Shayne Austen of No, Not You
Kat reposted a nice piece about true rape prevention, which reminded me of this little list I whipped up a few months ago. As I just did a college RA training yesterday, re-reading this made me laugh. I mean seriously, the “tips” they give potential victims are so condescending. It’s fun to turn the tables.Sexual Assault Prevention Tips Guaranteed to Work!
- Don’t put drugs in people’s drinks in order to control their behavior.
- When you see someone walking by themselves, leave them alone!
- If you pull over to help someone with car problems, remember not to assault them!
- NEVER open an unlocked door or window uninvited.
- If you are in an elevator and someone else gets in, DON’T ASSAULT THEM!
- Remember, people go to laundry to do their laundry, do not attempt to molest someone who is alone in a laundry room.
- USE THE BUDDY SYSTEM! If you are not able to stop yourself from assaulting people, ask a friend to stay with you while you are in public.
- Always be honest with people! Don’t pretend to be a caring friend in order to gain the trust of someone you want to assault. Consider telling them you plan to assault them. If you don’t communicate your intentions, the other person may take that as a sign that you do not plan to rape them.
- Don’t forget: you can’t have sex with someone unless they are awake!
- Carry a whistle! If you are worried you might assault someone “on accident” you can hand it to the person you are with, so they can blow it if you do.
And, ALWAYS REMEMBER: if you didn’t ask permission and then respect the answer the first time, you are commiting a crime- no matter how “into it” others appear to be.
See, this actually really is the talk RAs and other orientation types need to be giving incoming freshmen men! Because it’s all well and good (really, it’s well and good) to do rape awareness work with women and any other likely victims. And it’s really great (really, it’s great) to just tell men stuff like “don’t rape anybody.” And maybe it shouldn’t have to be necessary to specify exactly how not to rape other people (it really shouldn’t have to be.)
But here’s the deal: putting it into conversation, even a semi-sorta-light-hearted/snarky way like that, really does put rape prevention on its source and not on its victims. Even better, it really, clearly turns specific concepts into specific social expectations. And while this may also sound dumb (it’s not, but it might sound that way) since Shayne’s list is derived from a list of the highest-priority avoidance techniques it sort of by-definition sets expectations against the most-likely types of offenses. Or at least puts into context for men the highest priority risks for women.
My point is that telling young men things like “carry a whistle if you’re afraid you might assault someone…” is funny and snarky but it also asks the question is there a chance you might assault someone? The good news is the answer’s pretty much mostly going to be no, since at least 80% of men never assault anyone. But pinning the meme-ish absurdity of something like “hand her a whistle” adds a handle from which the question “am I coming on too strong” can percolate into the inner dialogue. Same with many of the other tips.
The other thing I like about the list, by the way, is that unlike a lot of bitter MRA/teabagger lists, and a lot of equally bitter (but much more justified) prevention-activist’s lists, Shayne’s list is light enough to get the points across without alienating the male listener. And that’s a pretty important point too since it’s amazing how little people learn when they feel accused (justly or unjustly.)
Anyway, I know it’s meant to be funny but I think it, or something like it, really ought to make it into orientation talks, sex education curricula and other rape-prevention materials.
(Via tweet from ColorlessBlue.)
Submitted by 3202 (not verified) on Wed, 2009-09-16 01:59.
Item 5
This is off topic. Because of 9/11 and technology, there is one building I do not like to use the elevator. You have to enter the floors number when you call the elevator and cannot change the floor once you get in. If you felt uncomfortable or were being pressed or actually assaulted you could not stop at the next floor.
Terrorist are certainly more prevalent than rapist.
[Yikes, Five, that elevator security protocol sounds freaky. And I'm going to have to push back on a little on your last point. While I wish there were fewer of both I'm afraid there are more rapists than terrorists by several orders of magnitude. --fl]
Submitted by 3202 (not verified) on Wed, 2009-09-16 10:56.
Great post and creative use of inversion to make a very important point. I think I will post a link to this along with a link to Jaclyn Friedman's piece on rape prevention on my Facebook page (which I use for my own personal propaganda machine about social issues). A campus publication recently published a piece on sexual assault prevention that quoted the AMA statistic that 65% of campus sexual assaults go unreported, probably heavily influenced by victims feeling shamed and blamed because they "got themselves assaulted." Sexual assault prevention still has some work to do.
[Putting all the emphasis on rape prevention on potential victims is just necessarily going to increase the feeling of shame or self-blame for "getting" yourself assaulted. One more reason to put the expectation on me. And, by the way, another good reason to include Shayne's list in awareness courses -- it really *really* locates who should feel shamed or blamed for rape. Thanks, Kaija. --fl]
Submitted by 3202 (not verified) on Wed, 2009-09-16 14:38.
...at least 80% of men never assault anyone
Do you have a source for that statistic?
After all, I worked out that if 33% of women are raped at least once in their lifetime, and 70% of rapes are committed by someone known closely to the victim, then that means at least 21% of men will assault someone sexually (my reasoning can be found here).
There's some margin of error in my results, of course, but even accounting for that, I think your statement that "at least" 80% of men never assault anyone may be optimistic.
[Oof! I really should have been more careful with my assumptions. I'd say depending on how you parse it way more than 80% of men would never consider assaulting someone in an elevator, let alone attempting it. On the other hand it's possible that less than 20% of men would never misrepresent their feelings in order to have sex with someone. Which was why I pulled out the cannonical 80/20 ratio. My point being that while some percent greater than half (and, I still think, probably closer to 80%) wouldn't assault anyone, using Shayne's list puts clearly-identifiable actions into the conversation about what *men,* not women, ought to be avoiding to prevent assault. Thanks, SE. --fl]