March 17th: Forced to Change

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.

March 9th: In Peace and Love

My phone has been a terrible problem for the past several months. I’ve been dropping calls, failing to send texts, and unable to do simple tasks using my apps (first world problems, I know). As a last ditch effort to try to make things move a little more quickly, I performed a factory reset on my phone.

While this action didn’t really help my phone much (it’s still most useful as a paperweight), I did get the opportunity to reload the apps that were important to me and leave certain things off that I had no intention of ever using again.

Another of the elements of the phone that went away with the clean reset was my autosignature. For the last four years, I have had a message inscribed at the bottom of all of my text messages. It simply read “BSVA AZ.” BSVA stood for B’Shalom V’Ahavah, a Hebrew phrase meaning “In Peace and Love,” followed by my initials.

This notion arose when, as a junior in high school, I wrote a service for NFTY that involved the intersection between text messaging and prayer. I gave a D’var Torah (a sermon) on the fact that we, as teens, have the opportunity to make a religious connection with all facets of our lives, and that something as basic or mundane as texting can hold a far greater significance to our lives. As part of this service, I added my autosignature to my phone as a way to embody what I was talking about.

For the next four years, it was a constant reminder. I was always able to see that, whatever was the root of my conversation, my religious identity was not far away. The URL of this very blog page, bsvaaz.blogspot.com, was derivative of my call to action, an action I too took up.

It wasn’t always an easy thing. There were times when my texting mates would get irritated with the repetitive message, and there were those who simply didn’t understand why this was an important part of my communication identity. I spent a good number of characters explaining to people why it was there and what it meant to me.

In recent months, I realized I was spending more and more time considering whether I even wanted to include the phrase. There are times when my religious identity would be a hinderance to the conversation, a distractor rather than helpful. I struggled with whether or not to keep what had become a significant part of my relationship with media.

With the clean slate phone, though, I’ve decided not to replace it. There are many reasons why I think this is best for me, but first and foremost is my relationship with my religious identity. As a young person, I have always needed to find ways to keep God and my religious relationship close at hand. As I grow more and more comfortable in my beliefs, they also grow more available to me. As a Jewish Studies major, a rabbinic hopeful, and an intern in the leadership of Reform Judaism, I don’t have a hard time remembering to keep Judaism in mind.

Another important element is my understanding of communication. The intersection between religious practice and media communications is something that religious teens and college students have been struggling with for a long time. There are a multitude of possible solutions and I’m excited to have the opportunity to go out and explore other opportunities to connect to my community, my religion, and my belief in God.

While my autosignature may no longer hang at the bottom of every text, I keep the sentiment clear in my communications. I can’t wait to see what I can do next to keep my Judaism and my faith close at hand.

BSVA AZ

March 2nd: Making the Separation

In case being considered racist wasn’t enough, Arizona now wants to add “homophobic” to their list of adjectives.

Earlier last week, the state was discussing the possibility of passing a law that would allow business owners the opportunity to deny service to any customer on the grounds of their own religious beliefs. While not explicitly stated, this would effectively allow an Arizona business to reject gay customers because, in their eyes, a patron’s sexuality is an insult to their moral integrity.

There have, of course, been a wide variety of reactions from the American public. On one side, a few states have joined in, including Missouri and Mississippi, attempting to write their own, similar pieces of legislation. On the other side, there were rumors that the NFL would refuse to host Super Bowl XLIX in Arizona’s University of Phoenix Stadium as it had originally planned, in protest of the bill.

This ridiculous law is a thinly veiled attempt to suffocate the people of Arizona within the context of the Christian religious values that the few in power hold. This is, though, a blatant violation of the idea behind the first amendment. While it can safely hide behind the fact that it doesn’t distinguish between faiths, it is the imposition of faith upon citizens in a baseless way that is contradictory to everything this country stands for.

One question, though, that comes to mind is how a religious Christian will identify a gay when they walk into a business. Are you going to deny someone service if they are holding another man’s hand? If they are wearing jeans that are a little too tight? If your gay-dar just kinda sends you that vibe? This looks like a heinously arbitrary way of allowing for terrible action against another human being with no basis in real business or economic success.

As an active member of a religious community, it drives me crazy to see religion used as a template for hate. This is, after all, what is going on here. Christian extremists have hijacked the social advancement of this country and need to be put back in their place. Not only are they imposing their religious beliefs on the rest of the country, but they are giving all religious people of all faiths a bad rap.

There’s another piece of the puzzle, though, that the Christian right may not have fully considered: to allow this law to take effect, it would open the door to all religions and all views, not just the white majority. If this were to have happened, it would bring up the opportunity for a Muslim to refuse service to a Jews, a Jew to refuse service to a Christian, or any other form of otherwise baseless discrimination. The idea of a member of another religion using their faith to deny service would leave any soap box preacher crying.

Luckily, Governor Jan Brewer vetoed the bill. For the time being, this will not be accepted into the legislation of our country. That doesn’t mean, though, that we’re in the clear.

This all really comes down to power, and the fear of losing it. As society changes and move progressively forward, there is a small group of Christians (not all Christians by any means) that is afraid of growing impotent at the hands of the gays and the blasphemers.

Using religion as a basis for discrimination and hatred is a fundamental error in the understanding of faith. Anyone who uses the Bible in a way that causes another person harm or emotional distress is bastardizing the real meaning behind faith. Religion is a way that an individual can wake up in the morning and live a meaningful life. Religion is a way to do what is best for one’s own self. There is no way to read the Bible and come away with hate.

If there is a debate that the Christian right would like to have, let’s have it. We can talk, we can learn, we can move forward together. But using legislation to write discrimination and hate into our laws will not be accepted. If an individual wants to use his or her faith to make life more meaningful, by all means. I, of all people, understand. Religion as a means to ruin the life of someone else, though, will not be tolerated.