Lisak found that acquaintance rapists tend to be men who buy strongly into “the game,” usually targeting women they perceive to be younger, more naive, and easier to manipulate. Dr. Lisak’s subjects also demonstrate an utter lack of awareness that this entitled, self-centered system and its potential results are problematic, or are anything other than “the usual” manner in which men seduce. These men firmly believe “no” means “try harder,” and never think of themselves as rapists, despite a self-admitted pattern of ignoring and suppressing verbal/physical resistance, and forcing intercourse on semiconscious women. Of course, not all men buy into “the game” to such an extent that they commit rape. But follow public reaction to rape cases for a few years—especially acquaintance-rape cases—and you’ll quickly realize that Lisak’s subjects have a lot of support for their shared belief that women shouldn’t be allowed any sexual autonomy. Most of us have inherited enough shares in the rape culture(s) to perpetuate the disastrous results from previous generations.
The good news is that there are some promising strategies that can impact the whole of our rape-supportive, sexually unhealthy landscape. As previously mentioned, I propose playing matchmaker with two disciplines that have always seemed to be like ships passing in the night: sexual health promotion and sexual violence prevention. They’re the perfect couple—philosophically complementary, yet with their own things going. Whether they’re engaged in stimulating research comparisons over dinner, flirting about the REAL Act
4
on a walk through the park, or making sweet, back-arching, toe-curling collaboration at home with the lights on, our society can only benefit.
Chemistry Between Two Great Bodies (of Work)
Sexual health promotion is usually known by its most visible component here in the United States: sex education. And
effective
sexual health promotion—that is, the kind that actually leads to low rates of STIs, abortions, accidental pregnancies, and so on—is medically accurate and based on science, rather than on one group’s version of morality. Unfortunately for U.S. citizens, former senator John Ashcroft (yes,
that
John Ashcroft) smuggled a sneaky little amendment into some mid-1990s welfare “reform” legislation, ensuring precisely the opposite of effective sexual health promotion. Some call it abstinence-only-until-marriage (AOUM) education, but I prefer to call it a goddamned travesty.
AOUM programs reinforce many of the harmful norms about gender and sexuality that perpetuate “the game.” They shame girls who choose to engage in premarital sex, and blame survivors of sexual violence through an obsessive contention that just saying no is the solution for everything—there is no consideration of what happens when no is ignored. Meanwhile, male volition is left largely unexamined. Fanning this growing inferno of outrage are findings released in April 2007 by a nonpartisan policy-evaluation firm.
5
This congressionally commissioned, decade-spanning report concluded that kids who received AOUM education were just as likely to have sex as kids who didn’t.
Sadly, these findings also mean that tens of millions of dollars have been flushed down the crapper on this fallacious, dangerous approach. Could my heathen ass come up with a better use for the $1.76 million currently allocated for sex education? Yep, and I would start by looking at three countries in Europe that have some of the best sexual health statistics in the world. Not coincidentally, these countries use an approach that makes the United States look like some sort of fiendish bizarro-world where faux morality is allowed to trample reasoned, useful approaches.
The Netherlands, France, and Germany all use a similar model of sexual health promotion, and Advocates for Youth, a Washington, D.C., based nonprofit, compiled the elements that have allowed these countries to be so effective. Among these keys to success are:
• Governments support massive, consistent, long-term public education campaigns [that are] far more direct and humorous than in the U.S. and focus on safety and pleasure.
• Sexuality education is not necessarily a separate curriculum and may be integrated across school subjects and at all grade levels. Educators provide accurate and complete information in response to students’ questions.
• Families have open, honest, consistent discussions with teens about sexuality and support the role of educators and health care providers in making sexual health information and services available for teens.
• The morality of sexual behavior is weighed through an individual ethic that includes the values of responsibility, respect, tolerance, and equity.
• [All programs] work to address issues around cultural diversity in regard to immigrant populations and their values that differ from those of the majority culture.
• Research is the basis for public policies . . . political and religious interest groups have little influence on public health policy.
6
This valuable type of sexual health promotion is like a smart, dynamic woman who gets gossiped about far more than she ever gossips. She gives invaluable advice and makes everyone’s day better without even trying. Likewise, sexual violence prevention—or, more specifically,
primary
sexual violence prevention—is the cool, misunderstood chick who used to sit in the back of the class in high school. People are a little unnerved by her assertive intelligence and multiple piercings, but anyone who actually takes the time to get to know her ends up adoring her. A lot of folks still mistake her for “safety tips” (don’t walk alone, don’t drive at night, don’t drink, don’t ever come out of your room), or sometimes even self-defense, but she knows who she is. She’s the intentional focus on
perpetration
prevention— learning how and why our society grows people who are capable of violating another person’s sexual autonomy, and discovering how to stop it. She’s the application of tested public health theories/methods to the development of new prevention initiatives. She’s the engagement of male allies who work within their peer groups to counter rape-supportive attitudes and behaviors. And though she might still seem shy about it, she’s also the affirmation of all that is positive about human sexuality.
The fields of sexual health promotion and primary sexual violence prevention are clearly complementary, which is why we should root for these two to fall in love and get married in Massachusetts or California—or at least become BFFs. Happily, both fields do seem to be borrowing from a similar set of methods and incorporating parallel program content. Consistent with the elements of the effective European sexual health promotion model, primary sexual violence-prevention strategies have become savvier by learning to engage multiple levels of our social environment (e.g., policies, community institutions, and parents). Both fields in the United States are also gradually recognizing the importance of avoiding one-size-fits-all models, opting instead for the more flexible and pluralistic “community mobilization” approach. And as for content, proponents of sexual health promotion have integrated issues of respect, coercion, gender roles, and healthy relationships into their work (e.g., the International Planned Parenthood Federation’s “Framework for Comprehensive Sexuality Education”
7
), while sexual violence-prevention specialists (e.g., Care For Kids
8
, and state-wide anti-rape coalitions in Virginia
9
and Vermont
10
) have started tinkering with the idea that promoting “healthy sexuality” can foster—among numerous other positive outcomes—safe, respectful sexual relationships.
Such a “healthy sexuality” program would counter our society’s superficial, achievement-obsessed framing of sexuality by helping people to make a deeper connection with all of our sexual domains: emotional, intellectual, spiritual, social, and physical. These five areas of sexuality correspond to the ways in which we exist as human beings in this world. Experiencing sexuality across these various domains helps us form our sense of who we are and who we want to be. Segmenting our experiences of sexuality to only the physical realm constrains us to an artificially rote understanding of humanity in ourselves and others. It’s like trying to connect with music by listening only to top 40 songs. Sure, there can be a pleasurable aspect to it, but you’re missing out on other worlds of sonic delight, and you’re sure as shit not gaining any deeper insights into your own musical proclivities.
Connecting more deeply with these various aspects of our individual sexualities also benefits anyone with whom we might be sharing a sexual experience. Thus, healthy sexuality programs would facilitate the viewing of sexual interactions as things adults share with one another, instead of do to one another. This means teaching people the value of—and how to practice—honest, proactive communication about one another’s likes, dislikes, and expectations, and respect for sexual expression in any consensual, subjectively affirming form it takes. These programs would also exhibit all of the previously described methods and content elements currently in use by the two disciplines.
So how would a healthy sexuality program have been experienced by guys like me and my friends? By men like the ones in Lisak’s study? I suppose we won’t know for sure until we’re able to realize some approximation of this vision. However, I’m confident that we would see the rates of sexual violence plummet if we, as a society, committed to teaching boys the aforementioned values and skills in developmentally relevant ways throughout the first twenty years of their life. To realize this vision, our government has to get with it and allocate money and mandates for this type of work, and key corporations and community institutions have to put human welfare first and support these efforts through their policies and practices. Parents, teachers, and older siblings have to learn how to become allies in modeling and teaching these values, and all schools have to provide the corresponding knowledge and skills throughout all grades and curricula. At the moment, many of these forces are either disengaged or actively working against healthy sexuality. Boys learn little about sexuality that is accurate or affirming, and this void is filled by ignorant teammates, MTV’s
Next,
and sexually abusive politicians and their often detrimental policies concerning sexuality. We must work to pull these levers of influence in our direction.
A society in which everyone is allowed and encouraged to become genuinely connected to a complete experience of their own sexuality will naturally facilitate a widespread understanding of sexuality’s vital status in everyone’s humanity. It is a society incompatible with sexual violence, but ripe for positive human experience. It is the society I hope we’ll build.
If you want to read more about ELECTRIC YOUTH, try:
• An Immodest Proposal BY HEATHER CORINNA
• Purely Rape: The Myth of Sexual Purity and How It Reinforces Rape Culture BY JESSICA VALENTI
• Real Sex Education BY CARA KULWICKI
If you want to read more about MANLINESS, try:
• Toward a Performance Model of Sex BY THOMAS MACAULAY MILLAR
• Why Nice Guys Finish Last BY JULIA SERANO
17
The Not-Rape Epidemic
BY LATOYA PETERSON
“RAPE” IS ONLY FOUR LETTERS, one small syllable, and yet it is one of the hardest words to coax from your lips when you need it most.
Entering our teenage years in the sex-saturated ’90s, my friends and I knew tons about rape. We knew to always be aware while walking, to hold our keys out as a possible weapon against an attack. We knew that we shouldn’t walk alone at night, and if we absolutely had to, we were to avoid shortcuts, dark paths, or alleyways. We even learned ways to combat date rape, even though none of us were old enough to have friends who drove, or to be invited to parties with alcohol. We memorized the mantras, chanting them like a yogic sutra, crafting our words into a protective charm with which to ward off potential rapists: Do not walk alone at night. Put a napkin over your drink at parties. Don’t get into cars with strange men. If someone tries to abduct you, scream loudly and try to attack them, because a rapist tries to pick women who are easy targets.
Yes, we learned a lot about rape.
What we were not prepared for was everything else. Rape was something we could identify, an act with a strict definition and two distinct scenarios. Not-rape was something else entirely.
Not-rape was all those other little things that we experienced every day and struggled to learn how to deal with. In those days, my ears were filled with secrets that were not my own, the confessions of not-rapes experienced by the girls I knew then and the women I know now.
When I was twelve, my best friend at the time met a guy and lied to him about her age. She told him she was sixteen, and she did have the body to back it up. Some “poor, hapless” guy sleeping with her accidentally would make complete sense—except for the fact that that guy was twenty-five. He eventually slept with her, taking her virginity, even after he figured out how old we were. After all, it’s kind of a dead giveaway if you’re picking your girlfriend up from middle school.