Friday, March 29

This is also chemical submission

When I was studying at the university, a couple of classmates told, always laughing, how some weekends they got up at six in the morning to go to the door of a nightclub in Pamplona to see what was going on.

Yes. Let’s see what fell. What they wanted him to fall for, of course, was some girl who was drunk and easy to pick up and take home, while they were fresh as lettuce, just woken up. I never knew if they really did it or it was a fantasy that they didn’t finish carrying out. In any case, it has stuck with me because it bothered me a lot even though she smiled and shook her head like “what a couple”. It has stuck with me, above all, because then I said they were disgusting, but now I know what to call them: rapists.

From the same circle of people from the university there were some voices that denied me, when I began to be a collaborator of Pikara Magazinethat patriarchy existed. Already. Well, not only does it exist, but that disgusting, violating culture continues to be applauded as it is today as well. That culture that agrees to submit to them –to us–, not counting on our opinion. Do not consider ourselves equal. Among them are colleagues who are cracks. We are the others, the subordinates, the game complements. Hence the advice among hunks to cheat on their women with whom they don’t dare to have an open relationship because, of course, that implies negotiating and giving in. Hence the advice among shopkeepers so that their wife does not catch them, their ease in consuming us without blinking and their scores on those women who consume.

Hence also what has appeared on my twitter wall. El Xokas, a gamer, youtuber, twitcher or whatever, a guy with a million followers, praises a friend of his who has, he says, “a trick”: not drinking while they – we – get up to the bars to “control the situation” and make everything easier. Sure. Submit, not take our word for it. Do not consider ourselves equal, subject to full rights. Disregard our consent and violate us, go.

A publicist friend, who has to carry out an alert campaign on chemical submission for the Government of an autonomous community, asked me for advice to have a clear perspective. The chemical submission thing is once again becoming a first-rate move as a result of several cases reported in bars in Madrid. I discussed it a bit with my colleagues Andrea Momoitio and Irantzu Varela and we gave them our opinion. Focus on them and not on us, scaring us with the story of “Be careful because there are very bad men who can drug you to submit.” Do not spread sexual terror. Focus on them and tell them not to rape.

Focus on them to tell them that it is tremendous that they eroticize an almost inert body. Focus on them to tell them that submission is not just the premeditation of buying a drug to override our will. Submitting is also waiting for us to be drunk, for us to be easier. Submitting is also getting bent over with shots while you drink juices, Xocas, and wait for your moment. Submitting is also when you do it with your girlfriend, she’s drunk but you don’t care. Submitting is all that, gentlemen, let’s see if she enters your head.

We have to focus on them so we don’t laugh at them, so we don’t smile, shaking our heads and saying “wow”. So as not to praise the trick of your rapist friend. We have to focus on them to be clear about what subjugation is and what rape is and, when we see it, stop them and not allow it. And they, you, have to focus and understand that you are violating. And stop doing it.

Alcohol is also a form of submission and fucking someone you submit to is rape. And this is not about the story of the very bad bad man who pours drugs into women’s drinks when they get confused – which also exists, of course. This is a more common and mundane story, that of all those guys who don’t do drugs or encourage drinking. They just wait. And then they don’t see that that’s also chemical submission. That is also rape.

In the same conversation in which I was talking with my colleagues about the prospect of a good campaign that warns of chemical submission, we were talking about an idea that had been on our minds for a long time: women putting themselves as bait for rapists at night to catch them, to take revenge, with a group waiting crouched for when they bite. Yes, like in a certain movie that I’m not going to mention explicitly to avoid spoilers. Similar to that film but in a group, not alone, because, as Irantzu Varela says, the protagonist fails because her strategy is not collective, but individual.

Perhaps it would be more intelligent –and less dangerous, and less tiring, what a job you give us– that we all simply start spreading the rumor that there are commandos of aunts pretending to be drunk to catch rapists. Just with the idea, if it is too powerful, we can make them hesitate – make you hesitate – before raping someone subjected to alcohol.

Just in case. In case she’s not drunk as she seems. In case they catch you. Be careful. do not violate





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