Breast Cancer Month and Rape/Sexual Assault
Here's a ranty, lengthy lil email I sent to the woman who supervises me at the hotline:
So here is the deal with Breast Cancer Month (which is October). I have nothing against Breast Cancer Month, I think cancer in all forms totally sucks and is no fun and we should fight it tooth and nail.
However, what grates on me is the "1 in 8 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer in her lifetime" statistic. Fully double - double - that number of women will be raped/sexually assaulted in their lifetimes, most often by an intimate partner or acquaintance. But there is no Rape Awareness/Prevention Month. With breast cancer, I can buy pink ribbon crap everywhere - I can go into Foot Locker or Target, buy everything from lip gloss to yogurt to giant ribbon magnets for my car, sneakers to gym bags, to support the fight against breast cancer. The government and private foundations have thrown money into research on breast cancer. I want millions of dollars for rape research, damnit. I want to be able to buy yogurt and lip gloss and body wash and bath towels and socks that support the fight to end rape. Because cancer is complex - what roles do genetics, environment, lifestyle, etc. play? Whereas rape is more simple: don't rape people. Raise sons that don't rape people. Make it completely unacceptable to rape people. (And don't tell me it isn't possible: less than a century ago, it was completely acceptable to hang black people from trees. Crowds of hundreds gathered to watch. People brought picnics. Now, the fight against racism is far from over, but don't tell me things haven't changed. Change is possible.)
Look at it this way: 1 in 4 women will be raped/sexually assaulted. Fully 80% of those women will know their assailant in some way. So even if you weed out the obvious psychos, the ones killing cats in childhood, the violent serial rapists - that still leaves a huge number of men who think it is okay to rape/sexually assault women. A huge number of date rapists out there, "normal" guys who go about their routines and think it's perfectly okay and may not even know what they are doing is rape. This is where I start talking about consent and raising our children, because in talking this over with friends, I realized very few people are having the conversations about consent that my friends and I are having. Because I think and talk about consent, and so do my friends. Among us, it's a given that any kind of sexual play will automatically involve a safeword. (I may have mentioned this before, but I love the idea of safewords. I think everyone should know about them and use them and love them, I believe they have the potential to clear up a lot of conflict for people about what their partner[s] actually want[s]. And if "no" is no longer a reliable, universal safeword, then we need another one.) But obviously, very few people approach sex like my friends and I do. And I can understand how confusing it would be for the average 15, 20, 30 year old, how confusing and frightening it is to have discussions about safe sex, but it is so very necessary to keeping ourselves safe. And if someone doesn't want to engage in discussions about safer sex - both in the "physical protection from disease" sense and the "mutual consent" sense - are they really someone who you or I should be sleeping with?
If rational discussions about consent (they don't have to be elaborate, just a simple "my safeword is blanketyblank. If I say it, I need you to respect it and do XYZ. Cool?" will suffice) were more common, then it would be harder for the date rapists to hide behind the "unclear boundaries" defense - also known as the she was asking for it, she didn't really mean no, she was drunk, she was wearing a short skirt and no panties defense. Because you know what? My boundaries ARE clear, because I've thought about them and defined them and if you're someone I might sleep with then I've told you what they are, so even if I AM drunk and half naked, you know what they are. And I'll tell you upfront when you come close to crossing them, when you're about to cross them, and when you've crossed them. But very few people are so up-front about their needs, and that's terrible. We need to help people - starting in their early teens - find their voices on this. That alone would go such a long way towards prevention.
I always say to people who are skeptical that they know victims/survivors, "do you know four women? Because if you know four women, statistically, you know a rape survivor." The same goes for rapists: even if you factor in the fact that rapists are likely to do their crimes serially, even if the number is a lower percentage, rape is so common that it's what? Maybe 1 in 20 men who's crossed the line? Who may not know or care if it's there? Do you know 20 men?
I understand that one response is to say, well, we can't talk about rape prevention because it's controversial. Why is it controversial to prevent a crime? Think about it: rape is a crime. If you ask someone how prevent getting robbed at their car in a mall parking lot, they can list a myriad of prevention strategies. Ask a woman about her rape-prevention strategies, and she might say, have someone watch my drink, walk me home, etc, but very few women would ever list clear boundary setting and discussions of consent as part of their rape prevention. Few would ever say "trusting my intuition and not being afraid to offend someone who makes me feel nervous." But if everyone talked about and respected concepts of consent, then of course women would be able to set boundaries for themselves, and of course it would set off alarm bells if those boundaries weren't respected - instead of the current morass of conflicting ideas about what consent can be.
I've veered off track somewhat as to how this relates to Breast Cancer Awareness Month. My basic point is: the fight against breast cancer is highly visible, with lots of opportunities to support the cause. The fight against rape is invisible, lacks money and serious institutional attention to how it can be prevented. I want the day to come when the fight against rape is as visible, as easy to give money to, and as widely accepted as the fight against breast cancer. Because both are often life-threatening to those who experience them (not just during, but after too). Both affect people we know and love. The statistics and prevention strategies deployed in the fight against rape should be as well known as those widely distributed about breast cancer. I want millions of government dollars and studies about how rape can be fought.
That's how I feel about Breast Cancer Month. Every time I see that 1 in 8 statistic, I want to respond with the 1 in 4 statistic. How is one worse or more important to fight than the other? The one that is more easily preventable is also twice as likely to happen - seems like a fight we can't lose, if only we take it on.
So here is the deal with Breast Cancer Month (which is October). I have nothing against Breast Cancer Month, I think cancer in all forms totally sucks and is no fun and we should fight it tooth and nail.
However, what grates on me is the "1 in 8 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer in her lifetime" statistic. Fully double - double - that number of women will be raped/sexually assaulted in their lifetimes, most often by an intimate partner or acquaintance. But there is no Rape Awareness/Prevention Month. With breast cancer, I can buy pink ribbon crap everywhere - I can go into Foot Locker or Target, buy everything from lip gloss to yogurt to giant ribbon magnets for my car, sneakers to gym bags, to support the fight against breast cancer. The government and private foundations have thrown money into research on breast cancer. I want millions of dollars for rape research, damnit. I want to be able to buy yogurt and lip gloss and body wash and bath towels and socks that support the fight to end rape. Because cancer is complex - what roles do genetics, environment, lifestyle, etc. play? Whereas rape is more simple: don't rape people. Raise sons that don't rape people. Make it completely unacceptable to rape people. (And don't tell me it isn't possible: less than a century ago, it was completely acceptable to hang black people from trees. Crowds of hundreds gathered to watch. People brought picnics. Now, the fight against racism is far from over, but don't tell me things haven't changed. Change is possible.)
Look at it this way: 1 in 4 women will be raped/sexually assaulted. Fully 80% of those women will know their assailant in some way. So even if you weed out the obvious psychos, the ones killing cats in childhood, the violent serial rapists - that still leaves a huge number of men who think it is okay to rape/sexually assault women. A huge number of date rapists out there, "normal" guys who go about their routines and think it's perfectly okay and may not even know what they are doing is rape. This is where I start talking about consent and raising our children, because in talking this over with friends, I realized very few people are having the conversations about consent that my friends and I are having. Because I think and talk about consent, and so do my friends. Among us, it's a given that any kind of sexual play will automatically involve a safeword. (I may have mentioned this before, but I love the idea of safewords. I think everyone should know about them and use them and love them, I believe they have the potential to clear up a lot of conflict for people about what their partner[s] actually want[s]. And if "no" is no longer a reliable, universal safeword, then we need another one.) But obviously, very few people approach sex like my friends and I do. And I can understand how confusing it would be for the average 15, 20, 30 year old, how confusing and frightening it is to have discussions about safe sex, but it is so very necessary to keeping ourselves safe. And if someone doesn't want to engage in discussions about safer sex - both in the "physical protection from disease" sense and the "mutual consent" sense - are they really someone who you or I should be sleeping with?
If rational discussions about consent (they don't have to be elaborate, just a simple "my safeword is blanketyblank. If I say it, I need you to respect it and do XYZ. Cool?" will suffice) were more common, then it would be harder for the date rapists to hide behind the "unclear boundaries" defense - also known as the she was asking for it, she didn't really mean no, she was drunk, she was wearing a short skirt and no panties defense. Because you know what? My boundaries ARE clear, because I've thought about them and defined them and if you're someone I might sleep with then I've told you what they are, so even if I AM drunk and half naked, you know what they are. And I'll tell you upfront when you come close to crossing them, when you're about to cross them, and when you've crossed them. But very few people are so up-front about their needs, and that's terrible. We need to help people - starting in their early teens - find their voices on this. That alone would go such a long way towards prevention.
I always say to people who are skeptical that they know victims/survivors, "do you know four women? Because if you know four women, statistically, you know a rape survivor." The same goes for rapists: even if you factor in the fact that rapists are likely to do their crimes serially, even if the number is a lower percentage, rape is so common that it's what? Maybe 1 in 20 men who's crossed the line? Who may not know or care if it's there? Do you know 20 men?
I understand that one response is to say, well, we can't talk about rape prevention because it's controversial. Why is it controversial to prevent a crime? Think about it: rape is a crime. If you ask someone how prevent getting robbed at their car in a mall parking lot, they can list a myriad of prevention strategies. Ask a woman about her rape-prevention strategies, and she might say, have someone watch my drink, walk me home, etc, but very few women would ever list clear boundary setting and discussions of consent as part of their rape prevention. Few would ever say "trusting my intuition and not being afraid to offend someone who makes me feel nervous." But if everyone talked about and respected concepts of consent, then of course women would be able to set boundaries for themselves, and of course it would set off alarm bells if those boundaries weren't respected - instead of the current morass of conflicting ideas about what consent can be.
I've veered off track somewhat as to how this relates to Breast Cancer Awareness Month. My basic point is: the fight against breast cancer is highly visible, with lots of opportunities to support the cause. The fight against rape is invisible, lacks money and serious institutional attention to how it can be prevented. I want the day to come when the fight against rape is as visible, as easy to give money to, and as widely accepted as the fight against breast cancer. Because both are often life-threatening to those who experience them (not just during, but after too). Both affect people we know and love. The statistics and prevention strategies deployed in the fight against rape should be as well known as those widely distributed about breast cancer. I want millions of government dollars and studies about how rape can be fought.
That's how I feel about Breast Cancer Month. Every time I see that 1 in 8 statistic, I want to respond with the 1 in 4 statistic. How is one worse or more important to fight than the other? The one that is more easily preventable is also twice as likely to happen - seems like a fight we can't lose, if only we take it on.