Tremble Administrative Swine: Reports From The Field On Sexual Assault

How about we go to court on our first date?

Tenured Radical is out of town and a little slow on the flip-flop lately, but here's news:  following an incident in which  fraternity pledges chanted sexist slurs on the Old Campus last fall, sixteen Yale students have filed charges with the federal government that Yale University has a sexually hostile environment.  As CBS News reported in its online edition,

“What we’re saying is that Yale, in its failure to respond to both public and private instances of sexual harassment and sexual assault, has said to the campus ‘this is OK’,” said plaintiff Alexandra Brodsky.

That belief pushed Brodsky, Hannah Zeavin, and 14 other men and women at Yale to file a complaint, charging the university has repeatedly failed to take action on harassment and sex crimes, including rape.

The students, who include men and women, are alleging a Title IX violation, and the Department of Education has launched an investigation

This follows on the occupation of an administrative building at Dickinson College earlier this semester by students demanding that anti-rape efforts be jacked up at that school.  Here's a hint, ladies:  if you've asked for action at your school and they don't hire anyone, if your school offers "consent training" rather than anti-rape workshops, they don't open a women's center, faculty are not receiving mandatory sexual harassment training, and the bulk of the website on rape is still devoted to all the things you, as a woman, can do to "avoid" being raped -- your school might benefit from a Title IX investigation too.

A Letter To My Students: Stop Rape Now By Doing These Ten Things

Over the past six months, we at Zenith University have been talking about rape and sexual assault.  We talk in the dormitories and program houses; we talk in faculty offices; we talk in special hearings run by the deans; we talk in a committee convened to examine sexual assault on campus; we talk on the Anonymous Confession Board; we talk in the pages of the Zenith newspaper. 

So enough talk, Zenith students.  It is time to act.  Direct some of the compassion that you so frequently exhibit towards people off our campus towards each other.  It is time for you to stop rape at Zenith right now. 

I have never used this blog to talk directly to Zenith students.  But because I know you read it, and because there has recently been a public announcement about sexual assault on campus, I want to  speak to you directly about how you can stop rape and sexual assault on campus without any intervention by the university at all.  Here are ten positive steps you, the students, can do to stop rape and sexual assault on campus, without any member of the Zenith administration doing anything.  These steps can be taken by men or women, by victims or friends of victims, and they can be taken today.

A person who has been raped should go immediately to the hospital and have a rape kit done.  The person who has raped you has left physical traces on your body and your first impulse will be to scrub them away, but this is critical evidence that must be preserved.  Do not go to the university health services; go directly to the hospital by whatever the quickest means is.  Do not allow anyone to talk you out of this.  If you have been forced to give someone oral sex, do not wash out your mouth.  Do not dispose of your clothes or underpants, and have someone meet you at the hospital with new clothes to put on because what you are wearing may need to be logged into evidence.  You also need to have prophylactic medication to stop or avert the transmission of sexually transmitted diseases; interrupt possible conception; be examined for any physical damage the rapist may have caused; and have any injuries documented and photographed. 

This is the one, crucial step necessary to prosecute rape as the crime that it is:  go to the hospital and have a rape kit done and your injuries documented.  You or your friend can file this rape kit under an anonymous number, and no assailant has to be named until such a time as the victim is ready to talk to the police and work with them to decide whether to file charges.  

Never ask someone who says s/he has been raped: "Are you sure?"  If a person says s/he has been raped, assume that s/he has been, and know that you can acknowledge that sexual violence has occurred without deciding whether the accused person is capable of such a crime.  You are not required to decide guilt or innocence:  you are simply required to help a person in distress get to the hospital.  Know that when you question an affirmative statement that sexual violence has occurred, you are detaching from that person and weighing the option not to be involved.

Do not allow shame over the event, or actions you may or may not have taken leading up to the event, to keep you from going to the hospital or to the police.   You are likely to feel disoriented and unwilling -- or unable -- to talk to people about what has happened to you and there is no need to do that until you have the support you need.  When bad things happen, our greatest tendency is to blame ourselves first, but that is in part because we live in a society that conveys shame about a great many things, especially sex.  Questions like:  "Why did I drink so much?" "Why did I allow myself to be fooled by this person?" "Why did I trust someone I didn't know?" "What will people think of me?" and "Why didn't I fight harder?" are not only self-defeating questions, they are irrelevant.  The person who committed this crime against you has probably done it before, and will probably do it again to someone else (see this research, contributed by a reader, the findings of which argue that the vast majority of campus rapes are committed by serial rapists who are never caught; the vast majority of rapes are perpetrated on first-year students.)  Keeping your rape a secret increases a rapist's confidence that this horrible act can be perpetrated without penalty.

Do not allow anyone to tell you that you will feel worse if you report this to the police or file charges.  It isn't true, or at least, consider that advice unproven.  In fact, research shows that people who take legal action against rapists do better psychologically down the line than people who do not report them to the police, even when they do not get the outcome they want.  Furthermore, a rapist who is successfully expelled from the Zenith campus in a confidential proceeding has suffered a setback, but has also been given a get out of jail free card to go rape someone else on another campus.

Never joke about rape or sexual assault, mock people who have been raped, or say in jest that rape would be an appropriate introduction to sexual intercourse.  At the risk of being mocked yourself, tell people who say these things that they are not funny. In fact, help to build a student culture where people do not  think people's sexuality is a joke, where people's self-esteem is not built on who they have sex with or whether they have sex at all.  Emphasize in your conversations about sex that with the pleasure of sexuality comes the responsibility to treat others with honor and respect.  Do not take these responsibilities lightly.  Do not erroneously conclude that the vast majority of rape accusations come from hook-ups that one person regrets, break-up sex that one partner is using as a weapon, or a misunderstanding about consent.  While it is true that accusations of sexual assault can be false, it is a far more salient fact that the vast majority of rapes and sexual assaults on campus are never reported at all.

If you believe that a crime has been committed, you have a moral obligation to report it and urge the victim to take steps to report it too.  Rape is a crime.  It isn't a misunderstanding, or the unavoidable outcome of having been too drunk to restrain yourself.  In some states, to not report a felony makes you a co-conspirator.  Connecticut is not one of them.  But talking about rape on the Anonymous Confession Board is not the same thing as stopping rape.  In fact, it is much worse, because accusations against entire groups of people -- primarily teams, fraternities, and the women who socialize with them  -- create a sense of mutual stigma and resentment because people who should be part of the solution close ranks around a friend or friends rather than taking responsible action against the person or persons responsible for the rape.

Do not ever tease or mock men about their masculinity; do not ever use homophobic, racist or sexist slurs; and do not engage in or tolerate behavior or speech which humiliates and harms others by degrading their personal dignity.  Rape is the ultimate act of degradation, but like bullying, it is often a product of a coarsened culture that tolerates and promotes profound disrespect for others.  Tolerance for rape and bullying displays your own selfish relief that it is not you who is the object of humiliation. Behavior which creates intimacy among a group through stigmatizing or harming others is immoral, wrong and, in the case of rape or hazing, criminal.  It creates a crude and unwelcoming student culture, and it impedes the real intimacy of love and/or friendship that occurs when people can trust others to treat them with love and respect.

Men need to talk to other men about why men rape; women need to talk to women about why they insist on making rape a private matter; and both men and women need to talk among themselves and with each other about why they tolerate rape.  Topics for such discussions might include:  why do we insist on valorizing hook-up culture without discussing an ethic of responsible sexuality?  Under what conditions do male bodies become weapons? If I am involved in a politics of decarceration, does that exclude acting to prevent a rapist from raping another woman?  If a rapist is not punished for that crime, what prevents that person from raping again or prevents others from believing they can get away with rape?  If I have seen someone being coerced into a situation where a sexual assault happened, what prevented me from intervening?  How would I intervene in the future? What is the special role of men, and men's organizations, in preventing rape? How can team captains, fraternity presidents and other campus leaders use their popularity and influence to end rape on campus?

If you can't stop people being raped at your parties, stop having parties.  On the other hand, imagine taking the following steps at your parties.  Do not let people in who cannot present an ID.  Have a sufficient number of people at your party who are willing to remain sober and to move around the room and/or the house, making sure that people are safe.  People who are intoxicated on booze or drugs past the point of good judgment should not be permitted to enter; they should not be served alcohol or drugs; and if they become intoxicated at the party, they should be escorted home by Public Safety or someone they can identify as a trusted friend.  No one should be having sex at a party.  If you insist on treating your party like a sex club, you must do what sex clubs do:  have sober, knowledgeable monitors specifically available to ensure that the sex is safe and fully consensual.

Forward this post to your friends, post it at your house, have a meeting on your hall about it, call your team or your club together and discuss it.  These are important issues for public safety and complex features of community building, and should be discussed frequently.  One Take Back the Night March every year, with cathartic crying circles where people comfort each other, does not constitute a year's worth of anti-rape activism.  A skit at orientation provides none of the practical information people need to know about rape.  A website that instructs someone what to do in the event of a sexual assault does not stop rape, nor is reading a website an effective way of taking in information or making decisions in the aftermath of a rape.

Report any rape or sexual assault you have not yet reported, no matter when it happened.  While it may be past the time that it can be prosecuted, the Zenith administration needs a far more accurate sense than it has about how many rapes there are on campus, and the places they are occurring. 

The Zenith administration can police rape, punish rape and provide resources to support you in the aftermath of a rape; only students working together can stop rape from occurring in the first place.  My hope is that institutional resources on campus aimed at combating rape will be strengthened dramatically in the coming months, and that feminist faculty will be a part of that discussion.  But the Zenith administration and the faculty are not raping you.  You are raping each other, and failing to deal with the conditions that make rape possible in your community.

And you can change that.  Now.

Is The Oklahoma Legislature Really Determined To Legalize Rape And Medical Malpractice In Order To Stop Legal Abortions?

As the New York Times reported over the weekend, Oklahoma governor Brad Henry, a Democrat, vetoed two abortion bills last week. "One measure would have required women to undergo an intrusive ultrasound and listen to a detailed description of the fetus before having an abortion. Mr. Henry, a Democrat, said Friday that the legislation was flawed because it did not exempt rape and incest victims," the Associated Press report noted (I say the Associated Press because the Times does not think women's right to choose is actually important enough to report on, especially when the story is about women in a flyover state, so they simply reprinted a wire story.)

Mr. Henry said that “it would be unconscionable to subject rape and incest victims to such treatment” because it would victimize them again.

“State policymakers should never mandate that a citizen be forced to undergo any medical procedure against his or her will,” Mr. Henry said, “especially when such a procedure could cause physical or mental trauma.”

Under the ultrasound legislation, doctors would have been required to use a vaginal probe in cases where it would provide a clearer picture of the fetus than a regular ultrasound. Doctors have said that this is usually the case early in pregnancies.

The second bill "would have prohibited pregnant women from seeking damages if physicians withhold important information or provide inaccurate information about their pregnancy. Supporters of that measure said it was an attempt to keep pregnant women from discriminating against fetuses with disabilities." The Oklahoma legislature, which has passed this legislation before, vows to do so again.

Putting aside the question of why you would want to legalize doctors lying to patients, what no one has mentioned about the first bill is that it comes into direct conflict with Oklahoma's rape statute. If, in order to obtain a perfectly legal abortion, a woman must permit herself to be penetrated by an ultrasound probe -- in whatever way, or for however long, the technician and doctor wish to do so, that seems to me to be what statute 21-114 of the Oklahoma Criminal Code defines as rape by instrumentation. This act (putting an object in a vagina, anus or mouth against that person's will) is explicitly defined as rape in the first or second degree.

Coercing a woman into being raped with an object, for whatever reason, is, in fact, rape: this was first established in State v. Rusk (1979), which transformed the legal and popular view of what counted as forced sex by defining as rape any unwanted sexual intercourse, even if a man believed that a woman ought to give it up in return for the drinks and dinner he had purchased earlier in the evening. And by the way? Although it has been technically invalidated by Lawrence v. Texas (2003), Oklahoma still has a sodomy statute on the books too.

Furthermore, it isn't clear to me why, if the legislature is institutionalizing rape as the only path to a legal medical procedure, it matters that whether a woman has come to you having been already traumatized by sexual assault or not. Being raped once is "Oklahoma, OK", as they say in the song (particularly if you get your life back in return), but being raped twice is an act to which the state cannot consent?

Remember when various agents of the state-- cops, judges -- or your average college guy would suggest with a grin that you could just "lie back and enjoy it?" Or perhaps you recall those dark days prior to the feminist anti-rape movement when girls and women were routinely counseled that they only way to ensure that you would not be killed or beaten by an assailant was to be passive permit the rape to occur?

So where are feminists on this one? In our post-Abu Ghraib world, that women who have gotten pregnant through consensual sex would be imagined as candidates for rape-by-technician doesn't seem worth a mention by organizations like NARAL-Pro-Choice America (which has virtually eliminated the word "abortion" from its name) or the National Organization for Women (which has nothing about the Oklahoma bill on the portion of its web site devoted to abortion rights.) These are groups that ask for our donations in the name of preserving our access to the law. Feminists are not the only ones who have dropped the ball here. Although the AMA reported on the previous versions of the bill, struck down by court order in 2009, they made no public statement that I can find condemning the participation of medical personnel in procedures that enshrine violence against women in the law.

This is of course, the endgame of feminist lobbyists and their so-called allies in the Democratic Party having ceded the abortion debate for all but those of us who can pay to control the integrity of our own bodies. While abortion is technically legal, it is actually available to a fraction of American women who have the money to preserve their civil rights. Now abortion activists want to go after the rest of us, by forcing women to be physically tortured and verbally abused by crazy people funneling their projected fantasies about the innocent "baby" you are about to "execute."

And while we are at it, does anyone but me see see some relationship between how the Vatican and the Catholic Church hierarchy around the globe has handled institutionalized child sexual abuse, its successful attempts to constrict the civil and human rights of GLBT people and the lack of value the Church puts on women's lives by its lobbying efforts against legal abortion and birth control? And yet, organized feminism in the United States is not talking about this either.

People talk about political reform as if it could, and should, only happen in formal political frameworks. From my perspective, organized feminism has become too complicit with politics, too wedded to the business of lobbying and compromise, too interested in the forest and uninterested in the trees that make up the lives of ordinary people.

Have we given up?

Noon Update: for more observations about sexual violence in plain sight, go to today's post at Roxie's World.