The questions at the end of each chapter help integrate the information and make it more usable, which means the wisdom available is determined by what the reader brings to it.
Lastly, since women are far more likely to be victims of assault, I discuss sexism as a primary risk force, along with homophobia and transphobia. That said, the guidelines here are written for both men and women. The pronouns “he/she” are used primarily throughout the book, and when discussing the gender-fluid community, the pronoun “they” is used exclusively.
 | The Making of a Movement |
Most young adults don’t think sexual assault will happen to them. They might feel they’re too well-supported, too smart, too sheltered, or too worldly to ever become a victim. And yet, according to the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network (RAINN), there’s a sexual assault approximately every ninety-two seconds in the US, with more than half involving victims between the ages of eighteen and thirty-four.
Perhaps the most unresolved issue of our time, sexual assault—classified as “unwanted sexual touch”—is also a taboo subject. Victims often choose secrecy; in fact, according to RAINN’s reports, out of 1,000 sexual assault cases, only five offenders will serve jail time. As a psychotherapist, I’ve treated sexual trauma for nearly twenty-five years, and I’ve never gotten used to hearing the troubling stories my clients have shared. When the #MeToo movement came along, so did the realization that I’d spent enough time in my career responding to assault, and perhaps it was time to work on preventing it.
The #MeToo movement helped us break down walls of secrecy by creating an arena where survivors could share their stories in the form of two simple words: me too. Now it’s time to create a new movement focused on keeping young people safe.
Another Kind of College Prep
When I taught sexual assault prevention classes at a local high school, the students knew how to respond to the “what-if” scenarios that took place in familiar territory, like school. For example, when discussing whether it was okay for a coach to slap an athlete on the butt as they were heading onto the field, the responses were mixed but immediate. Many of the young men answered in the affirmative, while the young women answered with a concrete “no.” We explored gender differences and the definition of assault as it applied to sports in the lively conversation that followed.
When we talked about life after high school, the reactions grew vague. To their credit, why should the average eighteen-year-old apprehend, let alone understand, something they have not yet experienced, especially when experience is how we learn? Yet often that is what parents, teachers, and young people expect. Somehow, through trial and error, osmosis, or a keen gut instinct, college-age adults will go off into the world and just figure it out.
I liken this to travel. Before visiting India, I read every guidebook I could get my hands on, watched documentaries, and played twenty questions with anyone who had been to that immense country. Still, nothing could have prepared me for the teeming, electric, and sometimes overwhelming reality of India. Life after high school can feel much the same; like something altogether different, because it is.
No matter how independent or savvy a young person may be or how many adventures they experienced, life after the age of eighteen is a whole different ball game—a new playing field, new rules, new teammates, new learning habits. While their mentors in high school, whether a coach, a parent, or a teacher, were apt to say what was expected on any given day, after high school, young adults are on their own as both coach and team member. The good news is this can be one of the most exciting stages we get in a lifetime.
The average college freshman is no slouch and usually far more aware than most adults give them credit for. However, the #MeToo movement has taught us a few truths that can’t be ignored because they affect how to play the game of adulthood. Although these truths were around long before #MeToo, the movement helped bring them forward into a whole new light. Here are a few of the biggies:
1 1.If you are female, there’s a twenty-five percent chance you will experience sexual assault before you graduate college or have been in the workforce for four years (rainn.org).
2 2.If you are male, you are not guaranteed safety, since seventeen percent of reported sexual assaults occur against men.
3 3.If you are a member of the LGBTQ or gender-fluid community, the rates are even higher, with studies suggesting that approximately half of transgender people and bisexual women will experience sexual violence at some point in their lifetimes. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, forty percent of gay men have experienced sexual violence other than rape, compared to twenty-one percent of heterosexual men.
All of these stats are even more troubling when we consider that the ACLU has estimated ninety-five percent of rapes on college campuses go unreported. Now we have a generation of college students who should be overjoyed at the prospect of independence but instead many are expressing fear. On June 8, 2016, Terrin Waack, a Sporting News intern and a student at the University of Alabama wrote an article titled: “As a College Student, I Live in Fear of Sexual Assault.”
In it, she writes, “I’m scared because I’m surrounded by stories of rape and sexual assault, so much so they’re becoming a norm. When another instance arises, it’s no longer shocking. It’s almost expected: Who’s next?”
Terrin’s words echo the thoughts of many college students, especially women. Yet aside from whether or not to carry mace, the prevention terms we use haven’t strayed far from “stranger danger” and “good touch, bad touch,” terms children learn as early as pre-school. The statistics indicate that victims most often know the offenders, so avoiding strangers doesn’t guarantee safety, and what we learned from #MeToo is that many reported incidents occurred with offenders in positions of power. So how do we keep people safe if such child-like terms are applied to something much more nuanced and complex? Exploring the history of #MeToo begins to provide an answer.
The Movement That Changed the World
On October 15, 2017, at approximately nine p.m., actress Alyssa Milano was snuggling in bed with her daughter Bella when she was overcome by what she later described as a “mommy moment.” She found herself praying to God that her daughter would never have to endure the sexually traumatic experiences she went through when she was younger. Without thinking much about it, Milano sent out a short message from her phone, asking that if anyone had ever experienced assault or harassment, they tweet back “#MeToo.” Within seven hours, she received 35,000 responses. Within twenty-four hours, the number leapt to twelve million, and forty-eight hours later, the tweet had reached eighty-two countries.
A global movement was born.
The concerns around sexual violence in the US had been building for years prior to Milano’s tweet as more executives and people in power were named as offenders. The phrase “Me Too” had been around for a while as well. Tarana Burke, activist and founder of “Just Be Inc.,” an organization serving sexual assault survivors, first used the term in 2006 in order to promote “empowerment through empathy” among women of color who were assault survivors. Burke originally identified the term when she witnessed a thirteen-year-old abuse survivor describe her experience. “I didn’t have a response or a way to help her in that moment, and I couldn’t even say ‘me too,’” Burke later told the New York Times.
There’s a reason why it took a movement for the world to sit up and notice how big the problem