When it comes to popular messages about sexual violence, many of us are treated to a (un)healthy dose of fear – in the guise of awareness and self-protection. You know the drill: don’t walk alone; don’t drink too much; avoid certain streets; be wary of strangers. . . the list goes on. One of the troubling things about these messages is the way they imply that one just needs street smarts and savvy to prevent sexual assault. (Another problematic aspect of these messages is the way they shift attention away from the fact that the majority of assaults are perpetrated by a victim’s acquaintance, friend, or partner; these ubiquitous stay-safe tips don’t mean much when it comes to people you already believe you should trust. Then there’s the fact that plenty of folks don’t have the option of not, say, commuting to and from work late at night or avoiding areas where they might be vulnerable to crime.)  Moreover, the notion that we can reliably prevent being assaulted dovetails neatly with victim-blaming after the fact: “she/he really shouldn’t gone out there without a friend”; “it probably wouldn’t have happened if she/he hadn’t been drinking to excess”; “what was she/he thinking, going to a party in that neighborhood” (And yes, you might have noticed in that last example how these sorts of attitudes capitalize on racist and classist assumptions and fears!) But even before victim-blaming, there’s what I think of as fear-instilling. Those messages about self-protection often function like admonishments to take the proper precautions –  or else (insert ominous soundtrack here). Sexual violence becomes a lurking menace, something one must  guard against with vigilance. This creates an expectation that preventing assault is a burden to be shouldered by individuals, not a systemic problem bolstered by social and legal institutions, discourse, and norms. (It also implies a weird equivalency between sexual assault and something like the weather. Saying “it’s a dangerous world, you must protect yourself” without simultaneously emphasizing primary prevention is a bit like saying sexual violence is an inevitable, “natural” event.)

This is why I was a bit disturbed when this story from Canada popped up in my news alerts last week. You may remember that in the 1990s, a new warning was added to the list of rape-prevention tips:  keep an eye on your drink. You might also remember Rohypnol and GHB receiving press coverage as “date-rape drugs” when both were linked to rape cases in which victims reported being rendered unconscious at some point after ingesting one or more beverages. While it’s not clear how common the use of those two substances to sedate victims was or is, drug-assisted sexual assault is not rare. Sometimes substances are consumed voluntarily, and sometimes not, but legal and illegal drugs and alcohol do often play a role, especially on college campuses. (The Lincoln University gang rape case Sarah blogged about recently involved a victim who was intoxicated to the point of unconsciousness.) So, this drug-detecting card about to go on the market in Quebec that the article highlights might seem laudatory. And I don’t want to say it’s a bad thing in of itself. An invention that you can use to make sure your beer doesn’t have a sedative in it? Okay, sure, thanks. Yet, I can’t help but think that this notion that if we just add more weapons to our arsenal of self-protection we’ll make a real dent in rates of sexual assault is actually a bit dangerous, because it keeps the focus so squarely on individuals as potential victims and reinforces the sense women, especially, should take on the burden of preventing these crimes. A pharmacist interviewed for the piece notes that he thought the testers would be an “interesting service” to the student community in his area – but those same students would be better served by programming that educates their peers about consent, especially when it comes to understanding consent in relation to drugs we know for sure are prevalent on campuses, like alcohol.   

In other news about this idea of personal safety and how to protect it, I also wanted to mention a recent story covered by Jezebel. In sum, a woman who was at a bar where the Girls Gone Wild production company was filming had her shirt pulled down by another patron, exposing her to the camera. Her image was included in the final film, despite the fact that she 1) did not voluntarily show her breasts  (I don’t know whether forcibly removing a person’s clothing is considered a type of physical assault, legally speaking, but it definitely falls under the sign of “violation of bodily autonomy”), 2) did not sign a consent form for the use of her image on video, and 3) can be heard on camera saying “no, no” when asked to show her breasts (emphasis mine). When she discovered her image in a GGW title years later, she sued for damages, since, you know, it was clear at the time of the film that she did not want to have her naked body displayed. In a mind-bogglingly illogical and infuriating decision, the jury did not award damages. In fact, the jury found that she gave “implicit consent by being at the bar, and by participating in the filming” – how exactly this implicit consent squares with a recorded verbal statement that says unequivocally otherwise, I just don’t know. To me, this points up some of the real issues around self-protection. Clearly, the woman in this case wasn’t – and still isn’t – safe from victimization. But not because she didn’t take adequate precautions (let’s see, she was in a public place, with friends, and was not too intoxicated to comprehend her surroundings and verbally limit others’ contact with her body) – rather, she was unsafe because someone felt license to violate her personal limits, and because the environment itself encouraged and sanctioned this. That, after the fact, she wound up having little recourse against those who profited from and further perpetuated her victimization suggests that what occurred at the filming was not an isolated incident but a symptom of larger failures by institutions, like the legal system, to reinforce and support attempts at self-protection and safety. The jury in the GGW case believed the victim was on her own, deserving of no remedy if she was exposed and filmed due to others’ actions, over her own protests. It’s a dangerous world indeed – but stories like these confirm my sense that neither traditional safety tips nor high-tech tools will create a safer one.