Epifano’s account of her rape… I feel so proud of this girl I don’t even know for having found the strength to put this into words. This needs to be read, this needs to be heard. And, as everyone should know by now, an experience like this is hardly an isolated incident. Have many of you reading this can relate in some way, or know or have heard of someone else who has? I was definitely struck by one of the most frustrating ‘themes’ running throughout this: This wouldn’t happen at “a place like Amherst”. This wouldn’t happen at a place like Tufts. This wouldn’t happen to someone like you.

So many are silenced after experiences like this. And, there are so many experiences like this.

My overwhelming takeaway from reading Epifano’s story is that there needs to be a change, and I need to be one of the change makers.

What have I been doing since then and what’s next? Things didn’t slow down after graduation, and in the beginning of June I uprooted and moved to Helsinki, Finland to work at a music startup company. It was awesome to be doing work among a small group of maybe three or four other entrepreneurs, and being able to teach them some things about social media- and as great as it was, I continued to feel most passionate about social justice and new media’s intersection with that sphere. After an interesting couple hours at a “startup demo day” near the end of my time in Finland, this realization hit my harder as I watched groups of extremely smart and innovative students present ‘solutions’ to what could only be referred to as first world problems. Of course, I mean no disservice to these people, and don’t hold myself higher than them by any means as more ‘morally righteous.’ I simply realized that at this juncture in my life I needed to- for myself- be doing something I could truly stand behind.

Which brought me back here to WTR, which I’ve been regretfully neglecting during all these other changes. Although never gaining any big ‘popularity’, making this site was extremely helpful to me and was a really awesome learning experience, in more ways than one. After all of this, I’m still extremely passionate about this topic, and gender equality in general, and plan to continue dedicating time to the issue. Perhaps I’ll be updating WTR a bit more, but in the meanwhile I’m generating some new ideas for how to create a new site that takes a bit of a different direction. Stay tuned, and lots of love and thanks to everyone who supported me throughout this. Hopefully this has been at least one further step in someone’s life toward talking about a similar topic or experience that might have previously been ‘taboo’ or too confusing/painful to discuss.

xo
Kat

“Consent is one of the single most important aspect of any relationship, especially one that is sexual or might become sexual. The biggest thing to remember about consent is that it is not ongoing, meaning that a partner may give consent at one point, and then remove that consent at another. Consent is not given automatically simply because one has given it in previous situations, and healthy relationships utilize strong communication, both verbal and physical, when exercising consent.

Here’s some stuff to keep in mind when it comes to proper consent:

Physical consent/body language/enthusiasm

Things to ask yourself/look for.

• Is your partner responsive and enthusiastic to your advances?
• Does your partner seem nervous, upset, afraid, or timid?
• Is your partner encouraging you by pulling you closer or getting closer to you?
• Is your partner being hesitant, turning away, or trying to move away or get out of an embrace or position?
• Does your partner seem like they want to speak out against an action/activity?
• When giving verbal consent, are they enthusiastic or half-hearted?
• When bringing up something new you want to try, does your partner seem eager to participate or are the hesitant to proceed?
• Does your partner pull away from your advances.

Feelings that you should consider when giving consent.

• Do you really want to do this?
• Are you enthusiastic about your partner’s advances?
• Does anything that your partner is doing make you feel uncomfortable?
• Do you feel like you can’t say no?
• Do you say yes and then regret it?
• Do your feel afraid about what your partner is doing?
• Does your partner frighten you?
• Do you feel like you HAVE to say yes?
• Do you feel like you want to stop but are afraid to say it?

Many people don’t think of body language as a form of consent, but it very much is! A person can say “yes,” but their feelings and body may be saying otherwise. Good consent requires good communication, and a part of communication is listening. You have to, essentially, “listen” to your partner’s body actively as well as the fluctuations in their voice to be really certain about whether or not they’re comfortable with what is happening.

Verbal consent

Things to ask/say:

• “Are you comfortable with this?”
• “Can I continue?”
• “Do you enjoy this?”
• Where do you want me to touch you?”
• “Tell me when to stop.”
• “Tell me if I hurt you.”
• “Use the safe word if it’s too much.”
• “Can I touch you here?”
• “What do you want me to do?”
• “Is this too much?”
• “Do you want to stop?”
• “Tell me if you want to do something different.”
• “Is it ok if we try/do this?”
• “Do I need to slow down/speed up/stop?”
• “If I do ___ will it be ok?”
• “Are you ready for this?”
• “Can we try something new?”

Answers that do not give consent/revoke consent.

• “I’m not comfortable. Can we stop/slow down/try this later?”
• “I don’t want to do this/continue with this.”
• “I don’t enjoy this.”
• “*Uses safe word.*
• “I don’t want you to touch me me here.”
• “I don’t want you to ___.”
• “You’re hurting me.”
• “This is too much, please stop.”
• “I want you to stop.”
• “I’m not ready for this.”
• “It’s not ok for you to do this.”
• “I don’t want to try that.”
• “I want you to stop now.”

Answers that do give consent/reinforce given consent.

• “I like that, please continue.”
• “I’m ok with this.”
• “I’m comfortable with what you’re doing.”
• “Don’t stop.”
• “I like it when you ___.”
• “I enjoy this.”
• “I want you to go on.”
• “I want you to touch me there.”
• “I want to try/do this.”
• “Speed up/slow down/do this..”
• “I want to do more.”

Ways to not pressure partners.

• “It’s ok if you don’t want to.”
• “I don’t want to do anything you’re not ready for, so we can wait.”
• “I respect your choice and won’t go further then you want.”
• “I can wait until you’re ready to do more.”
• “Tell me what you want, and we can do just that so you’re not uncomfortable.”
• “I don’t want to make you uncomfortable, so we’ll stop.”
• “I understand you’re not ready. It’s no big deal.”

Again, communication, communication, communication. Verbally establishing what is and isn’t ok while also being aware of the physical signs of consent is key. Keep in mind that you don’t just have to ask these questions during sexual activity. Talk about these kinds of things outside of the bedroom too! You can get into detailed conversations about how you want things to go, what you are and aren’t comfortable with, and if anything changes while you’re engaging in sexual activity, you have the power to change your consent. Giving, receiving, and respecting consent is an ongoing process.

Consent while under the influence of alcohol.

Things to ask yourself before you drink.

• Do you want to engage in sexual activity while under the influence?
• How much are you planning drink?
• What kind of people are you going to be around?
• Do the people you’re around know your boundaries?
• Are you in an environment where you’ll be safe?
• Are you going to hook up or be with a repeat partner?

Things to ask others before they drink.

• “Do you wanna hook up?”
• “Are you comfortable with drunk sex?”
• “Is it ok if we mess around while we’re drinking/drunk?”
• “I know we’ve had drunk sex before, but do you want to do it again?”

When consent cannot be given while drunk.

• When someone is passed out.
• When someone has blacked out.
• When someone is wasted, slurring words, stumbling, ect.
• When someone has specified before drinking that they don’t want sex.

What is NOT drunk consent, and can be considered rape.

• Pretending to help someone to bed and then sleeping with them while drunk/wasted.
• Having sex, touching, or doing other things to someone who is unaware of what is going on.
• Doing the above things to someone who is drunk/wasted who makes it verbally (no matter how slurred or muttered) clear that they do not want you doing these things to them.
• Having sex, touching, or doing other things with someone who is drunk/wasted who the next day says that they did not consent to those activities.
• Having sex, touching, or doing other things with a drunk/wasted significant other who the next days says that they did not consent to those activities.
• Having sex, touching, or doing other things with a drunk/wasted person who later feels that they were taken advantage of or coerced.

Important things to remember about drunk consent.

• People who are drunk have impaired inhibitions, which means they might do things they would not do otherwise if they were sober. Being tipsy and being drunk/wasted have differing levels of consent accuracy, and it is up to you, the person asking for consent, to make wise decisions. Even if it is a partner or friend, you must take into account the situation and ask yourself if they would give you consent in a sober situation, and if THIS situation is one they would give consent it. Be mindful of signs that show that people cannot give consent or haven’t given consent. Even if your advances are not malicious in nature, the other person may not have actually given you consent, and you could end up in an unpleasent situation.
• Please, please, please remember that a person who is drunk is not a “target.” It is never good to pin-point people who are drunk or wasted for sex because those people may or may not actually be consenting, and the decision to seek out drunk people because they’re “easy,” or “asking for it” perpetuates the idea that if you’re drinking and someone has sex with or does sexual things to you without your consent, that it’s YOUR fault that you were raped/taken advantage of, and NOT the person who did the raping/assault.

Things to remember about consent.

• Consent is not ongoing or automatic. Fuck buddies, monogamous partners, open partners, spouses, friends with benefits, all of these relationships and more HAVE to practice consent. Saying “yes” one day does not guarantee a “yes” the next. Being in a relationship or having done sexual things prior is not an excuse to ignore lack of consent.
• Another thing to remember is that it’s just women*/female-identifying people who give consent, nor is it just men*/male identifying people who have to get it. If a person is not comfortable with something, they should be respected by their partner to not be pressured, no matter what their gender identity is!
• Consent is all about communication from all participants. If someone does not give enthusiastic, genuine consent, even if it’s a yes, it is not truly consent.

—This is brilliant. I’d like it noted, however, that in the “Answers that do not give/revoke consent” section, any variation of those responses counts. You don’t have to form full sentences to revoke consent. Any possible variation of those statements, or “No”, counts as a lack of consent. I’d also like to add that “Can we do this later?” or any other kind lack of consent that is construed as putting the act off is not a guarantee of consent later; it is NOT consenting to the act later, it is a way of getting the act to stop NOW. It still means NO. Just thought I’d point that out.”

This site is meant to call attention to these gray areas- a term which is typically used in a legislative sense to discredit the claims of someone reporting sexual harassment, assault, and rape. ‘Lack of support’ is very contrary to what I’m hoping to display here- very much the opposite. I’m hoping that taking a closer look at ‘gray areas’ leads to a heightened understanding of sexuality and consent, as well as less reluctance to share these stories with others or report them.

“It’s complicated because it’s laden with sexual politics and this notion that, as an American woman, we are sexually liberated and we are encouraged by main stream media to be as sexual as possible without really understand what that means and the politics of it and who we are being sexual for. So, the challenge was around language really. What do we call this stuff? Are we allowed to call it rape? And I was a rape counselor in college so I knew what rape was on paper and on posters…but I was already in bed with him and we had partied…”

The Dana Roc interview also touches upon Schwartzman’s subsequent campaign that accompanies the film, which deals more directly with asking people where their “line” is. Schwartzman speaks to how she dislikes the term “gray area” because “(it) suggests that it’s not really that bad or not rape.” This was also an interesting perspective to my research as I grappled with whether or not to use this term “grey area” in relation to harassment and assault. In discussing language, I myself found it to be a helpful starting term, as a jumping off point for speaking about that which doesn’t seem to fit into any categories. Schwartzman says: “Within the space of our ‘hook up’ culture these rapes and violations are happening and we don’t have a language for them so we don’t really talk about them.” In the film, her friend is raped in Brooklyn, and her story parallel’s that of Nancy’s. But, as she says, her friends case was clear cut. It was a stranger on a dark street.

“My situation was less defined. We were in bed already.”

She says afterwards she feels weak, vulnerable, dirty. Who would believe her, she thinks? Her friends say to her:

“I feel like I’ve had a lot of those kinds of situations too, you know what I mean? But, they weren’t rape.”

“Just because it hurts doesn’t mean it was forced.”

“I mean, you have two people saying different things, and you were both drinking…”

Her mother says to her:

“My guess is that he’s not an unusually violent man, and that given the circumstances, he didn’t think he did anything wrong.”

The film raises these interesting questions of gray areas, and it’s a quick watch that leaves you with a lot of different questions. It hit relatively close to home for me, and especially after receiving that Twitter message, I definitely wanted to clarify about gray areas. Stream a “preview online” version (the whole short film) here if it works; I’d be interested in hearing about other people’s perspectives on the film.

The important thing is how YOU felt. How did YOU perceive it? How do YOU feel about it?

It’s a Tumblr page used to display powerful, moving images of people holding up posters with quotes from their attackers, as a healing technique for sexual abuse survivors. Started in October of last year by a woman named Grace Brown, Project Unbreakable has become widely known in both the Tumblr sphere and elsewhere.

The site says:

“Rape survivor and advocate for victims of sexual abuse, Yvonne Moss, describes the project as a way for victims to take the power back of the words that were once used against them.

If you are interested in participating by either being photographed or sending in your own image, you may send her an email at projectunbreakable@gmail.com with the subject line “Photograph Me” or “Submission”, depending on the circumstance.

Note: Grace, or anyone else associated with this project, is not qualified to give certified advice on this subject. If you are struggling, RAINN has a free, confidential, 24/7 sexual assault hotline: 1.800.656.HOPE(4673). RAINN also has an online hotline: https://ohl.rainn.org/online/”

I’ve been unable to click off of this site. I think it’s a fantastic idea and displaying these images online for other people to see them and interact with them is yet another example of new media being utilized in a great way for sexual assault awareness and generating dialogue. If this seems like something you’d like to get involved with, check out the events below (one just for Boston, which I’ll be going to for sure)

There’s a lot of conversation surrounding this notion of “gray areas” of sexual harassment and assault. The term “gray area” is as it sounds- not black and white, and not necessarily able to fit neatly into a boxed area of a definition. It may not be something you look at an instantly acknowledge as (harassment, assault, rape). And there may not be a “solution” as to defining what a situation was, or was not.

The name of this site, “Was That Really…?” is not to imply the need to ‘correctly’ label and define an experience, but rather to call attention to the nuanced nature of sexual harassment and assault, while not (At. All.) saying that these situations should be ignored. In fact- the opposite. They should be analyzed more closely. Spoken about. Worked through, in whatever way that might be (simply through a cathartic release of the story, talking to friends or family about, or reporting the assault and accessing many of the available resources made available for instances such as these).

So, these gray areas…?

I want to begin at the beginning (logically!)- which for me was through an exhaustive scouring of the Internet for conversation around this topic. There’s not a lot (hence this website). Some sources I visited refuse to acknowledge or use these terms (“gray area”) when it comes to sexual assault and rape, saying that this is dangerous rhetoric; rape is rape. Other sources I visited seemed to echo more of my own thoughts on this topic. I think that acknowledging there are “gray areas,” especially when it comes to language and consent, can be especially useful in helping people grapple with difficult situations that may not fit a clear cut definition, and helping to explain the reporting process when it comes to situations of harassment and assault.

What are people saying?

A lot of what I found on the Internet (I still love books! But yall know I’m a bit new media obsessed, especially because of the possibility for immediate dialogue that it allows) was extremely helpful to me in thinking about my own situations and sexual past- instances that made me uncomfortable, things I’ve since blocked out, and more. Am I getting too wordy in this post? I’ll throw some images your way.

“So when I gritted my teeth and barred sex because I feared saying no, when I dissociated because I silently didn’t want it, or when I drunkenly stopped saying no because just letting it happen in that hazy sloppy moment seemed easier…”

“If there is anything in your sexual history you feel uneasy about… that is a sure sign it is worth looking at…”

(From the incredibly awesome article here by Rachel Rabbit White)
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“I take issue with Roiphe’s assertion that ‘if we are going to maintain an idea of rape, then we need to reserve it for the instances of physical violence, or the threat of physical violence.’ Really?…”

(Comment from an article at Equal Writes)

—————————————————————————————————–

“The definition of rape hasn’t just been a legal battle. It has been a social controversy for decades with many gray areas.”

(From “Legal and Social Issues Cloud Definition of Rape” article here)

—————————————————————————————————–

“…it becomes more complicated in a college atmosphere where drugs, alcohol and perceived pressures to engage in sexual activity dominate students’ social lives…”

(From a great article in The Daily Texan Online)

Obviously there’s a lot to tackle here. What are your thoughts?

♦ Resources for Tufts University ♦

From Saturday Night: Untold Stories of Sexual Assault at Duke

Such an awesome college publication. Does your school have something like this?

http://wasthatreally.tumblr.com/ 

Are you following us on Twitter yet?

https://twitter.com/Wasthatreally

Throughout my four years of college, I’ve heard stories like this, not all of them exactly the same, but with similar threads. There was drinking involved. Someone who was considered a good, trustworthy friend did something. So what are the ‘grey areas’ here? Living in a rape culture where victim blaming is prevalent, this may not seem to be rape to the people involved. Would the “good friend” consider it as such? Would the “friends” who were watching consider it as such?

The Anonymous poster here obviously had the foresight to post it on the Tumblr page- but she remembers nothing, which complicates the situation more, and is obviously very uncomfortable with the situation. I’m not entirely sure that the “#rape #victim #survivor” hash tags are of her own making (more likely, that of the tumblr owner). Would she be quicker to call it rape if it was with a stranger, something she remembered, and she wasn’t intoxicated? How do you think she’s going to negotiate this topic with her husband-to-be? What will he think?

I don’t necessarily have answers to the questions that are raised in a situation like this, which makes it even more difficult. But calling attention to these grey areas is incredibly important. Just for this woman to have a place to post about that is incredibly important.

What are your thoughts?