Arguments and findings on “sexual geography” in the reading “Sexual Citizens”
One of the primary concepts in the books is “sexual geography” (see pg. xix-xxi). Discuss this concept and the arguments and findings about “sexual geography” throughout the book.
College campuses serve not only as educational institutions, but also as playgrounds for people in their young twenties. The geography of college campuses gives life to dorm housing, fraternities, and lots of area dedicated to off campus housing. The spatial context in which people move whilst in college plays a key role in how certain areas on and around campus create space for sexual assault. In Sexual Citizens by Jennifer S. Hirsch and Shamus Khan, the authors focus greatly on the impact campus geography has on sexual assault through the discussion of alcohol on campus, physical spaces in which students move, and partying away from campus.
Alcohol is often referred to as a “risk” in Sexual Citizens. In context, the authors argue that alcohol not only puts the person consuming alcohol at risk of being a victim to sexual assault, but also puts them at risk of committing assault (Hirsch & Khan, 2020, Chapter Two). Alcohol goes hand-in-hand with geography of college campuses to create an environment that puts the consumer at immediate risk due to quick access to fraternities, small dorms and bars. While it was determined that fraternities do not have higher levels of sexual assault than other areas on campus, it was found that fraternities do create a lack of male awareness on how heavy drinking puts men at risk for assaulting someone else (Hirsch & Khan, 2020, Chapter Three). Fraternities also have access to hosting parties often and a man associated with a fraternity at Columbia University mentioned that getting “drunk is part of the experience” (Hirsch & Khan, 2020, Chapter Three). Alcohol in the college landscape creates a social acceptance of heavy drinking, especially at fraternities. This acceptance can also transfer to the idea of drinking to have sex, which can create the space for sexual assault to occur (Hirsch & Khan, 2020, Chapter Three).
Alcohol is a driving reason for students to party at fraternities (Martin, “The Rape Prone Culture of Academic Contexts: Fraternities and Athletics”), but it also creates opportunity for sexual assault to happen as it puts people at risk to commit assault, fall victim to assault, and create a false assumption that because someone is drunk, it means that they are willing to have sex. When someone is intoxicated, they cannot consent to sex under any circumstances (Vrangalova, “Everything You Need to Know About Consent That You Never Learned in Sex Ed”), which means that anyone consuming alcohol on or around college campuses can easily find themselves victim to or committing sexual assault. Fraternities encompassing alcohol create an environment and opportunity for sexual assault whether that is in the fraternity, back at the dorms or apartments after leaving a fraternity or elsewhere where someone’s sexual citizenship is denied. To make matters more severe, there is often little campus oversight in fraternities since some of the biggest college donors are fraternity alumni (Hatch, 4/13/2022). Fraternities contribute to the sexual geography as mentioned in Sexual Citizens because of their party appeal and serving of alcohol. With alcohol present at fraternities, their geographical landscape becomes the breeding ground for sexual assault risk in creating an optimum situation for potential sexual assault to occur, as determined by Hirsch and Khan.
Drinking in close spaces like dorms creates an intimate experience due to the structure of small dorm rooms (Hirsch & Khan, 2020, Chapter Four), and also creates a level of secrecy to consuming alcohol since it is typically banned in dorms. This secrecy creates opportunity for smaller groups to drink together in non-public places which in and of itself creates the perfect grounds for putting someone at risk of being sexually assaulted. Without dorm residents being able to consume alcohol publicly in their living spaces, this forces them into more reserved place which completely takes away the safety of public drinking that serves as a security blanket in creating less intimate or secluded situations, which could ultimately lead to creating a situation for sexual assault. The inability for students in dorms to publicly consume alcohol and forcing them into small spaces puts them at a huge risk thanks to the sexual geography of college campuses. The relationship between alcohol and geography on college campuses work together in more ways than one to create optimum opportunities for sexual assault.
Sexual geography also looks at the actual spaces through which students move and how space may structure opportunity for bad situations to arise. When students come to campus, most live in dorm housing their first year, which create spaces that put first year students in a vulnerable position. For instance, dorm room furniture often forces two people on a bed due to the lack of space and sitting arrangements in a dorm room (Hirsch & Khan, 2020, Chapter Four). The authors referenced how beds are inherently intimate, especially within a dorm room setting where space is limited. The sexual geography of dorm rooms creates an opportunity for immense vulnerability by forcing two people to sit close together, which can preemptively give accidental sexual power to either of the people on the dorm room bed and can act as a sexual component. In tangent, negotiating sex involves at least one other person when living in the dorms (Hirsch & Khan, 2020, Chapter Four). This add on of at least one other individual encourages situations where the student living in the dorm room is more inclined to make the decision to engage in sexual activity outside of their dorm room. This can create vulnerable situations as students venture out of known territory or away from their own territory. For example, as mentioned in Sexual Citizens, “The story Boutros reluctantly shared about being sexually assaulted by a woman he barely knew, while he was very drunk and in a strange city, underlines the spatial dimensions of vulnerability” (Hirsch & Khan, 2020, pg. 87).
Living in the dorms themselves until Thanksgiving break creates a social time frame known as the red zone in which females are at highest risk for sexual assault during this time (Hatch, 4/13/2022). The red zone is a direct effect of the sexual geography of dorm living and is demonstrative of how susceptible students become to sexual assault when they are living on college campuses. As mentioned, “Spaces create and constrain opportunities. Those opportunities are unequally allocated; again and again, gender and class year come together to impel first-year women into spaces controlled by upperclassmen…but those shared bedrooms often propel younger women into spaces controlled by older men” (Hirsch & Khan, 2020, pg. 240). The structure of dorms infringes on one’s sexual citizenship, but also creates the sexual geography for complete vulnerability, especially for women during the red zone period.
Likewise, when students make the decision to party away from their dorm or apartment, either at a fraternity or a bar, the sexual geography between the student’s housing and where the student is partying creates risk for sexual assault. There were many instances mentioned in Sexual Citizens that detailed a sexual assault when someone who was too drunk at a party was “walked home” by another. Whether it was a friend or a stranger, the opportunity for sexual assault was apparent because of the opportunity for the drunk individual to need assistance in making their way home. The geography of the bar or fraternity in relationship to the student’s home creates sexual geography and grounds for sexual assault since it is very easy for a perpetrator to take advantage of the person being walked home after they reach the home. As mentioned in the movie, The Hunting Ground, Kamilah described her sexual assault after making her way back to her apartment with her friend after being drugged and followed by the man who drugged her. The grounds for this assault only happened because of the transition from the bar to her apartment, which is a direct example of the sexual geography that surrounds college campuses.
This “walked home” phenomenon also negatively affects men in a different way than women. Most people are hesitant to let their female friend leave a bar outwardly with a male. The sexual script that only women need protection leave men at risk. Hirsch and Khan describe Tim’s experience when a woman was feeding him drinks when out at the bar one night and then left drunkenly with her (Hirsch & Khan, 2020, Chapter Seven). Tim was later assaulted that evening and his friends had mentioned that they believed that Tim was “getting lucky” because this woman kept feeding him drinks. The sexual script that “men always want sex” puts men at risk for sexual assault, especially when intoxicated and when college campus sexual geography inquires a “walk back” to someone’s place after a night out.
Hirsch and Khan provide intensive insight into what sexual geography on college campuses refers to in their book, Sexual Citizens. The analysis of sexual geography is looked at through the discussion of alcohol on campus, physical spaces in which students move, and partying away from campus. Each aspect of sexual geographies as discussed in the book portrays the vulnerability of students and how susceptible many are to sexual assault merely because of the geographical layout of college campuses.
