Sexual Assault and American Prudishness
It’s so hard for America to talk about sexual assault because it’s so hard for America to talk about sex.
When I was in the middle of it, I thought my high school’s sex-ed program was fantastic. I knew how to find a clitoris which, if sit-coms are to be believed, is some sort of mythical sexual feat. I could put a condom on a banana and therefore my own penis. Imagine those poor idiots in states where there’s abstinence-only sex-ed!
I’m not sure my classmates and I knew as much about sex as we thought we did. Imagine a driver’s ed class that focused exclusively on the car: wheel, seatbelt, accelerator, brake. Imagine someone praising your driver’s ed class because it taught you how to find the ignition. Imagine a driver’s ed class that ignored drunk driving, the laws regarding driving, when and where it’s appropriate to drive, what you can and can’t do. It seems absurd. A student who went through that class would never pass the test to get their license.
It’s an imperfect metaphor, but I believe that most sex-ed classes in America resemble this driver’s ed class, or something even worse. We understand that driving involves other people who one shares the road with, but sex (the most partner driven activity I can think of) is reduced to a mechanical act that has little-to-no relationship to what teenagers are doing in the backseats of cars. There’s no reason that a high school student should be quizzed on what the vas deferens are (I’d forgotten since the 10th grade, because why wouldn’t I? They’re the ducts that allow sperm to travel from the testicles to the urethra), while remaining ignorant about something like affirmative consent.
I believe that this is caused, in part, by our national discomfort with sex. Schools ask parents to talk to their kids about sex while parents ask the schools to have the talk. This doesn’t happen because either group is unqualified or incapable of having the talk; both just want to avoid an uncomfortable conversation, as if raising a child isn’t just an 18-year-long sequence of uncomfortable conversations. Sex is, ignoring the obvious necessity of reproduction, an incredible way to experience a deep intimacy with someone else, but it can also be perverted into something very ugly and violent. I have to wonder is the problem a cultural fear of sex or a fear of the intimacy and deep connections that result from it?
What complicates the matter is the internet. All it takes to view pornography is a computer or phone connected to the world-wide web through Wi-Fi or an Ethernet cord (as an example of how easy that is to find, it’s how you’re reading this article). Through some of my older friends, I saw pornography before I knew what sex was. I distinctly remember asking some of my more knowledgeable friends on the playground if they thought my parents had ever had sex before. Imagine that; walking, talking, breathing proof of my parents’ sex life wondering whether the very act that gave me life had ever occurred. That’s where I learned where babies come from, by the way. From 6th graders on the swing-set.
I don’t necessarily blame my parents. How could they have known how early kids learn about sex? They certainly didn’t grow up in a world where middle schoolers talk about porn on the back of the bus to hockey practice (in their defense they were much more transparent later in my childhood, perhaps a little too transparent; one night at dinner, my mom revealed that I was conceived during a July 4th weekend trip to upstate New York). But high schools can’t afford to be naïve anymore.
Most colleges are now required to talk to students about sexual assault and rape culture, but by then it’s often too late. The prejudices and ideas that we’ve formed in high school can’t be waved away by an hour long online module. Parents and teachers have to shoulder the burden and accept that in order to create a healthier sexual environment for the youth of today, they’re just going to have to grit their teeth and talk about sex. It doesn’t have to be pleasant, for either party. It’s awkward! But the choice between an awkward conversation and the potential for assault isn’t a choice at all.
This may sound all doom and gloom, but don’t let me mislead you. The war on sexual assault is being won. According to RAINN, the rate of sexual assault in the United States has dropped over 60% since 1993. That’s incredible, and proof that the work that educators and activists put in to address and combat violence is worthwhile.
But the decline has stalled, hovering around 30,000 instances of sexual violence and rape since 2007. The progress myth is powerful and implies that, since rates have dropped overtime, they will continue to drop. This is a powerful narrative, and one that is applied to almost every social inequity, but is usually false. Positive change and the creation of a safer society only occurs when it is pushed and fought for, and progress can be lost.
I returned to my high school recently and was pleased to discover that they were working to implement a new curriculum to teach students about consent. More importantly, they weren’t just educating seniors, but also underclassmen, who need these lessons even more. Thinking about it, I realize that my high school will face pushback, probably from parents. I’ve noticed that it’s usually the older generations, who are set in their ways, who complain about progressive educational reforms. Unfortunately, it’s also the members of older generations that hold the power to educate younger generations and choose where and how they are informed. As much as younger generations have to educate themselves, it’s also important for old dogs to learn new tricks.
The solution to rape culture isn’t to fight rape culture, but instead to create a culture of consent. Audre Lorde once wrote that “rape is not aggressive sexuality, it is sexualized aggression.” Rape isn’t a facet of sex at all, but a misunderstanding of it. We have to teach not just what bad and dangerous sexual conduct is, but what good and healthy sex is.
I think that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. sold himself short when he said, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” Perhaps that’s true, but it is only true because someone like Dr. King dares to bend this arc in the right direction. It would be insane to ask Dr. King’s courage of every person, but it seems reasonable to request that every person recognize that justice and equity are not guaranteed for future generations. History shows that progress is fragile, and that the justice we take for granted today has to be defended, lest it disappear tomorrow.
