April 19, 2010

Conversation about the IUD (intrauterine device) is limited and often based on a series of falsehoods.  I had never heard of a safe IUD until three months ago, when I was sitting in my kitchen with my boyfriend and his friend Emma.  Emma and I have both found oral contraceptives (the Pill) difficult.  We’ve both lost energy and felt less (which is worse, we agreed, than the more typical side effect of feeling more).  Plus, neither of us liked bearing the burden of taking the Pill.  It was not the problem of remembering to take or not take the Pill, but the sense of obligation.  If my partner does not have to take a pill that makes him unrecognizable to himself, then why should I?  It was this lack of feeling like ourselves, physically and emotionally, that led us both to the IUD.

Private doctors rarely recommend the IUD to women of the age group 18–26.  It is seen as a type of semi-permanent birth control for married women who have already had the children that they want.  This perception may explain why I thought that it was a defunct and unreliable form of birth control.

After telling my doctor about my partner, I asked her what she would say if I were her daughter.  She said, “Use condoms” but, barring that, “let’s go with the IUD.”

An IUD is a one-inch T-shaped device that sits at the cervix.  The IUD acts directly and exclusively on the uterus, making it uninhabitable to sperm. Strings (not felt by either partner during sex) come through the cervix so that the device is removable. An old brand of the IUD associated with high rates of infertility in the women who used them is largely responsible for the stigma the device carries.  However, it is wrong to assume that both types of FDA-approved IUD come risk-free.    The more traditional IUD (or ParaGard IUD) is made out of copper and can last twelve years.  A possible side effect for women who use this type is a heavier period (up to a 50% percent increase). The Mirena IUD locally releases a small amount of progestin.  It lasts five years, and one side effect is a lighter period (or a stop in periods altogether).

The IUD is looked down upon as a possible method of birth control in young women.  In some cases, that makes sense.  The IUD is not a wise choice for women at risk for exposure to sexually transmitted infections (STI’s).  Like the Pill, the IUD does not protect against STI’s.  If you aren’t going to use a condom in concert with the IUD, you should skip it.  There is also the question of fertility. For me, part of reproductive health includes fertility.  I take birth control now, but want a child later.  STI’s and IUD’s are a horrible combination for fertility.  Every STI that can lead to pelvic inflammatory disease (gonorrhea, syphilis, chlamydia), if contracted while using the IUD, raises a woman’s risk of infertility.  This is because the removal strings lead past the natural barrier between the vaginal canal and the uterus.  STI’s in the uterus are disastrous for reproductive health.

I am in a stable, long-term relationship. I felt that my partner and I could be responsible to the risks that come along with the IUD. I wanted to feel like myself: not apathetic about my body.  After telling my doctor about my partner, I asked her what she would say if I were her daughter.  She said, “Use condoms” but, barring that, “let’s go with the IUD.”  I chose the Mirena version, under the hopeful assumption that in five years my partner will be the one on birth control.  The IUD can be right for you, or not.  My only advice is to think about the IUD, talk about it with your partner, and take a serious dose of Tylenol Extra Strength before you go in.  It hurts.  This is no pap smear.  I vomited and had to wait an hour before going home.  Emma, too, felt light-headed and dizzy.  She also experienced the strange side effect of thinking her cervix had grown to the size “of a nose.”  But, as Emma told just a week after getting her IUD, “My cervix feels like a million bucks, and you can quote me on that.”

Hannah Zeavin is a sophomore in Yale College. She is a staff writer for Broad Recognition.

Photo: ARTstor

By ALICE BUTTRICK

April 14, 2010

Last Tuesday at the Law School, Professor Reva Siegel and famed legal journalist Linda Greenhouse presented on their latest collaboration, a collected history of pre-Roe politics and materials. Addressing the two major popular narratives surrounding the Roe decision—depicted as a total legal bombshell on the one hand, or as the culmination of sweeping reforms on the other—their project looks mainly at the decade leading up to the Roe decision and finds both narratives to be ‘hysterically false.’ Instead, this book, a work of historical record rather than advocacy although both authors are adamantly pro-choice, shows a picture of a nation in conversation. Greenhouse herself remembered writing about the debate in 1970, still unsure of what was at stake.

Siegel and Greenhouse drew attention to some of the key fallacies surrounding the decision both in their introduction and during a slightly pointed question and answer session (the event, jointly sponsored by Yale Law Students for Choice and Yale Law Students for Life, had a mixed crowd). Crucially, the language of Roe argues for the rights of doctors to perform a procedure, not of women to choose it; this medical right arises from the fact that abortion access was not initially seen as a feminist issue but rather one of class. The impetus for national abortion reform, according to the authors’ research, originated with public health advocates who recognized that poor women were disproportionately harmed by barriers to access. Rich women could always drive, fly, or simply pay for services, but poor ones were dying in the back alleys of lore. The Roe decision was part of a push to repeal criminal laws so that doctors could prevent the injury and death often resulting from illegal abortions.

When the feminist movement took up the cause, it was under an umbrella of general concerns around equal employment opportunities; in particular, NOW added the right to an abortion to a litany of concerns around salary, workplace treatment, and child care provision after the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission failed to address sexual harassment law in the late sixties. The feminists reframed abortion access as a sign of women’s social standing writ large.

Simultaneously, Siegel and Greenhouse’s collection traces the origins of anti-abortion rhetoric, from religious communities adopting human rights frames, to a later attack on the ‘selfishness’ of the feminist movement. Trends such as the ‘woman-protective’ arguments advocating for the end of abortion as a means of ‘saving’ women from its harms, a favorite subject for Siegel, were not yet present. Instead, the anti-abortion community wished to minimize the role of religion in their reasoning in an effort to universalize their reasoning. In public debates over state reform, we can see the seeds of discussions about fetal viability and doctrinal framing. And the public, squeamish on the issue, made sure that even when abortion was permitted, publically discussing it certainly was not.

I had the unique pleasure of proofreading a section of the manuscript this past January. My portion included population controllers, religious figures and, surprisingly, Yale College (very small spoiler ahead). Apparently, when Yale went co-ed forty years ago, they the college administrators realized that they had in place a medical system aimed to serve a large body of young men. There were limited ob-gyn services and little else related to the working parts of female biology. So in response, Yale began a comprehensive sex and intimacy overhaul—they Yale bulked up its health department, instituted a Sex Counseling Service within the Mental Hygiene Department, and offered lectures that were oversubscribed even with 500 available slots. The culmination of this work was the ‘Sex and the Yale Student’ booklet (yes, the precursor to the sex@yale initiative currently underway at the Dean’s Office).

Unlike any material I have seen since arriving here, the booklet dealt frankly with pregnancy and its consequences. Printed before the Roe decision, ‘Sex and the Yale Student’ addressed the problems surrounding abortion head on. “YOU DO NOT HAVE TO HAVE AN ILLEGAL ABORTION. Repeat. YOU DO NOT HAVE TO LOOK FOR A CRIMINAL ABORTIONIST,” the pamphlet cried. There was no question of counseling the woman out of her choice. There was no pretension that abortions were illegal and therefore did not occur. Yale, like many other institutions, was worried about the safety, comfort, and well-being of its students more than it was concerned about the political implications of openly admitting to illegal activities, or of picking a side in the abortion debate. Looking realistically at the concerns their student body, Yale was able to recognize that the health of women was of the utmost importance.

Few people know that Roe was actually argued twice. The first set of presentations centered on public health concerns, and the second around cultural and civil rights. This transformation mirrored how the abortion debate would change after it left the courts. People on the far ends of the spectrum on this issue generally do not predicate their arguments on abortion as a medical procedure—pro-choice activists demand the control over their bodies while anti-abortion groups wave a moral/religious flag. Today, after a decade of legislation slowly prying abortion access from our hands, we recognize ugly symmetry at work. The first to lose access are those who were the last to gain it—poor women, unable to muster the resources to overcome even the smallest obstacles. The Hyde Amendment in 1997, which curtailed use of federal funds for abortion, laid the groundwork for the Stupak Amendment looming over today’s health care debate, and both aim squarely at low-income women’s right to make choices without constraint. Anti-abortion groups have gone back to their human rights frame, albeit now in theory aimed at the well-being of mother and fetus alike Medical opinion, once used to support the increased autonomy of women, is now being used to suggest that women don’t have the expertise to merit this freedom.

But here at Yale, we know our rights are safe no matter what CLAY threatens on the op-ed pages. The University, and our future elite status, will always provide a way for us to make whatever choices we desire. Close to the end of the discussion, Siegel questioned whether democratizing the abortion struggle was harmful to the movement at large. In so doing, those voices most able to push for their rights—those in a position of social power—were assuaged and quieted down without making sure that more disadvantaged perspectives were properly addressed. Few people at Yale worry about their access, even though we live amongst women in New Haven who are losing valuable resources all the time. Instead, those who are still agitating for secure rights are written off for beating what many view to be a dead horse. Judging from the tepid collaboration between the Women’s Center and CLAY, we will not be seeing our reproductive rights championed in all-caps on this campus any time soon.

April 5, 2010

In 2007, the first time Choose Life At Yale (CLAY) applied to be a residence group of the Women’s Center, I was on the Women’s Center’s Board.

At the time, Peter Johnston ’09 was the president of CLAY and quickly becoming influential in the conservative movement at Yale. Intellectually, I had grown to know him well, due to the fact that we both took Directed Studies and were in nearly every section together, a proof that God, if existent, is not without an exquisite sense of irony.

CLAY was founded in 2003, a few years before Johnston took it over. The public relations problem confronting it was typical of those faced by other “pro-life” organizations, though, of course, harder to solve at Yale. Ronald Reagan and David Reardon first realized in the 1980s that the “pro-life” movement was damaged by the growing perception that it did not care about women. This perception was compounded by the most visible pro-life campaigns of the 1990s, which often portrayed women who’d had abortions as “baby-killers,” and, perhaps, by a spate of clinic bombings. To detoxify their political brand, “pro-life” organizations rephrased their argument in a feminist cadence. Women, as opposed to the unborn, became abortion’s primary victim.

I was very impressed by Johnston’s decision to apply to be a Women’s Center resident group: It was smart politics. Still, the Board voted unanimously to reject its request, on the grounds that the Women’s Center was pro-choice.

Shortly afterward, I ran into Johnston. Ever cordial, he asked how I was, and I asked how he was; briefly, we discussed the Board’s decision. He expressed feeling some disappointment, but no surprise. I told him I thought the political strategy he had tried out was extremely clever, fearfully so.

We were both earnest believers. But what I always enjoyed about Johnston was that our conversations on such matters were professional: there was no pretense that we were anything but partisan students of America’s abortion debate.

Johnston’s application to the Women’s Center was a bet; I respected it. It didn’t cost CLAY anything to place. Though it lost, he, I thought shrewdly, chose not to publicly whine about it.

CLAY’s current leadership apparently lacks Johnston’s acuity.

Last week, Isabel Marin ’12, CLAY’s “Women’s Outreach Coordinator,” authored a column that argues CLAY should be “supported under the Women’s Center umbrella” (“A place at the Center,” March 31). It goes so far as to attack the Women’s Center’s repeated rejections of CLAY’s application as unworthy of its name and contrary to “the spirit of feminism.”

Marin’s column is riddled with distortions. For instance, Marin quotes abstract, carefully selected sections of the Women’s Center’s constitution, choosing to omit the clause that declares the Women’s Center to be a pro-choice organization. Furthermore, Marin’s attempt to ally CLAY with Yale Men Against Rape under the category of “non-stereotypical feminist groups” is disingenuous. The goals of Yale Men Against Rape are feminist in the most conventional sense of the word and the movement; it is she who is doing the stereotyping.

Marin argues that the Women’s Center should unhesitatingly grant CLAY “the appellation ‘feminist.’” Unfortunately, the word “feminist” means something, both to the Women’s Center and apart from it.

The central failing of the column is Marin’s willful misapprehension of this fact. Feminism is an ideology; the women and men who subscribed to it are those who won women the vote, the right to own property, access to education, protection from sexual harassment and legal abortion. Feminism is definitively pro-choice; it defines abortion as a civil right and insists that the withholding of abortion is discrimination. This is the position of the Yale Women’s Center, National Organization of Women and every major 20th-century feminist thinker.

More offensive than Marin’s indifference to history is that the role that she proposes for CLAY — providing pregnant women with help — is already played by a Women’s Center group. The Reproductive Rights Action League, has long labored to address all aspects of sexuality and family.

Marin is right that “the pro-life women in CLAY face glass ceilings and tough choices as do all women.” The Women’s Center merrily fights for all women, including pro-life women. It is possible to be both pro-life and a feminist; pro-life women have certainly made serious contributions on many feminist fronts; I am sure that Marin holds many feminist opinions with which I passionately agree. But the pro-life ideology seeks to limit women’s choices, is opposed to women’s freedom, is itself anti-woman and will always be anti-feminist.

In denying CLAY its support, the Women Center did not imperil the future of feminism, or its relevance, but rescued its life. Feminism is an authorizing legacy. In invoking feminism, pro-life organizations — even pro-life women — seek to steal feminism from its history, and, wittingly or not, reduce it to a meaningless term.

For the pro-life movement, that’s smart politics. Peter Johnston would have known that. Perhaps that’s why I miss him.

Chase Olivarius-McAllister is a senior in Yale College.

April 5, 2010

Spring is in the air, and that means flowery new ad campaigns blooming anew. Some are selling the seasonal sales, others are touting new public service concerns, and one is aiming just slightly below the belt. On loveyourvagina.com, the “Mooncup Menstrual Cup”– a British version of the US’s well-known “Divacup”– is encouraging women to share their favorite nicknames for the vagina.

The campaign caught my eye for several reasons. First and foremost, it looks great. Each slang term for my genitals has its own pretty poster— ribbons flow down from some terms, while lace and flowers burst from others. Doting on its dirty language, the aesthetic is a typographer’s dream. Plus, celebrities like Amy Winehouse have been promoting the project by sharing their nickname of choice (Ms. Winehouse unfortunately chose “VaJew Jew”), and a large poster campaign is being planned for the London Underground.

I’ve always been sort of curious about the Divacup (and this foreign iteration is no exception). It seems like a great, albeit potentially gross, idea—who doesn’t feel a little guilty watching tampons pile up in the trashcan once a month? But a quick Google search tells me that Divacups are largely sold at Whole Foods, which means, according to common stereotype, they mostly sell to ‘green’ obsessed yuppies. The British Mooncup, on the other hand, is aimed at a much wider audience.

At Mooncup’s promotional site, you can look through the extensive list of euphemisms that women have shared along with their ranking. To be contrarian, I submitted “cunt,” currently ranked third, although a number of colorful variations on the phrase have also made the list. Comfortingly, “vagina” has clocked in at 9th place, with the more explicit “I call it my vagina because that is what it is” ranked at 127th. “Coochie Snorcher”– presumably a nod to the Vagina Monologues– has even gotten two votes and, inexplicably to me, “Moot” is the overwhelming champion of the moment.

It’s fun to consider how much censoring would go on if this were an American campaign. Jezebel recently published an article on a tampon ad forbidden to use the word “vagina” on three major TV networks, and even the ludicrously tame “down-there” on two. The British makers of Mooncup, however, are free to let their language go public. Sure, a lot of it is probably satirical, and a few of the entries make me worry about the presumably adult women who have filled out the survey. But for the most part, the vagina on loveyourvagina.com is a pretty empowered place. For a long time (for all of art history, some might argue), slang and innuendo surrounding the penis have been dominating the conversation, while the vagina sits back in its secret, interior language. Female genitalia had to be introduced aggressively to the public—Eve Ensler made that more than clear. Her vagina was angry, not her “wee-wee,” her “pussy,” or her “secret garden.” But today, this silly promotional campaign swaddled in feminine embellishments is doing something surprisingly revolutionary—letting women name themselves.

Alice Buttrick is a senior in Yale College. She is an associate editor for Broad Recognition.

April 1, 2010

This past week illuminated yet another instance of the health care system’s unsavory influence on women’s health decisions: on Tuesday, the National Center for Health Statistics released a report detailing the inappropriate increase in Caesarean sections over the past decade, due in no small part to hospital policy. The New York Times has reported that medical corporations’ fear of malpractice suits has encouraged these lengthy – and expensive – procedures, despite evidence that suggests that Caesarean sections often favor the baby’s health at the expense of its mother’s. The increase has affected all racial and ethnic groups, in all ages of mothers, in every state.

The latest report from the National Center for Health Statistics (http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db35.pdf) found that in 2007 (the most recent year data is available), 32% of babies were delivered via Caesarean section. That statistic is a high-water mark for surgical deliveries in the United States, and makes C-sections the most common surgical procedure performed in American hospitals. The report found that the highest rates of Caesarean births occurred in New Jersey and Florida, and the lowest in Utah and Alaska.

We often consider surgical births to be less painful or dangerous than vaginal births, and in many cases C-sections do indeed save mothers and babies alike. But according to the World Health Organization, about half of the C-sections currently performed in the United States are inappropriate. The organization has estimated that surgery is proper in only about 15% of deliveries.

The spike in C-sections has been spurred in no small part by the fear that the uteruses of mothers who have already undergone a Caesarean will rupture under the pressure of a vaginal birth, particularly around the seam of the incision. Fewer than 10% of mothers who have previously had a C-section deliver vaginally, and their surgeries account for 40% of the total of C-sections in the United States. Some hospitals even mandate C-sections for such women. Yet a panel convened by the National Institutes of Health found earlier this month that such barriers were unjustified by medical concerns, and suggested that hospitals publish their rates of vaginal births so that women would know the institution’s policy on mandated C-sections. Women could then weigh the risk of a ruptured uterus against an increased likelihood of complications.

Some blame the unprecedented popularity of surgery on the increasing median age of pregnancy, or on the likelihood of a mother having already undergone a Caesarean. Surprisingly, however, the largest proportional increase in surgical births has been found in mothers under the age of 25. C-sections can subject these younger women to a litany of future problems, including ruptures during future pregnancies and an increased risk of abnormalities in the placenta, which leads to hemorrhaging and potential hysterectomy. Complications occur more frequently during surgery than during vaginal births, and women who undergo surgery during delivery are more likely to remain in the hospital with such complications. In problem cases, C-sections may make it difficult or impossible for women to choose to have large families.

Why, then, do doctors choose to operate twice as often as they should? Cynics will notice that C-sections generally cost twice as much as vaginal births. The World Health Organization has been quick point out that the profitability of C-sections may be the cause of the ridiculously high rate of surgical birth in China, where half of mothers undergo surgery. The same logic may apply here in the States.

The increase might also be attributed to a fear of malpractice lawsuits; the scientific journal Obstetrics and Gynecology published a study last month that found that 29% of its polled members reported performing more C-sections to avoid being sued when a vaginal birth went wrong. 8% of OB/GYNs had chosen to stop delivering babies, and a third of that portion said they had done so because of liability issues.

In other cases, inductions are at fault – mothers induced into labor (i.e. given drugs that prematurely begin the process of labor) are more likely to have C-sections. Obstetricians have reported the advent of “social inductions,” when mothers effectively chose their date of labor for reasons unrelated to their health. This poses a whole new set of issues; women may feel pressure to subject themselves to unnecessary risk in order to deliver on weekends or in the presence of family.

In the debate over the effect that politics and insurers have on women’s access to abortion, we might also cast a critical eye on institutional impacts on women’s health decisions at large. In the case of Caesareans, both a reform in policy and a raise in awareness are in order. Women may not realize the more questionable aspects of this surgical procedure, which is currently performed at twice the recommended rate – and which is growing more popular still.

Annie Atura is a junior in Yale College. She is a staff writer for Broad Recognition.

Photo: Streeter Phillips

By ADRIEL SAPORTA

December 2009

In a conversation with a normally nonjudgmental and mothering friend, I alluded to the date rape of someone we both knew; my friend rolled her eyes and asked, “What does that even mean?” Her reaction is not unique for this campus. Many Yale students approach the topic of date rape with a disconcerting blend of hesitancy and cynicism. Neither Yale, nor its students, can be blamed in full for this ambivalence—few issues on American college campuses are as contentious, or as pertinent, as that of date rape.

This summer at Columbia University, I conducted a sociological study to explore how Yale undergraduates understand date rape, and consequently to discern their feelings towards its legitimacy as a felony. I wanted to examine students’ reactions to the term “date rape” and to see whether or not their perceptions of date rape conformed to current legal definitions.

Connecticut law states that “[a] person is guilty of sexual assault in the first degree when such person,” among other possible offenses, “engages in sexual intercourse with another person and such other person is mentally incapacitated to the extent that such other person is unable to consent to such sexual intercourse” (General Statutes of Connecticut, Title 53a, Chapter 952)[1]. The law specifies that “‘mentally incapacitated’ means that a person is rendered temporarily incapable of appraising or controlling such person’s conduct owing to the influence of a drug or intoxicating substance administered to such person without such person’s consent, or owing to any other act committed upon such person without such person’s consent.”[2]

…an intoxicated victim of sexual assault is considered more responsible for putting him or herself in such a state and situation, whereas an intoxicated aggressor is considered less culpable…

Acquaintance rape is the most common type of rape committed in the United States.[3] About a quarter of American women will be the victim of rape at some point in their lives; female college students are in “the highest risk category for date rape.”[4] American college campuses, which witness a high level of binge drinking, face the unsettling statistic that alcohol consumption is twice as likely as force to lead to lack of consent in a sexual encounter.[5]

Much of the controversy about date rape centers on its definition. How do we define “consent”? As we see above, according to Connecticut state law a person is not in a position to consent to sexual intercourse if he or she has been served drugs or alcohol “without such person’s consent.” Does this qualification suggest that if a woman drinks to the point of blacking out—after having bought drinks for herself—and someone has sex with her unconscious body, it is not considered date rape? On the other end of the spectrum: if a man or woman cannot legally give consent while even slightly intoxicated, is all drunken sex deemed date rape?

Many feel that the use of verbal as well as physical force should be regarded as rape. As one cynical sociologist points out, there are problems with this provision: “If verbal coercion constitutes rape, then the word ‘rape’ expands to include any kind of sex a woman experiences as negative.”[6] Must consent always be verbal? After all, different parties in a sexual encounter can interpret non-verbal signs differently. For instance, “a smile in response to being asked ‘do you have a condom?’ could indicate consent giving in an established relationship, but might indicate nervous apprehension on a first date.”[7] Can consent only be established after taking consideration of the context?

I hoped, through this sociological study, to find out where Yalies stood on the matter. I administered a web-based survey with the aid of Facebook. Yalies who were already in my network of “friends” were invited to participate: 72 responded, all between the ages of 18 and 23.[8]

In the survey, respondents were presented with the following hypothetical setting:

“Scenario A. Two college students, a boy and a girl, leave a party at which neither has been drinking. The two return to the boy’s apartment in order to “hang out.” After spending some time talking, they begin heavy petting. All clothing is removed except undergarments. The boy shows interest in sexual intercourse. The girl says “no,” and the boy responds by trying to persuade her verbally. Although the girl continues to show interest in the boy sexually, she explicitly says that she is uninterested in having vaginal intercourse. He continues to initiate vaginal intercourse. The girl remains passive and does not react, positively or negatively. Would you consider this date rape?”

69.4% of respondents considered Scenario A date rape, even without either party’s being intoxicated. Only 9.7% responded that it was not date rape, and 20.8% responded “depends” or “unsure.”

Respondents were then asked if they would consider Scenario A date rape if the boy forces the girl physically to have sexual intercourse, at which point she gives up protesting. As soon as physical force is put forward, 93.1% call the scenario date rape. I was surprised to see that even 2 respondents said it wasn’t date rape, and that 3 responded “depends” or “unsure.” Interestingly, the two who replied “no” and two of the three who replied “depends” or “unsure” were women. It is possible that men are careful not to approve of physical force in any sexual scenario, wary of the associations with violent, or stranger, rape. Perhaps women would rather not admit to being physically defensive in such a scenario.

Must consent always be verbal? After all, different parties in a sexual encounter can interpret non-verbal signs differently.

When asked if they would consider Scenario A to be date rape if the girl has had 3–4 drinks at the party, 84.7% of the respondents replied “yes”—more than when she is sober (as the case should be, given the legal definition of date rape). Reassuringly, when asked if they would consider Scenario A to be date rape if the girl drinks to the point of blacking out, 95.8% responded “yes”. Only one respondent (female) replied “no.” Research has shown that while men were more likely to blame women, and specifically their intoxication, for nonconsensual sexual acts, women were more likely to blame mutual miscommunication, men’s misinterpretation of signals, and general societal and male attitudes towards date rape.[9] My survey respondents’ answers did not reflect this statistic.

Respondents were next asked to “consider the same circumstances as those of Scenario A, but both students have had 3–4 drinks at the party (from now on referred to as “Scenario B”). Would you consider this date rape?”

Now that both the boy and the girl in the scenario are equally intoxicated, the number of respondents who replied “yes” drops significantly (77.8%). This percentage is lower than when only the girl has had 3–4 drinks, suggesting that respondents believe that the boy’s drunkenness excuses his behavior. Prior studies have shown that an intoxicated victim of sexual assault is considered more responsible for putting him or herself in such a state and situation, whereas an intoxicated aggressor is considered less culpable, his or her behavior perceived as a result of the alcohol’s effects.[10] It is interesting to note that this tendency to view alcohol as lessening an assailant’s responsibility is not apparent when research respondents considered other sexual crimes (such as stranger rape or unwanted touching).[11]

Respondents were asked to consider a version of Scenario B wherein the girl never suggests that she is uninterested in sexual intercourse, but has had several drinks. The number of respondents who decided that this scenario is date rape drops to 18.1%. This is the only time that the percentage of respondents who believed the scenario to be date rape is less than the percentage of those who believed it not to be (45.8%). However, 36.1% responded “unsure” or “depends”—significantly higher than the percentage of respondents who answered thus in any previous scenario. As one study has demonstrated—although most of us already know this too well—American college students have appropriated “an all too common assumption … that if nothing is said [before sexual intercourse] then consent must be implicit.”[12] Considering this last scenario date rape would be the equivalent, for many respondents, of concluding that all drunken sex is date rape, which goes against their instincts and practical sexual experiences.

Many of my respondents felt that being in a relationship justified what they would otherwise consider date rape. When told that the girl and boy are in a long-term relationship, the number of respondents who believed Scenario B to be date rape dropped to 48.6% (from 77.8% when the two were not in a relationship). While some admitted to confusion (answering “unsure” or “depends”), it is interesting that anyone would change their answer from the previous scenario.

When asked whether they approved of the term “date rape,” a majority answered that they did not (54.2%) and many replied “unsure.” This general ambivalence towards the term forces us to question its continued use. Should a new phrase be coined to reflect a wider distance between stranger rape and acquaintance rape? The connotations attached to “date rape” could possibly prevent victims from reporting sexual assault for fear of peers’ judgmental and trivializing reactions.

25.4% of my respondents said that they had endured a non-consensual sexual experience, a percentage that includes nearly half (48.5%) of my female respondents (a higher percentage of women than literature on the subject would suggest). This statistic is unsurprising; those who have had personal experiences with date rape are more likely to be interested in taking a survey on the topic.

…American college students have appropriated “an all too common assumption … that if nothing is said [before sexual intercourse] then consent must be implicit.”

Uneasiness about the term “date rape” appeared in the personal narratives shared by my respondents. A number mentioned an unwillingness to classify an experience as “date rape.” Many discussed their own responsibility in the situation. One woman wrote, “I would never call it date rape, but I did feel that a boy intentionally got me very drunk, and we ended up having sex … it is not the type of choice I would normally make, and I don’t even remember making a choice. But, I don’t remember saying no either and he definitely did not force himself [on me].” Another woman wrote, “i was really drunk but i dont think it was rape because i didn’t explicitly say no [sic]”. One of the few male respondents who identified himself as the victim of sexual assault specified, “i was blackout and she was aggressive. I don’t remember saying yes, but it happened.”

From the data, it appeared that most Yale students were relatively informed as to the legal definitions of date rape. It is possible that most respondents understood which answers were “expected” of them (Yalies are usually pretty good at coming up with the “right” answer). I did find, however, that students’ understanding of that definition did not translate to their interpretation of the scenarios. When given concrete examples, their personal instincts prevailed over their intellectual grasp of the concept.

Only through a comprehensive understanding of young adults’ mentality towards date rape and sexual consent can we construct adequate preventative measures. Students’ inability to define sexual coercion or consent will only encourage sexual assault on college campuses.[13] Understanding why date rape carries inappropriately high social acceptance reveals deeper forms of structural sexism.

Whether or not one believes acquaintance rape to be more or less “serious” an affair than stranger rape, date rape has nevertheless become a pervasive problem. Rape, as defined by our judicial system, is most often committed by an acquaintance of the victim. The offense is indeed, as one of my respondents defined it, “the least prosecuted crime in America.”

Adriel Saporta is a junior in Yale College. She is the managing editor of Broad Recognition.

[2] http://www.cga.ct.gov/2009/pub/chap952.htm

[3] Johnson et al.

[4] Loiselle et al., 261

[5] Loiselle et al., 261

[6] Sawyer et al. 1998

[7] Humphreys et al., 307

[8] A full description of the study participants illuminates some of the study’s shortcomings. Approximately equal numbers of men and women completed the survey: 39 and 33, respectively. An overwhelming majority of my respondents were heterosexual; there were only six male homosexual and five bisexual (but no lesbian) respondents. A majority lost their virginity between the ages of 18 and 21 (43.1%) and had been with 7 to 10 sexual partners (18.1%). Prior studies have shown that the more sexual experience an individual has had, the less important he or she believes receiving verbal consent to be[8]. Contrary to popular expectations, the majority of female respondents had had 7+ partners (30.3%), while the majority of male respondents could boast only 3 partners. Only 18.1% of respondents were fraternity or sorority members, and 51.4% consumed alcoholic beverages 1–2 days per week. None of the survey questions were required: participants were allowed to skip any and all questions. Needless to say, these figures reveal more than a few limitations in this study. My sample size was relatively small: 72 students cannot possibly speak on behalf of all Yale students. This was a non-randomized sample of convenience: those who took the survey represented those who are on Facebook, relatively comfortable talking about their sexuality, and interested enough (and likely already well-versed) in the subject of date rape. Not only was my sample overly representative of heterosexual respondents, but my survey also did not inquire as to respondents’ understanding of homosexual scenarios of date rape. In addition, it is possible that respondents were concerned that their identity would be discovered, which would have affected their responses.

[9] Gillen et al.

[10] Castello et al.

[11] Wild et al.

[12] Sawyer et al. 1998

[13] (Sawyer et al. 1998)

December 2009

Pro-choice leaders across campus are protesting the Stupak amendment included in the health care bill which recently passed through the House. The amendment threatens to end abortion access for low-income women included in the proposed public option. Members of Yale Coalition for Reproductive Justice have begun drafting a statement of protest to be co-signed by the pro-choice community.

Several groups are hosting lobby days at the Capitol. The National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health is putting together a bus to DC on December 2 to rally and meet with representatives and has invited any and all interested activists to join them. To sign up for this trip, please contact Liza@latinainstitute.org. Planned Parenthood of Southern New England will also be headed to DC for a National Lobby Day on December 2nd in Washington, DC.  One bus–will be leaving New Haven early December 2nd and returning late that night.  For more information or to reserve your spot contact Gretchen Raffa at organizing@ppsne.org.

December 1^st is World AIDS Day. The Connecticut AIDS Resource Coalition is celebrating a recent legislative victory: President Obama has approved the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Treatment Extension Act of 2009, which will continue to provide crucial funding for low-income sufferers of AIDS across the country. On Yale’s campus, World AIDS Day will be commemorated at several different events: the Global Development Alliance, Amnesty International, and Davenport College will host a Master’s Tea with Aziza Ahmen on the plight of women living with HIV/AIDS internationally; Catherine Nichols will visit campus to discuss the intersection of family planning and HIV clinics; and the Yale University Center for Interdisciplinary Research on AIDS will host a lecture on HIV awareness at Yale as well as a memorial service at United Church on the Green. Event details are available at gdayale.wordpress.com/calendar and cira.med.yale.edu.

The Women Faculty Forum released yet another report on sexual misconduct at Yale. The report comes as part of an increasing push from faculty and student groups to reform university policy and education surrounding this issue. The WFF report recommended, among other things, increased transparency, consolidated locations for sexual assault resources, and anonymous and third-party reporting mechanisms. The full 75-page report can be found at www.yale.edu/wff/documents/WFFReportonSexualMisconductatYale.pdf.

In an effort to continue discussions about sexual culture on campus, the Women’s Center will host a talk at Toad’s Place, of all places. The unusual location was proposed at the Center’s forum on Yale’s sexual culture held earlier this semester in response to the ‘Pre-Season Scouting Report.’ The Center has stated the belief that the sexual hub of Toad’s should be handled on-site. In an effort to present a diversity of perspectives, members of the Greek and athletic communities, groups often portrayed in opposition to the Center, have been invited to co-plan and run the event. The Women’s Center Board is also soliciting “Toad’s Testimonials” to facilitate exploration of the subject. Following the event, the Women’s Center will sponsor the Wednesday night dance-party. For more information on this event, please contact dounia.bredes@yale.edu.

Alice Buttrick is a senior in Yale College. She is the Sex & Health Editor for Broad Recognition.

by CLAIRE GORDON

October 2009

Photo: Streeter Philips

Yale landmarks pan across the screen to the romping beat of Kings of Leon: Phelps Gate, Harkness Tower, Old Campus… and the Women’s Table – a montage of its cascading font. Fade out.

At this fall’s Freshman Orientation, the film Relationships: Untitled replaced the traditional “Sex Signals” program. After 2008’s Zeta Psi incident, when a group of fraternity pledges posed outside Yale’s Women’s Center with the sign “We Love Yale Sluts,” the Women’s Center submitted a report to the administration critiquing the sexual culture on campus. One chapter urged reform of sexual harassment/assault prevention training.

A committee was formed. Another report was written. The cogs of the Yale Machine creaked forward. A year and a half later, a new sexual harassment and assault prevention program filled two hours of the freshmen’s first few dizzying days.

The 40-minute student-made film presented scenes based on three real cases of sexual assault that have been brought before Yale’s Executive Committee. Complete with sweeping shots of Toad’s and a freshman screw dance sequence, the film situated sexual assault in a Yale-specific context. This specificity was meant to resonate more with its freshman audience than the generic scenarios enacted by the “Sex Signals” skits of yore.

Female alcohol abuse is presented as a key factor in sexual vulnerability; the cast of stumbling “drunk girls” seem almost complicit in their comical sloppiness, while male drinking is hardly featured.

Relationships: Untitled intended to depict the uncertainty and spotty memories of college hook-up culture. Female alcohol abuse is presented as a key factor in sexual vulnerability; the cast of stumbling “drunk girls” seem, in their comic sloppiness, complicit in what happens, while male drinking is hardly featured. However, the film did present the ways in which alcohol complicates consent, spotlighting the film’s key theme: ambiguity.

Freshman Counselors were responsible for addressing the film’s unresolved questions in small post-screening discussion groups. The intimacy and reciprocity of these forums is an upgrade from the eye-rolling and back-row heckles inevitable in the SSS lecture hall that hosted “Sex Signals” for several years. But it also placed a heavy onus on FroCos to unravel the film’s ambiguities appropriately, and to provide concrete instructions about how to respond to sexual assault – information excluded from the film, lest it jeopardize the ethical limbo carefully crafted by the script.

But the genre of infotainment rarely paints complex issues in the suitable shades of gray. One of the scenarios fell cheaply into the violent-attack-by-stranger stereotype; the guy leering from his first on-screen appearance, squinting his eyes at his soon-to-be victim and eventually pinning the girl amid quick-cuts and resistant screams. Unfortunately, evil music will not begin to play in TOAD’s when your rapist lurks around the corner.

Audiences do not see the female victim’s wrenching walk to Yale Health Services the morning after. They do not see a medical examination, an STI screening, or the $28 shelled out for Plan B.

Unfortunately, evil music will not begin to play in TOAD’s when your rapist lurks around the corner.

“Where were the rape kits? Why weren’t there any rape kits? GUYS, RAPE KITS!” said Alice Buttrick, Public Relations Coordinator of the Women’s Center, after viewing the film.

The victim does not meet with her Dean, the Sexual Harassment Grievance Board, or the Executive Committee—let alone the police— about the violent crime committed against her. She doesn’t even seem angry; instead, she simply dashes away from her rapist after an uncomfortable exchange of glances in Bass Café.

This may be an accurate depiction of the culture of silence that tragically surrounds sexual assault. Especially in college, when your rapist is a friend of a friend or an upstairs neighbor, recourse can be socially devastating and accusations met with skeptical ears.

But the tepid resolution of this scenario, and all the film’s storylines, both represents and dangerously reproduces this silencing culture, normalizing nonchalance to sexual victimhood. The lesson to freshman females is not, “Rape happens; here’s how to deal,” but rather, “Rape happens, so deal with it.”

The girl in one storyline does receive counseling from the SHARE Center’s Dr. Carole Goldberg, who helps her cope with a blackout sexual encounter. After the Freshman Screw, this girl’s sweet-seeming date walks her home and tends to her as she lapses in and out of consciousness. Cut to the next morning, when the boy sneaks out from under the covers, dresses, and exits— leaving his hung-over screwed date to wake up alone, without clothes or any memory of the night.

Audiences do not see the female victim’s wrenching walk to Yale Health Services the morning after. They do not see a medical examination, an STI screening, or the $28 shelled out for Plan B.

After a rather unambiguous case of date rape (to this viewer), the girl explains to Dr. Goldberg that she’s eating okay, having trouble sleeping, unsure of what happened, and uncomfortable placing blame. The solution: more counseling. “You don’t have to feel anything you’re not ready to feel,” Dr. Goldberg consoles. The only feelings she seems ready to feel are confusion and sadness, disempowering emotions not easily channeled into concrete action.

The third scenario, unlike the others, involves a committed couple. The mechanics of the case are indeed ambiguous. Girl and Boy are in bed. Girl says she does not want to have sex, but initiates making out. Boy penetrates. Girl says “Stop” softly. Boy continues; Girl says “Stop” emphatically. Boy stops.

But the representation of the boyfriend throughout the film as a paragon of gentility, and the girlfriend as unstable, make her claims of rape (the only direct claims of rape in the film) seem bitchy and hysterical. The message: They were dating, after all. And this guy was totally awesome.

The film collages three isolated incidences, unified only by the shared theme of sexual discomfort. The original Women’s Center report, however, highlighted the inadequacy of “Sex Signals” as part of a more holistic examination of Yale’s sexual culture. It is a culture, according to the report, which permits, even celebrates, the objectification, harassment, and assault of its female students, specifically female freshman.

While not inclusive of most Yale men, it is a culture often incubated in all-male settings, like fraternities and athletic teams. It is a culture in which a fraternity can laughably circulate an email ranking the fuckability of girls in their first week of college. It is a culture in which respecting women and having sex with them are mutually exclusive things.

The lesson to freshman females is not, “Rape happens; here’s how to deal,” but rather, “Rape happens, so deal with it.”

Feminism teaches us to understand sexual assault as a reinforcement of inequality. Perhaps it is unrealistic to expect a Yale orientation program to grapple with the MacKinnonist concept of rape-as-terrorism or to mention rape’s shocking statistical prevalence on campus. However, an injection of Feminism 101 into the screenplay could have expanded the three “ambiguous” examples into an unambiguous comment on the lived reality of gender and sexuality at college today.

The lingering shots of the Women’s Table that opened the film promised a more empowering message than just a semi-accurate dramatization of college sexual mistakes. The gap between Relationships: Untitled and the reform imagined in the pages of the Women’s Center report parallels another incongruity that has unfolded in the last month.

The SHAPE report, which landed in every undergraduate inbox at the start of this year, emphasized Yale’s intolerance of harassment—a sentiment echoed by a note from Dean Miller. This administrative response to Zeta Psi’s “Pre-season Scouting Report” is nothing but a verbal wrist-slap. It seems the only thing more ambiguous than the sex lives of drunk Yale students is the university’s genuine concern about it.

–

UPDATE: Relationships: Untitled is being re-screened on Nov. 3rd at 7 p.m. in Rosenfeld Hall. The screening is co-sponsored by the Yale College Dean’s Office and S.H.A.R.E.

–

Claire Gordon is a senior in Yale College.

October 2009

Around this time of year, BlueBalls gets a little nostalgic. And nostalgia, as always, shall be visited upon the freshmen. Most relationship advice to frosh takes the form of knowing grins about long-distance high school relationships. (The litany: a mid-October drunken Yale fumble, a tearful recrimination over Thanksgiving break, accompanied by break-up and make-up sex, followed by the inevitable hurtful breakup over Christmas. Don’t worry, kids, your relationship will be different.)

BlueBalls’ thoughts, though, are not with those 2013 kids who have promised to call their girlfriends every night, but with their opposites. The ones who never had a lover in high school because they were too geeky, too queer, had too conservative a family or were simply working too bloody hard. Or the ones who dated, but never found someone who was as smart, as ambitious, as funny or as experienced as they would like. The ones, in short, who hope that Yale will solve all their romantic problems.

Many of these will be hoping that soon after orientation their eyes will lock across a desk in Sterling Memorial with some sweet young thing in argyle – or their hips will lock at Toad’s with an older, experienced, mostly-naked temptation – and that from there the relationship will be solid, the sex will be wonderful, and the pillow talk will be erudite. This is a bit like the mythical kid down the hall who has always wanted to be a pediatrician in Eritrea, and so takes Chem and Bio and Arabic and Italian and Development Economics and Health Policy and graduates straight into med school and a fulfilling career with Doctors Without Borders. But for most people, Yale isn’t like that.

Instead, it’s a bit more like taking, loving, and becoming disillusioned with Directed Studies, turning sophomore year to Physics, realizing that you never could stand equations, then taking up medieval French poetry and realizing that you’re not very good at it but love it enough to give up your dreams of Phi Beta Kappa. When explaining your Yale career to grad school, you’ll tell a story of a committed humanist with diverse interests who was careful to ground her main interest in a broader knowledge of the Western Canon. But while you’re in what feels like a mess, figuring out what you like and what you’re good at and what’s worth your time and what isn’t, you’ll feel like you have no idea what you’re doing. Welcome to sex and relationships at Yale.

At least in the academic realm, most Yalies believe that their willpower and their brains will let them accomplish what they want, if they can figure out what that is. Admission to Yale, however, requires no high score in empathy or sexual ability; besides, sex and relationships require that risky, unpredictable element of other people.

But BlueBalls, from behind a haze of smoke and cynicism and regret, advises you young ‘uns to have fun. Embrace the fact that you will make mistakes and get hurt and look back on your conduct and not recognise yourself: drink too much before that first date because it is not only your first dinner with that new guy but also your First Date Ever, dress up in something stupid for Freshman Screw, do something that would shock your friends from school and cause your mother to faint. Just carry condoms, take advantage of Yale’s free, confidential STI testing, and be ready to hold your friends when they get their hearts broken. And those of you in high-school relationships, bear this all in mind: you’ll need it after Christmas.

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BlueBalls would like your questions. Like her heroes, she plans on giving opinionated, vulgar, and occasionally helpful advice every so often. If you have questions (or anecdotes/opinions/criticisms), send ‘em on over to broadblueballs@gmail.com. All identifying everythings will be erased.

October 2009

Adrienne Wallace, a junior fellow in the Sociology Department, is forming an all-University Reproductive Justice Coalition with the aim of uniting pro-choice minds across the campus towards actionable issues on Yale’s campus. Her agenda currently includes consent education, issues of access and the publicizing of resources, and initiating a much-needed escorting program at the Planned Parenthood of Connecticut on Edwards and Whitney.  Ms. Wallace is also exploring the possibility for a Doula project (inspired by the New York group, abortiondoula.org) on our campus. The Doula project trains people to follow women through their pregnancies, whether to birth or to early termination, ensuring that all women understand their options and have support every step of the way. The Coalition’s goals will evolve to include input from all levels of University life. We applaud this collaborative effort to improve the health and reproductive options of women on and around Yale’s campus. If you have suggestions for the goals of the Reproductive Justice Coalition or would like to find out how to get involved, please email Ms. Wallace at adrienne.wallace@yale.edu.

Planned Parenthood of Connecticut and Planned Parenthood of Rhode Island are combining to become Planned Parenthood of New England in the upcoming months.

A disturbing new anti-choice campaign has sprung up on campus. Images of an embryo labeled “Baby Lucy” appear each week in progressive stages of development, in an effort to portray a fetus as a baby and thereby discourage abortions. It appears to be based on a similar campaign run a few years ago at Harvard. In that effort, new posters every week showed the progression of a fertilized egg through a full pregnancy. The embryo was named and given a future as a feminist race-car driver. The success of that campaign has driven anti-choice movements to revolutionize their material strategies. “Baby Lucy” is sponsored by Choose Life at Yale, a group with predominantly male membership.

Alice Buttrick is a senior in Yale College. She is the Sex & Health Editor for Broad Recognition.