asking for it

"We had just gotten off tour with Mudhoney, and I decided to stage-dive. I was wearing a dress and I didn't realize what I was engendering in the audience. It was a huge audience and they were kind of going ape-shit. So I just dove off the stage, and suddenly, it was like my dress was being torn off of me, my underwear was being torn off of me, people were putting their fingers inside of me and grabbing my breasts really hard, screaming things in my ears like "pussy-whore-cunt". When I got back onstage I was naked. I felt like Karen Finley. But the worst thing of all was that I saw a photograph of it later. Someone took a picture of me right when this was happening, and I had this big smile on my face like I was pretending it wasn't happening. So later I wrote a song called "Asking For It" based on the whole experience. I can't compare it to rape because it's not the same. But in a way it was. I was raped by an audience, figuratively, literally, and yet, was I asking for it?" - Courtney Love, 1995

was she asking for it? why do people always assume that when someone does something, it automatically makes them (morally/legally) rightful to react in certain invasive ways? whatever a woman does with her body is her own matter, she exposing herself in public does not grant you the right to expose her in public without her permission, the same applies for men. there is nothing as "if you do this, i do that" without a mutual agreement made and stated beforehand.

is it too late to comment on the edison chen scandal? (well, but this is my blog.) i have often thought that people are extremely hypocritical criticizing the actresses while they flipped through the photos. not even one of those photos had i looked at, because those photos weren't taken for me, and they weren't supposed to be looked at or judged or followed-up. people were just shameless taking pleasure out of exploiting other people, and it was made ok because almost everybody else was doing it. i seriously don't think there is a problem if a couple decides that they want to keep some photos for private use, the only things that went wrong was that 1. maybe the girls didn't know there were other girls, 2. they trusted the wrong person and 3. edison was careless and stupid regarding how he just handed the computer over to a third party.

but that really shouldn't be our business. who are you to judge? one day you will get married/fall in love, and have sex, and there are things you will consider sweet doing with your other half. you may want to photograph it or video-tape it when you feel beautiful, and there is absolutely nothing shameful about it.