The Ugly Truth: We Live In A Rape Culture [Part 2]
By Lauren Brose, ‘15
Last week I posted Part 1 of this two-part piece.
Today, the story continues.
These two hypothetical scenarios should shed additional light on the topic of rape
Scenario #1: Suppose I’m with my girl friends at a party and we’re all drinking. I find that I have had a bit too much to drink and am having trouble standing straight. I take a seat outside to grab some fresh air and collect myself. A guy approaches me and we begin to talk. Sure he’s not a jerk but he’s also not my type and I am just not interested. To be nice, I continue to engage in conversation and he offers me another drink and I think why not? He offers to walk me home—which I could really use after all because my friends are nowhere to be found and I am starting to see double—so I accept his act of chivalry. When we arrive to my dorm room he forces himself on me by first kissing me and grabbing my body. I try to push him away but he’s stronger than me and my sense of presence is progressively fading. He eventually has his way with me.
Scenario #2: Suppose I’m with my girl friends at a party and they’re all drinking except I decided to tap out early since I have a midterm to study for the next day. My friends are scattered amongst the place and a guy approaches me and we begin to chat. He seems like a really nice guy but i’m not interested. He offers me another drink and I decline and say I was about to head home anyways. We continue to talk a bit longer before he asks me if I would like to be walked home. I appreciate his act of chivalry and accept his offer. When he walks me to my dorm room he then goes in to kiss me as well as grope my backside. I then push him off of me, scold him for being so forward, and return to my bed—alone.
It seems to me that the only thing that saved me from “scenario #2” was the fact that I did not have too much alcohol to drink that night and was able to push the guy away from me. In both situations I was not into the guy and had zero intention of taking him to bed with me—even if I accepted his offer to walk me home. By no means should a girl ever feel obligated to reward a guy for acts of chivalry— I mean ever. By no means should a girl ever feel responsible for “allowing” a guy to have his way with her when she never wanted that to begin with. Just because a girl is not in the correct state of mind to “protect” herself from a man touching her body in ways she does not consent to doesn’t mean he ever had the right and freedom to do so.
Where do we go from here?
As much as I dislike the approach I have to make, here are valuable ways you can protect yourself from being victimized. I’m not telling you to change the way you dress, how you speak to men or even how you view all men in general; I am simply giving you a heads up that’s worth considering.
Be careful with who you put your trust in
I’m not proud of having to suggest this but I think it’s worth mentioning. Many believe that males and females cannot truly carry friendships without one member of the party desiring something more. While this theory does not hold true to all situations I suggest being as cautious as possible. Be wary of new friends you make and don’t assume you are safe around every single friend who has never made a pass at you while being sober.
Don’t go shot for shot with your guy friends
Think about it: girls are roughly 5’2”-5’9” and 115-140 pounds and guys are at least 5’8” and 150 pounds or more! Why are we drinking the same amount of alcohol as guys when they are biologically going to have a higher tolerance? When girls drink the same quantity and at the same rate as guys we are bound to get too drunk too fast or worse, blackout.
Buddy system is the best system
I know for a fact that when I want to get reasonably drunk with my girlfriends I tend to wander around and socialize. It’s never fun to be one of seven girls standing in a group cornered off in a party. Clearly we give off a really intimidating vibe. It’s also easy to lose track of friends at parties when you want to roam around solo and always wisest to pair yourself up with a girl before the night begins to periodically check in with. It could be every half hour that you shoot a text asking “what’s up?” or “where are you at, I’ll meet you” or even a “just checking that you’re good.” It’ll create a peace of mind knowing that your friend is in good hands and that someone else knows you are too.
Seriously: you go to USC don’t walk home alone
An Uber costs $4 and Campus Cruiser offers free rides to USC students until 3 a.m. Although it may be less than a mile walk home, it’s still safest if you walk in groups or take transportation. Los Angeles is an exciting, diverse place to live at. Still, we should bear in mind that there is no guarantee we are safe regardless of where we live.
Know what you could potentially be getting yourself into
Suppose you get invited to a bedroom of a frat house. Maybe he offered you better alcohol, a quiet space or even cooler music. The exclusivity is enticing and also could be a trap. Sorority houses have a house mom who monitors who is allowed inside the house as well as making sure boys don’t sneak upstairs. Frat houses don’t have a “house dad” and can invite all the girls upstairs as they please. Be careful when accepting an invitation to go upstairs to a guy’s room. Unless you’re fully prepared for what could come next—such as him making a move on you because let’s be honest why else is he inviting you up to his bedroom in the middle of a frat party?— then I suggest not going alone.
If a man catcalls you, ignore them
Men take pleasure in catcalling women from their car windows. It instills control and superiority in them and makes women feel completely and totally uncomfortable. While men argue that they wouldn’t mind women catcalling them, women all argue that it’s because they’ve never been subjected to such catcalls before. All women want is to be left alone when they ride their bike to class, cross the street to the grab a bite to eat or even when they go outside to move their car for street sweeping (true story). By giving them zero attention their purpose is defeated and they will eventually give up their pathetic hobby of broadcasting their insecurities through shouting what they really feel to a total stranger with whom they’ve 100% ruined every single chance of ever getting with because they’ve subjected them to public humiliation.
If you’re a guy and your guy friends joke about rape, CORRECT THEM
When the man in the Colorado shirt recited his disgusting rape joke to my boyfriend and me, I completely turned my entire body away and drank the rest of my beer in silence. I instantly regretted not calling him a pig and saying that was wrong on so many levels. I guess I was worried that if I, a girl, got so defensive so fast he’d dismissively call me a feminist. I have to admit it was a moment of great weakness for me. My boyfriend did not let it slide, however. He told him it wasn’t funny at all and rape jokes are messed up. I couldn’t help but feel immensely proud of him in that moment because I truly believe that men play a huge role in stopping their male counterparts from contributing to rape culture.
My male friends reassure me that I don’t have to drink anymore if I don’t want to and to not worry if I do because they’ll look after me. Another friend of mine directly told me “I know you have a boyfriend and am not going to try to hook up with you” because he noticed my body language suggested I wasn’t comfortable with being alone in his room. Another told me that when he see’s a girl who’s too drunk at a party in his frat house he sends her home in a cab because even though he didn’t want to hook up with her he would be ashamed of any guy who would and is eliminating that option for them. They do little things like this to reduce the eternal fears that we are constantly in danger and have to keep our guard up.They understand that we don’t believe all men are predators but acknowledge that some men might’ve been to us in the past.
It’s these noble men who deserve recognition for their efforts on setting positive examples for other guys around them. The less socially acceptable it becomes to take advantage of a drunken girl, to scream “nice rack!” from a car window, to slut shame a girl if she speaks out about her sexual assault, to exchange dark rape jokes at a bar… the less prevalent rape culture will become and the less normalized this behavior will become. Because stuff like this just isn’t okay.
This all ties back to Emma Watson’s inspiring speech to the UN when she brought up topics of women’s human rights. She said, “If not me, who? If not now, when?”
Change doesn’t happen over night, but neither did the emergence of a rape culture. Now’s the time we stop making excuses and do something about it.
