Dear U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill,
Dearest Senator Claire McCaskill (D – Missouri),
We were watching Full Frontal with Samantha Bee the other night – because we have an aversion to bullshit – and were treated to the never-ending/always delightful subject of rape. Seems like Men Raping Women and Men Raping Other Men has really become a popular thing as of late, kinda like vaping and Donald Trump. Seems like rape is happening all the time (say, every five minutes), and the discussions about it are only becoming more and more en vogue. Seems like a lot of men are not behaving like actual men…
Whether it’s Bill Cosby, Stanford-attending cowards named Brock, or every other episode of Game of Thrones, rape seems to be happening at a mathematical rate of…actually, we can’t figure that one out, it’s a bit too complicated (sorry, we went to Trump U). But regardless of the math, we can surmise that rape is happening way-too-Goddamned-much!!
Which brings us back to Samantha Bee’s brilliant segment, Game of Thrones, and – oddly enough – You, Senator McCaskill. Bee was adeptly explaining fellow U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand’s (D – New York) bi-partisan legislation, the Military Justice Improvement Act (MJIA) – which would move the decision of whether to prosecute serious crimes in the military including sexual assault, from the chain-of-command and give responsibility to independent military prosecutors – was just shy of the needed 60 votes. And who was one of the senators to vote against it? We’ll give you a hint, Senator McCaskill…it was YOU. You had a chance to vote to help protect more servicemen and servicewomen from sexual assaults, and you voted No! Passing Senator Gillibrand’s legislation would remove damaging bias from the court proceedings and it might even make it easier, as well as safer, for service members to come forward and report if they’ve been assaulted or not. Still, you wouldn’t take “Yes” for an answer.
How does this connect with the television show Game of Thrones, Senator? Glad you asked. Just one month earlier – less than 30 days before you helped to kill the MJIA bill – you publicly railed against GOT for a scene where the fictional character Sansa Stark was raped on her wedding night. Now even make-believe rape is an awful, brutal, and grotesque act, but it is a fake act, none-the-less. Yet you came out and made a scene about that scene by tweeting, “Ok, I’m done Game of Thrones. Gratuitous rape scene disgusting and unacceptable. It was a rocky ride that just ended.”
Yes, it was a tough scene to endure, but that’s a fantasy-based television show that also features dragons, swordplay, and Jon Snow (he’s the fantasy part). And there you were, Senator, tweeting loud and clear for the world to know that rape – the fictional kind – is “disgusting and unacceptable.” Yet, the very next month, you voted against the oh-so-very-real MJIA, and instead passed a weak-kneed compromise that keeps senior military officers in the courtroom, therefore potentially keeping military victims from being as likely to pursue legal action against their alleged attackers. Color us reactionary, but rape and compromise do NOT go well together, kinda like sex and unconscious people…
Guess fake-TV rape trumps real-world sexual violence in your mind, Senator McCaskill.
Look, we’re not thrilled by this, either. We hate that like the rest of our sometimes-terrifying world, our military has more than 18,000 reported sexual assaults every single year. And we also hate that those 18,000+ reported cases each year are likely only 1/3rd of all sexually-violent acts within our armed forces annually. But most of all, we hate Senator Claire McCaskill that “20 minutes of action” on Full Frontal with Samantha Bee has to make you uncomfortable, or feel like a giant hypocrite.
Disgusted/Exhausted,
Non-Rapists Everywhere
Could Everyone Please Stop Pissing Me Off? 