Hung Out To Dry

Spring is sprung and perverse minds turn to sexual assault. Formerly housebound loads, satisfied with pornography, find that it doesn't wash now that love, albeit erotic, is in the air. Like children intrigued by undergarments hung out to dry, the sight of a little flesh, let alone the full figure, is a coming of age story of sorts.

Scratch that - it's a coming of rage story, although it would be a dark comedy if sexual license was only promiscuity. Instead, there's nothing natural or normal about these characters.

Yes, it's time to come clean about this dirty laundry that soils relationships and stains self-confidence.

A nationwide event known as "The Clothesline Project" could bring everything from date rape to workplace harassment to light. The five different colored t-shirts displayed on the project's clothesline are equally dark and equally represented. The reality of dominant violence is silk-screened, but not glossed over, as an insidious crime.

The abuse of power and/or position is pinned on the covering now hung out to dry. Safety is found in the number of survivors of sexual assault and in the resolve to string their efforts together. The courage to speak out of purpose, as much as of pain, is the deter-agent of this solidarity movement.

"No" means no more exploitation, no more objectification and no more victimization. Here's a project that's meant to burn like pepper spray, stun like a gun, and disable a culture of permissive misogyny.

It was not uncommon in a neighborhood of row homes to ride your bike in the back driveway, rather than out front where there was more traffic and chance to get hit by a car. Though we live in a world of human trafficking and predatory activity on the Internet, it's largely done in back alleyways or hidden from the authorities.

It's time that perps learn the danger of trying to fly below the radar. Groups like Clothesline hit you in the face or, worse, grab you by the throat when you're riding high and mighty, not to mention fast and loose. Simple housekeeping rules of decency that are honored and enforced can trip up, or at least slow down, the free movement of sexual exploitation and abuse.

Just like, I would imagine, in the old back driveway the clothesline was there to remind careless and senseless children that there are worse things than getting hit by a car. You could take a big hit to your pride and reputation if you wanted to act stupid or crazy on a hot Spring day.