8/29/10

Making a List and Checking it Twice





Sarah M at Change Happens writes about personal safety for SAFER (that's Students Active For Ending Rape). She also linked to this this post at After Silence, where I got this poster, which is just Awesome dripping with Win. 

In this post Sarah makes a useful distinction between primary prevention and risk reduction

a) primary prevention education and techniques: approaching sexual violence prevention by focusing on the changing perpetrator behavior and cultural attitudes that enable rape and assault

b) risk reduction techniques: the strategies most often given to women to ‘reduce the risk’ that they will be assaulted by altering their behavior, i.e., stay in groups, watch your drink).

Although both are important, and she discusses this, around here we're focused on (a), with our list of Rape Prevention Tips For Men. She made her own list, here:

  • Don’t use alcohol or drugs to manipulate someone into sexual activity. Don’t stand by silently while your friends do it either
  • Don’t ignore verbal and/or physical signs of discomfort when hooking up with someone
  • Ask your partner what they want, or check in with them before taking things further
  • Stand up to your friends who make jokes about rape
  • If you see someone being aggressive or making clearly unwanted advances to another person, step in or cause a distraction
  • Understand the long-term negative emotional and physical effects of sexual violence on a survivor

Some points here might not be addressed in our list. (it's not my list, you readers have been a big help in making it, so it's our list) We'll need to make a side-by-side comparison. What do you think? Go and read all of Sarah's post (it's excellent) and maybe you'll see ways to improve our lists.

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