BroadBlogs

Unfortunately, rape is still far too prevalent for you, and everyone else, to stop talking about it, so thank you. Women are instructed how NOT to get raped, without addressing the more pressing issue. Let’s talk about teaching people not to rape. Let’s talk about consent, but we don’t do that.

One of the biggest issues with modern rape culture is that people don’t recognize “rape”. Women are underreporting rape or situations that are coercive/threatening to their bodies for a lot of reasons, but I suspect that a large component is the inability to recognize rape. If consent is not present, it’s rape. Men feel entitled to women’s bodies, and women’s feel responsibility to succumb to the desires of men. Even if the sexual activity occurs as the result of guilt, a sense of duty, or coercion, it’s gone too far. I think people expect rape to be physically violent, and we know that this isn’t always the case. As a society, we turn a blind eye to emotional violence and ignore the mental health implications. This expectation is extremely problematic because both involved in the nonconsensual activity will not categorically consider it “rape”. It has the potential to be far more insidious than physically violent rape.

When people learn how to obtain consent, negotiate boundaries, release entitlement, and feel empowered to engage in sexual activity on their terms, we’ll stop talking about rape culture =).

Of course, I’m talking about this in completely heteronormative terms and this applies to MANY gender dynamics and anyone can be a victim or perpetrator of rape or coercion.

I’m a sexual health education programmer and consent is near and dear to my heart ;). Sorry for ranting!