It has taken me hours of thinking to begin writing this Wespeak. In the process, I have questioned the legitimacy of my commenting, partially because I was and am afraid of attempting to communicate what I consider a deeply private event in a public forum. Beyond the part where coming out as a survivor is often difficult, I was raised in a cultural context where talking about sex is construed as a negative promiscuity. Sex just isn’t something you talk about in my conservative Mexican family. Part of writing this Wespeak is an acknowledgment that sex, promiscuity and various forms of sexual assault have a complicated relationship—and my conflation of the three has led to my silence.
I was sexually assaulted two days before the start of my junior year by a friend—someone I’d been hooking up with for a year and a half. I had ended things over the summer. I felt like someone who could say no if I wanted to and who, if necessary, would leave first. Being sexually assaulted on that afternoon proved to me—or so I thought then—that I was unable to walk away, or even to have a say in what happened to me. It took six weeks and the help of a friend for me to acknowledge that I had been sexually assaulted.
It took me longer to realize that it wasn’t my fault. Other than through Take Back the Night, which happens annually, Wesleyan as an institution had nothing to do with that realization. My options, as I understood them, were either prosecuting an old friend, whom I’d had sexual relations with in the past, or remaining silent. I was ashamed of ever having sexually consented to someone who was capable of sexually assaulting me. I was also afraid that having had a sexual history with him would mark me as tarnished or somehow asking to be assaulted. I wasn’t sure that anyone would listen to me—and being branded as promiscuous meant taking some of the blame for my assault. I wasn’t in a position to have the details of my sexual assault questioned and examined, nor was I willing to press charges. Due to Wesleyan’s lack of accessible, visible and comprehensive resources, I had to work through that one on my own.
The creation of the Sexual Assault Response Team is a good and necessary step toward rectifying this lack of resources, but it’s a shame that it came about as a response to student activism and not as a proactive measure on behalf of the university. As Joanna made clear in her Wespeak, Wesleyan’s institutional response for dealing with sexual assault is inadequate. Through establishing the burden of having to disclose sensitive information to multiple people—as well as through placing people who have been sexually assaulted in positions where their testimony can be deemed untrue or insufficient—the Wesleyan administration has failed our community. I know they’ve failed me.
I have written this in solidarity with Joanna, as well as through the conviction that sexual assault and consent should be talked about. As has been pointed out in Tuesday’s Argus, there is no prevalent public discourse about consent on this campus. I’ve heard that “no means no” and that I as a woman should avoid wearing skirts in dark alleys, but that’s an insufficient and dichotomous discourse. I understand the decision to keep discussions of sex between the people involved. That said, sexual assault cannot be reduced to sex. Sexual assault happens when someone decides that consent is unimportant, yes, but it can and does occur when people are unclear as to what consent means. As a community, we need to address this ambiguity.
The Wesleyan administration should take what responsibility it can for facilitating this discourse. An annually occurring space and one freshman event aren’t enough. Although predetermining one definition of consent is limiting, encouraging a discourse around it—alongside a positive understanding of consent that isn’t restricted to “no”—through multiple events and comprehensive services is a necessary step in this process.
Furthermore, we as a community can and should speak about sexual assault and the nature of consent both within public discourses, such as in The Argus, and among ourselves. I think that the responses to this need in our community are admirable, although I understand and respect the need for personal privacy. The reason that I’ve outed myself here is because discourses surrounding sexual assault shouldn’t stop after a few articles are published. Wesleyan, start talking.
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