Did You Learn About Rape in Grade School?

[Flagg]

So I was thinking about those douchebags in Steubenville last night and it occurred to me that they may have been truly ignorant of doing anything wrong at the time it was being done. Now that's not an excuse whatsoever but it got me wondering, does anyone remember being taught about rape in high school? Because I sure wasn't. My mother taught me about how to behave with women so I never had the issue but I can just imagine if she hadn't, would I have known better than to do what those fucksticks did? So here's my question, did you learn about rape in high school and what not to do?

[Alyeska]

So I was thinking about those douchebags in Steubenville last night and it occurred to me that they may have been truly ignorant of doing anything wrong at the time it was being done. Now that's not an excuse whatsoever but it got me wondering, does anyone remember being taught about rape in high school? Because I sure wasn't. My mother taught me about how to behave with women so I never had the issue but I can just imagine if she hadn't, would I have known better than to do what those fucksticks did? So here's my question, did you learn about rape in high school and what not to do?

Thats pretty well matches what I remember from school. You get taught the basics. Murder is wrongbad. Don't hurt people except the unpopular geeks and nerds. Stealing is wrong, unless its lunch money. That important stuff most often came from my parents.

[Eternal_Freedom]

Same here in the UK. We got taught the basics in sex ed and told it must always be consensual, but no-one actually used the word rape. Most of us managed to figure out what it was from news reports but we were never actually taught it.

[Terralthra]

I was taught what consent was in 8th grade sex ed. It wasn't made explicit at that point that drunkenness precluded rape, but DARE made sure to mention that people who got high were "often taken advantage of." That this was a crime by the people taking advantage of the intoxicated person was not mentioned.

[Grandmaster Jogurt]

A lot of talk about consent just leaves it as "if they say no, then it's no." Which would still be an improvement in many cases if followed (though maybe it should be clarified to be "if they say no, then it's no, and don't push the issue until it becomes a yes". But if we need a simple, short statement, it shouldn't focus on the no, since that can imply to some that silence is consent. It should be more like "it's only consensual if there's a (clear, uncoerced) yes (made of sound mind and without having been backed into any corners)".

And I do believe a much better focus on consent and other matters of sexuality should be taught in early sexual education. All I can remember from my classes was anatomy, STDs, and contraception. That stuff's helpful, but it seems to me like making a driver's ed course and only including the components of a car, how it can break down, and good ways to prevent that.

[Korvan]

When I was in grade 4, I was president of a neighborhood club called Animal Acres. Named from a wooded lot our fort was built on. A rival club was formed from another neighborhood and they took to calling themselves the Apemen with some digs at us for not having a tough name.

In retaliation, I started calling them the Rapemen, which only a vague idea what that entailed. I did come up with a catchy song that soon spread across the playground. Not long after I was called into the office for some 'splaining and received a brief lecture on why I was to not use that term again.

[Stark]

Consent and substance abuse affecting consent was about the only interesting thing in grade 8 English.

Sexual violence is a part of all kinds of media and fiction, so I'd be pretty wary of anyone claiming they 'didn't know' rape was a crime just because the government didn't tell you.

[spaceviking]

I remember in a sociology of gender class in university, the lecturer explained that in terms of consent from a drunk person that the person only needed to have sustained consciousness (so not passing out intermittently), and must be able to say yes. Which seems kinda tame to me, you could be pretty despicable without technically raping.

[Grandmaster Jogurt]

Hey may have been talking from a legal standpoint and not an ethical one, at least that's what I'd hope.

[Zaune]

You know, I don't think it was ever made explicit, but then I think even the chavviest of my peers could have figured out that forcing someone else into a sex act is not okay on their own.

[Grandmaster Jogurt]

And yet you still have people who rape and say their actions didn't count, and people defend them. As much as you might think it should be common sense or whatever, the perception that rape is a guy jumping out and assaulting someone who fights back still colours a lot of perception.

[Flagg]

Yeah, in Steubenville the victim got drunk and passed out, so no force was necessary. I'd imagine that's what happens in a large portion of rape cases. Mostly unreported I'm sure. Hell, the victim in this case only knew what happened to her because all of her "friends" were laughing about it on FB and Twitter.

[Terralthra]

Not really.

[Grandmaster Jogurt]

And that'd even including the "holds down and forces while they resist" definition of rape, which isn't close to how all rape happens. And one would assume that more people are okay with someone not openly resisting but allowing it because they're unable to resist/too scared to resist/etc than even those numbers.

[Lagmonster]

Fuck no. When I was in grade school it was explicitly explained that all men want sex, and that it was the woman's job to control his access to it. I even remember - and we're talking a long, long time ago - playing 'chase for kisses' at recess in elementary school. And the boys who couldn't haul ass fast enough to catch up to a girl for a peck on the cheek would get punched in the arm and called 'gaywad'. Yeah, and these are the people who are now coming in to take over upper management roles from the boomers. Golden times.

[Mr Bean]

Getting my sex ed in the south rape was never mentioned. No idea what the girls went through but 8th grade sex ed in North Carolina involved a week giggling while female Carrot-top (after the drugs) said penis and we all giggled. We mostly sat in a room with sex ed books and were encouraged to read them but education consisted of "Your here for an hour a day all this week, I'm going to read from the book then your going to take a test which is open book at the end of the week have fun"

So no, we got a better description on how to tell the different types of Cocaine apart then we did on when consent can be given.

[PainRack]

Hmm...... A new question then.

At what age should this issue be taught then? At what age would teenagers be able to understand the issue and before they do run into the risks of date rape?

Over here, the issues are supposed to be taught at the age of 16-18, (emphasis on the word SUPPOSED. An one hour video roleplaying about sex, casual sex, pregnancy and a message about don't get drunk/go into the dark with boys or you might get raped isn't really a sex ed program to me), but it would seem that this might be too late in the US.

[Surlethe]

Frankly, you should start teaching your kids about respecting others' physical boundaries when they're little. This reinforces their sense of bodily autonomy (makes them more likely to recognize and tell you about child abuse, for example), and lays the seeds for understanding rape once they're through puberty.

[Stark]

I understood rape WAAAAAAY before puberty. Why would the two things be related? The media is chockers with sexual violence (I mean shit I was like 6 when I saw back to the future and didn't need the government to tell me Biff assaulting Marty's mother was bad) and I'm not really sure how people can miss it beyond being oblivious, selfish, or actually bad people. The need for education is for the cases where society DOESN'T protect women, like with pressure tactics, youth alcoholism, date rape, and shame control.

[spaceviking]

[quote="Stark"(I mean shit I was like 6 when I saw back to the future and didn't need the government to tell me Biff assaulting Marty's mother was bad)[/quote]

Though in back to the future 2, they hire the attempted racist as a man servant.

[Connor MacLeod]

I think its important that learning this stuff should not just be a school's responsibility, but a parents. They're supposed to teach us to be responsible, productive adults (At least that's one definition I suppose.) but I sometimes wonder how many parents (particularily American ones) actually take an interest there.

The main benefit of the schools I'd think is that it would provide a more uniform, coherent explanation of sexual education and what rape is and why it is bad, which could build off what one learns from parents (which is bound to be more variable, as not all parents are the same.) Unfortunately, the way things are run in the US, and with our attitudes towards sexuality (and probably attitudes about women) I'm not sure the school approach is likely to be as 'consistent' as it oculd be, and that leads to as many problems as the parental education (or lack thereof) does.

Media is an interesting outlet for learning things, as you can learn about stuff early on (I know I learned about alot of things early from media) but I'm not sure the manner of depiction is always the appropriate one. Media (esp entertainment) can be very misleading about these sorts of things (and in this I think about the 'depiction of women in video games.' as a good example.)

[Dr Roberts]

We had a copper come in to our school during year seven to talk about the legal ramifications of rape and what constitutes rape.

[loomer]

I got taught it in primary school, but I went to a hippy school.

[Grandmaster Jogurt]

What you were taught about rape is a lot more important than that you were taught about it, though. The terrifying opinions and misconceptions people have about consent indicate that what's going on isn't good enough.

[PeZook]

Nope. Not a single word about consent, boundaries, etc.

We just did the mechanics: condom use, menstrual cycle et al - and in a really awkward way, too.