Just after midnight, on New Year’s Day, Paul Morris decided to take a walk along a promenade in Blackpool, UK. How lovely. Moonlight, stars in the sky, the sea black and sparkling. Oh, and GALE FORCE WINDS were blowing. What can possibly go wrong?
A lot. Mr. Morris is dead. He was swept out to sea and drowned. A search and rescue team (led by Prince William – swoon!) has been unable to locate his body, but if and when he washes up, it will be interesting to run a toxicology scan and investigate his blood alcohol level, no? Who thinks Mr. Morris was probably smashed when he decided walking alongside the sea in gale force winds in the dead of night was a good idea?
Who thinks Mr. Morris was an idiot, who did not DESERVE to die, but who probably ought to have seen that coming, and should have exercised the good sense to either A) not drink so much, or B) stay away from the sea if he WAS going to drink that much? Anybody?
Well shame on you! You are VICTIM-BLAMING and that is just unacceptable. Mr. Morris has every right to walk wherever and whenever the hell he wants, in any state of inebriation that strikes him as appropriate, and he has the right to be near the sea, even go in the sea and then get back out again as he pleases without getting drowned! Even if he was UP TO HIS KNEES in the sea, he is not asking or consenting to be drowned and the fact that gale force winds were blowing (and possibly suggesting that the sea might not play along) is immaterial.
The problem is that we live in a culture that pretends the sea is some sort of force of nature that ought to be respected and treated with appropriate caution. Gale force winds, for example, are a strong indication that the sea is very likely to be dangerous, but if you look closely, you can see that this is merely a cultural interpretation of what is, in fact, a social phenomenon. Gale force winds are an invention of meteorology, arbitrarily defined as winds that blow between 37 and 47 knots and since I personally do not know what a knot is, I’m calling bullshit.
The material fact is this: Mr. Morris is dead. He went for a walk by the sea and now he is dead. Yes, it was midnight, yes he was probably drunk, yes there were gale force winds blowing, but none of these things mean Mr. Morris intended to be drowned. He did not consent, and therefore he is completely blameless. Mr. Morris could be any of us! Why anyone could be drowned by the sea at any time for any reason and this is an injustice we can no longer put up with. What the Coast Guard refers to as “reasonable precautions” are in fact blatant attempts to restrict our most basic freedoms as land dwelling mammals. The fact that we do not have gills should not influence our interactions with the sea. It is high time we stopped accepting the myth that water, while necessary to our very life, can be dangerous and deadly. “Lethal” is just another word for “oppressed”, and the time for justice has come.
How many Mr. Morris’ are we going to sacrifice? How many more people will have to drown before we put an end to this madness? Getting in the water does NOT mean you want to drown! No means no! Fuck life jackets! My body, my choice, and I chose NOT TO DROWN.
So there.
Join me tonight, as hurricane force winds descend on the breakers. We will join hands in protest against the sea, who thinks it can just smash around wherever it likes, drowning innocent victims all over the place. Down with the sea! Kick the waves! Fight back!
Oh, and ladies, if you’re planning on attending, try and be reasonably sober, wear sensible shoes (you might have to run) and cover up your assets a bit. You’re not “asking for it”, but let’s face it: alcohol-fuelled young men in their sexual primes can be a real force of nature. Best to take some reasonable precautions.
Lots of love,
JB
judgybitch 
Love it.
Accurate and to the point.
Too bad that the straw man “You cannot compare men to the sea” is far to easily at hand.
Trust a feminist to miss the point without even trying.
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Actually, I think you CAN compare sexual impulse and the sea. They are both forces of nature that need to be respected.
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The knot (pronounced not) is a unit of speed equal to one nautical mile (1.852 km ) per hour, approximately 1.151 mph
don’t you just feel better for knowing?
you can thank me later…
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I do!
So gale force winds would gust somewhere between 68.5 and 87 kph?
😉
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Aww, but don’t you see? Unlike the sea, we can actually TRAIN men to reject their own masculine impulses, mentally castrating them until the very thought of looking at a woman (even a scantily clad one) as anything even remotely resembling a sex object fills them with nausea and dread! I propose we send an army of toddlers armed with whiffle bats to roam the streets looking for men with roving eyes. Should any man even deign to glance askew at a woman with anything less than complete respect for her person, we’ll train the toddlers to aim the whiffle bats right at their scrotums! That will teach those men with their vile penissesses and their evil veins flowing with testosterone (or as I like to call it, RAPE JUICE!!!!)
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Yes, of course.
Any intelligent person will be able to see and appreciate the aptness of the analogy.
Take the “intelligent” out of that sentence and you have a feminist that won’t.
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Too true. I don’t think that most young testosterone mongrels can be compared to the sea in that way because the average man is no rapist. However, those men who ARE, are a risk that one should be careful to avoid by doing something like, oh I dunno, not hanging around with disreputable scumbags whom you do not trust. Or if you do go out at night, at least go with some friends or where people can see you, or with a man you trust. I have every right to not be mugged when walking down a back alley with a gang of teenagers with samurai swords. Does it mean I should? OF COURSE IT FUCKING DOESN’T!!! Also, notice how few black women are in slutwalks? Because that puts a whole new spin on the white middle class lass (Google images slutwalk) holding the sign with the Lennon “woman is the n*gger of the world” all of a sudden. and at the end of the day, is a rapist going to give a fuck about such rules and laws?
Slutwalk. What a pointless waste of time.
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Oh, and Timothy Treadwell is another example.
“Just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you should.”
(Graham Norton after witnessing Bulgaria’s “entry” into Eurovision 2013)
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