hanna, just curious, but were the protestors carrying placards on the Metro recently? In ‘04 I went to the Million Workers March and I remember seeing the police blocking off the street and wondering what the hell was going on, apparently they were diverting buses coming to the march to some location pretty far away and not letting anybody off. Also, we were threatened with arrest for being on the Mall with protest signs too close to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, even though there was a family running around inside the Memorial with “Bush is My Hero” signs, and when we went to the VVM Information kiosk to ask why the march organizers weren’t legally permitted to sell t-shirts on the Mall when there were permanent kiosks sent up selling stuff and displaying political material, the park rangers wouldn’t answer and flagged down a cop (with gun). Then later we were refused entrance to the Old Post Office Food Court because we still had signs we’d taken off the sticks and rolled up. I really doubt we would have been allowed on the Metro with any type of sign.

or, more explicitly:
does a girl intend to communicate something when she French kisses a boy? Or is it just some meaningless post-adolescent rite of passage.

Of course she intends to communicate something. What she’s communicating is “I want to French kiss.”

And your points on rape and sexual assault are right on. Amie Newman links to your post on the Martin aricle:

http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/node/2132

And: good GRIEF is she thick if she really, truly thinks her daughter “almost got raped” *just* because she was french kissing some boy. Like he had no culpability at all? Were she my daughter, that *boy* would have his ears laid back, and so would his parents. At volume. Preferably on their front lawn. Yeeeesh!