Finally, a feminist op/ed about drinking and rape that I can get behind. Jaclyn Friedman gets away from the finger-wagging “girls who drink will get themselves raped” lecturing that even feminist commentators too often fall back upon. She recognizes that, first and foremost, we must hold men responsible for their actions. She encourages promoting a pleasure-affirming message — which I would take a step further and say needs to also emphasize that sex should be fun, enjoyable and desired by both parties, not something that men always want and women have to stop, and not something which is inherently about humiliation, pain or disempowerment. I would also add that we need to get away from the knee-jerk response to mentioning self-defense techniques (actual self-defense classes, not drinking heavily, etc) every time the topic of rape comes up. Obviously, suggesting self-defensiveness makes sense in the context of Jaclyn’s article. But I’m not sure it fits as cleanly into a conversation about an actual rape, or a story about an actual rape survivor.
So I hope we can move away from the model of always holding women accountable for our own victimization, and start focusing on how we can raise boys and girls who have positive views on sex, who own their own sexualities, and who can imagine sex as something positive instead of dirty, shameful, or violent. Until then, read the whole article.