Femdefence — an idea for a rape-protection device

The project Femdefence is an attempt to contribute to the debate on men’s sexual violence against women in society, using the esthetics of design, and the semiotics of marketing.

Femdefence is an on-going project first presented in 2003. The project includes the creation of an imaginary product, which bears the project’s name. The “product“ is a kind of protection against rape, somewhat similar to a tampon in that it’s user carries it inserted into her vagina. The basic idea is that the woman carries the protective device in her vagina. In it there is a sharp pin which has a penetrating effect on the perpetrator’s penis in the event of a rape. The construction is such that the pin still cannot injure the bearer. The design of the design is based on a similar construction invented by a Swedish woman named Anita Ingmarsdotter. She came to work on her invention after a series of rape cases in Sweden that received a lot of public attention. Typically, in many of these cases, the accused do not receive an adequate punishment, and the abused women are left without appropriate support from the judicial system. All too often they, in the perpetrators place, are burdened with guilt. Read more about her in the interview.

http://tinypic.com/52fa6p

Her actions are a logical response to the malfunction of the judicial system in a country many consider to have reached a high level of equality between the sexes. What she did was an indication on the situation of women in Sweden, and outlines the public opinion in these issues. The idea for the rape-protection device and the woman behind it have functioned as symbols for the debate on inequality between the sexes and men’s violence against women. The project has been exposed in several ways and in several locations. It has been the object of exhibitions leading the thoughts to how industrial designers present their prototypes. Furthermore, it has been presented in the form of TV-commercials, newspaper advertisements and in outdoor billboard advertising. For anyone who has been interested there has been the opportunity to find more information and contact me through e-mail on an earlier version of this web site. After I had a full page advertisement published in one of the largest newspapers in Sweden, Expressen, I received a lot of reactions. Looking at the response, it seems that many people took concern in my work not only by writing to me, but also by discussing it among themselves.

http://tinypic.com/52fa88

http://www.femdefence.info/index2.html

So the rapist pulls the string and out it comes like a tampon? Then what? She gets beaten to death after being raped?

Booby trapping your pussy is too little too late.

A firearm is the most effective defense for most women in most aggressive situations.

The Oral, Rectal and Vaginal Pear

http://www.houseofdesade.org/torture/tortur16.jpg


*These instruments were used –and still are, no longer ornamented but otherwise not much changed– in oral and rectal formats, like the present specimen, and in the larger vaginal one. They are forced into the mouth, rectum or vagina of the victim and there expanded by force of the screw to the maximum aperture of the segments. The inside of the cavity in question is irremediably mutilated, nearly always fatally so. The pointed prongs at the end of the segments serve better to rip into the throat, the intestines or the cervix.

The oral pear was often inflicted on heretical preachers, but also on lay persons guilty of unorthodox tendencies; the rectal pear awaited passive male homosexuals, and the vaginal one women guilty of sexual union with Satan or his familiars.

Mutilation of breasts and female genitalia has been an omnipresent and constant usage throughout history. Insomuch as the soul of torture is male, male organs have always enjoyed the benefit of a species of immunity notwithstanding certain exceptions, a fact that leads to the hypothesis of a fraternal understanding between male victim and male judge-torturer, an understanding that must have been welded into the nascent primordial mind eons ago.

*And since the soul of torture is male, and in the tenebrosity of his unilluminable nature the male is terrified by the mysteries of the female's cycles and fecundity, but above all by her inherent intellectual, emotional and sexual superiority, those organs that define her essence have forever been subjected to his most savage ferocity, he being superior only in physical strength. Hence centuries of witch hunts, with unspeakable methods.


The pear had more than one implementation, with the most popular being the oral use. The pear was also used in the rectum and in the vagina.



The pear was "expanded by force of the screw to the maximum aperture of their segments. The inside of the cavity in question is irremediably mutilated, nearly always fatally so. The pointed prongs at the end of the segments serve better to rip into the throat" or "the intestines."


When applied vaginally, the spikes wreaked havoc on the poor woman's cervix. The vaginal use was devised for women who had been found guilty of sexual union with the Devil or his familiars. Ken Russell's film The Devils shows a few implements similar to the vaginal pear in use.

Information and photographs in this virtual exhibition proceed from the book Torture instruments; a bilingual guide to the exhibition Torture Instruments form the Middle Ages to the Industrial Era presented in various cities in the world in 1983-2000.

http://www.houseofdesade.org/torture/pear.htm