Thoughts on Roll Red Roll, Rape Culture, and Change
TW: Sexual Assault, Suicide.
The year I graduated from high school, one of my friends (let’s call him Conor), who was a football player on my high school’s team, broke his hand by punching another guy (let’s call him Sam) in the head — knocking him unconscious.
Pre knock-out, Sam and Conor had been enjoying themselves at a party, along with many other teens our age. There was drinking, (probably) drugs, music, conversations, games like beer pong…everything we expect at high school parties.
There was also sexual assault.
Something else we have come to associate with high school parties.
At that particular party, Sam had been in the middle of groping and undressing a girl (let’s call her Sarah) at the party when Conor knocked him out. Sarah was too drunk to be able to consent, she was barely conscious. Conor took action to stop Sam from sexually assaulting Sarah any further.
Let’s talk about rarity.
Sexual assault is not rare, one in three Canadian women will experience it before the age of 18, and one in six men as well. Sexual assault of children and teens is not rare in Canada, and in the majority of sexual assault cases, the victim and perpetrator know one another. A new study in the States showed that as many as 1 in 16 women’s first sexual experience was forced of coerced (read: rape).
Many cases of sexual assault happen behind closed doors, with only one victim and only one perpetrator. In the cases where doors aren’t closed, there is a higher likelihood of bystander intervention, as Conor did, and as others have done.
Bystander intervention is important. If you see something, say something. Do something. This doesn’t mean you have to use violence — there are many other ways you can interrupt harassment and abuse.
Earlier this week, I watched Roll Red Roll, a documentary detailing the investigation and trial of the 2012 Steubenville rape case which gained national and international attention due to exposing the victim-blaming of rape survivors that is so common in the “justice” system and outside of it. This documentary will make you feel sick, and it should. We should all feel sick at the reality of living in a rape culture.
In the 2012 Steubenville rape case, a sixteen year old girl was raped by two of her male peers, in front of three other boys. The boys took photos and videos which were shared online. They laughed at her on social media, saying things like “I have no sympathy for whores”. None of the boys who witnessed the assault stepped in to stop it when they could have. In the aftermath of the rape itself, the survivor was was victim-blamed and slut-shamed by many people in her town, including many of the adults, and endured online and offline bullying, harassment, and abuse.
Sexual assault, sexual exploitation, and resulting online harassment and abuse happen in Canada as well: two well known cases are Amanda Todd and Rehteah Parsons, both of whom died by suicide. In both of these teenage girls’ cases, they were sexually abused, and then harassed and shamed for it online and in person. Both girls switched schools, but the images of their abuse followed them everywhere. In both cases, it took huge amounts of public pressure for investigations to occur, and the only major steps to prosecute their abusers were taken after the two teens’ deaths.
We (Canadians) cannot say that it’s not only our American neighbours who live in a rape culture, we do too.
So how can we change this, and where do we start?
It’s still common for folks to miss the connection between joking about sexual assault, catcalling, slut-shaming, propagating purity myths, and physical acts of sexual violence. I want to highlight this connection. The image accompanying this post, the pyramid of sexual violence, visually show us how sexist attitudes and beliefs provide the foundation for sexual violence.
I think back to my friend Conor. He actively intervened to stop a sexual assault from progressing further in that moment. He knew that what Sam was doing to Sarah was wrong, and that it should be stopped. In that moment, he acted to interrupt rape culture — he would not ignore it, or excuse it.
Beyond that moment, did Conor understand his place in rape culture? Did he see it in all the small moments of everyday life? Did he interrupt locker room talk, and shut down his buddies’ rape jokes? Did he tell his friends who catcalled girls that that wasn’t okay? I don’t know, but I hope so.
There’s this idea that there is a hard line between words and actions, and that people can believe that sexual assault is wrong, while still excusing or ignoring sexist and misogynistic (or homophobic, transphobic or racist, etc.) comments, jokes, and banter as just “boys will be boys”.
We need to think about the fact that if we tell boys (and they tell each other) to “man up”, “you throw like a girl”, “that’s so gay”, and so on, we reinforce a culture that accepts and expects violence between men, and toward LGBTQ+ folks and women. Traditional ideas about manhood create a culture of “bros before hoes”, where boys like the ones in Steubenville would rather remain silent in the face of a sexual assault than be cast out of their group of male friends. This has to change.
Sexual assault is wrong, therefore the behaviours and attitudes underpinning it are too. It all contributes to the problem.
Once we see the connection, we can’t unsee it. Then it’s up to us to act, because we are part of the solution.
_______
More information:
The Sexual Assault Centre of Edmonton (SACE)
‘Dear Daddy’ — This Daughter’s Letter Makes Rape Culture Chillingly Obvious
University of Alberta Sexual Assault Centre
Association of Alberta Sexual Assault Services Fact Sheets
A intersectionally grounded report on Why Folks Do & Don’t Report from 2018: West Coast LEAF
Dispelling the myths about sexual assault
HEGEMONIC MASCULINITY AND RAPE CULTURE: NEGOTIATING MANHOOD AT A CANADIAN UNIVERSITY, Master’s Thesis by Lesley S. Derraugh.
