Yale Daily News: Use Your Voice

The student writers at the editorial page of the Yale Daily News ( YDN ) are demonstrably talented.  They craft subtle, dispassionate arguments and plumb impressive vocabularies.  They attempt to see different sides of contentious issues.  This is not surprising.  They also appear thoroughly misinformed when it comes to how sexual violence plays out most commonly in exactly the environment their readers inhabit.  This ignorance, reflected clearly in an October 18th editorial addressing an offensive fraternity pledge chant shouted across campus, is also not surprising.A profound misunderstanding about sexual violence, particularly as it happens on college campuses, is neither inexcusable nor uncommon.  Few understand the dynamics as well as the experts, and the underpinning research is still new.  But the editorialists at the YDN have a considerable voice within one of the country’s most distinguished schools.  As such, they should be challenged on their analysis, as it is both negligent and presumptuous on two key issues:  One is that the misogynistic, violent chants they rightfully decried are still, at bottom, nothing more than boorish ‘boys will be boys’ behavior.  Second, and more dangerous, is their belief that there is a clear distinction between the boisterous, chanting young men or those like them, and some mythical group of rapists who should never be confused with these “members of the community.”YDN, take notice:  The threat to the women (and some men) of your campus does not lie with strangers, outliers and interlopers to campus life.  It lies squarely with, in relatively rare but prolific cases, the very men you’re ultimately defending as harmless.  In fact, the few but truly dangerous men in your midst who do rape look exactly like the ones who don’t.  They share the same classrooms, inhabit the same dorm rooms, and attend the same parties and rush events.  And yes- chants like the ones heard earlier this month do have the power to do more than offend.  They have the power to blunt the sensibilities of the unwitting accomplices these perfectly respectful looking rapists look to for assistance, and they diminish the value of the women these rapists target, making them easier to dismiss as objects for use.There was a belief for a while in some parts of the anti-sexual violence movement that testosterone was ultimately the culprit when it came to sexual violence.  Boys will, in fact, be boys, this thinking went, and unfortunately that included rape where the boys or young men were untrained to stop themselves, or to recognize terror or revulsion on the part of potential victims.  A lurking rapist existed inside of every red-blooded male, went this thinking.  It is not true.  In fact, most men are not capable of sexual violence, and most sexual violence is not the product of some “misunderstanding” or “one-time mistake” as is so often the anodyne offered up to explain rape.  Men may be womanizers, players, dogs, bastards, whatever label appropriately defines their unhealthy attitude toward women or sexuality, but most won’t use physical force against a partner while she struggles in terror, or shimmy off her clothes and sexually penetrate her while she is literally passed out.  Instead, what replicated, methodological research has revealed is that a relatively small number of men, while completely functional otherwise and normal in appearance, are deeply disordered and view sexual violence as normal sexuality.  Further, not only will they likely get away with sexually violent acts for a variety of reasons related to their environment and their place in it, they’ll do it over and over again.  They are “undetected rapists” as Dr. David Lisak has labeled them (Lisak is a groundbreaking researcher I’ve mentioned before in this space).  They commit most of the adult rape we experience, and they can be anywhere.So while the YDN might smugly dismiss as alarmist the contention of the Women's Center that these chants were a call for sexual violence, they should recognize that the undetected rapists who do exist among the chanters and listeners are emboldened by a public call to use women like appliances.  They also benefit from a general atmosphere of degradation and objectification of women.  While most of the men around the offenders are themselves not dangerous, they are far more likely to simply walk away from a situation where they could make a difference if they’ve been conditioned to view the woman in question like a commodity.  So if a non-offending male observes a friend or fraternity brother literally carrying a comatose young woman into a bedroom, or wanting to shoot cell phone video of her gagging on his penis while she’s going in and out of consciousness, that male is more likely to shrug and walk away, believing it’s all a part of college life.That’s the danger of those chants, and that’s the reason they have generated a strong response.  I’m not anti-fraternity and I readily acknowledge that the impressionable young men reciting the lines were not suddenly inspired to rape because of them.  But these chants were, if unwittingly, empowering a small but dangerous number of men either within their group or within earshot that will rape.  And they were dulling the protective judgment of the only men who might be able to stop them.To the Yale Daily News, I’d ultimately remind of you of this: Voices matter.  The voices of the young brothers that poisoned the air over what you call Old Campus, a place I can only imagine in terms of its grandeur and veneration, matters.  Yours does also.  Learn better the dynamics of the sexual violence that harm the honorable and invaluable learning environment you love so much and speak for so powerfully.  Acknowledge the voices- chanted, written or mumbled- that further that harm, wherever they emerge.  Then, use yours.