» sexual violence

Sexual Assault Prevention Intern

Lisa Currie — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 13:26:58 +0000

If you are interested in applying to be Wesleyan’s first Sexual Assault Response Team Intern, please complete the application found here by 5pm on Friday, April 24. That’s today!

Performers needed for Orientation skits

Lisa Currie — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 14:43:52 +0000

Students are needed to perform in “Unspeakable Acts” or “In the Company of Others” during New Student Orientation 2009. ”In the Company of Others” is a time when four to five students share their experiences and thus spark the conversation of what it means to live in a diverse community. “Unspeakable Acts” is a series of vignettes which brings into conversation the importance of addressing sexual violence and working toward healthy relationships. Students must be able to return to campus no later than Friday, August 28 and be available to rehearse daily.

Two brief information sessions will be held next Monday; they are optional but attending one will help get your questions answered:

Date: Monday, April 27, 2009

Time: 12:30pm and 4:30pm

Location: Usdan 136

If you wish to perform, complete the online interest form.

For questions about In the Company of Others, contact Tim Shiner at tshiner@wes or 860.685.2467.

For questions about Unspeakable Acts, contact Lisa Currie at lcurrie@wes or 860.685.2466.

In addition, here is an FAQ about Unspeakable Acts.

Sexual Health Expo & Art Show

Lisa Currie — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 14:30:26 +0000

The 5th Annual Sexual Health Expo is this Friday!

Friday, March 27, 2009
12:00 to 5:00pm
Exley Science Center Lobby

Convened each year by WesWELL, the goal of the Sexual Health Expo to promote sexual health and responsibility and increase student knowledge of campus health resources. A variety of issues are addressed, including promoting healthy relationships, disease and pregnancy prevention, sexual violence prevention, current political issues related to sexual and reproductive rights, and more.

To reach that goal, we are offering:

Tabling & fund raisers with the WesWELL PHAs, FemNet, Clinic Escorts, ASHA, SGAC, HealthCAN, Sigma Lambda Upsilon, Health Services and Oh My! Sensuality Shoppe.
Workshops presented by the WesWELL PHAs, WesKink and Sign House.
And our first ever Sexual Health Art Show…you be the judge of Best in Show!!!

Bring $$$ for fund raisers, raffles and other purchases!

Click here for the complete schedule

VDay: Middletown “Vagina Monologues” auditions

Lisa Currie — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 14:52:58 +0000

Miss your chance to participate in the Wesleyan performance
of “The Vagina Monologues”? You have another opportunity!

VDay: Middletown presents a benefit performance of
“The Vagina Monologues” by Eve Ensler

We need YOU to join our cast!

AUDITIONS:
Thursday, March 5th, 6:30pm -8:30pm
Saturday, March 7th, 10am-12noon

Green Street Arts Center
51 Green Street
Middletown, CT

No experience or prepared material necessary
*All female-identified cast*
*Proceeds benefit Women and Families Center Sexual Assault Crisis Services*

Performances will be April 16 – 18, 2009 at Green Street Art Center

Acting not your thing? We need people to help in many, many ways- from selling tickets to set up at Green Street before the shows to serving as ushers. You don’t even have to participate all three nights. We’ll take whatever commitment you can make to this great event!

Questions? Contact Jess Buttrey at jbuttrey@womenfamilies.org
or call (203) 235-9297, ext. 126.

Seeking Submissions for Unspeakable Acts

Lisa Currie — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 21:03:44 +0000

From FemNet...

Do you remember your freshman orientation? How about the performance of “Unspeakable Acts”? Yeah, didn’t think so.

Well FemNet, in conjunction with WesWELL, is working to fix that by revising and/or completely overhauling the script. But to do that we need your help. In case you completely don’t remember, Unspeakable Acts is a staged series of monologues/dialogs about sexual assault.

The problem (or one of them anyway) is that too much of the show feels staged or doesn’t ring true with the Wesleyan community/experience. We are currently asking for submissions of personal stories from people of all backgrounds to be included in some capacity in future shows. Everything is 100% anonymous. We’re also looking for people who would like to be involved in the editing process next semester.

Please send any submissions/questions/comments to unspeakableacts@gmail.com

Thanks, and have a wonderful break!

Camara Awkward-Rich ‘11
Katie DiBona ‘11

Note: if you are interested in performing in Unspeakable Acts, WesWELL is seeking volunteers. Click here to read the FAQ.

Take Back the Night

Lisa Currie — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 13:23:31 +0000

Unfortunately, sexual violence is an issue to which Wesleyan is not immune. To raise awareness of this critical issue in our community, the annual Take Back the Night march & rally is next week:

Thursday, March 16
7:00pm
Steps of Olin Library

The TBTN Planning Committee, headed by Liz Weisman ‘09 and Carolyn Ariori ‘09 have been hard at work planning additional events; FemNet and WesWELL’s Peer Health Advocates are also contributing to the planning, with other events being scheduled brefore and after the march itself.

Click here for a complete schedule of events. Check back often for updates.

For more information on sexual violence and it’s prevention, click here.
To learn more about the history of the international Take Back the Night movement, click here.

Communicating intention, not just consent

Lisa Currie — Thu, 29 May 2008 15:17:54 +0000

Educational efforts on sexual violence prevention typically place a strong focus on communication, especially on the giving and receiving of consent to particiate in sexual activity. As thorny as it can be to define what consent looks and sounds like, what if your attempts to communicate your intention are completely misinterpreted?

Dr. Louanne Weston Cole, in her Sex Matters blog at WebMD.com, shares an intriguing study on the differences between men and women in how they interpret words differently in sexual situations:

I was reading an article about a new book, Studies in Applied Interpersonal Communication, by Michael Motley, a University of California at Davis professor. He did an interesting study on how males and females interpret what females say when in the very early stages of sexual kissing.

When a female says, “It’s getting late,” she means that she wants to stop what they’re doing and go their separate ways. If she finished her sentence, it would go, “I should already be home in bed – alone.” Most males in this study, however, interpreted this to mean that she wants to skip the preliminaries and go forward a bit more quickly.

Or, if a woman says, “I’m seeing someone else,” (meaning that she wants to stop because her affections are really with another man), males tend to think this means, “Keep going, but let’s be discreet,” or “Keep going, but I want you to know that I’m not making a commitment.”

Motley concludes that in their efforts to not offend or upset their male partners with direct and forceful words, women are merely confusing them. He found out that men would prefer to hear it loud and clear, even if it smarts a little bit, rather than trying to read the woman’s mind and risk offending her and/or losing the sexual opportunity. read full article…

While the research is a bit locked up in the gender binary and heterosexual relationships, it still illustrates an important point: what we say may not be what is heard. It’s extraordinarily difficult to get what you want (and avoid what you don’t) if your attempts to communicate your intentions aren’t interpreted correctly.

Discussion Questions:
What does this mean for how we should be communicating with our partners?
Would being more forceful and direct in what we say solve the problem?
Or could our words continue to be misinterpreted even when said with conviction?
How do our cultural attitudes about sex and gender stereotypes play into this?

Wesleyan Resources:
Sexual Violence information
Emotional Abuse information
Sexual Misconduct Policy
Office of Behavioral Health for Students

Experts say sexual assault goes beyond physical contact

Lisa Currie — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 19:19:04 +0000

From the Athens Messenger…

One in four college women will be sexually assaulted during their college years, experts say, but what many college students consider to be sexual assault is actually only a small part of what the law defines as sex offenses.“Sexual assault occurs along a continuum of intrusion and violation ranging from unwanted sexual comments to forced sexual intercourse,” according to an Ohio University Police Department statement on sexual assault, which states that anything along that continuum violates the student code of conduct.

“When there’s no sexual contact, people don’t necessarily think of sexual assault,” said Lindsey Daniels, who is the sexual assault prevention program coordinator for Tri-County Mental Health and Counseling.

Not all sex offenses involved physical contact. Several sex offenses defined in the Ohio Revised Code, such as public indecency and voyeurism, do not involve physical contact.

The misdemeanor-level offenses like public indecency, voyeurism, and sexual imposition (any unwanted sexual touching) get reported much less than forceful sex offenses like rape, but Amanda Childress, OU’s assistant director of health promotions, said they probably happen just as often.

“Very rarely do we have reports of public indecency because people think it’s funny, not a big deal, or they blow it off as a joke,” said Childress, whose office tracks the number of incidents of crimes on campus that are recorded in the yearly Clery Report. The Clery Act requires universities to make their crime reports public. Reports of voyeurism are also low, and Childress said there have been two this school year – one was a report of a student videotaping his roommate and a girl having sex, and another was a report of a male student looking under the stalls in the girls’ restrooms.

Do students feel violated by someone streaking at a football game, flashing their breasts or genitals uptown at Halloween, or masturbating in public? It may depend on the situation, but Childress said that if the person who witnesses it feels frightened, scared or embarrassed, it’s a form of sexual assault.

The OU Department of Health Promotion and student groups such as Promoting Ohio Wellness Education and Responsibility (POWER) work to educate students about sexual assault. One of the classes offered through the department is on the “sexual assault continuum,” to show students the variety of forms sexual assault takes.

“It’s great that people recognize what rape is, but the message has to be that not only is it not OK to rape, but it’s not OK to make sexist comments, it’s not OK to catcall,” Daniels said.

According to Daniels and Childress, perpetrators of rape usually go through a period of testing boundaries before working up to more serious offenses. If certain behaviors are acceptable in their surroundings, this provides reinforcement.

“When things are joked about or not taken seriously, obviously it sends a message,” Daniels said.

Childress said both male and female students are influenced by their peers in deciding what is acceptable and what isn’t.

“If someone in a room gropes you, if you feel uncomfortable and everybody else thinks it’s no big deal, you’re not likely to say anything,” Childress said. “And then if that’s no big deal, what’s to stop someone from holding you up against the wall and groping you?”

If potential perpetrators of rape were stopped in the “testing boundaries” stage, Childress said it would send a positive message.

“If they’re not dealt with in a responsible manner, people start thinking these behaviors are acceptable, both women and men,” Childress said. “We would rather see these offenses caught and prosecuted, even with a ’slap on the wrist,’ and have the behavior corrected at an earlier stage before offenses become much more serious. We’re not doing our job as educators if we’re not stopping these things early on.”

Click here for further resources on sexual assault from WesWELL.

Diversity Film Series: Search for Angela Shelton

Lisa Currie — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 15:22:23 +0000

Diversity Film Series: Search for Angela Shelton (2004)

Filmmaker Angela Shelton journeys across the United States meeting other Angela Sheltons in an effort to survey women in America. She discovers that 24 out of 40 Angela Sheltons have been abused just like herself. Then the filmmaker meets an Angela Shelton who tracks sexual predators and lives in the same town as the filmmaker’s father who molested her and her stepsiblings for years. The filmmaker’s survey of women becomes a journey of self discovery during which she decides to finally confront her past and her own father – on Father’s Day. The Angela Sheltons complete the journey by teaching the filmmaker about forgiveness, faith and the power of the human spirit, no matter what your name is. In all probability, you know someone who was abused, if you think not, meet the Angela Sheltons. Post-film discussion faciliated by Lisa Currie, Director of Health Education and Eliza Gordon ‘11,

Date:	Monday, March 31, 2008
Time:	07:00 PM - 09:00 PM
Location:	Center for Film Studies, Room 190
Sponsor:	Campus Climate Log Committee, Office for Diversity and Academic Advancement, the Dean’s Office, and the Film Studies Department.
Admission:	Free
Event URL:	http://store.searchingforangelasheltonstore.com/index.html
For more information:	dteraguchi@wesleyan.edu