Memory

Thursday's class discussion, was about topics related to memory. Therefore, during class we broke into small discussion groups in order to come up with topics to talk about. My group decided to talk about disabilities and consent, due to an article we had read previously in the class. The article was about a 74 year old man who's wife had recently come down with Alzheimer's. The doctor's had claimed that she was not able to consent to sex because of her problems with her memory, and her mental state. The only people who had a problem with the issue of consent, were the women's daughters. However, the man was cleared of all charges, due to a lack of evidence as well as the complications with the issue of the women having sex, and liking it. However, this is a very interesting topic for many reasons. For one, it highlights the problems having to do with varying disabilities [such as Alzheimer's and Dimensia] who can be incapable of agreeing to, or consenting to having sex.

We have not really had a class discussion about old age and rape, because 80% of rapes happen to women under the age of 30. However, in this case it was really important to pay attention to the habits of the couple. The women did not resist to having sex, and her roommate said she always seemed happy to see her husband, when he came to visit. A rape kit was performed, although it was months after the incident occurred. It could not be proved that any type of rape happened.

We also talked about Organization's official stances on Sexual Assault and Harassment. We also talked about how we train our memories to remember something. Therefore, there is also such thing as an Institutional memory. There are things such as policies and procedures that institutions must follow and adhere to. Responses may be somewhat similar, when comparing one company to another, in regards to the corpus  of rules and regulations. For example, Toyota won't let you marry anybody else from Toyota.

Also, some companies rely on evidence, rather than taking someone's word. Some companies, and people have a zero tolerance for certain things such as sexual assault and harassment. We felt as a class, that people used to rely more on "he said, she said". Now, people rely more on hard factual evidence.

We also talked about, "how would you change that situation?" In regards to rape, the reliance on evidence is a little out of bounds. People are focused more on the idea of "innocent, until proven guilty". They are also too concerned with false accusations. There needs to be a balance between this. The mindset should change to, "let's prove that you are innocent, rather than prove that you are guilty".

The Problem:
The accuser is considered a liar, until they can prove they are telling the truth. This is relatively trivial, and the law does not take equality into account, towards the plaintiff and the defendant [however, maybe they should be doing this]. It all goes back to how society needs to find a better balance, and adjust the assumptions being made. People are afraid to report rapes because they they are scared of being called a liar, and they don't want to go through the large ordeal of proving that they are indeed, not a liar. The court of law also makes it so, if certain evidence is not rebutted, than it will automatically result in a conviction. The system may need to be changed, in order to find better outcomes in our society.

Kairos vs. Topos

Kairos is the rhetoric of a moment, that passes. 
Topos, is a common topic, or a standard way of thinking that helps us to build arguments. They are static, or permanent. We use Topoi within Kairos, in order to find a means of persuasion, in a single moment. However, we use both to try and make a change. It is important to think about stakeholders, as well. It is also important to think about what they care about. A Polity, is a group of people who all care about the same things. They are constantly negotiating, even though there are differences in stakes and beliefs. What's important to them, may not be important, or working for that matter. If that is the case, than it can be difficult [but necessary] to to figure out how to change such a system. They must figure out what their stakes are, and then work from there. 

This kind of ideal, applies to rape hysteria, as well as rape culture altogether. I think that it is important for a Polity, to come together in order to make such changes, with rape culture. For example, you can make a change here, but is it going to make a difference there? Let's say that a college/university wants to create more programs to educate people about acknowledging rapes on campus. Well, even if the school decides to increase such programs, is that actually going to make a difference? Why or why did it not? I believe it is a sort of trial and error process that involves constant tinkering, as the Kairos of a situation changes. 

Consent/Non-Consent

I decided to make a consent versus non-consent survey in order to find the line between what is considered OK and what is not. It was pretty interesting to find that some questions I was surprised with the answers. However, I knew the majority of them. I think that it is very important for people to understand what is considered consent, or not. For example, I found that some things that are considered non-consent would surprise people. 

Consent Vs. Non-Consent Survey:

In this survey, we will ask questions based off of your basic knowledge of Consent. It is important to know how and when to decipher if you have gained adequate consent from your sexual partner.

Because many people find it hard to decipher what is consent Vs. non-consent, we find it very important that at the end of the survey you are more familiar with both terms. If you have any further questions after the survey, please call our toll-free help hotline in order to clear up any confusions about consent.

1. Should you always talk to your partner about consent before engaging in any sexual activity? Y/N
2. Is it consent required for every sexual activity. Y/N
3. Is consent required for kissing? Y/N
4. Does consent mean that both people are willing to participate in sexual activities? Y/N
5. If either person decides at any time they no longer consent and want to stop the activity, is it okay to deny their request? Y/N
6. Does gaining consent once, mean that you have gained consent for other times in the future, or just the one time? Y/N
7. If the person wants to give consent but they are not able to, does that still count as consent? Y/N
8. Is someone able to consent, if they are under the influence of alcohol or drugs? Y/N
9. If someone is hesitant to agree to any sexual activity, is it still considered consent to pressure them into it, and they finally give in? Y/N
10. If someone does not give consent and you still continue to force them to engage in sexual activities, is this considered rape? Y/N
11. Does “no” mean “no” in any sexual activity? Y/N
12. Can age legally determine whether or not someone can consent to sexual activities? Y/N
13. Can your partner consent to one sexual act, but give non-consent to another one? Y/N

Answer Key:

1. Yes.
2. Yes.
3. Yes.
4. Yes.
5. No.
6. No.
7. Yes.
8. No.
9. No, this is considered sexual harassment.
10. Yes, this is considered rape.
11. Yes.
12. Yes.
13. Yes.

I also decided to include the sexual rights of a person, in order to explain further why some answers carried the answers they did. 

 

Sexual Rights:

    ⁃    The right to make your own decisions about being sexual (or not), regardless of your partner's wishes.

   ⁃    The right to make your own decisions about birth control and protection from sexually transmitted infections (STIs), regardless of your partner's wishes; the right to make free and responsible reproductive choices.

   ⁃    The right to stop sexual activity at any time, including during or just before intercourse.

   ⁃    The right to tell anyone that you are not comfortable being hugged or kissed in certain ways.

   ⁃    The right to ask a partner if she or he has been examined for sexually transmitted infections (STIs).

   ⁃    The right to tell a partner what you would like sexually or to tell a partner that you would like to be hugged, cuddled, or touched without sex.

   ⁃    The right to masturbate.

   ⁃    The right to sexual autonomy, sexual integrity, and safety of your sexual body.

   ⁃    The right to sexual privacy.

   ⁃    The right to sexual equity.

   ⁃    The right to sexual pleasure.

   ⁃    The right to emotional sexual expression.

   ⁃    The right to comprehensive sexuality education.

   ⁃    The right to sexual information based upon scientific inquiry.

   ⁃    The right to sexual health care.

4/9/15

Today, we talked about an NY times article about ending rape culture hysteria. We talked about the various ways in which music and the media [etc.] sort of put a permission out their into rapists minds that creates a reinforcement to their behaviors. Because all rapists think other people are rapists, when they hear such reinforcements that are found in our rape culture, they can take this more literally than others do.

This article, had many good points yet I did not agree with it 100%. The article left no room for any "in-betweens". I believe that there are grey lines when it comes to rape, rape culture, and even how we deal with it. Therefore, the article was much too left-sided, with a lacking in the right-side direction.

In class, we always discuss how once you take the label off of rape, and only talk of the behaviors, than people will admit to rape. They do not call it rape, however. There is a sort of disconnect between the actual name, and the actual behaviors that qualify as rape.

Sexual Harassment:
Sexual harassment and sexual assault are two completely different things. There are many blurred lines involved with sexual harassment, maybe even more so than sexual assault. This is troubling because, maybe the blurriness of sexual harassment is spreading to sexual assault. It is interesting to think, "What gives people the right or permission to sexually harass, vs. sexual assault?". There is something wrong with the fact that if you get someone to say yes, no matter what it takes to get someone to say yes or consent to an activity. This is a very low threshold that many people play into. The NY times article says that it is ridiculous to blame the rape culture for rapists. Although the article has a point, that we should blame rapists for rape, rape culture certainly plays to the overall acts and decisions a rapist will make. Therefore, the article is not as valid, especially due to the amount of research we have done in this class thus far. We know too many statistics of rape, to believe this article is completely valid.

I believe we are still caught up in the idea that women should be held responsible for not getting raped, while we should be teaching men not to rape.

We also watched a movie of a women walking around the streets of Miami at night. The women was hit on so many times, and the things these men were saying and doing were absolutely unacceptable. Another video we watched was on cat-callers. A women would hand them a card saying why she did not appreciate such cat-calls. Some men apologized for their behavior, however many played the "freedom of speech" card. I do not know where these men got this inflated sense of entitlement. However, even though rape tapers off at around age 30, cat-calling does not [and nor does sexual harassment]. We decided that cat-calling and sexual assault can differ varying upon different environments and their sizes. For example, and environment such as work or school is confined, versus being on the streets and having no prior relationship to a cat-caller. Sexual harassment is easier to control in a smaller, and controlled environment. It is much harder to deal with in larger areas. However, there are still "permissions" to cross that boundary, somehow, even with the certain etiquette that exists in our society.

So, how do we raise the opportunity cost? We should not be afraid of the world, yet we should absolutely be aware of it. It is nice to know that you are paying attention to the world around you. We should train cat-callers somehow, to be less obnoxious. Even though these cat-callers are most likely not rapists, they are annoying as hell, nonetheless. We should also decrease the distance between hyper-masculinity, and hyper-femininity. 

Ending Rape Culture Hysteria

The White house recently said that in order to put an end to college campus rapes we must,  “[changing] a culture of passivity and tolerance in this country, which too often allows this type of violence to persist.” RAINN (Rape, abuse, and incest national network) responded with the quote, "In the last few years, there has been an unfortunate trend towards blaming “rape culture” for the extensive problem of sexual violence on campus. While it is helpful to point out the systemic barriers to addressing the problem, it is important not to lose sight of a simple fact: Rape is caused not by cultural factors but by the conscious decisions, of a small percentage of the community, to commit a violent crime."

Basically, it has been a recent trend that rapes on college campuses are being blamed by the certain rape cultures that are presented in our society. However, at certain universities, many students are trying to eliminate such a rape culture. Boston University has taken it upon themselves to try and cancel a show that Robin Thicke was was going to perform his explicit, "blurred lines" song at. However, what this article is about is the fact that it is not certain song lyrics that turn men into rapists.

How can we train women to protect themselves

During this class period, we talked about how to empower young girls to protect themselves. In one article, it talked about a self-defense class in which the students were taught to confront violence and sexual assault altogether, by being taught physical means of protection. In the article, it said that 18/100 persons were raped each year. There are indeed more cultures, in which rape is far more relevant. However, this training group showed that among the young women in the study, the number of rapes per 100 people each year had dropped. This dropped by a third. This happened to be in Kenya. The class, took place two hours a week, for six weeks. Is this what may be required in order to change the rape statistics of the world? If you want to change culture altogether, than you have to reach everyone in your own culture. This kind of class administered to both boys and girls would certainly cause a large change in rape statistics. 

We reviewed another article, that explained that the education programs are brief, and show no changes in behavior, or numbers of sexual violence behaviors and occurrences. It reminded us, that the "Green Dot" program at WSU may not be doing it's job. We then heard of the nine effective strategies, in order for a program to be successful. They were as follows: Effectiveness, appropriately timed, utilized varied teaching methods, had sufficient doses, administered by a well-trained staff, provides opportunities for positive relationships, sociocultural relevant, theory driven, and included an outcome evaluation.

Calls for Action?

Today, we talked about all the things we thought would help the world and our society, in order to cut down the number of rapes that happen each year. First of all, we all decided that sex-education classes are very key. They provide children at a young age with information that they will need for years to come. Also, many children may not have known about the progression of their bodies and especially the boundaries and emotions that are connected to them. Our teacher gave us an example of how if someone kept asking for his M&M candies, and he had to say no again and again because the person kept asking, creates a problem...What happens if you don't ask, but you just take it? If people want it, they want it. However, you cannot just pester them until the give in.

Health education is also very important, and very different. In my own health class, we were shown graphic pictures, etc. and all of the things that can happen to your body if you are not safe about sex. This kind of class helps people to understand things we are usually not able to talk about openly. The class should discuss hormones, desires, being aware, and to always stop in the absence of consent. Health ed., basically informs people about sexuality, to inform them on certain situations as well. We all came to the consensus that this should be taught at a relatively young age as well [12-14 years of age].

One article we discussed was about serial rapists, and that they will most likely not kiss you. In fact 7 out of 10 serial rapists in the article said that they had not kissed their victims. There were discussions about behaviors and rations from good to bad things in relationships. However, "if he's not kissing you than run away". This article and evaluation kind of gives us a way to evaluate the kinds of people we should, and should not focus on. It also clarifies, that rape is not really about sex at all.

One other article we discussed in class, was about the different types of rapists, and the ways to resist them. Power rapists have a goal to humiliate. Anger rapists have the goal to torture their victims. Sadists are all about power plays [date rape]. The article focused on things will, or will not work on each kind of rapist. This kind of article seemed to be more useful for law enforcement, for classification purposes, rather than for the perpetrators targets.

4/2/15

Today, we talked about the problem, response and calls to action in regards to rape and sexual abuse. One article that we happened to talk about was a NY time article. I named the four types of rapists. There are aggressive, hyper-masculine, stranger rape, and acquaintance (date) rape. There were many things in which this article explained, however it was very interesting to hear about how a victim can create an opportunity to escape. The article said that talking to the actual perpetrator can help. It can help talk them out of what they are planning to do in several different ways. For one, if you start talking to them than they will start to see you as a person rather than just an object. By "putting a human face" on the situation at hand, you are then much more real to the perpetrator.

We also discussed how our cultural norms can help us escape a situation before it even gets tot he point of being dangerous. We were taught these cultural norms as children. We talked about the "stranger dangers", in which our parents told us about at a young age. As kids, we had prepared small triggers in our brains that make us think, "oh no is this the situation my parents told me to avoid?". We then talked about how we learned key words for safety routines. This whole kind of ideal could be used to train young women to avoid such situations as well. However, it would be on different terms, but may have the same effect.

We brainstormed many ways in which this could pan out. We thought, what if you started teaching girls at a young age [such as ten to twelve years old] to become aware of certain realities of the world. For example, what if they were taught to prepare themselves for bad situations, or be more conscientious of their surroundings, in order to avoid such bad situations. Also, what if young boys were also taught this method, but in a different way. By letting boys know at a young age of what is okay and what is not, may be very appropriate. People do not admit to rape, but they admit to the behaviors. Therefore, if we were to teach young boys what these definite behaviors are, than there will less unknowns for these boys.

The most surprising thing about the NY times article for myself was, that the advice given here was the same for any situation when somebody is trying to take control. I also felt is was good to understand that talking to a perpetrator and keeping the conversation going could make all the difference in the world. It decreases the space between the aggressor. The more you talk, and create a "relationship", the more real [or even valuable] you may seem.