I am an almost-twenty college woman. I am just starting my third year as an anthropology major at a teeny-tiny liberal arts university. I know six women, including myself, who have been sexually assaulted; four of us during our college career. None of us have reported our experience to any division of the Department of Justice.
Somehow, I think the good ol' D-o-J's numbers are slightly skewed.
I've been thinking about this a lot lately. I haven't really addressed my own experience with sexual assault because in lieu of my friends' experiences, mine seemed--seems--so inconsequential. It was so long ago and I was so innocent at the time that even now I have trouble remembering that in eighth grade a classmate dry-humped me in front of a group of his friends during P.E. Compared to the different stories that other women have confided to me...getting a full-on crotch grab, inside her pants, by an anonymous hand at a campus party. Being nearly raped by a friend of a friend while they were both drunk, then getting blamed and shamed for it over the next few weeks. Fighting off someone she thought she could trust and still having nightmares about it, two years later. Having some stranger give her his number after fucking her despite her constant NO's .
Every member of the incoming freshman class at my university is required to attend a seminar on sexual assault. The seminar goes a little something like this: You sit in a room with about 40 other freshmen. You've known them for a little less than a week. Two presenters, one male and one female, talk you through a power-point presentation on sexual assault. They define sexual harassment, sexual assault, and rape. They give you statistics about sexual assault on your campus (which don't seem too terrible, actually). Then they tell you how to keep from getting raped. Don't drink, use the buddy system, never go anywhere by yourself with someone you don't know. If it does end up happening to you--well, you shouldn't have been drinking and you shouldn't have left your buddy, but it happened, so--here's what you can do about it, especially if you don't want anyone to know about it, because God knows getting raped is a horrible and shameful thing to have happen to you. OK, so long! Have a good year! Try not to get raped!
Three glaring problems with this little seminar:
First, those statistics. I don't remember exactly what they are,
and of course they're not available on the university website, but I do
remember that they are way lower than the reality, unless the only
women who have been assaulted on this campus are the four I know of,
plus a couple more. Pardon my French, but no fucking way.
Second, the idea that we have to prevent ourselves from getting raped. There is not one second during that presentation when anyone becomes a potential rapist. It is all framed as, since you are the one drinking, you are the one making the decision to do something that could increase your chances of getting raped. Never does anyone say, "Hey, guys and gals--if that guy or gal that's making you all hot is inebriated, maybe you should not have sex with them that night." It's the most subtle and most dangerous form of victim blaming: the kind where you blame the victim even before they're a victim.
And third, and perhaps the one that infuriates me most of all: what to do if it happens to you. All the authority figures on campus stress that if you report the assault to campus police, they have to make an official report and it has to go into the very official, very public system in order to pursue a prosecution. So if you want to keep it hush-hush, go to the counselors provided by the school, because they can't tell anyone. Or if you want to not go through the real legal channels but would feel better if your rapist got a slap on the wrist, tell someone in administration and they will have an official hearing. All of this combines to say one very insulting message: "You should be ashamed of getting raped. Do you really want to spend all that time and emotional energy pursuing punishment for this person when it was, after all, your fault for being too drunk or too sexy or too dumb for that person to resist you? Plus, if you tell, it'll be all over this school--you know how word travels. So better just keep your drunk, slutty, dumb mouth shut."
Well, no wonder those statistics of reported assaults are so freaking low.
Over the past few months, I've become more incensed with the rape problem on my campus. It started snowballing when one of my closest friends revealed to me that she had been sexually assaulted. She is one of the most amazing, intelligent, kind-hearted people I know, so it was a shock to hear that she has been struggling for years with this traumatic event that compounded already-existing mental health problems. Only a couple weeks later in my feminist studies class, we had a discussion about sexual assault. Needless to say, I became very impassioned. My professor noticed and actually asked to meet with me--both to provide emotional support and to ask for my opinions in more detail because she was planning on meeting with key members of the administration to talk about the sexual assault situation. I cried for most of that meeting. I cried tears of anger, sadness, hopelessness. And all summer I waited for an update on that meeting. Had it happened? What did the administration say? If they didn't meet, why not? Are there really important people who are in denial about this?
Then a couple nights ago, I went to dinner with another close friend of mine. (I have actually come to the conclusion that we were separated at birth. We are always in tune when it comes to ideas of feminism, equal rights, and all-around justice. You couldn't even say we're on the same page. We're on the same word on the same page. But that's not the point.) We got into some heavy discussion about sexual assault. She revealed to me that she is a rape survivor. She came to this conclusion only recently, after having attended college for a couple years and having her world view broadened and sharpened. And she realized that what happened to her, oh so long ago, was in fact rape. We talked about how often we blame ourselves when these things happen, even when we know intellectually that it was not our fault. We talked about how there is a professor on campus whose passion is working to end sexual assault--and how when she talks about it in class, it's never received the way she wants it to be. We talked about how it's amazing, when you stop to think about it, how many people we know who have been sexually assaulted in some capacity. And at the time, I wasn't even including myself in the numbers. I didn't tell her about it, either.
Over the last day especially, I have thought more about what happened to me back in eighth grade. I recognize now that what that boy did was, in fact, sexual assault. But part of me still feels very uncomfortable recognizing that. I wonder a little if I'm misconstruing an old memory to build solidarity with these women I am so close to. And as I said before, I feel uncomfortable using the term "sexual assault" for something that, in the long run, hasn't harmed me the way my friends' experiences have harmed them. It almost feels as if by labeling my experience as an assault, I'm taking away from what happened to these other women. My feminist and activist mind tells me that's not so--the devoted friend in me says that it is.
But really, isn't that the problem with rape? It's so defined, constrained. It's so conceptual. It's not rape unless someone decides to call it rape, not assault or harassment unless someone actually comes out and uses those words. And then we're challenged. How many people who have experienced some form of sexual assault have finally worked up the courage to tell someone and received a reply to the effect of, "What? You were raped? Like, really raped?" How many of us have used that reply ourselves? I did, just the other night. I think we're in denial about it. We're scared of it, on so many levels, and to readily acknowledge that someone we love has been assaulted means that we have to be ready to acknowledge that it could happen to us, too. Or that it has happened to us, too.
I made a pact with myself the other night. No more. I will no longer question what happened to me seven years ago. I was sexually assaulted by a boy who, because of society's subliminal messages/raging hormones/my innocence/his general asshole-ness, decided that it would be alright to pretend to publicly fuck me right through our clothes.
I have experienced sexual assault.
Out of all this comes something good. My friend and I have decided that we want to put on a campus-wide, awareness-raising event about sexual assault. The focus will be about sexual assault on campus. We want to say, "Sexual assault happens on this campus more than most of you want to admit. Here's what we can do to change that." We have a million ideas, from speakers to community discussions to t-shirts. We're getting key faculty and staff members on board. We're determined, if not to change the state of things, then to make people think about sexual assault differently. We're going to offer a solution to a very big problem.
This post was very difficult for me to write in many ways. I want the Feministing community to know that am so grateful that you all are here, creating a space where I can feel comfortable talking about something like this.
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You and your friends are so inspiring - to turn your pain into passion and activism. I have been steadily growing more and more aware of rape culture, especially since returning to my campus.
Slowly hearing the stories of how my friends have been raped by boyfriends, dry humped against their will at parties (and then be shamed for it), and then left feeling as though they are to blame, that they are drunk/dumb/slutty.
I recently reposted http://shakespearessister.blogspot.com/2009/07/lessons-from-rape-culture.html on my facebook. After reading this piece (which, although I clearly stated wasn't written by me, he thought I'd written), he immediately messaged me asking not if I had been raped, but if I had been "sexually active" - not raped, taken advantage of, etc, but had I been sexually active, with anyone.
Guh. (read: the sum total of a complicated swirl of emotions, beliefs, and contradictions over a lifetime)
Why not get involved with the peer education group that ran the presentation? Or at least talk to the sponsor?
Or, if it was just part of orientation/move-in activities and not run by the student health center or whatever, maybe see if you can start up a PE group or have an already-existing one take over the sexual assault presentations?
As a fellow survivor, albeit one who experienced sexual assault in childhood, I am also glad to hear your experience.
When I was in undergrad, rapes involving football players and male athletes were routinely hushed up. Male college sports are a big business, after all. Of course it's not fair, but there's much about the intersection of sports and money that makes me absolutely furious. Men behaving badly also makes me furious but that's because I never wanted to be one myself.
I am reminded of a big scandal that broke during my sophomore year. A fifteen year old girl who had been home schooled through high school gained early admittance and enrolled as a Freshman. Very quickly she became a favorite of many male athletes and then moved into a dorm where most of them lived.
Rumor had it that she'd been kind of passed around between several dozen players, and regardless of whether or not it was consensual, it did very much constitute statutory rape. Once their daughter failed out of school the parents found out the whole story and then filed suit against the university. But, for reasons that are still unclear, the suit was summarily dismissed. I'm not sure whether they settled out of court and that's really not the point. Again, male athletes were involved and criminal prosecution against male athletes tends to be rare.
As for the other males you mentioned, colleges and universities don't want bad publicity, since if people are turned off and don't enroll, they lose revenue. Colleges and universities, are, lest we forget, money making institutions.
That is so horrifying. But it happens more than you think it would.
I know the feeling. I have the same situation. We aren't even required to go this meeting but I went and dragged my friends to it anyways. The entire thing was the RA's telling us girls to not go out of our rooms alone at night and then telling us that if we drink we are going to get raped and since its illegal since we are not 21 we deserve it if we go out and drink. I was so dumbfounded by this that I stayed after and informed the RA's that what they were saying was not true. The RA's told me that they had to send out the information that res life had approved and that is what they wanted released. Its so fucked up I can't even stand it
As a college student, I am all too familiar with rape and its occurance on campuses in the US.
As a freshman, I decide to never drink at parties or where there were any men around, just as a precaution.
Well even then, I was sober at a party where a guy grabbed my face and started kissing me, without asking...or even knowing my name. He later apologized after I pushed him off of me.
What I learned is that its not necessarily prevention- techniques that help young women out in times of sexual assualt. To REALLY prevent it, you have to just never goto parties, and never be intoxicated in public places. OR have a strict plan of friends encircling each other, being completely paranoid of every guy (or girl) that may try to take advantage of you.
Whenever I met any young females entering their first year of college, the advice I give them is this:
It is not joke. Try to never attend frat parties, and just try your best to believe that every guy you meet is a dirty scum bag who wants to get in your pants. Make the guy you have sex with jump through hoops to be with you. Its the only way to be safe in this world.
Try to never attend frat parties
After acknowledging that it's college men in general who can be scumbags, why single out frat parties? I don't know what sort of college you went to, but the number of non-frat parties being thrown on any given weekend at mine far outnumbered the ones thrown by frat guys. And suggesting that it's only at frat parties that you have to be wary suggests to women that men at non-frat parties are safe, which is total BS and provides a false sense of security.
The line between disreputable guys and upstanding, moral men is not drawn where the frat membership begins and ends. I knew plenty of frat brothers who would never touch a woman without her consent and plenty of assholes without Greek affiliation who threw parties and specifically invited freshmen girls in order to get them drunk so they could take advantage of them.
Thank you. I was Greek in college, and though I have plenty of bones to pick with fraternity members and the Interfraternity Council itself, a substantially increased proclivity to rape (compared to non-Greek members) is not one of them.
Thanks for calling that comment out. I encountered plenty of stereotypical frat boys in college but making sweeping generalizations (particularly with something as serious as rape) is uncalled for. At the college I attended fraternities were required to hire security for any party they held. While that hardly guaranteed protection from sexual assault, I felt safer than I did at house parties of equal size.
"...just try your best to believe that every guy you meet is a dirty scum bag who wants to get in your pants."
That doesn't sound like a very healthy attitude to me, and that's actually the kind of comment that gets feminists branded as man-haters. Are we really to assume that just because someone has a penis that they are a horrible person who wants to rape us? Sorry, not buying that. While there are certainly some scummy men in the world (and some scummy women), I'm not going to treat every guy I meet as a potential rapist. I have many close male friends who would NEVER hurt a woman, who speak passionately against rape and domestic violence, and who treat all women with respect. They are NOT dirty scum bags, and if I had treated them as such when I first met them, I wouldn't have gotten to develop such great friendships with these wonderful people.
I think though, that in a situation like being at a crowded campus bar, or a college house party, that this line of thinking isn't too off the mark.
For example, when I was in college, while sitting in class or participating in campus activities, I never once thought about the men around me, "Oh, I'll bet he's a dirty scumbag."
Switch me over to any of the campus bars or parties, add in lots of drunk people, and you better bet that my defensive shields came up. It was impossible to go out dancing with girlfriends without being groped by random hands, and any guy who wanted to dance with me or talk to me, 7 times out of 10 would attempt to get me to leave with him. Agreeing to dance with someone seemed to carry an implicit agreement to have my breasts fondled. When I realized I was automatically thinking about every guy who approached me, "Can I safely interact with him without being expected to sleep with him?" I knew something was wrong.
To put it another way, it was pretty damn rare that anyone I knew in college met their significant others at parties or bars. They met them in class, or through friends, or in the dorms, or in the organizations they were in. The guys who WEREN'T scumbags weren't out trolling the bars looking for drunk women to hit on, they were asking their crushes if they wanted to study together, or join their volleyball group, etc.
For example, when I was in college, while sitting in class or participating in campus activities, I never once thought about the men around me, "Oh, I'll bet he's a dirty scumbag."
Switch me over to any of the campus bars or parties, add in lots of drunk people, and you better bet that my defensive shields came up.
The guys sitting in class and the guys going to parties are the same guys.
There was some overlap, certainly. Some of those guys sitting in class were also the ones who were groping in bars (well, maybe - given how seriously many of those chronic drinkers took the school part of college, maybe not, ha!).
But every guy sitting in class wasn't going to bars to grope and hook up with drunk women. The guys who wanted more meaningful contacts with women weren't the ones separating from their pack of friends at the bar and roaming around looking for drunk women. I always hated it when my friends thought that going to bars was the best way to meet a guy for a relationship in college - the guys who approach you in bars are not the ones looking for girlfriends. Which is why I disagree with theology_nerd about being suspicious of all men in the setting that cutekotori was talking about.
You don't want anyone to think you are a MANHATER do you?
Less emphasis on encouraging members of a marginalized class to cater to their oppressors feelings, kthxbye.
To REALLY prevent it, you have to just never goto parties, and never be intoxicated in public places. OR have a strict plan of friends encircling each other, being completely paranoid of every guy (or girl) that may try to take advantage of you.
No. There is no way to 100% prevent rape, short of convincing everyone in the world that rape is wrong. There are, however, things you can do to lessen your risk. There is a difference.
I have several problems with this post of yours. The way you make it sound, college women should just lock themselves in their rooms and never come out. College is a time to learn AND have fun. Now women are supposed to put the onus of never getting raped on their own shoulders by basically never going out in public or never getting drunk? Unless they're with someone they truly truly trust? Well how can you ever get to that point in college if you never leave your dorm room? And just because you know and think you trust someone does not mean that they won't sexually assault or rape you. I was raped by someone I knew, someone I thought I could trust.
But what if I don't want to live like that? Holed up in a dorm, alone, no alcohol or men around?* And I didn't although I went to community college instead of into dorms, but I still went to parties, held parties, had alcohol around males. Even wore skirts! Went out at night, etc. I don't want to get behind the whole "make a guy go through a lot, that's the only way to ensure they won't be jerks" - why can't women enjoy a one night stand as well? It kind of makes my skin crawl to have to go around thinking that everyone is a potential enemy and the way to combat this is to convince everyone else in my subset that they also a potential victim who must dress in pants, never drink (even fruit juice can be spiked!), never go out without another female or two present, etc. What about all the women that are assaulted not in the "drunken party" setting but invite a "friend" over or are invited? And they are a little more forceful, ignore the 'no' or two? Maybe they don't enter them with a penis but do something different, so it isn't 'real rape.' These are nice boys in classes who do these things. I think trying to make women more and more constricted results in more shaming of the women who do not accept the restrictions on their behavior.
No, the answer is not to tell women to change their behavior, the answer is in empowerment, not shaming women, and fighting for the 'nice boys' to not turn into the 'scumbags' at parties.
*although I do like to contemplate the difference an all-female population would have resulted - probably more than a few drunken parties, with a lot less guarded behavior.
OK, help me out here. There was a girl at a party who was drunk and came over to me and without as much as saying hello started groping me (then confessing she was only doing it to make another guy jealous). Have I been sexually assaulted by her? Should I report her for sexual assault? I don't think that's an appropriate standard. I told her to go away and she did.
Whether or not to report an incident like this to the police is up to you, no one can make that decision for you. But yes, I would classify that as sexual assault. She had no right to touch you without your permission.
llevinso,
"Whether or not to report an incident like this to the police is up to you, no one can make that decision for you. But yes, I would classify that as sexual assault. She had no right to touch you without your permission."
Ok, we both know that I'd have been the laughing stock of the entire police station for the rest of eternity had I reported that. But more to the point, I don't even *think* it was sexual *assault*. It was inappropriate, sure, it was sexual, sure, it was without explicit (or implicit) consent, sure. But *assault*. It feels entirely weird to think of the incident as sexual assault. It was annoying and it took a while to make her leave, and I had a fun story to tell.
Maybe the standards for women touching men are simply different than the other way around. Just last week, a female friend of a friend (more jokingly than sexual, but she was definitely checking me out) "cupped my breasts" as well as those of her friend, so we jokingly "threatened" to repay in kind, and she closed her arms in front of her chest. Not that we would have actually touched her, but the scene was once again a reminder that there are apparently diffent standards for bodily autonomy for men and women. Her friend jokingly bit my breasts through the shirt a couple of times that night - sexual assault? I don't think so.
I think to classify this (which I consider, in a way, to be similar to the dry humping described in the post) as sexual assault would do an immense injustice to those who have actually been seriously sexually assaulted. In my understanding sexual assault implies a violent disregard for lack of consent while being seriously sexual with that person. None of the incidents I have experienced (not even the one where a guy pushed his penis against my crotch) qualify as "seriously sexual" in my book.
I'm willing to modify my definitions, but I actually don't think I've been sexually assaulted.
It's up to you to choose what to call it. If you don't consider it sexual assault, then don't call it that, but please don't disregard other peoples' experiences. A lot of people don't consider my rape a "real" rape, and because of that I never tell anyone outside of the internet. It was an experience that hurt me deeply and destroyed my trust in men, and when I tried to tell people and they'd tell me that I wasn't assaulted.. It hurt like hell. It would hurt me a lot if some person came up to me and started groping me (guy or girl), and I definitely consider that assault. However, if you don't want to, then don't. Just don't try to invalidate other peoples' emotions and experiences.
Siby,
"It's up to you to choose what to call it. If you don't consider it sexual assault, then don't call it that, but please don't disregard other peoples' experiences."
I certainly wouldn't disregard other people's experiences, but for me there is a problem of mutually accessible and appropriate definitions (and beyond that, mutually accessible behavioral guidelines). I can see why that could be seen as invalidating, but it's not what I intend. This is clearly one of the most problematic areas with respect to the creation of inter-subjectivity, but that's precisely why it's necessary. I still think my story wasn't assault, even though it got me thinking about how women would probably have described as sexual assault what I would not consider as such - in a way, I anticipated precisely this discussion.
Another note here though. Just because you're a man and YOU might not feel violated or like this was sexual assault, doesn't mean that every man would feel this way and your experience is universal. Some men I'm sure would feel very violated by an occurrence like this and would label it sexual assault.
And I don't know where these feminists are that dismiss men as rape victims but you can surely not be talking about the ones on this blog...
jayjay323,
I get the feeling you are trying to be clever rather than trying to understand the answer to your question. You claim that feminists dismiss male victims of sexual assault yet you do the same by claiming you weren't a victim only because you are male.
Since you found the behavior you describe to be acceptable and harmless under those circumstances and by that person, no that wasn't sexual assault. However, that girl or woman was playing a dangerous game because if she had chosen a man who wasn't fine with her actions and it violated his personal boundaries she would be guilty of sexual assault. It doesn't matter whether she thinks all men are fine with being groped because of comments like yours.
You only have the right to declare and set your own boundaries.
The same contact from a different woman (a woman you dislike, an annoying professor, a cruel boss, a cop, a doctor, etc) might feel very different to you. Same goes if the behavior had been from another man even though you claim that your being groped isn't sexual assault only because of your gender.
If there was an implied threat over what could be done to you (arrest for assaulting an officer, for example) if you ended the contact that identical action which you found non-traumatic could have a very different meaning to you.
This woman took the same risk too many boys and men take when they guess whether a particular sexual contact/action will be okay with a girl or woman. If they don't want to be rightfully accused then they need to be sure -- in advance -- that a particular contact/action is acceptable every time.
abyss2hope,
"You claim that feminists dismiss male victims of sexual assault yet you do the same by claiming you weren't a victim only because you are male."
Wrong, I said a) that I don't think it was sexual assault and b) that physical strength may be a factor in perceiving somethins as violent or potentially violent or not.
"The same contact from a different woman (a woman you dislike, an annoying professor, a cruel boss, a cop, a doctor, etc) might feel very different to you. Same goes if the behavior had been from another man even though you claim that your being groped isn't sexual assault only because of your gender."
Yes, that's basically what I said above. If there had been additional factors contributing to my feeling unable to say no and actually stop her, that may have been different. That's similar for the another man question. But I did say above that I didn't think it was sexual *assault* either, when a (possibly gay?) guy pressed his crotch against mine in a bar recently. I said something like "dude, wtf?" and he backed off.
"Since you found the behavior you describe to be acceptable and harmless under those circumstances and by that person, no that wasn't sexual assault.
...
This woman took the same risk too many boys and men take when they guess whether a particular sexual contact/action will be okay with a girl or woman. If they don't want to be rightfully accused then they need to be sure -- in advance -- that a particular contact/action is acceptable every time.
...
You only have the right to declare and set your own boundaries."
All true. But the problem with this is that we are all different people, closed systems and thus can never be *sure* of what the other person is thinking at that point of time. I once read about a woman who told about her being raped like this: a) I was totally into it, but b) at some point I *thought* no, but I didn't say "stop" I just let him continue until c) I felt like I wanted it again. So, she was raped for the period of b) according to her boundaries, but she never communicated them properly so he never had a chance to stop because he was still operating under the assumption of a). We can't read each others minds, which requires both a reasonable standard of communication of intent and consent and a reasonable and contextualised standard of interaction - just like you say, it may have been assault had it been my female boss, but in a club this was different - that we can apply to increase the chances of being right about the actual intent of the other person.
once again a reminder that there are apparently diffent standards for bodily autonomy for men and women
No, no there are not. Men have as much right to bodily integrity as women do. Men have that right violated much less often than women do.
You are right that if you had reported a sexual assault you might have been laughed at - don't you see that is because of damaging patriarchal roles? Men are supposed to always want sex and never turn a woman down. This stereotype contributes to a sense of shame for male survivors of rape and sexual assault. Feminists realize this and speak out against this stereotype.
FrumiousB
I basically agree to your second point, although I never got the impression that feminists are actually concerned about male rape survivors. When such things as female rapists of men are brought up a lot of feminists react with denial rather than sympathy. But basically, yes, and where and when have I suggested otherwise?
As for this,
"No, no there are not. Men have as much right to bodily integrity as women do. Men have that right violated much less often than women do."
true, too. But. I still also think they may have different standards - possibly because men don't feel as vulnerable in such situations. I never felt threatened when the girl groped me. I knew I could keep her off. I suppose the fear of *not* being able to stop unwanted touching would contribute to a feeling of assault - and that would usually not be a concern for men with respect to women.
What she did is totally inappropriate and, if you felt assaulted, you should be able to report the incident as assault without being laughed at.
That said, it is important to consider the power differential. Unless other factors and privileges are involved, men in our society typically have more power than women and more power to hurt women who do not comply with their wishes. You felt empowered to tell the person violating your space and body to go away. A woman might be afraid that saying that to a man would lead to a far worse situation.
Just to be totally clear: I am NOT trying to say that what she did was OK. I'm trying to explain why a woman's interpretation of a similar assault might be different from yours.
EKSwitaj,
"You felt empowered to tell the person violating your space and body to go away. A woman might be afraid that saying that to a man would lead to a far worse situation."
Yeah, that's pretty much what I wrote above in my reply to FrumiousB. The fear-factor involved can make a similar situation worse if you don't feel like you can get out of it on your own. I can see that. But I'm not so sure it's so much about gender-assigned power than about actual differences in (perceived) physical ability to get rid of someone who's seriously annoying you (sexually). And it *does* mean that there actually is a different standard for bodily autonomy for women and men, as much as that may suck.
I teared up a little when I read this because it's just so repugnant that no one does anything about it. I'm doing a definition essay on misogyny and found a statistic that said one in five women will experience rape or attempted rape during their college years.
THIS IS NOT FUCKING OKAY!
I'm not blaming anyone for drinking (you should be able to get trashed and still be safe); however, I personally decided that I'm not going to drink alcohol during college.
I don't have anything to add to the wonderful suggestions mentioned above.
I just want to commend you on your courage. Taking up this issue, particularly on a college campus, takes a lot of strength.
Well done! Good luck - I hope talking and organizing and trying to educate your peers takes your college one step closer to acknowledging and really dealing with such a pervasive problem.
One of the things men (and even a few women) find hard to comprehend is the constant physical threat underlying any assault by a man against a woman. Usually, they're bigger and stronger and we know, in our guts, that we couldn't fight them off even if we tried. That's a constant level of gut wariness that many women live with that men don't seem to be able to get. For many women, all you need is to have been physically forced by a man, once, to do something (anything) you don't want to do to realize how easily men can pretty much do what they want to you.
Thank you so much for your post. I have had/am having the same kinda issue with something that happened to me in my childhood. I have never been able to really tell myself "I was sexually assaulted" and really honestly believe it. I was really young, too young to remember much about it, it was one of my girl friends that lived down the street who was a few years older than me, and while every once in a while I remember it it doesn't affect me too much daily. While I feel like I was assaulted I often feel like saying it out loud would devalue in some way other people's experiences with assault. People like my mom or several friends, who were severely traumatized. Because of so many conflicting feelings about the whole thing I've never told anybody. I may have vaguely mentioned it to my boyfriend once offhand one night, but I have never really spoken with anyone about it. Sexual assault is so many things and can happen in so many different ways that it is very important to speak out. Maybe one day I'll feel like I can speak about what happened to me and not feel like someone's just gonna brush it off as kids being kids or devalue my experience by saying that it wasn't that bad, worse things happen to women every day.
Thanks again for this piece. And thank you for taking on college campus sexual assault programs. I know my campus was very understanding and progressive in that department, but I know of many more colleges that rarely address the issue in such a way that actually helps the women going to school there. :)
I have had the same issue: my experiences with sexual abuse and rape were relatively non-violent and so much less horrific than those I read about, the ones actually reported on in the news, and those of my friends. I felt guilty even trying to relate my experiences to theirs.
This is another way of keeping us silent. If we don't name and talk about the "lesser" assaults, then those perpetrators will continue to think it's OK. That what they're doing really isn't harmful. That because what they did isn't anywhere near as extreme as what others have done, that they haven't done anything that THEY should be ashamed of. And they may even escalate.
My orientation sexual assault seminar was a bit better than what you described. They explained that the absence of a no does not make a yes, so you had better ask first (even though it might break the mood.) And I was so happy to see posters pop up around campus a few months ago that say "Real Men Ask First" and little comment boxes in the women's bathroom in the gyms where you can report sexual harassment and assault anoymously (not sure where those reports go or what happens with them).
What happened to you in eighth grade is very thought provoking. There are no talks about sexual assault in middle school or high school, even though kids of that age act can do very inappropriate things. I suppose it would be too much to ask for schools to incorporate this into their sex ed curriculum, considering how resistant they are to sex ed itself.
wow. i feel like i could have written this a few years ago.
when i was in college, i also realized that the first time i had been sexually assaulted was as a child and started coming to terms with this. it took a long time for any process of healing to begin but i found that, for me, doing anti-violence organizing was probably the best thing i could have done for my recovery.
anyways, so i was really frustrated that there were NO resources for sexual assault survivors on campus. a friend and i decided to start a student group, which we called rise, created our OWN sexual violence prevention curriculum (which was WAY more comprehensive, queer-friendly, and focused on the rapist, not the victim...and it also allowed for conversation around the complexities of sexual experiences and how to have healthy communication with your partner[s] before, during, and after sex) and used our extensive connections to do workshops in dorms, classrooms, fraternities/sororities, student groups, and even with faculty, staff, and the campus security people.
we also simultaneously ran a campaign to get the university to hire a sexual assault resource coordinator...they didn't listen until we had a sit-in at the end of the school year. within a few months, an amazing and passionate person was hired for the job.
my point in all of this is two-fold. first, we as victims are expected to be weak and frail. while there are times that we might feel this way (and ITS OKAY TO FEEL THIS WAY), we still have the power and the incredible strength to create change. it is SO wonderful to see that you are making activism a transformative part of your healing.
the second thing is that i wanted to put it out there that this is the feministing COMMUNITY so if you need any support from someone who dedicated the entire latter half of her college experience (and subsequently her LIFE) to anti-violence work, then please let me know! that's what community is for, yeah?
I can sympathize. Like your school, if you want to report an assault or rape here, you have to go through the Judicial Affairs department, and it's all very public.
The therapist I saw after my first assault (fall 2006) wanted me to report my numerous assaults from the boy I was dating (early 2007), but at the same point, I felt incredible guilty. Since it was something resembling a relationship (we went on dates and got meals together on a fairly regular basis), my repeated rape could be construed as consensual, especially as we'd had consensual sex in the past. In addition, I also knew that as an ROTC student, if he got in any sort of trouble like that, he would lose his scholarship and any chance to become an officer. Needless to say, I knew that if I ruined that for him, all of his cadet buddies would come after me and make my life even more hellish than it already was.
The same situation repeated itself (though with another man) less than a year ago, and I still want to report it...but I can't. Because the publicness of the accusal would ensure that the rest of my time here would be hell because I let myself get assaulted by this man and I ruined his life because I was a "dumb whore".
We really need to amp up the efforts on college campuses and everywhere else to show that unless you get a firm Yes for that particular instance, it is not consensual. And make it easier for the women and men who have to deal with their assaults to have the privilege of discretion when they report the incidents.
Thank you for sharing this with the community.
Just wanted to add that my university had an excellent program on sexual assault and safety for incoming Freshman.
Unfortunately, as you noted, this occurs with a bunch of students who don't know each other yet in the midst of a hundred other orientation activities, and that's the end of it.
Despite the quality of the program, I certainly didn't know what to do when I was assaulted later in the year.
College campuses (in particular) should present a loud, SUSTAINED message that defines sexual assault and lists avenues for getting legal and emotional help for victims.
Regarding your comment about the DoJ statistics, I assume you're referring to the Uniform Crime Reports when you tlak about the DoJ, but they also have a National Crime Victimization Survey which utilizes a representative polling sample, and does not require people to have reported the crime to the police, although they do ask about that.
Granted these studies both have problems, the UCR does not record any sexual assaults versus men, nor does it record any sexual assaults against women, if the perpetrator was a woman. The NCVS is slightly more open in that they record both types of opposite sex assault, but they do not record same sex assault. That said for your specific criticism that not everyone reports a crime they have attempted to account for.
Hi ittybear--
I work with an organization called SAFER (Students Active for Ending Rape). I'm not sure if you've heard of us, but the organization exists to help students on college campus reform their school's sexual assault policies and prevention and response programming. Please check us out at www.safercampus.org or email our Student Outreach Coordinators Erin and Dan at contact@safercampus.org. We might be able to offer some advice, and can at least keep you in the loop as we start to make more and more resources for campus activists available online. We're also always willing to listen...
Best,
Sarah sarahm@safercampus.org
To ittybear : This is a serious issue and it takes real courage to bring it up, especially in the personal context in which you do so. So, thanks for being courageous.
To everyone else: There have been a couple of comments made which I'd appreciate if someone could help me understand. I understand why some people may take a long time to report a rape. I don't really understand why it takes a long time (for someone other than a child) to realize she was raped.
Outside of battered women syndrome, is repeated & continual date rape by boyfriends common?
Last, can anyone explain why the standard, "No means no," no longer works?
I don't really understand why it takes a long time (for someone other than a child) to realize she was raped.
I think that (although I don't speak for everyone) most women will realize that something was wrong and upsetting about a sexual encounter, but because of the continuing idea that there are such things as "grey rape" or that rape is something that happens only with strangers, or that you can't rape someone who willingly had sex with you before, or any number of damaging concepts that society believes, we don't connect our assaults to the word "rape." We know that something scarred us and left us vulnerable and upset, but sometimes it takes a while to realize, "Wait, that was rape."
"No means no" doesn't really work because our "nos" aren't listened to. If every time a woman said "no," the guy backed off immediately, then the rate of rape would drop dramatically and we'd all be healthier for it. I don't think it ever actually "worked." It's a well-meant phrase that assumes all guys listen and respect that "no." If a woman says no, and the guy keeps going, he can be thinking many things - that she's only SAYING no because she doesn't want to look too eager (look like a slut, etc), but that she really means yes; that she's saying no NOW, but once he gets her warmed up and horny, she'll say yes; my own personal "no" got ignored because the guy was my boyfriend at the time and he didn't believe that I would actually say no to him, because he was my boyfriend and that meant he got to have me when he wanted, right?
To answer your question, sexual assault, especially as it occurs on college campuses, is not a cut-and-dry issue. There is a high degree of ambiguity in situations, much of it deriving from the fact that when it comes to discussions of sexual assault, many people focus on the issue of blame, instead of discussing who gets hurt.
Yes, repeated sexual assault within relationships is common.
The problem with no means no goes has to do with a general misunderstanding when it comes to the issue of consent. Honestly, can anyone say that No means no ever worked, as a whole? Rape culture has never gone away. There has never been a point in time when sex has not been used as a weapon of violence. It is a good phrase, it has its uses, but - consent is not the lack of a no, it's the presence of a yes. Unless we learn to think in those terms, unless it becomes the societal norm to respect the rights of everyone over their own bodies, these problems will always continue.
Honestly, just like there will always be murderers and thieves, there will always be rapists. And that's just the way it is.
I think "No means no" gets a bum rap. Its intended to clear up the problem of mixed signals for men who don't want to harm women, not clear up the problem of men who certainly do want to harm them. Having a "only yes, means yes" standard would do nothing to alleviate the problem, while suddenly ruling a lot of entirely legitimate behavior illegitimate.
I've been drunk & taken advantage of. But because I never said "no", I don't consider it rape/assault. I was too inebriated to articulate what I wanted, but neither was I passed out. I'm pissed at the people who took advantage of me, but I don't consider it rape or assault.
*TRIGGER-Y*
Considering that the general perception of rape is an almost horror-movie style encounter between a masked bandit and a virginal maiden, preferably with a lot of violence involved, and very very few 'rapes' fall under this definition, then it is not hard to understand why rape can be hard to realize happened.
What about with a girl who has gone a date a few times with a guy, they begin undressing, and he pushes her down, she says no, and fucks her anyway? Then apologizes, tells her that he loves her, and he won't do anything like that again? And maybe he doesn't. It may be hard to view it as rape instead of "oh, he was just inexperienced and she did want to have sex, it was just mixed signals and a bad experience."
Or another, a woman gets drunk at a party and a guy, sober, offers her a ride home. Half-way to her home he stops and says he'll only take her the rest of the way if she blows him. She does so "willingly" since she doesn't want to walk alone at night while intoxicated.
The original post is all about not regarding ones own experience with assault as 'real.'
There are numerous, numerous examples of this here and on other feminist blogs, where because the rapist wasn't the masked assailant it is disregarded as hysterical hyperbole.
The whole 'no means no' thing never worked that much to begin with, because like others have noted, it hinged upon actually being taught that women have any decision making power in any sexual situation. The idea that women are not conquests, trophies, and that they actually want to have sex too is too alien - women must be trying to avoid sex, so it falls to men to 'convince' them by not taking their no's seriously. Not that all men view sexuality this way, but I feel that culture puts a lot of emphasis on this view.
very insightful examples. one of these examples happened to a friend of mine, who was faced with a choice: kiss a married coworker who had offered her a ride home, or be dropped off in the dark, alone, in high heels, over five miles to her house. she said she would just give him one kiss but he ended up groping her and putting his hands down her pants etc. the next day he was mortified and apologized and begged her not to tell his wife or anyone else.
and something similar happened to me, wherein a guy at a party kept following me around the house, cornering me even though i'd quickly find an excuse to duck away. finally, he had me trapped in some room and said that he wouldn't let me leave unless i kissed him. he seemed to find this delightfully amusing. if you had asked him "hey, are you wrongfully imprisoning this woman and attempting to sexually assault her?" he would have indignantly claimed he wasn't. he thought it was fucking high-larious. i told him that he was making me really uncomfortable and he needed to move; he told me to lighten up because he was "just joking around", and if i would just give him a little kiss, he'd move out of the way. luckily, friends of mine appeared in the doorway so i was spared dealing with the situation. i
and yet another guy used to find it incredibly amusing to grab my breasts and run away whenever he saw me. i told him that it was sexual assault and to please stop; not only did he take exception to this term, but so did mutual friends, many of them female, who claimed that this guy was "just joking around."
so this whole "no means no" thing is great in theory but in practice, apparently, it all falls apart when someone is "just joking around", or whatever. and when a woman is told by everyone, even her own female friends, that so-and-so is "just joking". or "that's just who he is", then she begins to question her own narrative, her own feelings, and her own interpretation of a situation.
To ittybear : This is a serious issue and it takes real courage to bring it up, especially in the personal context in which you do so. So, thanks for being courageous.
To everyone else: There have been a couple of comments made which I'd appreciate if someone could help me understand. I understand why some people may take a long time to report a rape. I don't really understand why it takes a long time (for someone other than a child) to realize she was raped.
Outside of battered women syndrome, is repeated & continual date rape by boyfriends common?
Last, can anyone explain why the standard, "No means no," no longer works?
"No means no" puts the responsibility on women to say no. Meaning that we are assumed to constantly "asking for it," which is just stupid. Dudes usually don't ask before they begin sex, because they feel (and are) entitled to our bodies. It's not our job to say "no" when we don't want it, thereby preventing ourselves from being raped. The initiator is responsible for finding out the other person's feelings, much like a doctor is responsible for explaining procedures or whatever they're going to do BEFORE it happens. If a dude doesn't wait seek enthusiasm/consent before proceeding, he's a rapist/potential-rapist douchebag.
And I don't have statistics, but I'd be willing to bet that repeated rape by boyfriends is common. We're told if we don't fight and it wasn't physically violent, it wasn't rape. Myself, and all of the other people I've met who were raped by a partner, stayed for much longer after for a ton of reasons.
such a great insight, and very true. consent means the presence of a yes, not the absence of a no. i sometimes even seem to forget this when approaching a situation, and i identify as a rabid, unapologetic, passionate feminist. so imagine how other women, who have not been exposed to feminist analysis etc, might think of "consent". i just realized, when i read your post, the problem with "no". the problem with "no" is that it assumes that everything that has come before it means "yes.".
the other thing that pisses me off about these seminars and by awareness-raising about rape in general is the way rape is spoken about:
such and such number of women ARE RAPED, they usually say, in the past participle, as if these rapes just...happen.
well who is doing the raping? are they raping themselves? no, duh!
so why not speak about rape in such a way that the people at these seminars have to face the possibility that one or more of the men sitting there COULD be a rapist, and maybe not even realize it because of the way we are so trained to deal with it and speak about it.
just because you don't jump out of the bushes wearing pantyhose on your head doesn't mean you're not a rapist. why not speak of rape in terms of, "hey guys, if you pressure a woman into sex, you might be guilty of rape. if you force a woman to have sex when you know she is unwilling, that is rape. if you have sex with a woman too drunk to consent, you are raping her. consent is not compliance. consent is the presence of yes, not the absence of no. etc".
people are not RAPED; someone RAPES them.
Rape will never stop being a problem until men stop feeling entitled to women's bodies. Any glance at the culture shows women are held up as "rewards" and enticements for men for everything from beer to cars. No wonder they think they can grope whenever they want to. This is the attitude that has to change. Consent should *not* be the default position, as other posters have pointed out.
So, my school had a program called Sex Signals. They're an outside group. It was mandatory for all new students, and entailed a large presentation/roleplay about sexual assault in college, followed by small discussion groups. Something that was very effective was that there was kind of a silent jury on "when did this situation become not ok" with the students holding up big red pieces of paper when they individually felt things needed to stop. boy did the women have different answers for that than the men. It was effective because it was bantery and fun - right up until the guy realized that he had raped his friend. it was sobering. i had some problems with the discussions, as i had been sexually assaulted over the summer and hadn't really come to terms with it and started to have a panic attack, but it did seem like the discussion leaders were not super well-trained to deal with overall attitudes on rape. their training for helping a fellow student who had been assaulted did not stretch to dealing with budding misogynists or answering the question, "wait, but a husband can't rape his wife. right?" hit or miss.
I think high school and middle school assaults are very serious and probably fairly common because there is no guidance for that age group.
Consent isn't consent unless it's a (sober) yes, please yes, i want, or more. And if it took you 12 tries that night to get a yes, that ain't a yes either.
ittybear, I admire you for speaking up and taking action.
There's a growing movement to make more men aware of the many ways they can step up. If you choose to include that angle in your approach, here's an example of the way discussions of such programs can go. It's both disheartening when I read the resistance from guys who think of themselves as already doing all they can, and heartening (the comments from guys who really get it, even if it's taken them a while, and there's some constructive criticism from guys who object to a certain tone or slogan, but not necessarily to the concept outright). And there's rage-inducing obtuseness, natch, but I'm linking the discussion because I think it's helpful to see what other activists have already done, and how their approaches might be adjusted to be more persuasive to audiences. Whatever approaches you choose, good luck.
I'd just like to point out that the legal definition of "rape" (in Michigan, criminal sexual conduct) varies from state to state. I think it would be helpful to look at these definitions when having the college sexual assault discussions. At bottom, we have to decide as a society where the boundaries are and educate people on them. If the law does not track what reality is, maybe we need better laws. I think everyone is in agreement that the enforcement system is a problem.