I Am Not a Slut: Slut-Shaming in the Age of the Internet (32 page)

When a campus community perceives rape as normal, rape not only goes unpunished but is even encouraged. Members of a fraternity at Yale—the same fraternity that claims President George W. Bush as a member—line up and yell, “No means yes! Yes means anal!” A “Preseason Scouting Report” email ranks freshmen by name, hometown, college residence, and “how many beers it would take to have sex with them.”
²¹³
Yale formally found sufficient evidence against six rapists in the first half of 2013. One was suspended for one year and may return to Yale. One was put on probation, and the other four received written reprimands. None of the rapists was expelled until 2004, after the university came under national scrutiny for mishandling sexual assault complaints.
²¹⁴

In 2011, a member of the Kappa Sigma fraternity at the University of Southern California sent a widely circulated email to members with advice on how to get women to have vaginal and oral sex with them. Throughout the letter, women are referred to as “targets” because they “aren’t actual people like us men. Consequently, giving them a certain name or distinction is pointless.” Fraternity members are advised to
avoid women whose genitals, called “pies,” “are extremely meaty and resemble a cold cut combo from Subway,” and they are encouraged to remember that “sometimes targets that look like a Mack truck ran over their face have the greatest bodies and some outstanding [vaginal] grip.” Fraternity members are reminded that they will be ranked according to how much sex they have with beautiful women. They are warned to avoid ugly women, even if they are skilled sexually: “Many fatties and uglies do have great gullets and are particularly good at sex. They have to be more dedicated to their craft because no one would talk to them otherwise. Likewise, a target does not receive a reduced ranking if you get down to the pie and it resembles a slaughterhouse. It’s unfortunate, but poor qualities like that do not lower her physical beauty.”
²¹⁵

In 2013, eighty student leaders at Saint Mary’s University in Halifax were disciplined after it was discovered via Instagram that they had led a chant during orientation week about the pleasures of sexual assault to an audience of four hundred students. Male and female students chanted, “SMU boys, we like them young. Y is for your sister. O is for oh so tight. U is for underage. N is for no consent. G is for grab that ass.” It turns out that this chant had been popular on campus for five years.
²¹⁶

Why is the normalization of sexual coercion prevalent on campuses? Alex Barnett, a professor of mathematics at Dartmouth, believes that men’s anxiety over their social status among other men, rather than a desire for sex, plays a big role. In an open letter to Dartmouth’s president, Phil Hanlon, written in September 2013, after the government began an investigation of sexual assault at Dartmouth, Barnett noted
that “college is not a ‘safe space’ for women, the reason being in large part, rather shockingly, their fellow male students.”
²¹⁷

Campuses with a strong male athletics program appear to breed an environment in which men feel entitled to assault women. In fact, athletes typically comprise between 10 and 15 percent of the student population but account for 25 percent of assaults on campus.
²¹⁸
Jessica Luther, a journalist, argues that National College Athletic Association (NCAA) programs and gang rape on college campuses are connected. In a 2013 article in the
Atlantic
, she noted that at two Division I football programs—Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, and the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland—multiple football players have been charged with rape. These circumstances were not anomalies; they mirror a widespread attitude among many male college athletes that they are entitled to treat women as sexual objects, even to the point of assaulting them. An Oklahoma State University football player found guilty of gang-raping a woman in a dormitory told the
Los Angeles Times
, “Well, speaking for myself and a lot of other people, we felt like we were above the law, like OU would protect us from anything.” Luther concludes that the culture of men’s college athletics in Division I “can be harmful to women.”
²¹⁹

An additional reason that women at college may be particularly vulnerable to sexual assault is that pro-rape messages are the background noise of campus culture. A number of male popular entertainers, many of whom tour the campus circuit, sing blithely about sexually assaulting women. When an entertainer performs on a campus, it’s not unreasonable to conclude that the institution that invited him approves of his messages.

Increasingly, student activists are fighting back. In 2004, students at Spelman, a black women’s college, protested the appearance of the rapper Nelly for a campus fund-raiser. His music video for “Tip Drill” portrays women in bikinis shaking their behinds and clothed men throwing cash at them; a man swipes a credit card between a woman’s buttocks.
²²⁰
In 2013, Harvard students protested the performance of the hip-hop artist Tyga at the college’s spring concert, although the performance went on as scheduled.
²²¹
In his song “Bitches Ain’t Shit,” Tyga raps, “Need a bitch that can fuck, cook, clean, right. / Turn a bitch out, make her lick twice.” In “Bitch Betta Have My Money,” Tyga raps, “Shut the fuck up and jump on this dick. Nothing but a motherfucking skank. / Fuck what you talking ’bout and fuck what you thank.”

The normalization of sexual violence in campus musical entertainment reflects the normalization of sexual violence in music at large. Beyond college campuses, many male musicians sing about women as sluts who deserve to be raped. Reebok ended its relationship with the rapper Rick Ross after the feminist group UltraViolet created a social media campaign against the entertainer, who brags about raping women. He sings, “Put molly [Ecstacy] all in her Champagne / She ain’t even know it / I took her home and I enjoyed that / She ain’t even know it.”
²²²

Although black hip-hop artists have been most scrutinized publicly for their women-hating lyrics, a broad spectrum of white musicians also sing about “sluts” who should be assaulted or murdered if they can’t provide sexual pleasure to men. Eminem sings in “Kill You,” “Slut, you think I won’t choke no whore / ’Til the vocal cords don’t work in her throat
no more?! / Shut up slut, you’re causin’ too much chaos.” The hip-hop group the Cataracs sing in “Sunrise,” “Ain’t fuckin, then what the fuck are you for?” and in “Top of the World,” “I’m just saying anything to get me up inside your throat. Is it working?” Waking the Cadaver, a death metal band, sings in “Chased Through the Woods by a Rapist”: “Tonight this cunt will pay. / My dick will beat her face. / Her life and her cunt are mine. / This slut shall now see. / All night on this bitch I release my piece. / Yes. Yes. I am the man. / And I will kill when I can. / You can try to run. / But you’re done.”

If you hear these songs, maybe even humming or singing along, you begin to absorb their messages. In these songs—as in much other cultural entertainment—women are represented as nothing more than objects who provide a sexual service to men. Their value, these pop culture entertainers tell us, resides in being a receptacle for men’s sexuality. But when women then want to be sexual themselves, they are blamed for being “too” sexual. If they are raped, it was all their fault.

Raped While Drunk

But perhaps the most significant reason for the prevalence of campus sexual assault, which the White House report on rape and sexual assault highlighted, is the consumption of alcohol and drugs on college campuses. “The dynamics of college life appear to fuel the problem” of campus sexual assault, the report reads, “as many survivors are victims of what’s called ‘incapacitated assault’: they are sexually abused while drunk, under the influence of drugs, passed out, or otherwise incapacitated.” The
report goes on to say that rapists deliberately prey on women who are drunk or drugged, and may deliberately provide their victim with alcohol or drugs. As a result, most sexual assaults take place at parties and involve two people who know each other. In addition, “campus perpetrators are often serial offenders,” with 7 percent of college men having committed rape or attempted rape, and 63 percent of those men having admitted to committing an average of six rapes each.
²²³

Put simply, men who commit sexual assault target drunk or drugged women for sexual assault, and each of those men tends to assault multiple women.

Although we know from the data that men who rape use alcohol as a vehicle for their crime, the rhetoric of “choosing” to be “slutty” informs many people’s understanding of the role of alcohol. Thus, when it comes to credibility, the rape victim who had been drinking faces the toughest hurdle. A woman who drinks is automatically assumed to be “slutty”—a “sloppy slut”—because she is said to have put herself in a risky situation, and therefore she does not deserve sympathy for being victimized. In a 2013 Navy hearing of the gang rape of an intoxicated Naval Academy student in Annapolis, Maryland, by three football-player classmates, one of the defense lawyers asked the victim if she had worn a bra or other underwear the night of the rapes, and whether she “felt like a ho” afterward. Another defense lawyer asked her about her oral sex technique. When the prosecution objected, he claimed that if she had performed oral sex with her mouth opened wide, it would indicate the “active participation” of the woman and therefore her consent.
²²⁴
Yet the woman was intoxicated and had passed out while the rapes took place.

Although drinking to the point of becoming incapacitated is unwise and risky for anyone, the blame for rape must be put on the rapist who preys on a drunk woman, not a drunk woman who becomes prey. If my car is stolen after I’ve parked it with the door unlocked in a neighborhood known for car theft, a crime has been committed, and I have the right and expectation to report the crime to the police. No one would tell me that the thief is the one who deserves sympathy, and that apprehending him would ruin his life. No one would tell me I’m a terrible person for getting my car stolen, and that I deserve to have my car stolen. They would be right to question my judgment, but not the fact that a crime has been committed. But when it comes to rape, the victim’s pre-rape actions are used to justify the crime.

Many people presume that if she’s not conscious, an intoxicated or drugged woman automatically gives sexual consent. Yet the opposite is true. Both participants must be fully conscious for consent to be present. “College students usually laugh when they hear this guideline,” writes Alan D. Berkowitz, PhD, who helps colleges design programs that address health issues. Many college students “cannot imagine two completely sober people having sex.” Yet “the greater the extent to which alcohol or other drugs are consumed, the greater the impairment of consent. Less consumption of alcohol or other drugs means that there is a greater chance that consent is present.” Berkowitz clarifies that consent may be possible even if alcohol has been consumed, but “the greater the alcohol consumption, the less likely that consent is possible.”
²²⁵
Just because a partner doesn’t say no does not mean that she would say yes if she could. If she doesn’t say no because she’s
excessively drunk (or passed out, or otherwise incapacitated), one must assume that she would say no if she could. Consent is present only if the ability to refuse is also present. If the ability to refuse is absent, there is no consent.

Jamie, a twenty-one-year-old biracial (Latina and white) college senior on the East Coast, was raped in her dorm room during her sophomore year. We meet for lunch at a diner near the office where she’s interning part-time. Tall, with long brown hair and olive skin, she exudes confidence and competence. Before we’ve even ordered our meal, she says to me with a directness I appreciate, “Yes, I’ve been called a slut. I identify as a lesbian, but I’ve had my times with men.” She is “absolutely” positive that her rape occurred because of her reputation as a “slut.”

Over a chicken salad, Jamie tells me her story. During her first year on campus, she came out to the other students in her dorm as a lesbian, but in her second year, she began to hook up with guys as well. Her dorm mates teasingly called her a “lesbian whore.” Jamie at first didn’t take offense. “I don’t think their intention was necessarily to hurt me,” she explains. “They would say, ‘I saw you making out with that guy at the back of the bar. Just because he bought you one drink doesn’t mean you have to go and have sex with him!’ They were trying to be funny. Since I was hooking up with girls and guys, they couldn’t help themselves. They said, ‘You’re always with a different person!’ They started calling me the Muff Master.”

Unable to help myself, I snicker when I hear the vulgar label. I feel terrible about my gaffe, and I apologize profusely. But Jamie understands. “No, it’s OK, I know it’s funny,” she
assures me. “The name can definitely be funny!” She laughs with me. “I laughed too when I first heard it! It was not hurtful at first. In a way, I glorified it. I was like: I can hook up with whoever I want. In the beginning, I really didn’t mind, and it was my friends who were using the name. I was excited that I had started experimenting sexually, and that I was being acknowledged for who I was.”

But, as always happens, she lost control of the situation. It was one thing when the nickname was used between her and her friends as a joking term of endearment, another when her friends started to introduce her that way to strangers, as if this was the thing that defined her and they had license to spread stories about her. “Once the name spread to people who didn’t know me, I didn’t like it anymore. I would go to parties and I’d say, ‘Hi, my name is Jamie,’ and then one of my friends would come up from behind me and say, ‘This is the one we told you about. She’s the Muff Master.’ That was when I was like, I don’t think I like this anymore.”