While it may take until 2009 for HBO’s hot hit Big Love to start its third season, there’s some real life polygamy drama going down in Texas and Warren Jeffs is a real-life Roman Grant.  After an unidentified 16-year-old girl called 911 to report sexual and physical abuse, Police raided the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints’ compound in El Dorado.  Over the weekend, officials removed 219 women and children from the organization’s 1900-acre Texas ranch.  Most have been relocated to a shelter run by family members and friends, but 18 of those at risk women have been taken into state custody for protection.  Although law enforcement couldn’t verify the identity of the caller, Marleigh Meisner, a rep from Child Protection Services, said, “I am confident that the allegations that she brought forth are accurate.” The sect’s “prophet and leader” Warren Jeffs, who claims to be a blood relative of Jesus and Joseph Smith, is no stranger to trouble with the law.  After his trial this past September, Jeffs is currently serving a 10-year sentence for being an accomplice to two counts of rape. While this troubling investigation of sexual abuse continues, rest assured, Jeffs has allegedly already tried to kill himself in prison.  [CNN]

So, what do you think of this t-shirt? Kind of hard to read right? Made by writer, journalist, and feminist activist Jennifer Baumgardner (author of Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism And The Future), the shirt reads, in small print, “I Was Raped” on a small placecard inside an image of a safe.  A follow-up to a shirt she made last year, which said, “I Had An Abortion”, Baumgardner hopes that the shirt will encourage women to be open about their experience with sexual assault and “divest themselves of some of the shame and secrecy of it.” Profiled in today’s New York Times, she also says, “By having an object like this” — a simple T-shirt — “that’s so mundane, it sort of forces it into everyday conversation….The wearer isn’t advertising that he or she was raped, but rather opening up to you, the viewer, and also saying that this is a small part of who he or she is.”

Female police officers working for the transit authority in Boston are going undercover to catch crooks red-handed… while the perps are grabbing them.  These brave ladies in blue are allowing themselves to get sexually harassed at work to help nab gropers and rapists on public transportation. Go get ‘em girls!  Over the past two years, 87 incidents of indecent assault and battery were reported, but the MBTA feels that women are afraid to come forward and complain about these types of attacks.  So, they’re going after the bastards!  Plus, the MBTA police are also joining forces with the Boston Area Rape Crisis Center to start an ad campaign to let victims know how, where, and what their options are for speaking up and taking a stand. While the subway “T” is part of many Bostonian’s daily grind, it shouldn’t come with unwanted bumps. Thank you for protecting our assets, we will now happily pay the fare hike. [The Boston Channel]

We take Dear Abby’s advice with a grain of salt, but this doozie takes the cake. “Enraged In Rochester” writes that during a visit to his family’s home, he and his wife slept in separate bedrooms. “The next day, while we were driving home, Marybeth told me she was glad I had come to her room after all and made love to her.” But! “Abby, it wasn’t me! She had mistaken one of my brothers for me in the darkness. We are all about the same size and build.” Furthermore, none of his brothers has ‘fessed up to the crime and Enraged hasn’t told his wife that he wasn’t her midnight caller.

Touchy subject, I know. Once a week I write a round-up for Jezebel, Gawker Media’s women’s site, about the misogyny that runs rampant on all of the web’s gossip blogs. A frequently targeted topic is the issue of rape. Some of the blogs I read regularly (mostly for Missdemeanors) make tongue-in-cheek, but still extremely offensive jokes about rape. Here’s a recent example from the blog What Would Tyler Durden Do?

“I read somewhere that the reason dudes rape girls is because they think the girl is really pretty. It’s basically a compliment.”

Horrible huh?