pretending that your "not believing Tara Reade" is somehow against carceral feminism is some pretzel logic I can't even deal with. you're defending Joe Biden, the fucking architect of carceral liberalism, you know that?

people do not have to be perfect people to have been sexually assaulted. people do not have to be nice people to have been sexually assaulted. people do not have to be comrades or friends in order to have been sexually assaulted.

people who do shitty, awful, violent things also have been sexually assaulted. people who sexually assault others have been sexually assaulted. people who are in prison for sexual assault have been sexually assaulted.

either we take it seriously--which yes, includes having an understanding that sexual assault is *endemic to the prison system*--or we don't.

twisting yourself into knots to find an unrelated *yes, unrelated* story from Tara Reade's past that somehow proves she could not have been sexually assaulted is not a thing you can do.

instead, you are looking for reasons *not to have to care* that she may have been sexually assaulted by a man who may well become the next president.

and I promise you that the people in your life who do take sexual assault seriously note your repetition of the same old lines, and we note that we are not safe with you.

and if you think that saying "prisons are bad therefore we can't take sexual assault seriously" is an abolitionist position I have some serious questions about your abolitionist practice.

Thought I was done but i'm not! Having a left/radical/materialist understanding of sexual assault means it's *not about believing individual women* but about *understanding power relations*

So the question is not "is Tara Reade lying" the question is "under what conditions is sexual assault likely and is the assailant likely to get away with it"

Think about that for a little while. I don't know and we'll never know for sure *who lied* but we can damn sure understand how power relations work.

We can understand also that saying Joe Biden shouldn't *literally become one of the two or three most powerful people in the world because there are serious questions about how responsibly he'd use that power* is not the same as "send him to jail.

And the question of abolition isn't just about abolishing prisons--it's about abolishing the power relations that make both prisons and sexual assault possible, common, and accepted.