There is a section of my school’s newspaper reserved for reports of rape and sexual assault. It is right there on the front page, in the upper left corner. There is almost never a lack of content. Every day, there are new reports of abuse from Bloomington, both from the student body and the community as a whole.
The question arises, then: are there more occurrences of rape happening now than in the past, or is reporting of rape becoming more popular? The answer, as I believe, is both. While rape has been growing more “popular.” so too does it’s reporting.
An important distinction to be made is a definition of rape. You wouldn’t think you would have to identify what is and isn’t rape, but it is a pivotal part of getting to the root of the issue.
As a child, or pre-teen, when I learned about rape, I primarily was told about creepy men, psychopaths, who hid in alleys and forced themselves upon young, innocent women. To the young me, a rapist a mugger, thief, or murderer would all look alike. While this is sometimes the case, the more prevalent and harder to solve issue is the rapist who is a good student, or a caring son, or a devoted boyfriend. Rape is found in far more places than alleyways.
What is becoming more prevalent is the reporting of rape between people who know each other, even between individuals in a relationship. This is why definition is so important to understanding rape’s place in society and getting to the essence of how to eradicate it.
Rape is, at it’s most basic level, any sexual interaction that a person does not fully consent to. This opens the door for a wide range of examples, and, very significantly, different kinds of rapists.
As we gain a better grasp of what rape looks like, we have to understand that rape can result from a consensual interaction going a step too far. A perfect example of this is a situation where (For the purpose of this example) a man and a woman meet at a party. They hit it off and agree to go back to his place. Upon arrival, they begin to make out and things are going fine. When he attempts to go a step further, she seems unsure, and he tries to urge her on, we’ve already crossed a threshold. That’s all it takes. If he takes even one step she doesn’t want to take, he becomes a rapist. A very different rapist from the masked man in the alley, but a rapist none the less.
As if it wasn’t complicated enough, sexuality is adding an additional layer to the difficulty of the issue. Morso than ever before, women are taking ownership of their sexuality. Women are dressing in ways we’ve never seen before, they’re interacting with others in revolutionary ways, and they’re taking control of their sexual environments more than society has ever experienced. These are, of course, generalizations, but ones that seem to be based in real social progress.
In no way does a woman taking control of her sexuality justify or defend rape. There is nothing that justifies or defends rape. It is, though, important to acknowledge that all of these pieces have a connection to the situation, and can play a role in moving us forward toward a more healthy and meaningful interaction between people. There is a taboo about talking about rape, especially for a young man. To find a solution to the issue, though, we have to be willing to discuss it in a meaningful way, not just a “comfortable” way.
Disclaimer included, we return to the point. Women’s increased ownership of their sexuality is, rightfully, forcing men’s understanding of their own to change. This has proven, unfortunately, to be a slow process. Society still calls woman who knows her sexual desires a “slut.” A girl who dresses provocatively is still looked at as begging for sexual attention. From this (wrong) perspective, these women are looking for it, and shouldn’t be upset when they get it.
We have, then, isolated two components of the issue: first, we are overly pigeonholing rape, and second, we are failing to move forward as a society. By “overly pigeonholing,” I mean that a young person who thinks of rape as a masked psychopath doesn’t include himself in the rape conversation. “I’m not a monster, I don’t hide and physically assault women, therefore I don’t have to be thoughtful about rape.” This mindset is what young men are learning and we’re suffering for it. As a response, we need to be teaching young men, sooner rather than later, about how to appropriately and thoughtfully get consent in a way that values the interaction with a partner, rather than being a buzzkill.
The second point, moving our society forward, comes with two additional pieces of education. We have to do a better job of communicating to young men the importance of appreciating a woman’s sexuality, rather than seeing it as an opportunity for personal pleasure. On the other side of the coin, young women need to be instructed how to remain safe in any and all situations. Many feminists love to say “we shouldn’t tell our daughters not to get raped, we should tell our sons not to rape.” That’s true. But it is an ignorant gamble to say we aren’t going to do some education for each.
Rape is a scary and uncomfortable topic for discussion. As it has become more and more popular to report, though, we are faced with the burden of finding ways to keep women (and men) safe. In recent months, we’ve seen no shortage of columns, commentaries, and blogs attempting to tackle an element of the complex issue. The roadblock, however, for any real understanding is our unwillingness to have the full conversation. We need to be having conversations with young men AND young women. We need to be more understanding of what rape really looks like, where it comes from, and how we can eradicate it.
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