Several years ago I bought my mom a bag of angels coins. I thought they’d make a nice trinket since she collects angels. Little did I know how a momentary whim would change my life. Shortly after she got the coins she started giving them away. You can imagine my reaction to learning she was giving away the presents I’d given her. That is, until I learned why.

You see, my mom is one of those rare souls who’s genuinely innocent. She really believes that deep down everyone is good. And she believes that it’s her responsibility to make everyone’s day better in whatever way you can. So when she got the coins she didn’t keep them for herself. No, she decided that other people, complete strangers, needed them more than she did. So whenever she came across a person who seemed to be having a bad day she gave them a coin, a gentle word and often, a hug. When I asked her why her answer was simple: Everybody needs an angel.

I really took that to heart and thought about how blessed I was and how many ‘angels’ I had and how they’d supported me in my darkest hour. I started doing little things to make life a little easier and a little brighter for people less fortunate than myself. One of the things I started doing was the Blogathon, a charity event not dissimilar to a marathon in which Bloggers around the world stay awake for 24 hours to raise money for the charity of their choice. The idea is that Bloggers gather sponsors who pledge to donate money if the Bloggers stay awake the whole time and entertain them. It’s a fun, exciting, stressful, crazy and ultimately rewarding adventure I’ve had the pleasure of participating in for several years.

This year I’m blogging for RAINN, the Rape Abuse and Incest National Network. It’s a program near and dear to my heart, not only because I’m a survivor of sexual abuse but because so many of the women in my life are also survivors. In past years we’ve done everything from prize giveaways to tarot card readings to chopping off most of my hair. This year will be no less entertaining. We’re planning some really fun activities including videos by myself and my adorable niece Katie. We’re also giving away four twenty-five dollar gift certificates to Amazon.com to folks who pledge at least ten dollars. Best of all, I’ll be donating a dollar to RAINN for each person in the Live Video community who posts a video about a time in their life when an ‘angel’ made a difference in their life.

The Blogathon is always a blast but this year it has special meaning for me, not only because of my recent issues dealing with my own abuse but also because my niece is with me this summer and I want her to see that one person really can make a difference in the lives of others. Please help me to fulfill my goal and raise money for a wonderful organization by joining me here on the morning of July 28th until the morning of the following day for inspiration, entertainment, education, prizes and much more.

Thank you so much for your generous support. Even if all you can donate is one dollar that dollar will make a world of difference for victims of the most damaging sort of violence. Even if you can’t donate you can stop in to offer encouragement and help us stay awake. Whatever you can do to help is appreciated more than you could possibly know and would make you my personal angel.

For more information please visit Share Your Angels.com.

Because I don’t, but it sure seems like a lot of people do these days. Lately I’ve noticed one show after another making jokes about rape, incest, molestation etc and it’s really started to bother me. Every time I turn the TV on I get anxious now because every time I hear one of these jokes it’s like a punch to the gut. I’ve tried and tried and for the life of me I can’t understand how anyone can find sexual abuse funny under any circumstances.

And now it’s gone beyond TV. I have an account over at YouTube where I’ve been posting a series of video blogs called The Blessed Blogger Gets A Life. As a kid and teenager I was physically, verbally and sexually abused by several different people and as a result (as well as a poor home life, stress, lack of medical care etc) I have a lot of health problems. So for the last ten years I’ve been practically a hermit, rarely leaving home or interacting with people other than my husband. I isolated myself and cut myself off from people to protect myself and only now am I getting to a point where I feel like I can start to have a life again. So I started this video blog series as a sort of art therapy to help me get used to interacting with people again before going out into the big bad world.

Three weeks ago I came across a video on YouTube called Rapers Inc. It was a parody of Haters Inc., a video by Mr. Safety, a popular guy on YouTube. One of Mr. Safety’s friends decided to make this parody about raping Mr. Safety. Mr. Safety was fine with that and they both thought it was pretty funny but I thought it was distasteful and crude. To make fun of something as serious as rape knowing that sexual abuse victims would see the video was just plain cruel. It’s hard enough to be taken seriously as a sexual abuse survivor. You feel guilty, ashamed, afraid and like maybe it’s your fault. Maybe you tell and maybe you don’t, because you’re scared to death no one will believe you, or worse, they’ll blame you. And then when you find the courage to tell half the time they don’t believe you or they pretend you’re exaggerating or simply never talk to you about it at all. So when people make jokes about sexual abuse they desensitize people to the true horror of the experience and people stop taking it seriously. I saw this video and thought ‘Somebody will see this video and as a result won’t report the sexual abuse their suffering.’ It made me so angry and so sad.

I left a comment and the producer of the video replied and we sent a couple more messages back and forth but there was nothing abusive or vulgar in the comments and after a couple days we both dropped it. I realized nothing I said was going to get through to him and he wasn’t going to understand how traumatic it was for people like me to see his horrible video so why bother trying to get through to him? Two weeks went by and neither of us said a word to each other, as far as I knew it was water under the bridge and we’d simply agree to disagree. This is America after all and we’re both entitled to express our opinions under the free speech laws. But after more than two weeks I get a private message from him saying he’s made a new video and guess who’s in it, me, ha ha. He literally laughed at me, like he was 13 instead of a grown man with a wife and child. He also left a similar taunting message on my profile page. So I watched the video. And the short of it is this, it’s another video about rape and how funny the whole thing is. Which is fine, like I said, America, freedom of speech etc. But in the video he plays a clip from one of my videos and then points to my picture and calls me a whore.

At which point I burst into tears. First, because he was obviously enjoying taunting someone he KNOWS I’ve suffered sexual abuse. Second, because he stole my copyrighted work and used it without my permission. And third, because he called me a whore, which I’m very sensitive about. My whole life men have been abusing me, boys groping at me, old men leering at me, because I have a very large chest. Everyone at school just assumed that because I looked sexually mature I must be easy and they treated me like a piece of meat. I was so afraid of being abused again I started wearing huge clothes, rarely dated, put on a lot of weight so people wouldn’t notice me etc. I eventually married my high school sweetheart and was a virgin when we married. So calling me a whore was like validating everything those boys and men had said about me my whole life.

So I sent him a message trying to explain why the video hurt me so much and asking him to remove it since he’d not only stolen from me but slandered me, both are illegal. And he refused, said some more insensitive things, got his friends involved and now they (including his wife for crying out loud) are leaving me hateful comments and private messages. I finally sent a DMCA to YouTube requesting they remove the video for a number of reasons (hate speech, copyright theft, slander, etc). It’s been a week and they haven’t removed it yet.

So I’m asking you, do you think this is funny? Do you think grown men should be joking about raping people? And do you think it’s an appropriate reaction to a negative comment to make another video bullying a sexual abuse victim? I feel so stomped on right now, I feel helpless and like no one is going to stand up for me or stand up and say this is wrong! I’ve been depressed all week, just lying in bed crying and feeling victimized all over again. And I don’t know what to do. I mean, if YT won’t do something about it I guess I’ll have to sue him. But the issue here isn’t that he broke the law, the issue is that this guy is making this whole thing into a joke even though he KNOWS how it makes me and a lot of other people feel. Even though he’s aware that 1 in 4 women in the US will be the victim of a sexual assault. How cruel can a person be?

If this upsets you as much as it upsets me and you want to send this guy a message that rape is NOT a joke please go to the video and flag it as inappropriate. Please, don’t leave a comment on his videos; it will only give him more exposure which is what he wants. And please don’t contact him, I don’t want him to be harassed, I just want the video removed.

Original Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOxNsXa4xwg

Second Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2AoMVpmhOc

My Account
YouTube - http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=TheBlessedBlogger
LiveVideo - http://www.livevideo.com/TheBlessedBlogger