Continuum of Sexual Assault Exercises

Continuum of Sexual Assault Exercises

CONTINUUM OF RAPE

• We spend far too much time focusing on the legal defintion, and many people experience forms of abuse that are not illegal, but are still harmful.
• One exercise I use is to ask men to define rape — “Forget the law for now, how would you define rape” Generally (with some help from me as the facilitator) we come to something like “any forced or unwanted sexual contact.” Which is great but what does it mean? I then go into a conversation about the various ways that many men, very subtly, violate this definition (as an example, making out with a woman or other man and doing something that s/he doesn’t want to do…how long before most of us tried again? “How many of us (and I include myself) have had a woman (or man) tell us she didn’t want us to touch her breast while making out, and we tried again anyway?” “Based on the definition that we agreed upon, we have perpetrated sexual assault.”
• Original Source: Rus Funk

MODIFIED CLOTHESLINE

I’ve done a modified Clothesline project with teens- using paper t-shirts wherein after talking about the interpersonal violence continuum including bullying, they make shirts with messages about respect or standing up for those less fortunate or about behaviors they aren’t going to accept anymore. It’s powerful when hung all together.

• Original Source: Laura Rhodes