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* Thomas MacAulay Millar on the problem with seeing sexual assailants and domestic abusers as “monsters”:
I’m fine with saying that one who does monstrous things is a monster, and the data tells me that this is true. But there is a danger there, that by calling rapists monsters we may convince people that we should be able to see them. We can’t. They look like everyone else. They certainly will give some behavioral clues, but those are subtle. The rapists fit in. If they didn’t, we would all know who they are, and all their targets would avoid them.
. . . Monsters, and not monsters. Regular people that are nice to children and small animals, tip well and bring attention to important causes may also be misogynists, rapists, abusers, racists . . . all the wrong that people are capable of is not concentrated among people who look like they mean to do harm. The people who do the most harm do it, in part, because they can walk among us and not look like monsters. Monsters don’t look like monsters. They look like the rest of us.
* Monsters, and not monsters: Lloyd Mack Royal—-also known as “Blyss,” “B,” and “Furious“—-has been sentenced to 37 years in prison for human trafficking of minors in Maryland. Testimony in Royal’s trial asserted that he profited off of coercing minor girls into prostitution; threatened those girls verbally and with a gun; hit them; transported them between Maryland and D.C. for the purposes of prostitution; gave them illegal drugs; raped them; forced them to lie about their ages; forced them to sell drugs; and “forced them to kiss his pinky ring.”
* Emily Nagoski on sexual fluidity and LUGS.
* Via the GW Hatchet, the GW Medical Center has received a $3 million grant for HIV/AIDS research courtesy of The National Institutes of Health.
* Evil Angel general manager Christian Mann weighs in on the Stagliano trial in the comments:
What could be more absurd? That would be the U.S. government, represented by the real Fetish Fanatics (AKA the DOJ) spending taxpayers’ dollars to clog the judiciary and bring such a case to trial in 2010. My elation at having my boss (and friend) exonerated is tainted by one small regret: I quietly hoped we would have a chance to bring milk enemas and squirting orgasms to the U.S. Supreme Court and douche the archaic obscenity laws from the Criminal Code once and for all.
Photo via George Eastman House