6/15/2011

Playing Symbols

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Story Sent in by Edward:

Kendra showed up to our date with a white blouse that bore a design: three yellow squares across the chest. It made me curious, but I waited to ask her about it.

When the time finally came that I did ask her, she said, "It's an internationally-known symbol against rape."

I replied, "More power to you for wearing it."

She said, with utter seriousness, "No rapes on my watch. Sorry."

"'Sorry'? You're not disappointing me."

"No more rapes," she warned, "Ever."

"Works for me."

A heavy, unsettled mood fell over the table after that. I tried to change the subject, to talk about the plays in which she had acted, the jigsaw puzzles that she liked to complete, etc. She gave me very short answers and was clearly upset about something.

Ultimately, I asked her, "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," she said, putting her fork down and sliding her dinner plate away from herself. "I was just thinking about rape, that's all."

"Why?"

"Why?" she repeated, then pointed to her shirt. "It's an epidemic! And no one seems to care!"

"I care. I think it's awful."

She groaned and said, "That's great. You think it's awful. But what have you actually done about it?"

I answered honestly, "Aside from never having raped someone myself, not much."

She said, "Exactly. At least I'm wearing a shirt. Everyone knows where I stand."

"But I didn't recognize the symbol when we first sat down."

She replied, "I made it up, but you see, it makes people curious and so they ask me and so I can teach them."

I could have pointed out to her that she had told me minutes prior that the symbol was "internationally known," but instead, I said, "I see."

I asked for the check shortly thereafter, we left, I wished her a good night, and returned home a little more confused than I had been two hours before.

11 comments:

  1. Wearing a T-shirt hardly counts in stopping rape.... What is she going to do, show up everytime someone is about to rape another person and tell them "Oh no, don't do that..." and point to the symbol on her shirt? The girl has lost her marbles.

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  2. Some people just want to get all high and mighty about something. But you see, nowadays we've all become a little desensitized to everything. So if someone's like "MEAT IS WRONG" we just sort of nod while thinking "well frankly, fuck their opinion."

    That's why this chick is getting angry about rape, if you ask me. She wants something to get upset about, or more accurately she wants people to get upset at for not crusading like her. Rape is just a hard to mock topic, because it's like like anyone is gonna openly laugh at you if you say you really hate raping. I mean if you say that you don't eat meat because you don't like cruelty to animals, most people nowadays are either going to pretend to sympathize or call you a pussy to your face.

    Also, there's the whole veiled threat that any sort of unwanted moves on the guy's part is gonna get you arrested. But that's a different issue.

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  3. I'm sure she's one of those people who changed her profile picture on facebook to a cartoon character to show she's against pedophilia or something. Not really doing anything to help the cause, just making herself feel better.

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  4. For someone who apparently thinks about rape constantly she doesn't seem to know much about it and apparently hasn't even done basic research. She calls it an "epidemic" but in the US and much of the rest of the world rates of rape have plummeted within the last few dacades (one source says an 85% drop since 1980 in the US).

    Outraged enough to design a shirt but can't be bothered to read a book or even an article on the subject? What a lovely human being. I imagine she's one of those people whose whole worldview comes from things forwarded to their AOL account.

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  5. Okay OP, surely you must see that you wasted a perfectly good opportunity to tell her that you had that same anti-rape symbol tattooed on your body, and invite her to find it?

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  6. "It's an internationally-known symbol against rape."

    Okay, lets see if it works...

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  7. I wish I had read to the end of this one before I started Googling to try to find this "internationally known symbol".

    I was wondering if they were alternating, like a Space Invaders sort of thing, or if they were set up so there was a triangle in the middle, or what.

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  8. 'She said, with utter seriousness, "No rapes on my watch. Sorry."'

    That's the point where I couldn't have kept my mouth shut. I would have said something like, "Aw, but I'm so good at those!"

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  9. I'm with Julie - I would've gotten a big kick of driving such a lovely girl crazy with stories of carefree raping.

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  10. No rapes on my watch...but it's face has taken a licking and kept on ticking.

    Personally, I've never been raped, but my nose has been fingered.

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  11. I think the best response to "No rapes on my watch. Sorry" would have to be "You can't rape the willing" followed by a creepy smile.

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