Sexual Violence

What hath "The Silence of the Lambs" wrought?It was inevitable, when that film swept the 1991 Academy Awards, that a bevy of imitators would begin to clog the production pipeline, the drain screen of which let "Seven" escape onto screens in 1995.As if that particular abomination weren't enough, another has slipped through Hollywood's dubious quality-control system. "Kiss the Girls," an adaptation of the James Patterson novel directed by Gary Fleder, takes sadistic crypto-sexism to new depths (which happen to be attractively appointed with Gothically dripping candles and Craftsman sconces)

Local men will don their finest and highest-heeled shoes Saturday, April 14 and walk down Main Street in a symbolic gesture of support and solidarity as part of SARC's 4th annual Walk A Mile In Her Shoes. Registration for the walk begins at 9:30 a.m. at the Bel Air Armory at 41 N. Main St., Bel Air. This year's honorary chair is Harford County Council President Billy Boniface. To register to walk and to build your own team, visit SARC's website, http://www.sarc-maryland.org . The walker registration fee is $25 per walker (non-tax-deductible)

The audience peers in at the world of "Ruined" as if through the chinks of a boarded-up window. Our eyes adjust gradually to the light inside Mama Nadi's brothel in the Belgian Congo. We notice that though the paint is chipped and worn, the furniture still contains traces of once-vibrant reds and peacock blues. (Alexander V. Nichols designed the evocative set.) We notice that a prostitute so brutalized by soldiers that she walks with a limp still dresses in breezy chintzes that drape sinuously over her lovely limbs.

The audience peers in at the world of "Ruined" as if through the chinks of a boarded-up window. Our eyes adjust gradually to the light inside Mama Nadi's brothel in the Belgian Congo. We notice that though the paint is chipped and worn, the furniture still contains traces of once-vibrant reds and peacock blues. (Alexander V. Nichols designed the evocative set.) We notice that a prostitute so brutalized by soldiers that she walks with a limp still dresses in breezy chintzes that drape sinuously over her lovely limbs.

The seven female students at the Maryland Institute College of Art could have predicted the reactions when they sought donations for their production of The Vagina Monologues. "What did you just say?" The Vagina Monologues is the 6-year-old Broadway play by Eve Ensler that celebrates female sexuality. It is being rolled out in Baltimore this month and at hundreds of colleges across the country as a fund-raiser to stop sexual violence against women. The title is untoward enough that some banks, restaurants and hotels, while generous, want to record their donation as simply "a benefit at MICA."

Hearing Thursday on county budget A public hearing will be held Thursday to give residents a chance to make comments and funding recommendations for next year's county budget. The session will begin at 7 p.m. in the auditorium of Fallston High School, 2301 Carrs Mill Road and will be attended by County Executive David R. Craig and top members of his administration. Those unable to attend are encouraged to send suggestions in writing to Craig, Harford County Government, 220 S. Main St., Bel Air 21014.

A lady friend, who went to Seton High School in the 1960s, remembers a fine arts course where one of the nuns announced on a spring afternoon, "Today we'll be looking at paintings from the Renaissance period. There will be a few paintings where women are not fully clothed. Those of you who feel uncomfortable with this will be allowed to leave the room."We think tenderly of such overprotectiveness now and wish to make our own innocence retroactive. At Notre Dame Prep, we discover a little belatedly, they've been showing their young ladies a porno movie that disguises itself as a documentary.

Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend has announced $1.2 million in grants from the federal Violence Against Women Act that will fund 43 programs for victims of sexual assault and domestic violence in Maryland.The grants were announced Tuesday at the Maryland Transportation Authority Police Academy in Dundalk, where Townsend introduced a statewide sexual assault training curriculum to more than 100 law enforcement officers and victims' advocates.Those at the seminar learned the new standards for proper police response to incidents of sexual violence.

THE TEMPTATION is strong to say that Mike Tyson deserves to suffer during every minute of the prison term that surely awaits him. After all, this is a man who boasted of hurting women, and who worked his way up to a rape conviction with a string of assaults and a pattern of lewd, vicious behavior. If character is fate, mercy has no role here.That temptation is enhanced by the belief that justice demands zero tolerance for rapists. Too many women suffer this peculiar brand of sexual violence, afraid even to report the crime out of fear of being victimized again by a court system that makes them prove their innocence.

MOSUL, IRAQ -- A second Iraqi woman emerged yesterday leveling charges of rape against Iraqi security forces, further breaking an entrenched taboo here about disclosing sexual violence and further undermining public perceptions about the security forces. The Sunni woman alleged that Shiite soldiers raided her house in the northern city of Tall Afar, interrogated her and raped her repeatedly while videotaping their actions. She said the soldiers also threatened to assault her two teenage daughters before one of them intervened.

The Sun investigation into police "unfounding" of rape cases in the city has brought an important issue to the forefront. As a pediatrician, I became aware of this practice two years ago when I received a call from the mother of a 14-year-old patient who wanted to bring her daughter to see me for a pregnancy test. Two weeks earlier, her daughter had been taken to an emergency department after she reported being forced to have intercourse by another teenager. When the police arrived after being called by physicians, the patient was questioned and told that her case was not rape because she did not fight back enough.

Violence against women is a global epidemic, threatening the lives and safety of women and girls around the world. Today, one out of every three women worldwide will be physically or sexually abused during her lifetime, with rates reaching 70 percent in some countries. These are horrifying statistics. As chairman of the U.S. Helsinki Commission and a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, I recently joined efforts to tackle this egregious problem by co-sponsoring the International Violence Against Women Act. Violence against women ranges from gang rape to domestic violence and from acid burnings to so-called honor killings.

Prayers to honor victims of terrorist attacks Harford County residents will remember the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, during a "Cry Out America" prayer gathering from noon to 1 p.m. Thursday in front of the Harford County Courthouse on Main Street, Bel Air. Multiple denominations will participate in praying for America and remembering the victims of the attacks on New York and Washington, as well as those lost in Pennsylvania. Participants will pray for communities, lost family and friends and for the spiritual condition of the nation.

After years of highly publicized incidents of midshipmen sexually abusing classmates, the Naval Academy appears to have turned a corner with a prevention and education program that has been held up as a model for other universities to emulate. Studies, including one released Friday by the Defense Department, show that misconduct incidents have dropped at the academy and an insidious macho culture is giving way to more tolerance and self-policing. But now the academy is reeling from a string of incidents that surfaced during the past year involving sexual misconduct by people in positions of authority - incidents that some fear could reverse the progress and leave midshipmen less willing to report abuse.

The full scope of the violence against women in the Democratic Republic of Congo is hard to fathom. Gang-rapes by militias and government soldiers have been detailed in news reports. A United Nations official reported this year that 27,000 cases of sexual violence were reported in 2005 and 2006 in a single province, South Kivu. Yet what has been missing in the recent media coverage is any sense of how to end - or even address - the horrific violence that has racked the DRC and other countries in the Great Lakes region of central Africa.

In the 1980s, conservatives and feminists joined to fight a common nemesis: the spread of pornography. Unlike past campaigns to stamp out smut, this one was based not just on morality but on public safety. They argued that hard-core erotica was intolerable because it promoted sexual violence against women. "Pornography is the theory - rape is the practice," wrote feminist author Robin Morgan. In 1986, a federal commission concurred. Some kinds of pornography, it concluded, are bound to lead to "increased sexual violence."

Anti-abuse center to offer training Sexual Assault/Spouse Resource Center Inc., Harford County's service provider for victims of domestic and sexual violence, will offer a 30-hour volunteer training session beginning Jan. 17. The nonprofit agency provides the sessions for new volunteers and staff, offering training in the dynamics of domestic and sexual violence and techniques for crisis response. The training program is conducted over six days: Jan. 17, Jan. 19, Jan. 21, Jan. 24, Jan. 26 and Jan. 28. Tuesday and Thursday sessions are from 5:30 to 9:30 p.m., and Saturday sessions are from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. The center's volunteer needs include help with the agency's telephone support program.

In the past eight years, Barbara Dyson has logged more than 5,000 volunteer hours with the Rape Crisis Intervention Service of Carroll County.As a volunteer, she has been paged during Mass and in the middle of dinner.She has accompanied victims of sexual violence to the hospital, police station and court. Through it all, she has been a mainstay of support, empathy, patience and caring to those in need at a traumatic time in their lives.Last month, Dyson was selected from 13 nominees as Carroll County's Most Beautiful People award winner.

Maryland's highest court heard arguments yesterday in a case closely watched by national and state women's groups regarding whether consensual sex can become rape if a woman says no in the middle of the act. Representing the state, Assistant Attorney General Sarah Page Pritzlaff urged the Court of Appeals to reverse a lower court's decision issued last year. She argued that when force is applied, the act qualifies as rape even if there was initial consent. "It's rape when the woman says, `I've changed my mind,' and the man continues to use force or threat of force," she told the judges.