Category Archives: Sexual Violence

A space to discuss the horrible realities of sexual violence and how we can move to a brighter, less violent future.

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What Men Can Do to Stop Street Harassment

It’s that time of year again!

The weather’s getting warmer, the days are getting longer, and most of us can’t wait to get a little sunshine on our skin.

People are breaking out the shorts, skirts, sundresses, tank tops, sandals, and bathing suits. We’re hitting the parks, beaches, running paths, streets, back yards – anywhere we can get a little bit of that Vitamin D.

And with this time of year comes an increase in street harassment.

My Name is Not "Baby" photo

It’s not as if there is not street harassment in the dead of winter. As my friend Heather recently said to me, “I can go out in a full-length down coat, hat, gloves, and boots, and I will have some f*ck think it’s okay to yell about my ass.”

But it tends to get more pronounced when it’s a bit warmer, and there’s a bit more skin showing on your average street. Now don’t get me wrong. It’s not the fact that skin is showing that’s the problem. It’s the fact that most men can’t seem to help ourselves once the skin comes out, and we just HAVE to comment and stare.

So let me say it plainly to my male-identified people out there: Street harassment and leering are never okay. Never.

Nope. Not ever.

In case anyone’s unclear, let’s look to the phenomenal folks atStopStreetHarassment.org to define precisely what we’re talking about:

Catcalls, sexually explicit comments, sexist remarks, groping, leering, stalking, public masturbation, and assault. Most women (more than 80% worldwide) and LGBQT folks will face gender-based street harassment at some point in their life. Street harassment limits people’s mobility and access to public spaces. It is a form of gender violence and it’s a human rights violation. It needs to stop.

Yup. That’s right.

We’re talking about the “Hey baby!” Or the “Smile! I bet you have a pretty smile!” Or the “Damn, you’ve got a fine ass!” Or the licking your lips and staring as she walks by.

It’s all harassment. It’s all misogyny. And it all needs to stop.

And since men are the primary perpetrators of street harassment, men bear the responsibility for ending it. So with that in mind, here are a few things men can do to stop street harassment.

1. Don’t Leer or Harass!

It seems obvious, but it bears saying.

One of the single most important things men can do to stop street harassment is to refuse to participate.

That means that you should never be commenting on a woman’s (or any person’s) body or appearance unless you have a relationship with that woman and have anexplicit understanding that this is welcome (which means that you’ve talked about it and she’s consented to it).

But it doesn’t stop there.

Though I don’t recall ever hollering to a woman on the street, there are plenty of times in my life when I have used my eyes and body language to treat a woman as little more than an object.

And in the end, how is leering any different than cat calling? Both send the message that women’s bodies are public property.

Sometimes the most radical action we can take is refusal to participate in oppressive norms.

2. Listen in Solidarity

Stop.

Don’t say it.

Read the rest at Everyday Feminism.

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Thinking Comprehensively: Preventing Sexual Violence

There is a parable used often in education to describe the reforms that are needed to better serve those students who are left behind or pushed out of our educational system:

A man and a woman were having a picnic along the river outside of their village. As they were eating, they heard a baby crying and, looking around for the source, saw a baby floating down the middle of the river.

The woman waded out and caught the baby and passed it to the man, only to realize there was another baby coming. The man ran to the village to get help, and before long, there was an organized party who were forming a chain across the river to stop the ever growing number of babies who were floating down the river. They saved a lot of children, but the number of babies was too many, and they could not save them all.

Then a young girl walked away from her duties on the riverbank and marched upstream. People yelled at her, “Where are you going!? We need your help!”

She replied, “I’m going to find who is throwing all these babies in the river so that we can stop them!”

Here’s the lesson for any social justice cause: If we don’t get to the root of the issue, all we’re doing is pulling some individuals to safety while losing others to the river.

In combatting sexual violence, undoubtedly, we must work to help survivors heal, seek justice, and find the “new normal” in their life, but that cannot be our only work.

We must prevent sexual violence before it happens. But how do we do that? What does it look like?

Expanding Who We Think of As Survivors

We can start by changing how we think about who experiences sexual assault.

In most prevention and response work, the focus tends to be on cisgender, straight women as victims and cisgender, straight men as perpetrators.

And there’s good reason for that: The vast majority of survivors are straight, cisgender women.

And with limited resources (especially in these times of austerity), those who work to prevent violence and support survivors tend to focus on that majority in order to best serve as many survivors as possible.

But to prevent sexual violence, we must acknowledge the incredible diversity of survivors and perpetrators.

Read the rest of the article at Everyday Feminism.

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5 Things Men Can Do During Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month (And All the Time)

Sexual Assault Awareness Month

In case you didn’t know, April is Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month.  The month was originally created to ensure that there was particular attention paid during one time of the year to the problem of sexual violence.  This was in response to the almost total silence in mainstream media and everyday conversations during the rest of the year.

Recently it has been exciting to see all of the places in which there have been healthy, productive conversations about sexual violence and prevention.  Much of this came in response to the high-profile Steubenville rape case, but there has also been some awesome momentum outside of that media firestorm!  I cannot tell you how many awesome articles I have read in the past six months about healthy sexuality, positive masculinity, sexual violence awareness, prevention of sexual violence, and so on.

With the hope of contributing to that momentum, I figured I would talk to teh menz this week with a post about ways that we can participate more fully in Sexual Assault Awareness Month.  Obviously there are countless ways that men can take part in the struggle to end sexual and intimate partner violence, so if you have suggestions, by all means leave them in the comments, but here are a few places to start:

1.  Self Reflect

One of the best ways to ensure that your relationships are healthy and consensual is to have a strong understanding of yourself and your needs and desires.  As I said in my article, “Want the Best Sex of Your Life? Just Ask:”

The single best thing we can do to encourage healthy, consensual sex is to know exactly what we want, how we want it, and how far we’re willing to go with any given person at any given time. If, before things get hot and heavy, you have spent some time reflecting (perhaps writing?) about what you want and how far you want things to go, you will have a much easier time communicating your needs and desires and will be much more willing to do so. Plus, if you know exactly what you like, exactly what gets you hot and gets you off, you will be able to tell your partner just how you want it. Ain’t nothing wrong with knowing what you want and demanding it between the sheets!

More than just knowing what we want in sex, though, self reflection is important in understanding what healthy sex and consent look like.  Last night my friend and I were talking about sexual violence prevention, and she noted that not all of the sex she’s had in her life felt good and healthy.  When I self reflect, I find the same thing.  I’ve had sex when I didn’t really want to.  I’ve likely pressured partners in unhealthy ways or left them feeling not-so-good about our encounter.  When we take the time to reflect on these experiences, we come to a better understanding of what healthy sex feels like.  When we know what it feels like (and doesn’t feel like), we can do a better job of practicing and advocating for healthy sexuality in our lives!

In this process, it’s also important to ask of ourselves questions like these:

  • Are there ways that I encourage or uphold rape culture?
  • In what ways can I be a better ally to those who have experienced sexual violence or are more likely to experience it than me?
  • What sex and relationship-related patterns in my life are unhealthy?  Which ones are healthy?  How can I make the unhealthy ones look more like the healthy ones?

2.  Talk to Other Men and Boys
Continue reading →

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The Healthy Sex Talk: Teaching Kids Consent, Ages 1-21

I’m really proud of this week’s post, though most of the credit needs to go to the other three authors on the piece who worked hard to put it together and include my perspective while I was on a busy speaking tour in South Dakota.

Originally published at The Good Men Project:

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A list of parenting action items, created in the hope that we can raise a generation of children who have less rape and sexual assault in their lives.

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The ongoing horror of rape in the news, from Penn State to the young women raped and killed in India to Steubenville, has proven to be a wake-up call for many parents. We always knew that rape was a problem, but never before have we been so mobilized to create change.

As writers, educators, and advocates of sex-positivity and healthy consent, the four of us have been inundated with requests from parents for advice on how to help create a future with less rape and sexual assault.

We believe parents can start educating children about consent and empowerment as early as 1 year old and continuing into the college years. It is our sincere hope that this education can help us raise empowered young adults who have empathy for others and a clear understanding of healthy consent.

We hope parents and educators find this list of action items and teaching tools helpful, and that together we can help create a generation of children who have less rape and sexual assault in their lives.

There are three sections, based upon children’s ages, preschool, grade school, and teens and young adults.

Sincerely,

Julie Gills, Jamie Utt, Alyssa Royse and Joanna Schroeder

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For Very Young Children (ages 1-5):

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1. Teach children to ask permission before touching or embracing a playmate. Use langauge such as, “Sarah, let’s ask Joe if he would like to hug bye-bye.”

If Joe says “no” to this request, cheerfully tell your child, “That’s okay, Sarah! Let’s wave bye-bye to Joe and blow him a kiss.”

2. Help create empathy within your child by explaining how something they have done may have hurt someone. Use language like, “I know you wanted that toy, but when you hit Mikey, it hurt him and he felt very sad. And we don’t want Mikey to feel sad because we hurt him.”

Encourage your child to imagine how he or she might feel if Mikey had hit them, instead. This can be done with a loving tone and a big hug, so the child doesn’t feel ashamed or embarrassed.

3. Teach kids to help others who may be in trouble. Ask your child to watch interactions and notice what is happening. Get them used to observing behavior and checking in on what they see.

Use the family pet as an example, “Oh, it looks like the kitty’s tail is stuck! We have to help her!!”

Praise your child for assisting others who need help.

Read the rest of the piece at The Good Men Project.

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How We Can Address Sexual Violence on Campuses

Everyday FeminismThis week’s post is published over at the incredible Everyday Feminism.

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On every single college campus in the United States, there is a powerful, committed group of feminists and feminist allies who are working to prevent sexual violence and respond to the needs of survivors.

These incredible coalitions of students, professors, staff, administrators, and wider community members are working every single day to ensure that survivors have the support they need while working to prevent further sexual assaults.

Too often, though, they are working against institutions and campus environments that shame survivors, protect perpetrators, and reinforce the rape culture that is endemic in our society.

The grim reality is that at least 1 in 4 college women are survivors of sexual violence, and our institutions are not doing enough to stem this terrible tide.

It is time that more of us join these committed activists in transforming the culture and climate of our college and university campuses.

Whether you’re a parent, a student, an alumni, or simply a concerned community member, here are a few ways that you help:

1. Change How We Talk About Sexual Violence

The messages that are sent to women and men about sexual violence on college campuses tend to be misguided at best and downright dangerous at worst.

Whether the message is delivered formally through a New Student Orientation program or through norms and mores, the traditional wisdom for sexual violence prevention on college campuses can often be boiled down to:

“Ladies, be careful so you don’t get raped.”

Whether we tell women to go out in groups, watch their drinks, or never walk across campus alone at night, the conversation is the same – the responsibility for preventing sexual violence is on women.

But considering that the VAST majority of rapes are committed by men, we can’t afford to leave men out of the conversation!

To place the responsibility for sexual violence prevention on women not only completely ignores those who perpetrate the majority of sexual assaults, but it lends itself to victim blaming.

“You shouldn’t have been dressed that way.” “You shouldn’t have gone out alone.” “You shouldn’t have been drinking.”

Thus, in both our informal conversations and as we look to change how our institutions address sexual violence, we must shift the conversation to ones of positive sexuality, enthusiastic consent, healthy masculinity, and support for survivors.

First, if sex and sexuality is talked about openly and honestly, we can begin to have more accountable conversations regarding positive sexuality.

We can introduce the ideas behind and methods for realizing enthusiastic consent. We can encourage healthier relationships and healthier sexuality in all their forms. So that people of all genders understand what healthy and consensual sexual relationships can and should look like,

Secondly, we must also end the culture of male sexual entitlement, disrespect, cat calling, and objectification that protects perpetrators of sexual violence.

Men, women have been trying to tell us these things for ages. It’s time for us to be the leaders in ending sexual violence. We, as men, need to work with other men to change how we talk about and practice sex.

Third, we need to change how we talk about sexual violence so that it reflects reality and not myths about rape.

A good place to start is changing where we place the onus for prevention. The only person responsible for a sexual assault is the perpetrator. Plain and simple. From there, we can do a better job of supporting those who experience sexual assault.

Finally, we have to make sure that our conversations don’t accidentally silence survivors who don’t fit our understanding of “normal.” Any person of any gender or any sexual orientation can experience sexual violence. 50% of transgender peopleexperience sexual violence and approximately 8% of all men (by conservative estimates) are raped by a former partner.

Often, conversations around rape focus solely on straight relationships, but lesbian, gay, and bisexual people commonly experience sexual violence too. Further, 1 in 10 survivors of sexual violence are men, and we need to have resources that support male survivors.

Lastly, we need to expand the conversation around sexual violence beyond rape (forced sexual intercourse, including vaginal, anal, or oral penetration) to other types of unwanted sexual contact and coercive sexual activity (including forced kissing, groping, forced hand jobs, non-consensual kissing, etc).

Otherwise, those who experience sexual violence that they would not call rape may feel like their experience is not legitimate or worthy of attention. But they often still experience trauma like rape survivors because it was still not consensual.

In short, we can make our conversations more inclusive, and we can push to make our campus programming more inclusive.

2. Transform Party Culture

Read the rest of the article at Everyday Feminism.