Written by Ellen Atkinson
Addressing the issue of sexual assault on college campuses is a contentious topic in 2016. It has become a national conversation, one that is actually obscuring the real issues around sexual trauma in our own communities. Almost guaranteed, you know someone on campus who has been a victim or perpetrator of sexual trauma. I use trauma instead of the popularized term “sexual assault,” because common social conceptions of assault limit the lens through which we judge sexual violation. These are called rape scripts, according to Jamie Baum, tri-chair of the Student Organization for Sexual Safety (SOSS).
“Rape scripts are narratives that we’re taught in our society, like the idea that rape is always violent or that the perpetrator is usually a stranger,” said Baum. “These rape scripts limit many peoples’ understandings of the realities of rape and sexual assault.” Having conversations more broadly about sexual trauma reduces the chances of survivors feeling invalidated and their pain belittled.
The hardest part in engaging in this conversation is not pointing fingers. A perpetrator may, in their eyes, not see how they were a perpetrator at all. A victim may be in denial and not even acknowledge their experience as rape. Rape and assault in its more insidious forms surround us on a daily basis; they whisper in our ears until sexual trauma is normalized and victims are left walking alone in abandonment, shame, and darkness.
We need to talk about the myth of rape in the gray zone. The myth of rape in the gray zone looks like this: you are blackout drunk but remember telling the person demounting you that you did not want to have sex with him tonight, and feeling pain the next day. It looks like going on a date with someone who coerces you into going home with them – you said yes to the date, but not the bedroom, and definitely not to the sex—so what happened? The way he talked made you feel like it was your responsibility to have sex with him even though you didn’t want to, but you didn’t fight back, so who will believe you? The bottom line is, someone has experienced sexual trauma if they feel violated or betrayed after a sexual act.
The gray zone is a myth; consent is consent, and anything less is a physical violation; anything less is rape. “Consent is knowingly, willingly, and enthusiastically saying YES to any act of intimacy, free of coercion or fear,” said another tri-chair of SOSS, McKenna Becker. “Consent can be revoked at any point and consent needs to be established at every step. Consenting to one act is not consenting to all acts and consenting last weekend does not mean consenting this weekend. Also, the absence of a no does not constitute a yes.”
I am going to make this really real for you here. Rapists are still living on this campus. Former CC student Aspen Matis has published a novel entitled “Girl in the Woods” about her experience seeking healing along the Pacific Coast Trail after her rapist was found not responsible for his actions the night before her freshman year classes began in 2008.
“They implied I had hallucinated a rape,” Matis wrote, that her lived reality of sexual trauma and pain was found to be a lie. Matis is not alone. She came and spoke at CC in the winter of 2014, at a college which continues to exonerate students accused of rape on campus.
Rapists do not typically think of themselves as rapists. These are not necessarily malicious people seeking people to assault (although sometimes this is the case); these are students, normal human beings, people who sit in class next to you and me. One day someone is a student, the next they are responsible for committing an act that is body image shattering, soul shattering, shame instilling.
It does not justify the pain they caused, and it does not absolve them of responsibility: those who cause sexual trauma should be held responsible. They should be educated about what they have done and the implications of their actions so they never crush another human spirit again. But they are most likely victims too; victims of a patriarchal society, victims of ignorance, victims of entitlement or past abuse or mental illness. You can’t solve the issue of sexual trauma by only focusing on the healing of the victim. This is a society-wide problem, and at Colorado College, this is a campus-wide problem.
Sexual trauma and the roots of sexual assault start with sexualization at a young age (primarily of girls, but boys and others are not exempt). It gets worse with bad or limited access to sexual education, and most sex ed in public schools focuses on abstinence rather than consent. Sexual trauma is bound to happen when people are too prude to talk to their sons about treating women right, to tell their daughters that they don’t have to say yes just to spare a guy’s feelings and that respect must extend to all genders and sexualities.
CC students, you need to know that what you say and do that can shut someone down and can be perceived as threatening. Don’t assume that your hookup for the night wants to have sex just because you do. Best friends, you need to see when your desire for a benefits-oriented relationship becomes a coercive means of physical contact. And partners, you need to understand that just because you are in a relationship with someone does not mean that you are entitled to unlimited and exclusive access to the body of your significant other.
It took me over 10 years to admit the reality of my first own sexual trauma and reclaim my body. If I had known we could engage in these kinds of conversations earlier without being haunted by stigma, my life would have been transformed. I am a product not only of my sexual trauma, but of our society’s reaction to it. Take Back the Night was an event that consisted almost entirely of survivors, although the event was open to all CC students. It’s time that CC (students, faculty, administration) has these tough conversations and steps up to the plate to negotiate ways to affirm the wholeness of every individual, to heal shame, and to deliver consequences appropriately.