By now, it is becoming more and more common knowledge that one in six women at Duke is raped before graduation. We have excellent sexual assault support services, a new publication with personal accounts of survivors of sexual assault, and it is finally being recognized as a problem that all of Duke must address and work to abolish.
However, like most epidemics and serious problems, we treat rape more than we prevent it. How much of what we do is really working to end rape and how much of it is just treating it as a sickness? We have Sexual Assault Prevention Week, a group specifically for men to stop rape, and educational events which all raise awareness about sexual assault and forces us to come face to face with the facts. But how much are we really doing to prevent sexual assault? All of these things need to continue; the more that is done, the better. In addition to what is being done on campus now, we need to seriously examine the problem here and get to the root of the issue.
Women and men at Duke and elsewhere are faced with the reality of a culture in which it is rare to not know anyone who has been raped. Yet why are our conceptions of what is going on, and why it is going on, so blurry? There is no real communication between men and women about sexual assault. Before hook-ups, during hook-ups, after hook-ups, in class, with friends, with girlfriends, with boyfriends. We will often talk about the general lack of meaningful conversations and a "fakeness" that pervades our discussions with another. This runs parallel to why rape and sexual assault are so rampant in our society. There is no subjective discussion, and certainly no widespread education, about why rape happens and what we are going to have to do as human beings to end it.
The creators of "Saturday Night," the new publication containing the narratives of women at Duke who have been raped, tried to make it mandatory that Writing 20 courses spend a day discussing the publication and sexual assault at Duke. The initiative was turned down, and they are now doing class presentations to professors who request them. So why is it that the Women's Initiative can talk about increasing sexual assault education at Duke but refuse a student initiative to do so as first-years enter the Wonderland? I am not accusing the administration of wanting to ignore sexual assaults on campus, but if there is such a concern, where is the support to end the epidemic? These are just the first of many of questions that need to be answered.
A point of tension between men and women at Duke when discussing sexual assault is the issue of consent. Most men and women hopefully, by now, realize that if there is any physical or verbal sign of resistance to a sexual act, then the man or woman must stop. Similarly, if the individual cannot respond because he or she is intoxicated, then it constitutes as sexual assault if the other individual continues. But what about ambiguity? Or what if one individual feels that the sex is consensual because there is no forceful resistance, but the other individual feels forced into having sex or leaves the situation feeling that he or she was assaulted? No matter what the circumstances are, this indicates a serious crisis in our sexual relationships.
What does it truly mean to consent or not to consent? Clearly, consent cannot be based on a yes-no basis if women are feeling assaulted after having sex and men are surprised, shocked even, that the woman did not want to have sex. Let's even take intoxication out of the situation, and ask ourselves why, and how, is it that women are raped and men claim that they had no idea that she was not as into it as he was. Regardless of any further details of a situation, the fact that these instances are anxieties for men and women proves that there is something wrong with the way that we communicate sex and communicate during sex. If women and men are finding themselves in situations where after sex, there are opposing views of what happened, consent needs to be more than a proposal and response. Perhaps we need more than consent.
Perhaps we need to seriously examine the way that we look at sex and power relations ourselves and truly figure out how a situation can be viewed as violent by one individual and as a normal hook-up by another. It begins with looking at women not as sexual beings, no matter what they are or are not wearing. It includes not seeing women as dressing and acting for men in all situations. It includes discussing sex outside of the bedroom and inside the bedroom. It does not end here, but my last point is that men and women need to communicate with each other openly about issues of power and sex, and not disregard what they hear. When we say that we are not wearing this skirt for you, we mean it. When an individual feels assaulted after having sex, she is not lying. But the only way to stop this from happening is to know where the other person is at, and where he or she wants to be.
In all sexual assault instances, there is usually a focus on the individual case as separate from other cases and from any larger picture. To convict a rapist, hard evidence or a witness is needed, both of which are difficult to obtain, and even if they are obtained, it is difficult to convict a rapist. So why are women facing this isolating feeling after a sexual assault, and men feeling shocked that the sex was not consensual? Men are afraid of being falsely accused of being raped. Women are afraid of being raped. If we truly want to end sexual assault and this culture of fear for women and men, the issue must be looked at holistically, and we must focus on changing the gender dynamic that is creating this divide.
Emily LaDue is a Trinity sophomore. Her column appears every other Wednesday.
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