Both are extreme measures to protect women from sex. Why do we have to be protected from sex? Too many predatory men?
From South Africa we have this example:
New device gives women teeth where it matters
‘It is a terrifying thought that women are being made to adapt to rape’
More below:
A rape victim once wished for teeth “where it mattered”. Now a device has been designed to “bite” a rapist’s penis. The patented device looks and is worn like a tampon, but it is hollow and attaches itself with tiny hooks to a man’s penis during penetration.
“We have to do something to protect ourselves. While this will not prevent rape it will assist in identifying attackers and securing convictions,” claims Sonette Ehlers, inventor of the device.
Not everyone, however, is convinced of its usefulness.
Lisa Vetten, of the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation (CSVR) says: “It is like we are going back to the days where women were forced to wear chastity belts. It is a terrifying thought that women are being made to adapt to rape by wearing these devices.
A woman would have to wear the device every day.
Then we come to America and have this way:
Teens’ rings are pledge of purity
TOLEDO, Ohio — When Katie Chromik put a silver ring on her finger and promised at church to save sex for marriage, her junior high school friends giggled.
“Some people have made bets on me that I’m not going to make it,” she said. “It just makes me more determined.”
Even if pledging purity draws snickers, it’s still gaining acceptance among some teens, especially those who attend Christian schools and churches. They say they’re standing up to a barrage of sex-related messages.
“It comes at you in every direction,” said Kayla Ballmer, an eighth-grader at Toledo Christian School. “Movies, TV, radio, magazines. Even on clothing.”
The movement is driven by Christian educators and religious groups promoting abstinence education.
These are extreme examples but women have to live like this everyday, always on guard, protecting the essence of our virtue and life from sexual predators or boyfriends.
It would be nice if women really were free to be human beings, every day every where.
I saw the story about the dentata devices a couple of days ago, and have had some discussions with friends.
“It is like we are going back to the days where women were forced to wear chastity belts” – I disagree with that point. Chastity belts were frequently used on women against their will. A quibble really, but every time I read the article, it makes me twitch a little.
I think the concern about increased violence is a valid one; man realizes he has device on his penis, beats victim to death. But I also think that women can evaluate that risk for themselves.
Overall, I cheer mightily the development of this device. No, it doesn’t prevent rape. But it does make prosecution much easier, and maybe it will have a deterrent effect. And I do get a bit of malicious glee that a man can’t pee until a doctor removes the device.
Oh yeah, I forgot. How are abstinence rings supposed to help a girl be safe?
That’s my thought but I suppose it’s a reminder to the wearer that she vowed to not have sex with her boyfriend- so she ‘won’t’ be responsible for allowing her impulses to encourage her boyfriend…
It made me think of the nuns’ rings and how they were ‘married’ to God.
That women have to do anything daily, to protect ourselves is my real issue.
but the “silver ring thing” might even work as an enticement for a rapist… a sick society we live in…
The “taboo” makes it all the more enticing.
fitfully laughing my self till ribs hurt….Girl you have a point on that one. As well, getting infection and enlarged testicles and major pain involved there…I can just imagine! Maybe the HIV they carry around to pass on too will think differently of passing on too…:o)
I think the whole ring ceremony with your father is sick.
The teeth? It’s sad that this is even an idea worth considering. When did we stop evolving? Shouldn’t rape be something man-kind has outgrown by now?
I think the teen ring ceremony is sick too. It suggests incest to me, not sexual incest but some kind of psychological incest. Also, it’s quite the obvious product of capitalism, which I don’t believe could exist without patriarchy.
It isn’t just the ceremony with the father. The other part is that the removal of the ring is an act of passing this bit of chattel — oh I’m sorry, the daughter — from the father to the husband.
I feel so sorry for the woman who worries about rape so much she would insert such a device on a daily basis.
Dumb question: couldn’t the rapist just take it out before insertion?
My guess since there’s no foreplay before the rape how would he know it’s there??
It was developed in South Africa, were in the cities there were more than 50,000 rapes last year. So I suppose there would be many women that worried about it.
Not sure that’s a dumb question at all – I didn’t see it addressed in the article. Off to research!
It’s no wonder the rapist, and thugs in the world are getting worse, have we evolved?
Well, just take a look at the world leader’s, and you’ll see that they get away with: raping the people of the world, and murdering whoever gets in their way.
Regardless of its merits or deeper meanings, I’m trying to think what reasons the right-wing in this country would use to try to forbid the use of such a device if women over here decide they want it. Right-wingers would surely be opposed to it, given that it gives a woman a measure of control and protection against unwanted sex and it’s a threat to male sovereignty.
So what would they claim, I wonder?
They’d fabricate a health claim, maybe: causes cervical cancer. Under age girls would have to get parental approval. I wonder if they’d find a pro-life argument against it? If it was used against a rapist and the woman couldn’t prove rape–date-rape, for instance–she might be charged with assault. They’d try to prove she had a vendetta against the man, or hated men and tricked him, or whatever.
On the other hand, maybe they’d like it as long as men controlled it. Doctors could be required to install the things so no woman could control it alone. In terms of marketing, the devices could be gussied up as pretty feminine little chompers to make them attractive as chastity devices. . .
I think it’s a brilliant idea for a device, but it’s hard for me to imagine that it won’t end up being violently and/or legally used against women.
Expected response from the right… (none / 0)
and men’s groups.
Cruelty to animals comparisons. Like the steel-jaw traps used for years by trappers in the wilderness.
Men, in some cultures, rather than being shamed (or prosecuted), will limp off and have “back-alley removals” performed. Or die from blockage of their bladders.
But, “quid pro quo”, for aeons of abuse and torture.
Perhaps even law enforcement would get involved, in that a womean would have to register with the pharmacist, who in turn would have to notify law enforcement if one of these devices was found “in a state of flagrante delicto”, with one of these devices snapped on his Johnson, Chinese finger-puzzle-like. Read the serial number off. Trace back to purchaser. Subpoena. He said/she said in the judicial docket.
Then the fun of prosecuting a case using these things would come about. Would on have to look back to law from the 15th or 16th century, to determine how these sorts of things were taken care of in a judiciary?
Of course, in Islamic cultures, it is always, always a woman’s faults, and there would be a pandemic of “honor killings” by her male family members of the woman who used one of these “schwantz-biters” and it having be latched onto a male perp. Identified. And tracked back to the user of such a device? Not so good?
Then again, would the shame of having one of these thing attached to a man’s nether regions, be any sort of preventative/disincentive to violence?
In the progressive and always out to make a buck West, one could see a whole advertising campaing and public health PSAs being done with the deployment of these devices into the mainstream. Celebrity-sponsorships, maybe a nubile young Lindsey Lohan or Rachel McAdams being a spokesperson (and user) of the “ultimate prophylactic” against forcible rape. Every young female will want to emulate their fave fem teen movei star. And young horndogger males will be placed on high alert.
A NASCAR team sponsorship (perhaps other motorsports, too), displaying for to the world of likely perps that “the device” has been mainstreamed. Golf tournament sponsorships.
And according to the article, the thing is dirt cheap:
1 ZAR = 0.148531 USD (1 South African rand is approximately fifteen cents, $.15)/per unit
And some smart entreprenuer could import these things into the United States, mark them up a blue million. Zap! Overnight the problem of forcible rape is significantly diminished.
Limitless opportunities. Limitless opportunities…
BTW, if anyone cares to see how the wackadoo winger side responds to this, swing on over to this thread on the same topic over in Bizarro World:
LibertyPost.org: Anti-Rape Device Must Be Banned, Say Women
More or less a direct reposting from the London Times (The London Times is a division of News International is the main UK subsidiary of News Corporation).
First thing that pops into their febrile minds is “annie, get your gun”…
LibertyPost.org: Anti-Rape Device Must Be Banned, Say Women
Un-F-Believable.
Gun Control Must Be Overturned, Say Lions
Anti-Traps Must Be Banned, Say Mice
ask me if I am suprised!!?? I think the men on these spots are too afraid to discuss such a thing. Maybe they wold bea afraid to pursue thier ambutions on the whole…what egos they have…:o(
This reminds me of that Science Fiction “Snow Crash” where it was common for woment to, um, wear a needle with that injected a tranquilizer.
That is exactly what it made me think of, as well. Wonderful book.