Rape culture: The problem isn’t college, it’s us

The Rolling Stone‘s coverage of the UVA rape case-turned-debacle has sparked a recycling of opinions about rape on campus. Slate just released an article by the advice columnist known as “Dear Prudence” admonishing colleges for ruining young men’s careers with their false rape statistics and reactionary, federally-funded policies. None of this cuts to the heart of the issue: if we really want rape to stop — and not just at institutes of higher learning — we need to examine the nature of a culture that produces so much sexual violence.

At colleges and universities, alcohol consumption is coupled with a pervasive hookup culture. There’s nothing at all wrong with sexual experimentation. Yet, while sexual expression is viewed as a form of liberation for women, the reality of such encounters is often hardly liberating. I’m thinking here of the scene in Lena Dunham’s “Tiny Furniture” where she allows a guy she likes to fuck her while on all fours inside a large piece of metal tubing. She looks perplexed by the whole exchange and it’s clear to the audience that this guy is “using her.” Was Dunham’s character raped? In real life, Dunham admitted that she didn’t even realize a sexual encounter at age 19 qualified as rape until years later. After reading an account of her story, I felt unsettled but wasn’t sure I myself would call what Dunham experienced rape, though I would never accuse her of mis-labeling, and I was angered by those who did just that. No one else can inhabit her body and declare whether or not it experienced violation.

What Dunham’s story illustrates is that the nature of consent is a complex one when dealing with a culture that treats women’s bodies simultaneously as symbols of their freedom and also as property of any and all available males. Guys are taught from a very young age that women’s bodies are something they are entitled access to, that it is perfectly acceptable to manipulate or coerce women into sexual acts, and that their manhood is improved by doing so. Remember that many guys have their first “sexual encounter” with a fictional woman, either through overly-sexualized media or porn, much of which is incredibly degrading and dehumanizing. This is the culture that sparks an explosion of celebrity photo theft, allowing millions access to private images of public figures. Remember Elliot Rodger’s shooting spree? He targeted college girls in Santa Barbara out of anger when he was rejected by women whose bodies he “deserved” to touch.

That rape — and the qualification of consent — is an issue on our college campuses comes as no surprise, but the discussion should broaden to include how sexual violence is an issue pervasive within our culture at large. It is not just white college girls getting raped, and it is not just those who don’t explicitly consent whose bodies are being appropriated and exploited. Entire industries are built off just that. Even the freedom to be a sex symbol is not the same as being “free.” The supposedly liberated figures of pop culture like Beyonce and Lady Gaga can wave banners of feminism all day long, yet they are ultimately personas, commodities that are packaged and sold, their sexuality and sexiness part of that package.

We must acknowledge that gender inequality is another failing of our democracy, that the violence is not random or unique to frats. Young people need to be educated from early on about sex, relationships, and respect. It’s only through a major overhaul that we can begin to get to the root of our rape culture.