12/31/2019
Here’s a fantastic article on the discussions on s*xual violence we need to be having with our younger generations, particularly young men, and why it matters.
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"Those who want to talk to me alone wait until the last student leaves the auditorium or track me down in the library office, where I’m eating lunch. A few have been victims of s*xual violence themselves. Many more have been targeted by bullies at school. Others come for advice about situations they don’t know how to deal with.
We sit in a quiet corner. The boy, sweating, fidgeting, eyes downcast, tells me his story. Sometimes he tells of a girl, a friend who has been r***d. He wants to know the best way to help her because since it happened, she has been cutting herself, skipping school and getting high to avoid the pain. He wants to kill the boy who hurt his friend. He wants to help and doesn’t know how.
And then there are the half-confessions. No boy has ever come out and admitted to me that he r***d someone, but a few have said, “I might have pushed things too far,” or “Well, we were drunk,” or “Things got out of hand and… she refused to talk to me after that night.” They don’t look me in the eye as they say this. They are not proud of themselves. Their confused shame is heart-breaking and infuriating.
After my auditorium presentation, I typically visit a few classes for smaller group discussions about the themes of my book. In schools all over the country, in every demographic group imaginable, for 20 years, teenage boys have told me the same thing about the r**e victim in Speak: They don’t believe that she was actually r***d. They argue that she drank beer, she danced with her attacker and, therefore, she wanted s*x. They see his violence as a reasonable outcome. Many of them have clearly been in the same situation.
They say this openly. They are not ashamed; they are ill-informed. These boys have been raised to believe that a ra**st is a bad guy in the bushes with a gun. They aren’t that guy, they figure, so they can’t be ra**sts.
Why should they think otherwise? Their parents generally limit conversations about s*x to “don’t get her pregnant” lectures. They learn about s*x from friends, and from internet p**n, where scenes of non-consensual s*x abound. No one has ever explained the laws to them. They don’t understand that consent needs to be informed, enthusiastic, sober, ongoing and freely given.
This is only made worse by the other question I get most often from these teenage boys in the classroom: Why was the r**e victim so upset? They explain, The s*x only took a couple minutes, but she’s depressed for, like, a year. They don’t understand the impact of r**e.
When a boy says these things, the girls in the class are shocked, and the teacher is appalled. They are stunned to discover how many of the guys don’t have a clue. So was I, at first. But I quickly learned that reacting with anger and judgment did not help anyone. Instead, I discuss the studies that show that 94% of women who are r***d experience PTSD symptoms. Nearly a third of victims still have those symptoms 9 months after the r**e, and 13% of women who are r***d attempt su***de. Facts like that make an impact. I share resources like the R**e, Abuse & In**st National Network (RAINN) website with the teacher, and encourage the staff to follow up my visit with presentations from mental health professionals and police officers.
After my recent visit to a school in California, a teacher told me that a boy came up to her after my presentation and said, “This is the kind of stuff we need to know, Miss.”
The empathetic boys searching for ways to help survivors and the boys who believe that r**e only counts if it is committed by an armed stranger have more in common than you’d think. They struggle in the absence of information. They are looking for leadership and models of behavior. They share a desire to learn more.
Teenage boys are hungry for practical conversations about s*x. They want to know the rules. They want to be the good guy, the stand-up, honorable dude. Their intentions might be good, but their ignorance is dangerous. Our society has begun talking a bit more openly about these issues, but that doesn’t mean teenage boys suddenly have all the information they need."
Author Laurie Halse Anderson shares her insights into what we aren't telling our boys
