On January 8th of 2012 a 14 year old
girl asked a friend to come over for a
slumber party
the two had been friends since early
childhood even though they were
separated by a grade in school and they
started out the evening drinking and
watching a scary movie and she had been
texting an older boy named Matt who was
the senior quarterback on the football
team like any other freshman she felt a
lot of pressure to fit in with these
older boys and so when he asked her if
the girls would come over and hang out
she was ecstatic he came and picked them
up asking them to get out of the car
before they reached the front door and
climbed through a basement window now
when the girls got inside they
discovered four other senior boys all of
who encouraged them to drink vodka out
of a cup specifically labeled for them
she was an experienced with alcohol but
she trusted these older boys that she
had known from school and so as they
continued to hand her drinks the world
eventually went black less than an hour
later the boys had taken the girls home
her friend made it inside but she was
unresponsive
and so five senior boys left a
fourteen-year-old girl lying on the
ground in below freezing temperatures
where her hair froze to the ground in
the morning she crawled up to the front
door where her mother found her bruised
and sick and she drew a bath to warm her
up but that was when she noticed that
her daughter was red and inflamed
underneath her clothes and so she rushed
her to the hospital where her 14 year
old child would undergo a rape kit and
when the results came back their worst
fears had been confirmed years later
that young girl would find out that her
13 year old friend had been raped in the
room right next door but the horror
wasn’t over for this young woman
she faced an entire community of people
who turned her worst nightmare into a
hashtag claiming that she was asking for
it the county dropped the charges saying
that there was no evidence of a sex
crime here even though there was a video
of her rape circulating the halls of her
school and that was until the hacking
group Anonymous got the state involved
but even after a long and treacherous
trial her rapist was only sentenced to
four months in prison to be served only
on weekends and that was then reduced to
two years probation in which he had to
pay an 1800 dollar fine and say that he
was sorry for what he had done he is not
a registered sex offender and he never
spent a day behind bars in the United
States only six percent of all reported
rapes land and prison sentence when
combined with the relatively low amount
of reporting this means that 99% of
rapists get away with their crimes now
there are two reasons that might
contribute to this first rape is an
incredibly personal crime and thus is
very difficult to prove eight out of
every ten rapes occur between people who
knew each other before that event
scholars call this acquaintance rape and
so contrary to what most people believe
most rapes don’t happen in a dark alley
or in a bad part of town
no most rapes happen between friends
between family members co-workers
boyfriends or girlfriends most rapes
happen behind closed doors which makes
them incredibly difficult to prove in a
court of law
the second factor that might contribute
to these low conviction rates is the
social narrative surrounding rape in the
United States scholars call this the
theory of secondary victimization which
contends that for many victims being
exposed to victim blaming attitudes will
be akin to a second rape victims are in
a space of extreme vulnerability
immediately following an attack not only
has their body been violated
but their autonomy their humanity their
sense of identity have to rape is one of
the only crimes in which a victim’s body
is used as a weapon against them and
this alone is enough to inflict severe
psychological harm that’s why for many
victims secondary victimization will
then lead to self blame sexual
revitalisation promiscuity or low
self-esteem the word rape may seem
unapproachable after an attack and they
might cover up or hide the crimes
against them or even defend their
rapists when challenged by family
members or friends research by Mary
costs shows that victims of acquaintance
rape are far less likely than victims of
stranger rape to define the event as
such and so the process of grasping an
attack so brutal and so personal is
difficult enough that when victim
blaming attitudes are added to this mix
it only gets that much harder one in
four college women in the United States
will be raped during their time on
campus one in four studies show that
college students endorse common rape
myths at unprecedented rates and so when
challenged with doubt or uncertainty
about a sexual assault these make it
much easier to blame the victim and
excused the actions of the perpetrator
they perpetuate myths that infiltrate
the minds of our young people and then
lead to higher levels of sexual assault
in the future for example the belief
that false rape accusations are a common
problem is particularly harmful to
victims especially when considering that
the National sexual violence Resource
Center reports that only two to eight
percent of all reported rapes are
actually found to be false whereas 68%
of all rapes will never be reported and
only 6% of those that are will end in a
prison sentence so the prevalence of
rape outweighs the prevalence of false
accusations astronomically and yet
millions of people still question
victims instead of even considering the
possibility that these accusations
are true on November 5th of 2012 an 18
year old man competed in the collegiate
debate tournament at the beginning of
the year his coach had assigned the team
captain Hannah to be his partner she
flirted from the very beginning
expressing clear sexual interest in him
but he politely told her that he wasn’t
interested and eventually as her
flirting progressed he asked the coach
to reassign the partnerships only to be
told no now at this particular
tournament they had prepared a
presentation on sexual assault because
they were aware that many members of the
debate community will often go to
parties after a day of competition and
his team was very close and so the men
and women would often spend time in one
hotel room after a long day of competing
but he wasn’t partaking in any of these
social activities this night he was
alone in a hotel room sleeping off a
splitting migraine that had left him
incapacitated he suffered from the
medical condition that often left him
unable to move because of severe
migraines his roommates had left the
door cracked and so after about an hour
of sleep he felt someone crawl into the
bed next to him he was hazy and confused
as she rubbed up against him he quietly
begged her to leave but she kept saying
over and over that sex cures headaches
and then it would be our little secret
she raped him he begged her to stop he
remembers thinking that he should try to
physically stop her but he was afraid
that he’d get in trouble for hurting a
woman and eventually she got
disinterested and left the room the next
morning he awoke to jokes and rumours
spread throughout the team like wildfire
she had bragged to another member of the
team that she had convinced him to hook
up he never told the truth about what
happened that night she is not a
registered sex offender and she never
spent a day in prison
for male victims the social paradigm
surrounding rape brings unique
challenges the first and most common
myth that they must face is that males
can’t be the victims of rape but this is
not true millions of boys and men have
been the victims of rape the National
sexual violence Resource Center reports
that one in 71 American men will be
raped during their lifetime and these
numbers jump to alarming Heights when
considering a college education as one
in 16 men on campus will be sexually
victimized sexual orientation can also
greatly increase this risk as bisexual
and gay men are at a 50 percent higher
risk than heterosexual men to be the
victims of sexual violence rather than
rape so while the statistics on male
rape are so very clear male victims
often experience even more skepticism
and indifference than female victims but
victims are not the only actors in male
rape scenarios that people find
unbelievable the notion that rapists are
generally sexually frustrated men is
particularly harmful because it makes
implications about the nature of the
crime so despite significant evidence
that states that rape is a crime about
power and control many people still
choose to believe that it’s motivated by
sexual impulse it also makes
implications that women can’t rape men
or that women never perpetuate sexual
violence but this is not true either
we have undereducated our young men
about what to do in situations of sexual
assault and they thus cannot often
validate their experiences after one
likewise social expectations of men
often change their connection to this
crime because men are often expected to
conform to hyper masculine stereotypes
and dominate women and men are also
expected never to raise a hand to a
woman leaving them in an awkward
position of defenselessness when
on April 4th of 2015 an 18 year old girl
met up with a boy that she had been
dating now the two had a year’s long
history of relationships and breakups
but she always thought that in the end
they were supposed to get married and
settle down together she left her car at
his workplace and rode with him back to
his home now this was like any other
night but she felt uneasy about it still
she couldn’t place why she might feel
this way but something just wasn’t right
she had been contemplating whether to
end this relationship for good she
wasn’t sure if it’s what she wanted
anymore
so after a couple of hours when she
still couldn’t shake this bad feeling
she told him very plainly that she did
not want to see him anymore he began
kissing her ignoring her request he was
persistent she became afraid and he
seemed confused as to why but when she
realized that this encounter was not
going to stop she became paralyzed with
fear she was careful not to move she
counted her breaths but when the
physical pain became unbearable she
snapped into action beginning to kick
her legs and flail her arms until he
jumped backwards letting her loose and
she ran into the bathroom and locked the
door after a long shower she returned
back to that very room and they didn’t
talk about what had happened but she
didn’t want to cause a scene or make him
angry by asking him to take her home and
so she laid beside him for the rest of
the night pretending to sleep the next
morning he acted as if everything was
fine between them and he held her hand
in the car but that night she told him
she needed some space and time to
process what had happened and she asked
him not to contact her anymore a few
days later she awoke to a text message
from him asking if he could get
something off his chest his message said
do you think that I read
you she would never forget that this
young woman never reported her crime she
never told his parents or his friends
they had hundreds of people in common in
their lives were inextricably
intertwined and she feared ruining his
pristine reputation she feared that
because of it no one would believe her
he is not a registered sex offender and
he never suffered any consequences for
his crime that girl was me telling a
crowd of strangers about my most
vulnerable and terrifying experience is
incredibly difficult i grappled with
whether to tell it at all I thought
about what he would say if he heard it
and I worried about what would happen
now that this heavy secret between us is
April 4th of 2015 is not the end of my
story my story is one of turning
victimhood into survival few words can
describe the feelings of shame and
betrayal that I felt that night and few
words can describe the shock of
discovering that a man I loved valued
his power over me so much more than my
own humanity but April 4th of 2015 is
not the end of my story I will not feel
shame and I will not allow him to
continue to perpetuate violence in my
life by keeping me silent and still
I tell you this story not because I want
your sympathy or your praise I tell you
because it’s likely that one in four of
the women and one in sixteen of the men
that I encounter on an everyday basis
are the victims of rape I tell you
because it’s likely that every one of
you sees the manifestations of this
culture every day in your lives the
research shows that it is possible to
construct a
in which rape is so discouraged that
even potential rapists would never act
out in sexual violence a common
modern-day example of this is the Minang
cabal Society of Indonesia here women
are inherently valued not for their
sexual purpose but for their
contribution to society and male sexual
prowess and violence are not deemed
manly because their concept of
masculinity is not tied to sex at all
we live in what scholars would call a
rape prone society in which the culture
of violence against women is so embedded
in us that we forget it’s even there we
have misinformed our young men about the
definition of consent and we have
defined sexuality in terms of power and
obligation but we must unlearn these
behaviors together because the reality
is that you sit in class every single
day with rape victims and you probably
sit in class with rapists – rapists are
not born rapists they are constructed by
socio-cultural attitudes that shape
their identity and motivate their
violence talking about sexual assault is
incredibly uncomfortable but that’s
precisely why we must do just that so if
you are a victim of sexual assault tell
your story proudly and if you’re not use
your voice to help those who are because
I firmly believe that our vulnerability
is our voice but our stories fuel our
strength that our pain does not define
us and that our common experiences will
bind strangers together with an
unbreakable force and with our stories
not in spite of them we will be stronger
than ever before together we can cure
our society of the sickness that plagues
us and we will be free thank you
[Applause] [Music]
girl asked a friend to come over for a
slumber party
the two had been friends since early
childhood even though they were
separated by a grade in school and they
started out the evening drinking and
watching a scary movie and she had been
texting an older boy named Matt who was
the senior quarterback on the football
team like any other freshman she felt a
lot of pressure to fit in with these
older boys and so when he asked her if
the girls would come over and hang out
she was ecstatic he came and picked them
up asking them to get out of the car
before they reached the front door and
climbed through a basement window now
when the girls got inside they
discovered four other senior boys all of
who encouraged them to drink vodka out
of a cup specifically labeled for them
she was an experienced with alcohol but
she trusted these older boys that she
had known from school and so as they
continued to hand her drinks the world
eventually went black less than an hour
later the boys had taken the girls home
her friend made it inside but she was
unresponsive
and so five senior boys left a
fourteen-year-old girl lying on the
ground in below freezing temperatures
where her hair froze to the ground in
the morning she crawled up to the front
door where her mother found her bruised
and sick and she drew a bath to warm her
up but that was when she noticed that
her daughter was red and inflamed
underneath her clothes and so she rushed
her to the hospital where her 14 year
old child would undergo a rape kit and
when the results came back their worst
fears had been confirmed years later
that young girl would find out that her
13 year old friend had been raped in the
room right next door but the horror
wasn’t over for this young woman
she faced an entire community of people
who turned her worst nightmare into a
hashtag claiming that she was asking for
it the county dropped the charges saying
that there was no evidence of a sex
crime here even though there was a video
of her rape circulating the halls of her
school and that was until the hacking
group Anonymous got the state involved
but even after a long and treacherous
trial her rapist was only sentenced to
four months in prison to be served only
on weekends and that was then reduced to
two years probation in which he had to
pay an 1800 dollar fine and say that he
was sorry for what he had done he is not
a registered sex offender and he never
spent a day behind bars in the United
States only six percent of all reported
rapes land and prison sentence when
combined with the relatively low amount
of reporting this means that 99% of
rapists get away with their crimes now
there are two reasons that might
contribute to this first rape is an
incredibly personal crime and thus is
very difficult to prove eight out of
every ten rapes occur between people who
knew each other before that event
scholars call this acquaintance rape and
so contrary to what most people believe
most rapes don’t happen in a dark alley
or in a bad part of town
no most rapes happen between friends
between family members co-workers
boyfriends or girlfriends most rapes
happen behind closed doors which makes
them incredibly difficult to prove in a
court of law
the second factor that might contribute
to these low conviction rates is the
social narrative surrounding rape in the
United States scholars call this the
theory of secondary victimization which
contends that for many victims being
exposed to victim blaming attitudes will
be akin to a second rape victims are in
a space of extreme vulnerability
immediately following an attack not only
has their body been violated
but their autonomy their humanity their
sense of identity have to rape is one of
the only crimes in which a victim’s body
is used as a weapon against them and
this alone is enough to inflict severe
psychological harm that’s why for many
victims secondary victimization will
then lead to self blame sexual
revitalisation promiscuity or low
self-esteem the word rape may seem
unapproachable after an attack and they
might cover up or hide the crimes
against them or even defend their
rapists when challenged by family
members or friends research by Mary
costs shows that victims of acquaintance
rape are far less likely than victims of
stranger rape to define the event as
such and so the process of grasping an
attack so brutal and so personal is
difficult enough that when victim
blaming attitudes are added to this mix
it only gets that much harder one in
four college women in the United States
will be raped during their time on
campus one in four studies show that
college students endorse common rape
myths at unprecedented rates and so when
challenged with doubt or uncertainty
about a sexual assault these make it
much easier to blame the victim and
excused the actions of the perpetrator
they perpetuate myths that infiltrate
the minds of our young people and then
lead to higher levels of sexual assault
in the future for example the belief
that false rape accusations are a common
problem is particularly harmful to
victims especially when considering that
the National sexual violence Resource
Center reports that only two to eight
percent of all reported rapes are
actually found to be false whereas 68%
of all rapes will never be reported and
only 6% of those that are will end in a
prison sentence so the prevalence of
rape outweighs the prevalence of false
accusations astronomically and yet
millions of people still question
victims instead of even considering the
possibility that these accusations
are true on November 5th of 2012 an 18
year old man competed in the collegiate
debate tournament at the beginning of
the year his coach had assigned the team
captain Hannah to be his partner she
flirted from the very beginning
expressing clear sexual interest in him
but he politely told her that he wasn’t
interested and eventually as her
flirting progressed he asked the coach
to reassign the partnerships only to be
told no now at this particular
tournament they had prepared a
presentation on sexual assault because
they were aware that many members of the
debate community will often go to
parties after a day of competition and
his team was very close and so the men
and women would often spend time in one
hotel room after a long day of competing
but he wasn’t partaking in any of these
social activities this night he was
alone in a hotel room sleeping off a
splitting migraine that had left him
incapacitated he suffered from the
medical condition that often left him
unable to move because of severe
migraines his roommates had left the
door cracked and so after about an hour
of sleep he felt someone crawl into the
bed next to him he was hazy and confused
as she rubbed up against him he quietly
begged her to leave but she kept saying
over and over that sex cures headaches
and then it would be our little secret
she raped him he begged her to stop he
remembers thinking that he should try to
physically stop her but he was afraid
that he’d get in trouble for hurting a
woman and eventually she got
disinterested and left the room the next
morning he awoke to jokes and rumours
spread throughout the team like wildfire
she had bragged to another member of the
team that she had convinced him to hook
up he never told the truth about what
happened that night she is not a
registered sex offender and she never
spent a day in prison
for male victims the social paradigm
surrounding rape brings unique
challenges the first and most common
myth that they must face is that males
can’t be the victims of rape but this is
not true millions of boys and men have
been the victims of rape the National
sexual violence Resource Center reports
that one in 71 American men will be
raped during their lifetime and these
numbers jump to alarming Heights when
considering a college education as one
in 16 men on campus will be sexually
victimized sexual orientation can also
greatly increase this risk as bisexual
and gay men are at a 50 percent higher
risk than heterosexual men to be the
victims of sexual violence rather than
rape so while the statistics on male
rape are so very clear male victims
often experience even more skepticism
and indifference than female victims but
victims are not the only actors in male
rape scenarios that people find
unbelievable the notion that rapists are
generally sexually frustrated men is
particularly harmful because it makes
implications about the nature of the
crime so despite significant evidence
that states that rape is a crime about
power and control many people still
choose to believe that it’s motivated by
sexual impulse it also makes
implications that women can’t rape men
or that women never perpetuate sexual
violence but this is not true either
we have undereducated our young men
about what to do in situations of sexual
assault and they thus cannot often
validate their experiences after one
likewise social expectations of men
often change their connection to this
crime because men are often expected to
conform to hyper masculine stereotypes
and dominate women and men are also
expected never to raise a hand to a
woman leaving them in an awkward
position of defenselessness when
on April 4th of 2015 an 18 year old girl
met up with a boy that she had been
dating now the two had a year’s long
history of relationships and breakups
but she always thought that in the end
they were supposed to get married and
settle down together she left her car at
his workplace and rode with him back to
his home now this was like any other
night but she felt uneasy about it still
she couldn’t place why she might feel
this way but something just wasn’t right
she had been contemplating whether to
end this relationship for good she
wasn’t sure if it’s what she wanted
anymore
so after a couple of hours when she
still couldn’t shake this bad feeling
she told him very plainly that she did
not want to see him anymore he began
kissing her ignoring her request he was
persistent she became afraid and he
seemed confused as to why but when she
realized that this encounter was not
going to stop she became paralyzed with
fear she was careful not to move she
counted her breaths but when the
physical pain became unbearable she
snapped into action beginning to kick
her legs and flail her arms until he
jumped backwards letting her loose and
she ran into the bathroom and locked the
door after a long shower she returned
back to that very room and they didn’t
talk about what had happened but she
didn’t want to cause a scene or make him
angry by asking him to take her home and
so she laid beside him for the rest of
the night pretending to sleep the next
morning he acted as if everything was
fine between them and he held her hand
in the car but that night she told him
she needed some space and time to
process what had happened and she asked
him not to contact her anymore a few
days later she awoke to a text message
from him asking if he could get
something off his chest his message said
do you think that I read
you she would never forget that this
young woman never reported her crime she
never told his parents or his friends
they had hundreds of people in common in
their lives were inextricably
intertwined and she feared ruining his
pristine reputation she feared that
because of it no one would believe her
he is not a registered sex offender and
he never suffered any consequences for
his crime that girl was me telling a
crowd of strangers about my most
vulnerable and terrifying experience is
incredibly difficult i grappled with
whether to tell it at all I thought
about what he would say if he heard it
and I worried about what would happen
now that this heavy secret between us is
April 4th of 2015 is not the end of my
story my story is one of turning
victimhood into survival few words can
describe the feelings of shame and
betrayal that I felt that night and few
words can describe the shock of
discovering that a man I loved valued
his power over me so much more than my
own humanity but April 4th of 2015 is
not the end of my story I will not feel
shame and I will not allow him to
continue to perpetuate violence in my
life by keeping me silent and still
I tell you this story not because I want
your sympathy or your praise I tell you
because it’s likely that one in four of
the women and one in sixteen of the men
that I encounter on an everyday basis
are the victims of rape I tell you
because it’s likely that every one of
you sees the manifestations of this
culture every day in your lives the
research shows that it is possible to
construct a
in which rape is so discouraged that
even potential rapists would never act
out in sexual violence a common
modern-day example of this is the Minang
cabal Society of Indonesia here women
are inherently valued not for their
sexual purpose but for their
contribution to society and male sexual
prowess and violence are not deemed
manly because their concept of
masculinity is not tied to sex at all
we live in what scholars would call a
rape prone society in which the culture
of violence against women is so embedded
in us that we forget it’s even there we
have misinformed our young men about the
definition of consent and we have
defined sexuality in terms of power and
obligation but we must unlearn these
behaviors together because the reality
is that you sit in class every single
day with rape victims and you probably
sit in class with rapists – rapists are
not born rapists they are constructed by
socio-cultural attitudes that shape
their identity and motivate their
violence talking about sexual assault is
incredibly uncomfortable but that’s
precisely why we must do just that so if
you are a victim of sexual assault tell
your story proudly and if you’re not use
your voice to help those who are because
I firmly believe that our vulnerability
is our voice but our stories fuel our
strength that our pain does not define
us and that our common experiences will
bind strangers together with an
unbreakable force and with our stories
not in spite of them we will be stronger
than ever before together we can cure
our society of the sickness that plagues
us and we will be free thank you
[Applause] [Music]
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