I grew up during the coming of age over the topic of sexual assault. We all learned that you don't deserve to be assaulted no matter how you dress, or what you do, or how you act, or what you say. And those are all good things. But we seem to have stopped the conversation there. No one deserves to be sexually assaulted. Common sense. The right thing. True. But there is more to the conversation than that. We have given our young women the absolute assurance that "no means no" and that is a badge that will somehow protect them under any circumstances. And because we have ended the conversation there, we are turning our daughters into victims.
Just because it's not okay to sexually assault someone, doesn't mean that you will never be sexually assaulted. Absolutely we need to teach our children that "no means no". But we also need to teach them to act responsibly and not put themselves into a position where they can be in harms way. Right now, in Ohio, we have banned texting and driving. Why? Because the behavior is risky and puts you and others in harms way. It impairs your driving and you could get hurt.
Now, I'm not saying that the victim in the Steubenville case was impaired and she should then conclude that it's okay to get hurt. What I'm saying is that if we only teach our children that "no means no" then we are only giving them half the picture. We need to be telling our young women that if you are out, and impaired or intoxicated, then you are not doing everything that you can possibly do to maintain your safety. The radio host suggested this idea and the phones lit up with people ripping him apart for even attempting to discuss the girl's behavior. No one is suggesting that what happened was okay. But as parent's we need to look at the behavior of all the kids involved in this incident and not just the two who were convicted. And this could lead into and entirely different topic of the kids who knew it happened and did nothing to the kids who took the infamous picture of the drunk girl to the parents of all the kids involved and so on.
What I am addressing is caller after caller today stating that under no circumstances is it okay to sexually assault someone and that's that. But there is so much more to the conversation. We have been brainwashed for so many years now that "no means no" and that's the end of it. Well, "no means no" didn't help this young lady. And her story is not that uncommon. We all know it's not. And Steubenville got caught in the cross-hairs of the media machine but we are fooling ourselves if we think that this isn't happened across the country every single weekend.
So let's stop allowing our daughters to be victims and start having some real conversations with our children. If you allow yourself to drink to the point where you are too impaired to give consent, then you are putting yourself in harms way. We can't allow our young women to only hear one side of the story. Of course there is never a time where someone "asked for it" or "had it coming" but you also have to be smart and not put yourself in harms way. You have to learn that you are the only one that is going to have your best interest at heart. The things that we learned about our rights to sexual safety are very valuable but I think that we have lost sight of teaching our young people about personal responsibility.
And I'm not saying that the boys are out of the loop on the ride to responsibility. Not by a long shot. But that's a whole other blog post entirely.
By all means, tell your daughters that "no means no" but, please, I'm asking that we all continue that discussion and teach our young women how to be smart, stay safe, and be their own heroes and protectors.
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