It’s very easy to view rape in a vacuum. It’s easy to view it as a controlling, overaggressive man who chose to invade a woman’s most private and intimate space, label him an evil asshole, and decide that he is an unusually heinous individual. But viewing rape in a vacuum is extremely ignorant because of the overarching rape culture that unfortunately defines our communities and shapes our collective minds. To view rape as a singular act of aggression is to overlook the many ways our society puts girls and women into harm’s way by instilling dangerous ideologies into the minds of young men everywhere. So when a young woman like Jada (pictured left) steps forward to address being allegedly raped, how in hell can we be surprised at the venomous, visceral bullshit she’s been put through?
Jada is a 16-year-old African American girl from Houston who alleges she was given a spiked drink that caused her to pass out, leading someone, or several people, to strip her naked and sexually assault her. What we know as fact is that photos were taken of her unconscious and bottomless body, were passed around social media, and went viral. A hashtag called #jadapose was even created to mock how she was positioned in the photo. Young men AND women gleefully participated in the mocking.
Now I’m not going to unequivocally state that I know exactly what happened to Jada and exactly who did it because I wasn’t there (call it the “Central Park 5″ in me). But I do know that I definitely want the alleged perpetrators to stand trial. More than that, I want young people to stop being so goddamn ignorant about rape and sexual assault that they believe that this could actually be a laughing matter. But that will only happen when PARENTS decide that rape education is an absolute must for our youth.
Personally, I think rape is the most disgusting crime in the world. It irreparably damages victims emotionally and mentally LONG after the physical scars and tears have healed. Rape isn’t just sexual misappropriation, it’s an all out attack on one’s spiritual health. But when the conversation around rape becomes mired with erroneous assumptions and misperceptions, it becomes a lot easier to sympathize with alleged accusers and far too easy to dismiss real victims. Because of what young people learn from their elders, far too many people are taught that rape prevention amounts to:
- Never leave your cup unattended at a bar/party/social gathering
- Never walk home late alone (call a cab)
- Don’t get drunk around men you don’t know
- Don’t wear slutty clothes
And the list goes on.
These are the “rules” that are told to women, and when a woman alleges she was raped, we immediately run down this checklist not only to identify how the assault took place, but also to find out how we can collectively blame that woman for putting herself at risk. It has now become our reflexive nature to view women as “idiots” for “getting raped,” as if they casually strolled past some house party warning sign that hung on the wall like a speed limit notification on the highway, firmly stating that if she passes out her body will become the temporary property of the males in attendance. But what’s truly scary about these rules and our reactions to rape victims is the fact that it’s mostly been passed down to us by people without the knowledge to provide any sort of substantive rape education.
Experts have already stated that quality sex-education would help combat rape culture, yet when most parents think about the importance of sex education, they want our school systems to spend a disproportionate amount of time on abstinence advocacy. While parents stand in the way of a more expansive sex education curriculum, more young men and women are growing up to believe that false accusations of rape are the real epidemic in America, when the incidence of false rape reports falls in the 2 to 8 percent range.
I am not here to argue that we are experiencing a rape epidemic in our society, because that is one of the most ridiculous and pointless debates currently surrounding this topic. I don’t give a DAMN whether you believe enough rapes have occurred to constitute an epidemic, because ONE rape is too many. What I am here to argue is that we need to stop treating this topic with such callousness and ignorance, and that won’t start to take effect until parents start teaching young boys and girls about the serious nature of this offense. That doesn’t mean that all boys need to adopt a self-blaming ideology, but it does mean they need to have enough respect instilled within them to NOT start some stupid hashtag at an alleged victim’s expense.
LAB
Lincoln Anthony Blades blogs daily on his site ThisIsYourConscience.com, he’s an author of the book “You’re Not A Victim, You’re A Volunteer” and a weekly contributor for UPTOWN Magazine. He can be reached via Twitter @lincolnablades and on Facebook at This Is Your Conscience.