Dispelling myths about sexual assault
By Editorial
The recital hall filled with laughter this Monday as a student director of "Unspeakable Acts" opened the show by thanking the freshmen "for coming to the mandatory play on sexual assault."
It didn't take long, however, for the laughter to die down and the mood in room to shift considerably.
Perhaps unjustly dubbed an awareness play, "Unspeakable Acts" hardly offered freshmen the much-expected facts and figures regarding rape and sexual assault in the United States. Instead, the production invited freshmen to share in the sobering experiences of several sexual assault victims by way of first-person monologues from both men and women.
Student actors portrayed victims as well as perpetrators who used loaded language and abrasive dialogue to contrast conflicting themes of control and defenselessness, loss and renewal.
A solemn silence settled over the audience as actors spoke familiar words: "I didn't want to make a scene. I mean, I liked him." "This is what people do in college." "My body just kind of took over." "Maybe it was because I was drunk â?¦"
After only a week in college, such words plunged the freshmen into serious -- and necessarily uncomfortable -- reflection as to what sexual assault truly entails.
Common perceptions of rape and sexual assault include darkened, deserted spots and strange faces. Sexual assault crimes are conceived of as heinous crimes, those of which only disturbed criminals are capable of committing. At best, sexual assault is imagined as the danger lurking in a roofie from an unknown person at a crowded bar.
"Unspeakable Acts" did much-needed work to knock this conception of sexual assault off its axis and force it into a more familiar environment: the university campus.
As hard as it may be to admit, Santa Clara is the site of too many sexual assault violations every year -- both reported and unreported. What was once a nightmare has morphed into a Friday night for some. At house parties and in dorms, drunkenness has too often trumped the dignity in sex: consent.
But what seems like a dubious and rather frightening image of Santa Clara is, more accurately, a realistic one. The university has not only acknowledged this disheartening reality, but is taking great strides to combat it. With the sexual assault awareness play in its second year, the administration as well as older students have committed to educating brand new Broncos, teaching them to perceive sexual assault in a whole new way, and adjust their behavior accordingly.
Of course, not all freshmen were in the mood for a lesson. Perhaps most surprising was the cavalier attitude of many men in the audience who let out a series of riotous boos upon a student-director's acknowledgment that, although sexual assault issues are human issues, all the victims portrayed that evening would be played by women.
But if freshmen students -- however aloof -- can take away a mere grain of truth from this production, the sexual assault awareness program will have served its end.
If anything, "Unspeakable Acts" should have been a warning call, one which students at all grade levels would be wise to heed. Listen to one another and respect each other's wishes. Watch out for your friends -- whether they be potential perpetrators or victims. We as Santa Clara students must not imagine ourselves as invincible to the violations of sexual assault.