April marks the beginning of Sexual Assault Awareness Month. SAAM 2014 focuses on healthy sexuality and youth, promoting healthy relationships and sexual violence prevention.
I’ll be honest with you, when I heard “sexual violence prevention,” I immediately thought victim blaming. The burden of preventing sexual violence too often falls on the victim of the attack.
“She made the choice to drink that night.”
“He had an erection, he must have wanted it.”
“They didn’t try to fight their attacker.”
Unfortunately, victim blaming is rampant in our society. We’ve become conditioned to doubt the legitimacy of rape victims’ claims. It’s not surprising because we don’t like talking about sex. Especially with children and teenagers.
One of the reasons that comprehensive, positive sex education is necessary throughout grade school and into high school is because nothing good comes from pretending young people are not having sex.
And nothing good comes from neglecting to teach a generation what is consensual sexual activity and what is rape.
In the 2012 Steubenville rape case, one witness of the rape of an unconscious girl by several high school football players was asked why he didn’t try to stop the attack. His reply was that it wasn’t violent, so he didn’t think it was rape.
That same witness mentioned that earlier in the night, he had taken car keys away from a friend who he thought was too intoxicated to drive. The high school student knew, most likely from some program taught in his school, that drunk driving is wrong.
But it didn’t occur to him that sex with someone while they are unconscious is rape.
This may have seemed like a simple childlike misunderstanding, but this student’s attitude indicates a larger problem.
Between Missouri Representative Todd Akin’s comments about “legitimate rape” rarely resulting in pregnancy and a Georgia appeals court judge overturning a rapist’s conviction because his accuser didn’t “act like a victim,” it’s clear that we have a problem with our definition of rape.
It’s not only an issue facing accused rapists and lawmakers. In some cases, even the victim of rape doesn’t know they are a victim.
According to RAINN (Rape Abuse & Incest National Network), two-thirds of rape cases are committed by someone the victim knows, and one-fourth of rape cases are committed by someone the victim is or has been intimate with. It can be difficult to ascertain if the sexual act that took place was something you felt comfortable doing if it is with your significant other or a close friend.
And worse, it can be difficult to get people to believe you, even if you didn’t consent to it.
The National Sexual Violence Resource Center has put together a variety of resources entitled “Safe Sexuality: Talking About What You Need and Want” to facilitate discussions with youth on how to form healthy and safe sexual relationships.
The topics include how to handle situations in which you experience sexual pleasure, but are not comfortable with it, forms of affection other than sex that are included in sexuality and consent.
It also includes a survey in which students can rate how comfortable they are talking to their partner about a variety of sexual topics, including contraceptives, sexually transmitted diseases, respect, body image and boundaries in emotional, physical and sexual relationships.
Rape prevention has turned into victim blaming, and that is dangerous. But when armed with resources like this, kids and teenagers are able to identify and abstain from harmful sexual situations before they escalate to sexual assault.
Teaching children how to have healthy sexual relationships is not dangerous. Disregarding an issue as serious as sexual assault is.
Jana King is a 19-year-old communication studies sophomore from Ponchatoula, La.