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“A dream you dream alone is only a dream; a dream you dream together is reality.” — Yoko Ono
Mar
31
It’s Not Just A Dream: Responsible Reporting on Sexual Assault
Filed Under media, rape and sexual assault, sexual exploitation and harassment, violence against women and girls | Posted by Cara |
I spend a lot of time writing about rape apologism and really irresponsible coverage of sexual assault in the media. I also regularly find myself asking people to write letters to editors, criticizing the common victim-blaming, women-are-liars approach to articles about rape.
And so, when responsible and honest reporting actually happens, I think that I owe it to all of you, and to the journalists out there who want to do the right thing, to point it out. So here we go: via the SAFER blog, a local Ohio newspaper called the Athens Messenger ran a story about how sexual assault is more than just penetrative rape. It’s a good article, though not very long, and you should go read the whole thing.
One in four college women will be sexually assaulted during their college years, experts say, but what many college students consider to be sexual assault is actually only a small part of what the law defines as sex offenses.
“Sexual assault occurs along a continuum of intrusion and violation ranging from unwanted sexual comments to forced sexual intercourse,” according to an Ohio University Police Department statement on sexual assault, which states that anything along that continuum violates the student code of conduct.
“When there’s no sexual contact, people don’t necessarily think of sexual assault,” said Lindsey Daniels, who is the sexual assault prevention program coordinator for Tri-County Mental Health and Counseling.
Not all sex offenses involved physical contact. Several sex offenses defined in the Ohio Revised Code, such as public indecency and voyeurism, do not involve physical contact.
The misdemeanor-level offenses like public indecency, voyeurism, and sexual imposition (any unwanted sexual touching) get reported much less than forceful sex offenses like rape, but Amanda Childress, OU’s assistant director of health promotions, said they probably happen just as often.
Well, there you go. Truth!
Of course all of these things are sexual assault. But you’ll also find no shortage of assholes willing to argue that fact. Hell, on more than one occasion, I’ve had to argue whether or not forced oral sex (specifically, forced penetrative oral sex) counts as “rape.” (Because, you know, rape is forced sex, and blowjobs aren’t sex!) And as the article notes, people think that slapping a random woman’s ass, shouting demands for blowjobs to women on the street, filming your buddy have sex without his partner’s knowledge or publicly masturbating in front of a woman without her consent are “just jokes” or, at worst, “disgusting.” Few people call them sexual assault. But they are.
I used to work at a call center. I was called a lot of horrible things over the phone. Once, I’m embarrassed to say, a man (the world’s biggest asshole who started screaming at me to “drop dead”) made me cry. Luckily for me and unfortunately for everyone else, customers making reps cry was actually a pretty damn common occurrence. But the call I’ll truly never forget is the one during which some guy was jerking off. Being such an absurd concept, it took me forever to figure out why he was breathing so heavily and what he was whispering under his breath (“suck it, bitch”). And then, once I did realize what he was saying and therefore what he was doing, I completely froze and didn’t know what to do. When he smugly told me that I had been very “helpful” and I hung up on him, I pretty much wanted to die. It felt like sexual assault. And it was. The fact that it’s more repulsive to me now than traumatizing also doesn’t change anything.
But even people who are too fucking dense to get that or too misogynist to admit it, there is another reason to care — assuming that they think rape is wrong, even if other sexual assault is totally cool.
According to Daniels and Childress, perpetrators of rape usually go through a period of testing boundaries before working up to more serious offenses. If certain behaviors are acceptable in their surroundings, this provides reinforcement.
“When things are joked about or not taken seriously, obviously it sends a message,” Daniels said.
Childress said both male and female students are influenced by their peers in deciding what is acceptable and what isn’t.
“If someone in a room gropes you, if you feel uncomfortable and everybody else thinks it’s no big deal, you’re not likely to say anything,” Childress said. “And then if that’s no big deal, what’s to stop someone from holding you up against the wall and groping you?”
That’s certainly true. And I think anyone who has been in a long-term abusive relationship can attest to it. Abusers rarely start out holding women down and raping them or beating them to the ground with a baseball bat — instead, it’s some kind of sick goal that they work towards. But here’s how rare this kind of admission is in a mainstream outlet; reading a statement about sexual assault that was not blaming victims briefly confused me. I read this:
If potential perpetrators of rape were stopped in the “testing boundaries” stage, Childress said it would send a positive message.
“If they’re not dealt with in a responsible manner, people start thinking these behaviors are acceptable, both women and men,” Childress said.
And I thought “oh, right, of course it’s the fault of women for not stopping them!” But Childress continued:
“We would rather see these offenses caught and prosecuted, even with a ’slap on the wrist,’ and have the behavior corrected at an earlier stage before offenses become much more serious. We’re not doing our job as educators if we’re not stopping these things early on.”
. . . wait, you mean that she was actually talking about law enforcement and the university as being responsible for not appropriately handling these types of sexual assault???
I’ll be damned.
I don’t know how Ohio University actually deals with sexual assault cases when they are reported, but the willingness of school officials to make these kinds of statements is quite impressive (compare to Ithaca College and the University of Washington).
You know, we’re talking about a rather small paper, here. But in my experience, it’s the smallest papers that get away with printing the most irresponsible and outrageous stories. It’s also my belief that change tends to start from the ground up. I don’t think that journalists and editors deserve a cookie for doing their jobs properly. I do happen to think, though, that when this kind of article is a rare occurrence we have to send positive feedback to ensure that it continues. We also have to remember that insane as it may be, sexual assault is a contentious issue — and rape apologists are probably going to write.
So I do ask you to take the time to drop them a note. You can simply fill out their feedback form, or for a more personal and effective letter, email the managing editor (mnieporte@athensmessenger.com) and journalist (egoussetis@athensmessenger.com) directly. It’s important to editors know that Heather MacDonald’s bullshit is not acceptable. It’s equally important to let them know when they get something right, and when we want to see more of the same.
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“Men, their rights, and nothing more; women, their rights, and nothing less.” — Susan B. Anthony
I have a problem with defining “unwanted sexual comments” as sexual assault. I think it depends a lot on the context and the exact words that are said.
According to the article, using her definition, just about any unwanted comment is defined as assault. I dont agree that a comment like “hey baby” is sexual assault.
According to the article, using her definition, just about any unwanted comment is defined as assault.
Not true, though I can see how it would be easy to deliberately misread it that way. She referenced catcalls and sexist and unwanted remarks of a sexual nature. Best case scenario, that’s sexual harassment, and I think that sexual harassment easily falls on what she refers to as the sexual assault continuum.
I agree with her that we’d be better off if the legal system could intervene early rather than late on the progression of verbal harassment –> rape.
I’d love to throw all those construction workers in jail. However, thats just not in the cards. Our jails and prisons are already overwhelmed, and if putting all the “cat call” assholes in prison means that a rapist who’s served 20 years in prison gets out early, then I dont like that tradeoff. I want all murderers, child molesters, and rapists to get automatic life with no parole and only after thats been achieved start locking up the “verbal offenders”
Of course we could end the ridiculous “war on drugs” which should free up a lot of room, but thats another debate.
I don’t think that anyone was suggesting that we lock up men for the offense of cat calling. Unless we’re talking explicit verbal threats of physical sexual rape or other violence, which is a whole different story, I’d say that some community service would be more appropriate. I also think that getting a conviction on this type of offense would be damn near impossible, seeing as how rape is difficult enough to prosecute with DNA evidence, and that there are few places where this type of behavior, again not involving explicit threats, would actually be illegal. I think the point was more about education and taking all reported offenses seriously, regardless of magnitude.
It’s unfortunate that all these descriptions are so vague … maybe that’s inevitable, though. Sexual assault is an “I know it when I see it” sort of thing, except it seems that most people don’t actually know it when they see it.
(Including me, perhaps: does indecency necessarily count as sexual assault, or does it have to be directed at someone? For example, would streaking be considered that? Because I don’t really see it.)
In a general sense, I don’t think that streaking would be considered sexual assault. I mean, a football field? Not unless the dude is proudly sporting an erection or waving his dick at the cheerleaders or something while he does it.
But there are a slew of other places that streaking doesn’t generally happen where I think sexual assault, or at least harassment, would be an accurate descriptor. Workplaces, schools, stores, restaurants/bars, etc. I think the key aspect with streaking on a football field is that the person is significantly removed from everyone else and the streaking is not directed at anyone. In most other settings, it would take on a very different meaning — a threatening one.
O.K., you and I are on the same page on that one.
I believe the key point here is the continuum concept. Not every behavior on the continuum is sexual assault. No one is suggesting that we throw cat-callers in jail. But we need to recognize the continuum of behaviors and attitudes that contribute to the acceptance of sexual assault in our society. If these “lesser” behaviors that constitute sexual harrassment were taken more seriously and deemed unacceptable, that could go a long way to fighting the sexism that allows rape to thrive.
I really like hearing good news. It’s such a shame that articles like this don’t happen more often.
It’s very heartening that this was published in a place like Athens. I don’t know about actual rates of sexual assault there, but the university in Athens is completely known throughout Ohio as a HUGE party school, so it’s incredibly important that someone is trying to spread awareness there.
I was sitting in my dorm, cruising my favorite feminist blogs to avoid working on a paper, when I was startled to see you mention “The Athens Messenger.” I’m an Ohio University student, and I’m extremely encouraged to see the Messenger get some props (hooray! blogging about positive things isn’t pointless!).
I had no idea it had been published–unfortunately, most students read the student paper, “The Post,” which features a columnist that regularly makes me tear my hair out for claiming that sexes are essentially different and that families fail without male parents. So I don’t know how well the message gets out. But I do think that the culture of “it’s just a joke” and “lighten up” is a great issue to target on campus, offering new, perceptive message, as opposed to the “DRINKING IS BAD AND SHAMES YOU AND THE SCHOOL AND OH YEAH DATE RAPE” message that usually fatigues university students.
At any rate, I consider myself a fairly involved feminist, but seeing this has raised all sorts of questions about my immediate school environment that I haven’t considered before–thanks for some inspiration.