The Bahamian Marital Rape Law

There has been much debate recently in The Bahamas over an amendment to a law to make it illegal for a man to rape his wife, because, you know, pretty much every other country in the world has this law.

It has been met with much opposition from the conservative Christians who believe in the literal Bible – that when a couple marries they literally give their bodies to their partner. Ergo, a man can have sex with his wife whether she wants it or not.

Thankfully there has also been support of the amendment, mainly from educated women.

As a married man, I’ve been somewhat silent on the issue thus far, but a letter published in one of the papers today changed my mind. Below you’ll see a letter I wrote in response to the conservative viewpoint.

EDITOR, The Tribune.

Ever since the government proposed an amendment to the marital rape law I’ve watched with incredulity the range of discussion back and forth on the issue and, frankly, the ignorance portrayed by so many people who stand against the amendment is astounding. As a married Bahamian man I am embarrassed that so many of my fellow citizens can be so easily led down the path of ignorance.

For religious leaders in this country to publicly stand against a law that protects a woman from sexual abuse at the hands of her husband is unbelievable. In fact, it makes one wonder whether many of these men are running scared – they’re worried that if the law is passed they’ll no longer be allowed to exercise their misogynistic dominion over their wives.

The fact of the matter is that a wife claiming that her husband raped her is no different than a girlfriend claiming the same thing, or even a woman accusing her male friend. The man will not be convicted without sufficient evidence against him. An accusation does not mean instant imprisonment.

I’ve kept my mouth shut on the issue thus far, but recent letters published in the press have forced me to respond.

Many of these letters embody the rampant fallacies surrounding this issue. The various writers seem to believe that the passing of this law will increase promiscuity and infidelity among Bahamian men, and destroy the “sanctity” of marriage.

According to many of the letter writers, if a man comes home from work and requires sex and if his wife doesn’t give it to him, then the man will immediately go out and find somebody else to have sex with. The blame, of course, falls on the wife who was spiteful and only refused sex because the couple had an argument. Apparently a wife not being in the mood for lovemaking isn’t reason enough to refuse sex. Is that all it takes? Is it considered the wife’s fault that her husband cheats on her because she didn’t want sex at the same time he did (which, apparently, is spiteful behaviour)? If a man really feels this way then his marriage is already in trouble, and no marital rape law is going to exacerbate the problem.

The country is already battling with issues of infidelity, promiscuity and the decay of marriage. “Sweethearting” is rampant and, worst of all, socially accepted. The number of children growing up without fathers is increasing year after year, and in turn is helping to cause our crime rate to spiral out of control due to a lack of proper male role models in their lives. No amendment to a law is going to cause an increase in these problems – we’ve already been facing them for years, and our religious leadership is mostly staying quiet.

Simply put, good men who treat their wives with love and respect needn’t fear any marital rape law. And those men who do not treat their spouse respectfully should fear this law because what they are doing to the person they are supposed to love and cherish most in this world is disgusting and should not be tolerated in any modern society.

It comes down to a matter of love and respect. If men in this country truly loved and respected their wives, girlfriends and friends, there would be no need for this law. Unfortunately, we do need it, and nobody who considers him or herself to be a moral human being should oppose it.

A. Henderson
Nassau
October 14, 2009

Crazy Searches: Volume III

 

I know I shouldn’t, but I just had to share this with you.

While checking my visitor stats, numbers, search terms, etc., I came across yet another crazy random search that directed someone to my lil old blog.

In the past the front runner was “dragon semen” and I wondered what kind of person Google’s “dragon semen”. Well, we have a new winner, ladies and gentleman. 

The search term? “i have a big red circle with yellowish pus inside it on my testicle what is it?”

Yes, you read that right.

Some poor fool has an infected testicle. Unfortunately, I have no remedy for him. 

Good luck, infected testicle man!

The John Travolta trial and the stupidity of the PLP

 

 

The Bahamas has been in the news quite a bit lately. We have our usual, slickly produced commercials because, after all, it’s better in The Bahamas. A couple episodes of Scrubs were filmed here last year, highlighting Abaco in a very nice light. We’ve had the extravaganza that was the Miss Universe competition, where Heidi Montag performed in front of, in her own words, a “billion people” (never mind the fact that the actual viewer count hovered around the 30 million mark). We also have famed Hollywood playboy-director Brett Ratner (Rush Hour, After the Sunset, X-Men 3) directing upcoming commercials for the Atlantis Resort on Paradise Island and a casting call was just issued for extras in some Ugly Betty episodes to be filmed here.

All in all, we’ve had a good run of good press.

But then there’s the John Travolta extortion trial.

For those who don’t know what I’m talking about, Google it. Alright, fine, I don’t want you to leave my blog and become so engrossed in the intricacies of extortion that you never come back. Here’s a brief summary.

A few months ago, John Travolta and his family, including his 16 year old autistic son Jet, came down to The Bahamas to their home in Grand Bahama. Jet had a history of seizures, and one evening he had a seizure in the bathroom, fell down, and cracked his head.

Medics were called, and Jet was rushed to the hospital. Travolta wanted his son airlifted to Florida, not taken to the local hospital, so the medics made Travolta sign a “refusal of care” form, which essentially cleared the medics of any liability should Jet die.

Long story short, Jet was taken to the local hospital where he, sadly, passed away. Tarino Lightbourne, one of the medics, reportedly kept the “refusal of care” form because it had a celebrity signature on it, rather than pass it over to the hospital as he was meant to.

Allegedly, it quickly dawned on Lightbourne that this document could be detrimental to Travolta’s career, as it could imply he didn’t care enough about his son, so he, along with his lawyer, PLP Senator Pleasant Bridgewater (yes, that is her real name) decided to extort $25 million from Travolta.

As an aside, the ruling political party is the Free National Movement (FNM). The opposition is the Progressive Liberal Part (PLP) who, for the most part, are anything but progressive or liberal. 

Now, Travolta’s local representation is another PLP senator called Allyson Maynard Gibson. When she found out about the extortion plot she contacted the Prime Minister and the Attorney General to disclose this information, as extortion is illegal. The police became involved, tapped phones, recorded meetings and eventually arrested both Lightbourne and Bridgewater.

Maynard-Gibson recently testified at the trial, and detailed her involvement with bringing the plot to the attention of the authorities.

According to our local tabloid newspaper, The Punch (which is almost always proved right, whether it be four days or four months down the line), senior PLP party members are furious with Maynard-Gibson for “betraying” her fellow PLP member Bridgewater, and are calling for the PLP leader, Perry Christie, to expel her from the party.

Now, I usually stay silent on the inevitable squabbles that occur within political parties (especially politicians as immature as the ones we have here), but this is ridiculous. The PLP should be commending Maynard-Gibson for the courage it took to testify against a colleague and, presumably, a friend. Instead they condemn the poor woman for doing the right thing?

It is this very behaviour that makes the PLP, time and time again, live up to it’s reputation as a corrupt party. The PLP has had two decades to try to shake off the shackles of the Pindling-era, where corruption was at an all time high and we were rapidly hurting towards a Zimbabwe/Mugabe-esq country, yet they keep fucking up and destroying, piece by piece, what little credibility they have left.

The PLP’s annual convention is being held this month. For one of the first times there are numerous challenges to the party’s top positions – leader, deputy leader and chairman. If times do not change, and if the PLP’s old guard retains power, then I shudder to think what will become of this party.

Shame on you.

 

Bahamas for Sale?

I didn’t think I would have to post about this today, but apparently it’s only 3pm and I am bored out of my mind. So here we go.

It’s about the Chinese.

Now, I love the Chinese. They have awesome food (especially ‘real’ Chinese food, rather than ‘American’ Chinese food. I’m talking dim-sum, etc. Delicious). They have made almost everything I own, most of it handmade by highly skilled 6-yr old Chinese craftsmen, and they’re the most capitalist communist country in the world. They also seem to be quite peaceful; I don’t think they’ve been in any wars in recent decades (disregarding the wars they routinely hold against their own people, but that can be classified as… regular crowd control, let’s say). So, I love the Chinese. 

But they’re taking over The Bahamas, and we can’t quite figure out why.

Not overtly taking over, mind you, but very subtly. Subtly in the way that in 20 years we’ll wake up, don our military caps adorned with a red star, march into the central square and salute the late Chairman Mao. 

People will say “how did this happen?”, or, “who let such a thing happen?”, or, “when did this all start?”

The answer? It’s happening right now.

China loaned The Bahamas over $100 million to build new roads. For the new, shiny Bahamian national stadium we’re using a Chinese construction company, and China has given us the money for it. I swear, the front gate of the construction site looks like it’s been taken straight from downtown Shanghai; red Chinese characters on a large, white concrete entryway with Chinese flags flying above. The Chinese are now talking about initiating large-scale commercial farming on some of the family islands and they’re talking about investing a couple-hundred million dollars in the Baha Mar Resort on Cable Beach.

Long story short, they’re buying up The Bahamas, piece by piece, albeit all things we sorely need (new roads, stadium, more resorts, new industries, etc.)

The real question – what have we promised them in return?

A Letter to Myself

Inspired by a certain someone’s blog post, which was itself inspired by Steph in the City and her Group Blog Thursday, I decided to follow suit and write a letter to the graduation-day version of myself.

 

Dear Ash, circa 2002,

 

You just graduated high school. The ceremony was pretty crap, I know. Trust me, it doesn’t get any better with nostalgia. Just be glad it’s over.

 

Unlike many of your high school classmates you’re not headed off to university right away. Instead you, and the parents, decided that you should stay at home for a year and work. I know the future looks uncertain – you don’t have a job yet, you don’t know where you’re going to university, you don’t know how you and your girlfriend are going to handle the continued long distance. But don’t worry, everything has a way of working out.

 

You won’t find a stable job until October. You’ll spend the summer flitting about, hanging out with friends, partying. You’ll work for two weeks here, two days there, but don’t worry, you’ll settle down and everything will be ok. You’ll meet some great people, and the contacts you get at the job will still come in very handy today. 

 

You’ll apply to a handful of top universities, but you’ll only get into one. However, the one you get in to you will have applied to only days before the application deadline – DO NOT MISS IT. Your time at university will change your life. It will teach you hard work, and the shame of failure. It will teach you about the perils of excess drinking. It will focus you. You won’t graduate with top grades, as you’ve been used to thus far, but you will have a hell of a time getting there. One tip though; do not take Intro to Computer Science as an easy credit in your fourth year. It will almost destroy you, and you’ll learn nothing from it.

 

University will also allow you to meet your wife, which brings me to this next point. No, things with your high school girlfriend will not work out. You’ll instigate the breakup and then you’ll second guess yourself and ask for her back. She’ll say no and devastate you. Yes, it’s very sad. But you’ll be ok. You’ll be single for about 3 months and then you’ll start dating again. And you’ll never be single again. No, you don’t meet your wife, but you’ll embark on a journey of serial monogamy. You’ll date older girls, younger girls, Jewish girls, intellectuals and some with… questionable moral fiber. But you’ll eventually meet your wife who is, frankly, incredible. She’s too good for you, but don’t let her know that.

 

You’ll lose your religion. It’s the best thing that’ll happen to you. You will be free. You’ll have a hard time letting go, and you’ll sound ridiculously stupid and narrow minded when you say that the Bible is true and that homosexuality is wrong, but you’ll learn. You’ll learn that no, the Bible is not true, and while it may have some good advice, it is but one view of the world, which you’ll come to understand has great historical significance but very little real impact on your own life. You’ll also meet some fabulous fabulously-gay friends and you will fight for their rights as equals. 

 

Unlike many of your peers you won’t spend hours agonizing over which degree to do – you’ll do English Literature, like you always knew you would, and you’ll worry about what to do with it later. Your original intent to get into the advertising industry will happen, but you’ll have to suffer through retail stores, telemarketing, coffee shops and, finally, a stint in a public relations firm to get there. But once you arrive, you’ll love it. You’ll enjoy your job so much, in fact, that you won’t even call in sick because you’ll feel bad. 

 

After shuffling through hobby after hobby you’ll come to pick up photography, as most college students do. But you’ll stick with it and eventually people will pay you to take photos and you’ll happily spend thousands of dollars on equipment. You’ll also make a fantastic friend through your hobby who will photograph your fabulous wedding and will guide and mentor you in photography. 

 

Get the tattoo you know you want. You won’t regret it. And your parents won’t be too upset.

 

Cherish your car, it’s the greatest one you’ll ever own. Try not to destroy it.

 

Grow up, but don’t worry, you’ll never grow up too much. You’ll simply become a little more thoughtful, and a little less foolish.

 

Curb your temper before it’s too late. 

 

Love your friends without hesitation. They’re the greatest people in your life.

 

And don’t worry, every problem, every concern, every struggle will all work out in the end. 

 

You’re a lucky young man, don’t take it for granted. 

I’m Not Dead

I’m not dead. Well, not yet anyway. I take each day as it comes, but I’ve been consistently alive every day so far now.

I should have a running counter, like at fuel depots – 9,060 Days Without An Accident – Safety First. 

I will post here again, I promise. And I will be honest (i.e., my anonymity is no more). I have lots of news, and it was news I couldn’t say if I disguised who I was. So that’ll change.

But not right now. I’m dreadfully busy at work writing some god-awful radio ads.

Michael Jackson loves cooked pork

Edit: I tried to get this story finished by the last TMI Thursday, but I wanted to post it now rather than waiting because it has been far, far too long. My fans, all 3 of you, must be so very disappointed. I also used MJ’s name in the title to get traffic. I’m a whore, what can I say?

This epic tale is going to gross many of you out, and for that I apologize. But, much like my missing testicle story, this tale tackles a profoundly serious medical condition that, if left untreated or unexplored, could lead to devastating medical problems. Maybe. I’m no doctor, but all I can tell you is this hurt like a bitch and it would have hurt more had I not sorted the shit out.

Flash back a little bit.

I’m around 15 years old, and my big toes began to hurt.

At first it wasn’t a huge deal; there was a little bit of pain now and again from my feet, and when I stubbed my toe I endured such agony that I seriously considered biting my toes off.

As time went on, the pain grew. When I tried to put my socks on, it hurt. The time came for me to get new shoes. Rather than get my toes checked out by the doctor first, I decided to get the shoes first and see the doctor later.

Because putting shoes on hurt my toes, I ended up buying a pair of luminous metallic purple/green Nike basketball shoes, four sizes too big, which, in the words of my friends, looked like killer whales on my feet.

They were right.

Now, I haven’t told you what my toes looked like when the socks and killer whale shoes were removed. The toes were red, and swollen. The nails were yellow. And the nail beds… oh! The nail beds. Gross. Orange/yellow congealed pus flecked with dried blood. And it smelled.

It was disgusting.

The time came when I could no longer endure the pain (or the sight or the smell) and went to the doctor.

The doc checked me out and, thanks to his eight years of schooling and countless hours of real work, determined that I had ingrown toenails. On both of my feet.

Now, I know I’m not a trained medical professional, but I would assume that the best way to get rid of ingrown toenails would be to chop them out. With a scalpel. Apparently the doctor had other ideas.

He decided to burn them out of my foot.

You heard right. Burn. Foot. Out of.

Looking back, I’m not surprised that I had reservations about this… treatment method. But at the time I assumed that doctors knew everything. After all, countless years of medical school must count for something, right?

They decided to use local anesthetic on me, which sounded fantastic until I realized it meant they would have to inject the anesthesia into the delicate inflamed decaying flesh around my toenails with gigantic fucking needles. Five times. Per toe.

Once I’d stopped convulsing from the pain, the procedure started. Some kind of miniature blowtorch was used to literally burn the nail out of my foot, as well as burn off the surrounding infected flesh.

It didn’t hurt. Not one bit. I felt a little bit of warmth around my toes from the flamethrower burning my flesh, but no pain.

I sat back as the procedure took place, and pretty soon I began daydreaming about pork. And the more I thought about it, the more I yearned for a pulled pork sandwich, or a pork chop, or even bacon. I even imagined I could smell pork being cooked.

I opened my eyes, sat up, and realized I could smell pork.

It was coming from my toes.

The smell of my own cooked flesh was literally making my mouth water. As disgusting as it was, I couldn’t stop. I was starving. If I wasn’t so inflexible I may very well have bent down and taken a bit of a nibble. I’m sure it was cooked well enough.

Sadly I couldn’t end the story at that point. Ultimately, the burning method didn’t work, so I went back and had them cut out, and have experienced no problems since.

But I still love the smell of cooked pork.

How My Life Mimics Jurassic Park

Do you remember that scene in the first Jurassic Park, where Dr. Grant and the two kids had to climb over a dead electric fence to reach the other section of the park? While the little boy was on the fence it turned on, sparking in anger and blowing the kid about 30 feet off of the fence, where he nearly died. Of course he didn’t die, because it was a family movie, but that’s beside the point.
A little known fact is that scene was modeled after one of my real life experiences, with a couple of small changes. Instead of being on an island of dinosaurs off the coast of Costa Rica I was on a cow farm in southern France. Instead of being chased by the aforementioned dinosaurs I was meandering through fields, dodging the cow shit on the ground. And, finally, instead of having to climb over a huge, 40-foot high electric fence, the fence I had my encounter with was about 4-
feet high. With a much, much lower current.
But, basically the same.
So here’s what happened.
I was around 7 years old. I was in France with my family on vacation, visiting some friends of my mother. This was farmland. Fields stretched as far as the eye could see. Bales of hay filled some of the fields, cows grazed idyllically in others. Farms bracketed the property on three sides. For one farm we had to help herd cows, blocking a side road with our bodies so the bovines would rush down a single lane. Imagine it, a 7-year-old boy, eyes wide in fear as literally hundreds of the biggest and well-fed cows on the planet rumble past him. It was absolutely terrifying, yet utterly thrilling at the same time.
I was able to ride on a tractor while the farmer collected the bales of hay. What little boy doesn’t want to ride on a tractor in real life? I got to do it.
One afternoon the elderly farmer who lived on the other side of the property called me over to his barn. I went inside and came face to face with a wall of rabbit cages. There were beautiful white rabbits, lovely brown rabbits, a selection of speckled and spotted rabbits. All of them plump, soft and cute as cute could be.
“Which one you… want… to eat?” the farmer asked me, in his broken English. I pointed near the top of the cages, to a caramel coloured fuzzy creature. He opened the cage, and gave me the rabbit to hold. It looked up at me with big, trusting brown eyes while I ran my little fingers through its soft, luxurious pelt. The farmer looked at me, and I nodded.
That night the cage was empty, and there was a plate of succulent, fresh meat waiting for me.

This was how I spent my summer in France; however, the story’s not over.

One day I was walking through the surrounding fields gazing at the blue sky (something I hadn’t been used to, coming from the UK) and the cows. Unbeknownst to me, electric fences are commonly used to keep cows in their respective fields. The electric current these fences emit are but a surprise for the thousand pound cows they hit. For a 7-
year old boy, the shock is more substantial.

It didn’t help that both that the fence poles are spaced pretty far apart and the electric wires are razor thin.

I was walking around, oblivious when I walked into one of these wires chest first.

It felt like I was literally kicked in the chest by a stallion.

I was thrown back at least 30 feet (though it may have really been more like one foot) with smoke coming off my chest and my shirt in tatters (ok, I lied again, but it would have been super cool had smoke actually come off of my chest).

I suffered no permanent physical damage, though it may explain some aspects of my behaviour (like my propensity to sleepwalk, though that’s another story).

I must warn you, heed my story. If you’re ever wandering in French fields keep your eyes peeled. Or the fence just may get you too.

A Horror Story

I woke up one morning and realized I had lost a testicle.

This was new. I didn’t have cancer. I was a perfectly healthy 19-year-old boy-man-child, albeit a hung over one. Maybe that was the problem; maybe I had done something so foolish the night before that I had lost a testicle. Maybe I cut it out and offered it to a girl as a gesture of love. A fucked up way of saying “I want you to have my babies”. Maybe, just maybe, there’s a black market trade for testicles, just like kidneys. You know how people go to Turkey and wake up in a bathtub of ice with no kidneys and a note saying “sorry”? Maybe that was me, but with my ball.

Here’s how it went down.

I woke up. I reached down and scratched/made sure my… bits were still there, as most guys do first thing. It’s the most important thing in the world to many men, so we have to check on it, in case it fell off during the night. Turns out, mine just may have.

I reached down. My main actor was still on stage, no problem. One supporting actor, good. The other one… wait a minute. Where was it? I poked around… nothing. I double-checked – main actor, check. First supporting actor, check. But no number two.

I sat up, shocked.

“What the fuck?” I murmured aloud.

I jumped out of bed and ran out of my dorm room towards the communal bathrooms, still in just my boxers. I didn’t care if anyone saw, if I truly had lost a testicle I was disfigured anyway. May as well get used to a life of furtive stares and muffled giggles whenever I was around. Thankfully this was before I started sleeping naked – my nudity wouldn’t have stopped me running out, had I indeed lost my testicle.

Thankfully nobody was in the halls. It was, after all, 10am on a Wednesday. Everybody else was in class, precisely where I should have been.

I ran into the bathroom. I needed the industrial glow of halogen lights to find my lost soldier. Flipping them on, my bleary eyes squinted at the sudden onslaught of white light. The only thing more painful would have been daylight.

I reached inside my boxers and fumbled around, again. Main actor, ok. First supporting actor, ok. Holding my breath I moved my hand over slightly. Second supporting actor… was there. Hanging out, so to speak, with nary a care. I was whole again, I had been re-masculated (I know that’s not a real word, but shoot me. Crunk isn’t a real word either, yet it’ll be in the dictionary before too long).

I’m not sure how it happened. Maybe I wasn’t thinking properly when I woke up and somehow missed my second testicle, twice. Maybe it burrowed inside me for warmth and popped out while I frantically ran to the bathroom. I don’t know. But let this be a warning to all men out there. You could be next.

The Life and Death of Bill & Ted

I was reading a post today by the wonderful and talented Cherie Priest. Her fish, the aptly named Howard The Fish, died recently, causing her much sadness.

It reminded me of the deaths of my own fish. It began like this…

For a while, all was good. The sun would shine through my window in the morning, easing me awake with its gentle, warm caress. The rays of life-giving light would illuminate the goldfish bowl on my shelf, where my fish, Bill S. Preston, Esq. and Ted “Theodore” Logan, known affectionately as Bill & Ted, lived. The fish would swim laps around their little bowl. I’m not sure whether they were training for the Round-Bowl Freestyle in the 2008 Fish Olympics, held in the warm waters of the Caribbean every four years, or whether the old adage about a goldfish having but 2-human seconds worth of memory was true. I’m beginning to think it was the latter. Like the movie characters after which these fish were named they didn’t seem to be the brightest tools in the drawer.

But they made me happy, and really, for a 19 year old guy stuck in a dorm room the size of a closet and trapped in a dead-end long-distance relationship, what more could one ask for?

I would sit and watch them swim for hours, their little mouths opening and closing as if they were trying to express their gratitude to me, their benevolent god, with voices too tiny to hear (not all benevolent gods are omnipotent). As boring as watching fish swim may be, it was worlds better than writing a political science paper, or talking to my very strange roommate (more on him later).

But one day, tragedy struck.

I woke up, but something had changed. There was little sunlight. The air felt chilly. Something was wrong.

Bill was dead.

Maybe Ted was dead. It was hard to tell the difference.

I wish I had reacted appropriately. I should have cried. Maybe I should have even fell to my knees, screaming at the sky, “Noooo!”. I could even have added a, “Whyyyyy?”.

Instead, I went “eww” and found a cup to scoop Bill or Ted out of the bowl. I had a small funeral for him in the nearby communal toilets where I spoke of his love for Ted or Bill, and his devotion to his shared home. In fact, I like to think of myself as helping to ushering in gay marriage, at least in the goldfish community.

I went back to my room and comforted Ted or Bill. I took solace in the fact that I had one fish remaining. The rest of the day was dark. I rocked back and forth in the corner, holding back my sobs of anguish.

The next morning I woke again, knowing there was something else wrong. The sky was near black, and there was not a sound. It was as if the entire animal community was mourning. For I found another dead fish floating in the bowl.

So distraught by the death of his partner, Bill or Ted had followed Ted or Bill to the great fishy beyond, a warm turquoise blue ocean where they could swim together forever, without fear or hesitation.

You’ll be shocked to learn that people have blamed me for the deaths of Bill and Ted. “You shouldn’t have dumped both fish into cold tap water right away” they said. “You didn’t even change the water after one fish died? No wonder the other kicked the bucket!”

To these charlatans of concern I say, “Do not blame me. For it was their time. The great fishy god of the sea (a licensed subsidiary of the Flying Spaghetti Monster) called His children home. They lived together, they died together, and are as united in death and they were in life.”

Peace be with you, Bill. S. Preston, Esq., September 2008 – September 2008.

Peace be with you too, Ted “Theodore” Logan, September 2008 – September 2008.

May you rest eternal.