rape culture

Intellectually, I understand that success and safety do not invalidate struggle. I understand that I will feel the impacts of sexual violence regardless of how well I do in school or how much better life gets for me. But because a majority of people in my life only see the “successful” parts and not the difficult parts, and because so often people’s expectations of survivors stand counter to this, many people find it harder to believe that I’ve even experienced sexual violence. And that can make it harder for me and other survivors to emotionally feel and believe what we intellectually understand: our success does not invalidate our struggle.

The term itself is insufficient and sounds oddly trivial. The word ‘stealth’ has various associations in the Oxford English Dictionary (2020), including ‘secretly and without right or permission’, ‘clandestinely’, ‘furtive’. A stealth action happens quickly and slyly, like the swiping of an appetising sweet by a small child before their parent sees. But stealthing does not just happen surreptitiously, swiftly, or without the total awareness of the victim.

A lot of people are talking about "bad sex" when they mean coercive sex. So let's have a conversation about when sex just isn't satisfying.

We're some of consent's biggest fans around here, so we're thrilled to have gotten a chance to interview Kitty Stryker about the new anthology she spearheaded, Ask: Building Consent Culture.

Anarchofemme's question continued: So, to get to the point, do you know of any strategies feminist groups have used to make issues of sexual violence more accessible to those not already familiar with them? Would it help to focus on issues of gender and bring sexual violence in later as part of the...

Annie's question continued: What I would like to do is approach administration about implementing a sexual assault awareness session for all students at the beginning of the year and I am anticipating resistance. So, my question is, what is the best way to go about doing this? I would also like to...

I'm so glad you were able to ask about this and break your silence. I know how scary it can be to do that. It's a very big deal to take that step and I hope you give yourself a lot of credit for taking it. I certainly do. What you have described is beyond sexual harassment: it's sexual assault. And...

It's actually, in my book, not grey at all. I'm a very talented cook, and my friends love it when I cook for them. Some crave my meals intensely. If I have a friend over, and I have them smell some fresh basil I picked up at the market, show them a beautiful tomato from my garden, does my doing that...

Your friend was likely referencing a longitudinal study of 3,000 women done in 1999 (Acierno, Resnick, Kilpatrick, Saunders and Best, Journal of Anxiety Disorders) which found that women who had been raped before were seven times more likely to be raped again. As well, many studies have shown that...

It's important to understand that rape is only sex for the person doing the raping. And really, it's not even that, since partnered sex is something we do WITH someone, not TO someone, or have done TO us. A person being raped does not have control over the situation, isn't consenting and IS...