Rape has long been a part of war, and recent conflicts in Bosnia, Rwanda, and Darfur demonstrate that it may be becoming an even more integral strategy of modern warfare.The incidence and consequences of rape in the Vietnam War ( 1961- 1975 ) have been largely overlooked. Using testimony, oral accounts, literature, and film, this book focuses on the rape and sexual abuse of Vietnamese women by U.S. soldiers during the Vietnam War, and argues that the erasure and elision of these practices of sexual violence in the U.S. popular imagination perpetuate the violent masculinity central to contemporary U.S. military culture. The recognition of this violence is important not just for an accurate historical record, but also to understand the Vietnam veteran’s trauma, which often stems from his aggression rather than his victimization.
Patti Smith (1946-) and Robert Mapplethorpe (1946-1989) found each other on the streets of New York City in the late '60s and made a pact to keep each other afloat until they found their voices--or the world was ready to hear them. Lovers first and then friends as Mapplethorpe discovered he was gay. Mapplethorpe was quicker to find his metier, with a Polaroid and then a Hasselblad, but Smith was the first to fame, transformed from a poet into a rock star. Mapplethorpe soon became famous too before his death from AIDS in 1989. Smith's memoir of their friendship, Just Kids, is open-eyed with the oracular style familiar from her anthems like 'Because the Night,' 'Gloria,' and 'Dancing Barefoot' balanced by her powers of observation and memory for everyday details .