The Royal Mile and the wonderful Dance Base

What courage!!!

August the 7th (which also happens to be my lovely sisters 30th birthday) was definitely a truly exhilarating experience! The gorgeous young women who are supporting me in publicising Deserving? were so brave yesterday and proved themselves to be not only incredibly strong but enormously deep too.

Yesterday we did our first day of full blown dancing etc on the Royal Mile and one of my friends who is supporting me with the publicity broke down in tears, then when we got back to dansebase (who are kindly allowing us to use their facilities to change etc) the other one broke down too and all three of us sat in the shower together - shower wasn't on and we were still in our costumes - and sobbed our hearts out!

It sounds like punishment but I am positive that it is in fact cathartic, especially because we all feel so empowered by taking this subject on and doing everything we can to highlight the issues surrounding it. We felt utter exhilaration during most of the street show and complete satisfaction and release after our tears!

Photos to follow!

Some amazing words of other people's wisdom!

http://edinburgheye.wordpress.com/2012/07/08/rape-is-not-unspeakable/
Fabulous Edinburgh slut walks and an even better explanation!

The erotic has often been misnamed by men and used against women.

It has been made into the confused, the trivial, the psychotic, the plasticized

sensation. For this reason, we have often turned away from the exploration and

consideration of the erotic as a source of power and information, confusing it with

its opposite, the pornographic. But pornographic is a direct denial of the power of the

erotic, for it represents the suppression of true feeling. Pornography emphasises sensation 

                       without feeling.          Audre Lorde. Uses of the Erotic

It is well to give when asked, but it is better to give unasked...You give but little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.

Khalil Gibran

                

The Edinburgh leg begins - oh how I've missed this beautiful city!!!

Edinburgh

I'm emotionally and physically whacked, I feel like I have been punched several times in the face, wrists and hips. I spend my days creating theatre about rape and have created a monster in wanting to use a universal language to discuss this subject!

I was raped when I was 15 ok, ok, so a lot of people have been raped and it's horrible and humiliating but why do I feel this overwhelming need to shout about it? Obviously not having spoken about it for several years afterwards plays a part but what I really believe has driven me to do this are the views of many people in our society. Some of these views make me so angry I feel like I am going to explode and they come out of no-where like when I'm reading a newspaper or discussing recent occurrences with friends, one minute I'm having a nice day and then next minute I'm back there with my butt in the air. I want to exorcise this anger and I want anyone else who has lived in shame since being raped to do so too.

Being raped is bad enough but being made to feel responsible for it too is possibly yet more damaging; we carry guilt for hurting ourselves. We are led to believe two things as women; one that we should make ourselves look beautiful and sexy but two that if we do so we are likely to be sending a message that we want to have sex at any time and with anyone. The latter, I’m afraid is just not true I want to have sex but I want to choose when and who with. Either we should be educating our children to cover up completely and protect themselves from the monsters in our community or we should revel in our beauty, shout from the roof tops that sex is wonderful and work harder to create better people who don’t steal other peoples’ sexual integrity. The theatre, for me, is the only place we are likely to change this and what better place than the Edinburgh Fringe Festival?!

http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2012/07/26/anti-rape-campaigns-hey-women-stop-getting-so-drunk/

ContactUs contactus@westmercia.pnn.police.uk	3:30 PM (8 hours ago)
to me

Dear Emma,

Thank you for taking the time to contact us and express your concerns regarding our recent Safe Night Out campaign.

West Mercia Police takes allegations of rape and sexual assault very seriously and we categorically do not believe victims are to blame.

The campaign (which was developed by another police force but in consultation with a number of victim support organisations) has now ended but the feedback we have received will be used to help evaluate it and to develop future campaigns.
Thank you again for contacting us and for your frankness.

West Mercia Police apologise over rape campaign poster

An anti-rape charity said the posters put the blame on the victim

West Mercia police has apologised for a poster campaign which an anti-rape charity called "inappropriate."

Worcestershire Rape and Sexual Abuse Support Centre claimed the Safe Night Out campaign blamed victims who had been drinking for sexual assault.

Jocelyn Anderson, from the centre, said: "It's not alcohol that causes rape, although it's a vulnerability factor, it's rapists that cause rape."

The poster appeared in pubs in the force area in July.

Det Supt Ivan Powell said: "If the campaign has caused distress, that was not our aim and I will apologise for that.

"This was not about blaming victims but putting information out to help.

"I understand there have been some concerns about the nature of the poster but I would stress what we are trying to do here is putting information out showing potential victims how to avoid becoming vulnerable."

Ms Anderson said: "The problem was the poster put the blame on to alcohol and women who are raped, suggesting if they didn't drink they could avoid rape.

"I think it's great the police have realised that the poster was giving off an inappropriate message and admitted on this occasion they got it wrong."

West Mercia Police covers Herefordshire, Shropshire and Worcestershire.

Hi

I write to you because I am appalled by your latest anti rape campaign and would like to see you remove it and start again with proper consultation with people who truly understand the issues surrounding rape. As someone who has been raped after having had a little too much to drink, being dressed sexily and spending my evening flirting with someone, as I did and have every right to do I am 100% fed up with this sort of campaign. Blaming someone for a malicious attack - suggesting that she could in anyway protect herself from a revolting sub species is pathetic and simply encourages silence and suicide.

I am performing a piece about my experience at the Fringe this year and will be using your campaign to highlight how victim blaming continues and is made yet worse as it comes directly from those people that are supposed to be there to protect us. No wonder we don't report it to a group of people who are extremely likely to infer that we were someway responsible for what has happened to us and who are apparently trained to make us 'break' and admit we were lying. We already feel this, shame and guilt for what we were unable to protect ourselves from and your lack of support and understanding towards us and our rights to behave in anyway we wish are simply archaic and utterly unhelpful.

We should stop funding police led campaigns and give the money to proper support organisations who realise the damage rape causes and know the only way to reduce rape is to further punish the perpetrators and improve our policing and prosecuting.

I look forward to hearing what you decide to do about this.

Regards

Emma

contactus@westmercia.pnn.police.uk	4:14 PM (2 minutes ago)
to me

Thank you for e-mailing West Mercia Police. We will respond to your message within 24hrs and where necessary provide a more detailed response as soon as we can. If your e-mail indicates dissatisfaction with our service provision then we will reply to you within 24hrs of the matter being reported.

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