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Yesterday was the first annual Denver Slut Walk. Yeah, you read that right, and it shocked you a little bit, no? Which is exactly the point of this event; you see it is designed to raise awareness of sexual assault and victim blaming.
You see there is a very stupid but pernicious meme that if a woman (or a man for that matter) dresses a certain way and is sexually assaulted they were “asking for it”. Basically if people think you’re a slut, you don’t deserve to be protected from the predation of rapists.
This idea that anyone, ever, under any circumstances deserves to be raped or assaulted is crazy on so many levels, but let me start with the first and biggest false assumption; Rape and sexual assault are not about sex. They are about domination and control. Again, for those in the cheap seats, it is not about the sex.
Second, it does not matter if someone does have a vigorous and healthy sex life. If does not matter if someone enjoys sex a lot. That does not mean they are “asking for it”.
These are the ideas that the Slut walk is trying to get out into the larger world. Wear what you want, be who you want and nothing that you do makes it okay for anyone to rape you, ever. There is one other thing that the Slut Walks do, they are making an attempt to reclaim the word Slut. Right now it is a good dehumanizing word, a justification for abuse. And it is used far, far too often. Back in the ‘70’s Dan Akroyd used to get screams of laughter when he’d turn to Jane Curtin in the Point/Counter Point segment and say “Jane you ignorant slut”.
It was a funny joke, I laughed as a kid at the shock value of it. But it is a joke that can be ill afforded these days.
The event was not as big as the organizers had hoped. This is, after all, the first year for the Slut Walk here in Denver. Unlike Toronto where the Slut Walk began. This all started just this year, when a spokes person for the Toronto Police said:
One of the safety tips was for women not to dress like ‘sluts
While giving a talk on safety at a law school. The number of things wrong with this is legion and women around the world are standing up to say that enough is enough. There is no correlation between what one wears and sexual assault, none. Yet in the minds of many people (not just cynical cops) if someone wears sexy clothes, they are “asking for it”.
Which brings us to the two organizers that I had a chance to talk with Emerald Green (and how cool a name is that?) and Bethany Feret. The two twenty-something Denverites say that they had heard about the Toronto Walk and wondered when there would be one in Denver. They finally came to the realization that if there was going to be a Slut Walk here, then they would have to do it themselves.
Organizing an event like this is harder than you might think but in just 90 days they managed to bring all the pieces together. The Facebook page for this event had more than 3,000 people saying they would attend, but the real number was probably closer to 300. Still, from small acorns do mighty oaks grow.
The point was not to have thousands of people come out (though that would have been nice, obviously) but rather to throw down a marker to say “This is wrong and it must end”.
Emerald and Bethany are not alone in this. Even though the Slut Walk is in its first year everywhere, there are more than 80 cities in 14 countries that will be having Slut Walks, everywhere from Mexico to India women and men are standing up and saying what should be obvious, no one deserves to be sexually assaulted.
There is a culture in the United States that which seems to down play rape. And there is a lot of sexual assault and rape in this country, of both sexes. In Colorado 1 in 4 women and 1 in 17 men will be sexually assaulted. You all know four women and 17 men, so you can be fairly sure that one of them is the victim of sexual assault even if you have not been told.
Worse is the statistic that was on one of the posters up around the Greek Theater in Civic Center Park. It said that a recent survey of High School students found that 56% of girls and 76% of boys said that in some situations forced sex was acceptable. Maybe I am just reaching the old man part of my life, but that made me want to tear my hair out. What the hell is going on with our teens if this is a common belief?
What I like best about the event was the crowd. You had everything from the Sex Workers Outreach group there in tight black leather, to the family in the picture at the top, Mom, Dad, and Daughters, obviously suburbanites, but there to say that no one knows what your sex life is like from your clothes and that Slut is not a word they were going to back away from, not even Dad.
There were a ton of photographers there, after all if there are going to be people in skimpy clothes, it is worth sending someone to cover it. But it is not about what people wore or did not wear (your correspondents was wearing a Hawaiian shirt and shorts, I am a subdued type Slut) but that it puts the ideas out there and provides a sense of community.
As Emerald Greene said “If nothing else this is about giving a safe space for people to talk about sexual assault, whether they have been a victim or know a victim. This affects far more people than the general public is aware of and if using the word Slut brings that awareness up, then it is a good thing.”
There were no problems that I saw at the event, but the organizers tell me that they received a lot of heat while they are organizing on Facebook. Some folks thought it was just horrible that they were using the word Slut to draw attention to the issue; others thought that they should just shut up and go away. There were even threats of violence directed at the organizers.
Neither Bethany nor Emerald were sure that they would organize next years event, but they felt confident that someone would. They have actually done the hardest work, getting off their butts and getting something done. These are true citizen activists. They are not making a living doing this, they did it with very little support from anyone but their friends and family, and yet they held an event in the middle of major US city.
They are what we need a lot more of if we are to make our nation a better place. We need people who will stand up and say “This is enough, and I am going to do something about it!” after all you can only be an activist if you act. These young women have acted and they deserve our respect for doing so (not that everyone does not deserve respect as a human, but they went above and beyond that).
So, do Emerald and Bethany a favor, own your inner Slut and be loud in saying that your clothes are not consent. That no one deserves sexual assault, ever.
The floor is yours.
If you want to see all the pics from the Slut Walk Denver, you can see them at this link.
24 Comments
Thank you for getting this information out….the truism that rape is violence/attack/control and NOT sex is critically important. Cannot be said enough…Violence is not sexy.
…”but let me start with the first and biggest false assumption; Rape and sexual assault are not about sex. They are about domination and control. Again, for those in the cheap seats, it is not about the sex.”
Disagree. I think a great oversimplification and misleading. What is your evidence?
I think rape is sometimes about sex, sometimes about control and sometimes both.
What is the purpose of this simplification? What advantage does it present?
Once, many years ago, a man said something to me about rape and the person should just enjoy the sexual aspect. When I reminded him that women in their 70s and 80s have been raped so that was not about how they dressed or acted, he had to reconsider and say that maybe it was not a fun thing.
Wikipedia:
“There is no single theory that conclusively explains the motivation for rape; the motives of rapists can be multi-factorial and are the subject of debate. Researchers have attempted to explain the motivation of a rapist in terms of socioeconomics, anger, power, sadism, sexual pleasure, psychopathy, ethical standards, attitudes toward women and evolutionary pressures.”
I think one of the enablers of rape is our tolerance of violence towards women generally, and that in turn is part of our tolerance of physical violence generally. Acceptance of bullying in school of both sexes sets the stage. Before that acceptance of beating (spanking) children. Yes physical violence is A OK if you are bigger and stonger /s
Good on these people for staging this event.
And bonus! Wingnut heads are likely to explode out of the deal.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/04/17/INS91J05RF.DTL
Women in the U.S. military are more likely to be raped by fellow soldiers than killed by enemy fire. I know what you’re thinking – it sounds too unbelievable to be true. But it’s not.
The Department of Defense estimates that more than 19,000 service members were raped or sexually assaulted in 2010. Due to a military culture heavy on retaliation and light on prosecution, only 13.5 percent of the victims report the rape.
The system of justice designed to adjudicate cases of rape in the military is in complete shambles. Victims are blamed.
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/04/16/INS91J05RF.DTL#ixzz1R9a3tlrO
Indeed. Another unfortunate ramification of all these wars is we have many thousands of returning military who have been trained and steeped in a culture of(justified?) violence. Recall in the Wikileaks video the ease, (enjoyment?) with which the helicopters pilots murdered the unarmed people in the street.)
Right back at you – What is YOUR evidence???
Using wiki as a “valid” reference is a joke.
Of course one could have done the research and … oh I don’t know, possibly followed the links at the bottom of the wiki, or … oh I don’t know, looked up the relevant scientific literature … but that’s just me. I know, crazy talk, right.
C’mon! Trashing Wiki as a source has become a sport. Doing research in a library is no way any better than Wiki…if you do not know what you are doing.
The burden of proof lies with the denier, to which joelmael was challenged, to which he has responded.
Show proof of Wiki’s incompetence in this matter, please.
Yes, follow the links there and here as well. Take no one’s word for granted. Wiki ir FDL.
Thanks, Bill, for both the report and the photos.
As a woman who learned to do the jitterbug in the 1950s wearing a girdle with boned stays, in an era in which any intimation that a young woman had two buttocks was verboten, it interests me a lot that current fashion reveals everything about shape of young women’s bodies while apparently mandating baggy coverings for young men.
I’m not at all saying that what a woman may wear justifies rape. It’s just that a young woman concerned for her physical privacy nowadays has a hard time maintaining it if she also wants to wear what her friends do.
And you didn’t even mention what goes on in prisons Bill.
Wholehearted consensual enthusiasm IS sexy…
That cannot happen with force or violence
You know I didn’t. I thought about it, but this was pushing 1,000 words and I limited myself.
But I will say this, just as I would never let a casual remark about torture go by unchallenged, I do not let jokes or reference to prison rape go unchallenged.
Rape changes you forever. It steals trust and while there is a spectrum of how rape victims deal with their experience it is never completely gone. It does not matter if you are a man or woman, non-consensual sex leaves its mark.
I…. I…. It’s….
Are we – is it – are we *still* having to argue that rape is not sex? Even now, even today? Have we really learned *nothing* over the past decades?
I can’t – I mean -
Oh, lord.
Tristane Banon To File Sexual Assault Lawsuit Against Dominique Strauss-Kahn
Another woman has accused DSK of assault. I am sure the lawyers of this international fraudster will prove Tristane Banon is a slut.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/04/tristane-banon-dominique-strauss-kahn-dsk_n_889684.html
non-consensual sex is a misnomer.
OK. I can’t help but be drawn into this discussion, though I know it’s a minefield, and I can only expect a bad outcome. But here goes.
First: Disclosures. (Bona fides?)
I am male, heterosexual, but I do not discriminate against anyone. Grew up working class in UK, sometimes on welfare (and yes, its a soul-destroying experience there too – in case you wondered).
I was raped, once, at age 22, by a male, middle-aged “well-respected” anesthesiologist. He brought his pharmacological repertoire to the “game”, so maybe it wasn’t as traumatic as it might have been. Of course, I didn’t tell anyone. For years I convinced myself that I was on the very edge of driving over one night and exacting a horrible and vicious revenge. But of course, that was just a fantasy to help me deal with it.
Growing up, the domestic violence that I experienced was invariably inflicted by my mother. Mostly towards my father, but also to myself and my sister. Verbal for the most part (every freaking day!) but also frequent outbursts of physical violence, throwing items at him, or breaking things.
Now 50, I have reached a truce with those issues at a personal level. I mention them to provide a context for my comment in general, and more specifically, to point out that I have spent a couple of decades considering the mindset of a rapist.
I don’t agree AT ALL with the blanket statement that rape/sexual assault is all about power. No doubt it is the motivation for some people, but it’s not always the case.
So what is going on here? It’s NOT all about power. In fact, it should be obvious to thinking people here that anyone who claims that ANY issue is 100% black-and-white/this-or-that is more interested in advancing an agenda (or in avoiding the tedium of critical thinking) rather than trying to encompass reality.
The same thing with domestic abuse: Why are we only allowed to talk about (physical) violence towards women in that context? Of course, I would never condone violence towards women under any circumstances – but why can we never discuss violence inflicted BY women on their husbands and children? Particularly verbal aggression – which can be just a devastating, especially for children. Just because words don’t leave an obvious mark? Or would the whole, truthful, story just be to difficult to parcel up into convincing soundbites, or what?
There are some issues that don’t fall within the defined comfort zones, left or right. This is a serious comment – and it would be great to receive a serious response.
It’s pretty simple. Doing things without consent is about power. That doesn’t change if the things happen to be sexual.
What motivates one to abuse power is beside the point.
Very interesting observation! I wonder why women would want to dress in such a manner that would little or nothing to the imagination. I know why gay men do it.
Rape is not just forcible sex, but foricibly ripping away the self of the victim. Rape rips away the very fabric of self. It eats away at the very core of who we are as people. Do we even have a right to be alive? Do we have a right to exist? Are we just playthings for others amusement?
In what world does wearing slutty clothes, no clothes, jeans, a suit, tattered clothes or a diaper justify this?
The only item we really own in this world are our bodies. And now, we learn we don’t even own them. That our bodies may be used for someone else’s pleasure at any time, and there is not a damn thing we can do.
What actions of the victim could ever warrant such abuse? We must stop tolerating not just the behavior of blaming the victim, but also the belief that rape as “just sex”.
Society’s tolerance of rape demonstrates an innate disrespect for every person on this planet. To tolerate rape is to tell every person that they do not have the right to exist, that your body does not belong to you.
We are still stuck in a slave mentality that the “strong” or “rich” own the “weaker” or “poorer”. We may have ended the “official recognition” of slavery, but we have never removed the slavery ideals from society.
We have the right to control and own our bodies without fear of someone taking our bodies for themselves.
I never, every liked it when Dan Akroyd called Jane Curtin a slut. I always thought it was dehumanizing. Women deserve better!
“never, ever”