In attempting to address women's needs on campus, Student Assembly candidates offered better lighting, escort services, even security cameras for A-Lot to "prevent" sexual assault. These are all needs, perhaps, of the campus-at-large, but it is also a glaring attempt to externalize the problem. To protect our community from the big bad rapists out there - not from members of our own community - even though almost all incidences of sexual assault on this campus occur between acquaintances. In somebody's room.
The scenario presented in the Committee on Standards mock trial in the Collis Common Ground on Monday evening sounded awfully familiar. Not the physical location in space and time, but the voice of a woman who had been assaulted and didn't quite understand how it happened, and the voice of a man who thought they had just hooked up. A woman who was trying to be nice about saying no, and a man who thought she didn't mean it, or maybe didn't even hear her.
I recognize her voice.
Almost half of us were first-year women once. We arrived at Dartmouth College in the glowing fall, anticipating something new, curious - and naive - about the years to come, anxious to know more and meet people and make friends. And go to parties. And maybe drink a little. Those of us without beloved HTH's had our eyes on everyone else, and we thrived on flirtatious attention. There were lots of reasons to hook up: friends' encouragement, curiosity, lust, upcoming formals, flattery. Not being sure how to say no and mean it. Reassurance.
Along with the funny accounts of "randoms" and walks of shame, however, many of us pack away some less pleasant memories of those first months. Listening to the testimony of the woman on stage, I, along with so many other women in the audience, inadvertently tensed up. The situation was all too real.
One scene haunts me still: the upperclassman I hooked up with my first year here who, every time he got too "friendly" and I said, "No, I don't want you to do that," would say okay, and then try to talk me into compromises: just a removed article of clothing, just lie there for a second, just let me touch you here. He would try again. I would protest again, but nicely, as though "please" really was the magic word. It wasn't. I have no doubt in my mind that, had I been too drunk to get up and leave, or to physically push his hands away, my story would be a different one, because he was frighteningly persistent. And sneaky.
In retrospect, I am angry with myself for trying to be nonconfrontational while he, despite his crooning voice, violated a limit I set over and over again.
But I remember also the intimidation, the need for reassurance, the desire for affection I felt my first months away from home. I would never have admitted it - I was certain I was self-sufficient and utterly in control of the situation - but I look back on it with fear, not for myself, but for the women who don't, or didn't, get away. This campus does not need lights nearly so much as it needs some guidance.
I received a couple of obscene phone calls from this same man not too long afterwards. His fraternity brothers were laughing in the background as he taunted me on my answer machine at 3:30 a.m., explicitly informing me what he hoped "someone" was doing to me (with me?) at that moment.
The questions that we need to ask aren't about video cameras. They are about consent, and about respect, and about the promotion of misogynistic attitudes in some of our social institutions. We seem still to have a chasm in understanding between men and women when it comes to sexual encounters that does not need to be there, and perhaps a leap between the perceptions of men and those of women. I cannot help but feel that with every new class that enters Dartmouth, we allow a large group of women to learn what the rest of us know the hard way.
It seems plain enough - and should go without saying - that no means no. Gone, I hope, are the days when men really believe that women are "just being coy." If she "really wants it," shouldn't she learn to ask for it? Or at least say yes? Eighteen-year-olds are probably capable of that much. But we have to rely upon members of the Dartmouth community to educate themselves. Go to a presentation or participate in some aspect of Sexual Assault Awareness Week, attend Sexual Awareness through Greek Education events, talk to a Sexual Assault Peer Advisor. Realize that sexual assault is not outside our community at all, but quite possibly in bed with you.
I have one last addendum to my story. Last summer I was walking home rather late and overheard two women talking outside Thayer mention this man's name. I shuddered and kept going. But something made me go back. Somewhat timidly, I interrupted them.
"Hi," I said. "I don't know either of you, but I overheard you say somebody's name" - which I then added - "and I just wanted you to know I had a really bad experience with him, so please, please be careful." There. Said.
They both smiled. "Oh," one said, "Don't worry, we know."
"But thanks for telling us," the other added sincerely.
I scampered off to home and bed, reassured by the knowledge that his reputation was known. Until I wondered how.
