Translator: Ragheed Al-Dulaimi Reviewer: Peter van de Ven
Show of hands.
How many of you think rape is a bad, terrible thing?
How many of you think rapists are bad, terrible people?
Yeah.
We really want to believe
that rapists are deviant people in our normal culture.
But what if when we look closely,
we discover that most rapists are actually normal
in our deviant culture.
And what if this didn't absolve them
of any responsibility or accountability for their actions,
but meant that we all shared in that responsibility?
Including you.
Including me.
As long as we're only outraged at the rapists and their actions,
and avoid looking at the roots of sexual violence,
those roots of sexual violence will keep producing rapists.
And what if this was one of the keys to ending rape?
Sexual violence is a broad term that includes stalking,
relationship abuse, sexual harassment, sexual assault, and rape.
Sexual violence is all too common
in our communities in general, and college campuses specifically.
It impacts victims across identities.
For instance, decades of research has shown
that one in four college women report being raped or attempted rape.
We also know that those who experience intersecting forms of oppression
experience even greater rates of sexual violence,
including people of color, gays and lesbians,
trans and gender nonconforming folks,
and working-class people, just to name a few.
Sexual violence affects all of us, whether it's happened to us,
could happen to us, or could happen to those we care about.
If you think that no one you know has ever experienced sexual violence,
I assure you they have.
They just haven't told you yet.
Sexual violence affects people of all genders,
but the perpetrators of sexual violence are overwhelmingly men.
That's why today, I want to talk about sexual violence
as a men's issue.
One of the reasons sexual violence has continued to persist in our society
is we have generally taken the approach
of being reactive and rarely proactive.
One example of this is that society has generally framed sexual violence
as a women's issue.
Now we have to recognize
the decades of work that feminists and women's organizations have done
to put laws on the books,
researchers in place, shelters in existence,
and to raise awareness.
Women deserve a debt of gratitude
for starting the movement, laying the foundation
and doing the vast, vast majority of the work today.
Examples of these reactive messages directed at women include:
don't walk alone at night, don't wear that,
go with your friends, come home with friends,
don't drink too much.
Now, when these are the only ways we address sexual violence,
the real message we're sending is:
"Hey, we know rape is going to happen here.
Here's how you women need to deal with that."
We must do better than that.
This would be like if we had an epidemic of drunk drivers
hitting, injuring and killing pedestrians,
and how we address that issue
was holding seminars on how to walk across the street.
That wouldn't make any sense.
We need to add to this reactive approach a proactive approach,
and a proactive approach means prevention.
It means preventing this from happening not just to those we care about,
but preventing sexual violence from happening to anyone, period.
If we're going to be serious about prevention
we have to understand who the perpetrators of sexual violence are:
overwhelmingly men.
Now this can be hard for us as men to hear.
It can feel like we are all being blamed for the actions of a few.
That's how it sounded to me when I first heard it,
but it can also be empowering:
to understand the role that we can play in ending rape.
After all, if the overwhelming number of perpetrators are men,
then who has more power
to prevent and end sexual violence than us?
Men.
Of the college men who admitted to already having engaged in behaviors
that met one of the 10 behaviors that met the legal definition of rape,
84 percent of them did not believe their actions to be illegal.
This means they are not deviant in a normal culture.
They're behaving normally
given the deviant cultural socialization they have received
that has miseducated them about what it means to be a man,
what it means to hook up,
and what it means to have sex.
This means our greatest challenge in addressing sexual violence
is not learning;
it's unlearning.
The difference between rape and sex is informed consent,
and informed consent is simply that every step of the way,
clear unambiguous affirmative consent that is freely given.
Now just every step of the way.
How many of you are familiar with the baseball analogy
of making out and hooking up, first base, second base, third base?
Okay.
At every step of the way, it means we have to get consent
to hold hands, get consent to kiss,
get consent to take clothes off, get consent to touch,
get consent for any kind of sexual activity.
In our baseball analogy, that simply means
you can't hit a single and stand on third:
you're going to be out.
Clear, unambiguous affirmative consent.
What does that mean?
Well the best analogy is a stoplight.
Now, I grew up in a small town of 89 people.
We didn't have a stoplight,
but I'd heard of them.
Let's do this all together now.
When you come to a stop light, red means?
(Audience) Stop.
Keith Edwards: Green means? (Audience) Go.
KE: And yellow means?
That's right, it means go really fast, excellent.
(Laughter)
Now, you all know that yellow means,
really means, slow down and proceed with caution,
but you've also really learned it means go really fast.
We've learned the same things around sexual interactions.
We've heard no means no, and that's true.
If someone says no or stop, you don't have consent.
We also learned if you're unsure, go really fast.
We've literally been taught if someone doesn't say anything
or is unsure or is ambiguous, to go for it
before their parents come back, or their friends come back,
before they change their mind, before they sober up.
That is not consent.
Rape is better defined by the absence of a yes
than the presence of a no,
and unless you have a clear verbal or nonverbal green light,
you don't have consent.
This consent must also be freely given,
which means free from coercion.
This definition of consent must also be informed
in order to have legal standing.
You can't give informed consent if you're underage,
developmentally disabled, asleep, drugged,
or highly intoxicated.
Now, can you have something to drink
and still be able to make an informed decision?
Absolutely.
Can you have so much to drink
that you're no longer able to make an informed decision
and no matter what you say that consent no longer is valid?
Absolutely.
So where's the line?
It's hard to say
because alcohol affects all of us in different ways.
But if you've ever looked in the eyes
of someone who's told you about being sexually assaulted,
and they've shared their pain and trauma,
all you know, there's a line out there somewhere,
and I want nothing to do with it.
The reason these definitions of informed consent
are so clear and obvious and also at the same time so convoluted,
is because we are all very well,
very well miseducated by the rape culture.
The rape culture is a culture
that encourages, condones, and teaches sexual violence.
The rape culture is so pervasive that we become numb to it.
If you've never noticed it, it's not because it's not there,
it's because it is everywhere.
I want to talk about just four aspects of the rape culture.
First, the objectification of women.
Images like this Nikon magazine ad are around us all the time,
describing, portraying, and discussing women
as nothing more than sexual objects.
When we see women described this way
over and over and over again,
sooner or later, for some men, it's going to get a little bit easier
to treat women like objects.
And that can lead to sexual violence.
Second, our culture sends messages
that subordinate women's intelligence, capability, and humanity.
It's not that we as men
are incapable of seeing women in their full humanity,
it's that the culture teaches us not to.
And we sometimes choose to view some women
with less intelligence, capability, and humanity,
and that can lead to sexual violence.
Third, our culture has very narrow and rigid ways
of defining what it means to be a man
and how men are allowed to think, feel, and behave
or not think, not feel, and not behave.
In my research with college men, they explain to me
how clear they were about these external expectations,
and how none of them felt like they measured up.
This left them feeling insecure and desperate to prove their manhood
according to these toxic definitions of masculinity
that define masculinity as sexual conquest.
This can lead to competitive heterosexual sex
and demeaning and degrading women,
all in an effort to prove their manhood to women, to other men, and to themselves.
This can lead to sexual violence.
And finally, intersecting forms of oppression.
One of the ways these other forms of oppression function
is by emasculating men,
and when men feel emasculated by oppression,
they turn to the same toxic definitions of masculinity that we've all been taught,
and that can lead to sexual violence.
If we're going to be effective at ending rape,
we need to be clear not just how we are socialized and miseducated,
but how we can interrupt and challenge these cultural messages.
For us as men, it means looking at our own behavior,
challenging the behavior of other men,
and working together with people of all genders
to change those cultural messages.
When we understand the roots of sexual violence
we can be empowered to intervene as bystanders
in a wide spectrum of behaviors
that directly or indirectly lead to sexual violence.
We can intervene in the moment
when we see two highly intoxicated people leaving together.
When we see someone
who's not taking cues that someone isn't interested,
or when we see someone in a vulnerable position.
We can intervene long before those moments,
at the root causes of sexual violence that make those moments possible
and even acceptable.
We can speak up when we hear sexist jokes,
when we see objectifying images,
or when we hear someone describing their weekend hook up
in demeaning and degrading ways.
We can speak up as simply as saying, "Seriously?
Not cool."
Or "Dude, no."
Now, can speaking up be awkward?
Absolutely.
And it may feel like saying nothing is playing it safe,
but saying nothing has its own consequences.
What if you found out the next day that what you saw
led to someone being sexually assaulted or raped?
Wouldn't you do anything to go back in time and say something?
If you have come to help me, please go home,
but if you have come
because your liberation is somehow bound with mine,
then we may work together.
I've been speaking on college campuses for more than 15 years
about what we can do to work toward ending rape.
I'm often asked one question: why do you do this?
I have three answers.
The potential survivors I know,
the potential survivors I'll never know,
and the men, including myself.
The potential survivors I know, I think about my mother,
my sister, my partner, our two daughters.
But too often we say to college men:
think about four women you know and love,
and think about one of them being sexually assaulted.
If this helps you connect with this issue, that's great,
but for me, it sells us, as men, short.
First of all, that message often says: think about your mother,
your grandmother, your sister, and your girlfriend.
Well, that assumes we all have girlfriends,
and that's hetero sexism, part of the problem not part of the solution.
Second of all, that message says
you as men are incapable of caring about sexual violence
unless it happens to one of the four women you know, love, and care about.
Well, I know that we as men
are perfectly capable of caring about sexual violence,
whether it happens to the four women we love and care about,
women we've never met before, men and trans folks,
people in our communities, or people all around the world.
And I do this for the men, including myself,
because we are deeply damaged and implicated
by the roots of sexual violence, whether we are the rapist or not.
20 years ago, I heard Cornell West
speak about race and racism in this country.
He ended that talk then
by saying he wasn't optimistic, but he was hopeful.
He went on to explain that optimism requires evidence of progress,
but hope requires no such evidence
and is simply a spiritual leap of faith that we can join together, speak out,
and make the world better place for us all.
When it comes to sexual violence,
I feel exactly the same way.
The evidence is not good.
The rates of sexual violence have remained the same for the past 40 years
despite so much advocacy and so much work.
But I remain so hopeful.
I remain hopeful that you'll say something,
that you'll speak out, that you can join together,
talk to all sorts of other people
and change what happens here in this community.
I'm hopeful that we can join with others
all across this country and all around the world
to get at the roots of sexual violence, prevent sexual violence,
and work toward ending rape.
So in the words of Cornell West,
I'm not optimistic, but I am so hopeful
that together we can work toward ending rape.
I hope you'll join me.
Thank you very much.
(Applause)