors were the original inhabitants of Australia and the victims of white colonization.

The Day of Action is based around a hugely racist and imperialistic “intervention” on behalf of the Australian government in Aboriginal communities, purportedly designed to combat child abuse, but instead resulting in gross human rights violations.

I wouldn’t expect most people who have not lived in Australia to be familiar with the history of Australian Aboriginals — many Australians themselves aren’t, and though I lived there three years I’m not nearly as knowledgeable as I should be. But I have put together a very brief, very simplified overview of the negative “highlights,” because the current actions cannot be divorced from historical oppression. I invite anyone who is more knowledgeable to fill in the blanks and, though I have taken care with accuracy, to correct me if and where I am wrong.

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Just when you think you’ve read every stupid thing that someone could possibly say about rape, your husband goes and sends you this: NSW, Australia, is working on a law that states rape when a rapist is drunk is still rape, and rape when the victim is drunk is still rape. Which is, of course, excellent. What’s not so excellent is the reaction to it. And no, I’m not talking about the reaction at Fark (Trigger warning: please, don’t read that Fark thread unless you have the world’s largest stomach for misogyny and rape apologism. Just . . . don’t.). I’m talking about the reaction by the NSW Bar Association. Get those rape apologist bingo cards ready, cause the squares are gonna get called fast.

The NSW Bar Associations reckons the “No means no” law goes too far and will lobby Upper House members to vote against it when it is up for debate next week.

The law will define the meaning of consent for the first time, making it clear that being drunk or under the influence of drugs does not mean consent has been given.

It will also introduce an “objective fault test”, meaning a man can no longer use the defence that he thought he had consent if the circumstances appear unreasonable.

“It will turn our sons into criminals,” new Bar Association president Anna Katzmann SC said yesterday.

“For years women have been insisting ‘No’ means ‘No’. What troubles us about this new legislation is that it introduces a new regime where ‘Yes’ may mean ‘No’.”

Ms Katzmann gave the example of a woman on a first date who might not want to have sex but after both she and the man had drunk too much said “Yes”.

The next day she feels guilty and tells her mother, who goes to the police.

“That would be rape under the new laws,” Ms Katzmann said. “The fact that he was drunk cannot be taken into account. The fact that she was drunk is no excuse for him.”

Chair of the Bar Association’s criminal law committee Stephen Odgers SC said the law made sexual assault a crime of negligence.

“The stupid, the negligent, the intoxicated, the crazy will be treated as if they are the same as the true rapist, who knows there is no consent to sexual intercourse,” Mr Odgers said.

. . .

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