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CarlySparklesDani Bernstein
11/19/15 12:38pm
If there’s anything hat makes my blood boil hotter than people who automatically dismiss sexual assault victims, it’s the people that say “if you didn’t know it was rape, then it wasn’t rape.”

That’s. Not. How. It. Works.

Rape is rape, whether or not you call it that when it happens, or years after the fact, or if you can’t bring yourself to use the word - rape is rape. It’s the actions, not the word.
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  fondue processCarlySparkles
  11/19/15 12:44pm
  I wrote this below but that’s what happened with my college roommate. She insisted it wasn’t rape and wouldn’t let us report it. I know she went to an off-campus counselor so the school wouldn’t find out about it, but still ended up dropping out of school and cutting off contact with everyone.
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  doit2julia!CarlySparkles
  11/19/15 1:48pm
  I was stumbling drunk and headed back to my room when a boy in my dorm pulled me into his room and threw me on the sofa. My reflexes were too delayed to even realize what was happening until it was already over. I actually said to my friends, “it wasn’t consensual, but I don’t think it was rape” because back then, rape, to me, looked like the scene from The Accused. I keep a list of all my sexual partners, and it was years before it occurred to me to cross off his name.
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fondue processDani Bernstein
11/19/15 12:42pm
My freshman year roommate was raped at a party, but to penetrate the guy used his fingers rather than penis (not sure if there’s a scientific way of saying that). She was a virgin. She came in to our room crying and soaking wet from the rain with torn underwear in her coat pocket. I still remember her pleading with me not to call campus police because she didn’t think it was “real rape” and didn’t want anyone to know because she thought she’d be ostracized.

She never reported it or pressed charges. For the rest of the year she was a different person and dropped out at the end of second semester.

That is NOT how things should go.
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  bagoflettersfondue process
  11/19/15 1:00pm
  Digital Penetration.
  
  I’m so sorry about your roommate and I hope that she is safe now wherever she is (above you said she cut off contact)
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  Marzipan in your Pie Platefondue process
  11/19/15 1:01pm
  I mean they say the reason people rape is because of control and power, not sex. So it seems reasonable that the reason many women are so traumatized is because they were overpowered and forced to do something they didn’t want to do. There’s no way not to feel violated, whether it was penis-in-vagina rape or any other kind of rape. (I also don’t know if there are technical terms here.)
  
  I’m sorry about your roommate.
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TheBestUEverHadDani Bernstein
11/19/15 12:45pm
The thing I found most upsetting is that there were so many real stories of sexual assaults on campus that could have been covered. There are women with truly heartbreaking and rage-inducing stories that deserve to be heard. But, by all accounts, Erdely was obsessed with finding the most violent, degrading, disgusting story she could, and she pushed for that story even as the alleged victim contradicted herself and backtracked and asked her to stop writing at all. One of the biggest problems survivors of on-campus sexual assault face is people trying to bend the definition of rape so it doesn’t include them. Many in the older generations argue that if you were dating the guy, it wasn’t rape. If you were drunk and passed out, that’s a bad decision, not rape. If you were drugged, well how do we know he drugged you and you didn’t take it voluntarily? These nuances and the extremely backwards attitude many in university administrations have about sexual assault is one of the reasons so many of these cases are ignored. By focusing on a *fictional* case of what even your sexist, millennial-hating uncle would probably admit is rape, Erdely avoided having to deal with most of the issues that prevent justice being served in real life. Furthermore, she had every reason to believe that, at the very least, there were some inaccuracies with the details Jackie gave her, but she still went full-steam ahead even when Jackie had second thoughts and Jackie’s friends couldn’t corroborate anything. For all the people saying this was all Jackie’s fault because Erdely didn’t want to “doubt a survivor”, Jackie gave her an out, everyone else at UVA gave her an out, and the Rolling Stone should’ve given her an out, yet she published it anyway. Because she wasn’t interested in writing about sexual assault on campus unless it was the most graphic and disturbing kind of rape she had ever heard of.
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  $7CoffeeTheBestUEverHad
  11/19/15 12:51pm
  You’re definitely correct here. She did even more damage than initially understood. I just feel like Erdely had no real interest in furthering sexual assault prevention or awareness. She just wanted to publish a story that would make her famous and be shocking. In my mind she would have written about the football team kicking a puppy if she thought it would get more shock value.
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  fondue processTheBestUEverHad
  11/19/15 1:19pm
  She may have also been in so deep with the story that by the time she realized the inconsistencies it was too late to scrap everything and start over - after all, she was a writer with a deadline who has to rely on the magazine for funding and promotion - and it sounds like RS wasn’t giving her an out.
  
  Not saying it should have been published, at all, but I can see how the process might have gone.
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lethekkDani Bernstein
11/19/15 12:44pm
BBC recently published a piece where they presented a scenario and then asked teenagers if it was rape or not. The answers showed how blurred the lines are for many people, and one in particular broke my heart. It really shows how prevalent rape is, and how many people justify it.

“She didn’t say no - it could have just been because she couldn’t be bothered to say no. We’ve all been in a situation with a boy trying to force himself on us - in the end you just kind of [say] ‘OK, fine whatever’.”

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-...
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  Marzipan in your Pie Platelethekk
  11/19/15 1:05pm
  That kind of stuff really can be so gray. At what point does it go from rape to convincing the other person to reluctantly go through with it? That’s why I like the idea of teaching people not to have sex without “enthusiastic consent” from the other person. If the other person is too drunk or too unsure to be enthusiastic, then just don’t do it.
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  pkveenslethekk
  11/19/15 1:22pm
  We have all been there. I have lost count of the amount of times I have felt pressured into having sex. Yet (especially in the eyes of the law and society) I can’t claim that I have been raped each time, because grudging consent was given. I recently confronted my ex who repeatedly sexually abused me and he just laughed it off because I was in and remained in that relationship. Surprising how consent can be such a difficult concept to grasp. It isn’t rocket science people!
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crankylittlephotonDani Bernstein
11/19/15 12:54pm
The Rolling Stone Article pissed me off SO MUCH. I used it as a teachable moment, making my teens read the whole piece in all it’s gore. Talked to them about active consent and what constitutes sexual assault. My son initially expressed doubts that such a high percentage of college women are assaulted, but I was eventually able to convince him of the scale of the problem. THEN THEY RETRACTED IT. Thanks more making it even MORE difficult to talk about, assholes.
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phitboyDani Bernstein
11/19/15 3:14pm
sex educator here.

working with and explaining the sexual assault spectrum, meaning the many, many actions that cause people to feel like they have been sexually mistreated in varying degrees, has been the chief factor in leading me to believe that early childhood sex and emotional education is essential.

if you think about it, spaces of shared intimacy, anything from a short hug to making love, are how we learn the key human asset of boundaries. where are our personal boundaries, the boundaries of our partner, and how do we navigate them with empathy?

A short anecdote: when I ask young men where their boundaries are, they usually say “I have none.” Without the time to explore their boundaries, most young men assume that they must conform to the archetype of a sexual being that is always “on” and assumes it is their job to navigate the female boundary of “off/on”. So, how are they supposed to recognize and have empathy for someone else’s boundaries?*

*this is one of the core questions of my practice that we have yet to solve on a marco level.
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aishkpourlaventuraDani Bernstein
11/19/15 3:07pm
The saddest part of my rape at UVa was not the reaction of the Dean I spoke with, although looking back, that was certainly focused on the “let’s keep it quiet” damage control. Rather, it was the reaction from my roommate, who had introduced me to my rapist. She was shocked and appalled that I would accuse her friend of rape because I was “drunk and slutty.” I had been so drunk that I’d collapsed on his bed unable to move.

She continued to invite him and his friends to my (our) apartment even after the restraining order was issued.

I didn’t understand then and I don’t understand now. I basically moved into my new boyfriend’s fraternity house weeks after and only returned for clothes and the occasional shower (frathouse showers; not the best). The boyfriend, on the other hand, was the absolute best man I’ve ever met.

I still can’t blame the whole thing on Greek life. I was in a sorority. I lived in a frat house. The people I knew took care of each other, random partygoers and anyone crossing over or under Beta Bridge.
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CoriDani Bernstein
11/19/15 10:14pm
I know five people relatively close to me who were raped in college. Some quick stats: 2 developed serious eating disorder, one started cutting, and the other two dropped out of school, and 3 took months to admit to themselves it was rape. One got pregnant from the incident. 0/5 reported.

If I extrapolate that to people I know that wouldn’t share this with me (I’d think it’d be most...), it’s pretty depressing.
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AnnaDani Bernstein
11/19/15 1:28pm
This piece is insightful, important, necessary, and absolutely right.
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whatisuptampaDani Bernstein
11/19/15 12:54pm
“And while it may take years to unravel the complexities of Rolling Stone’s mistake”

It was not a mistake, it was journalistic malfeasance. The author attempted to enrich herself and raise her standing in front of her peers by using a well developed sympathetic figure as the central point of a completely fabricated hit piece which ruined reputations and caused real harm. We will never know the truth, because the narrative became the story.
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