Recently a few North Carolina State University students invented a nail polish that detects when a date rape drug has been slipped into a woman’s drink. In order to activate this polish a woman has to stir the drink with her finger and if one of the drugs is in her drink, then the polish will change colors. That’s all good and well but a bit cumbersome to what I thought such a polish would do–in my mind I was thinking such a polish would detect chemical changes in the body and send a signal to the nailbed and from there change colors. Clearly I’m not a scientist. Nevertheless my problem is less with method and more with the creation of yet another product of this kind. It’s a treatment and not a cure to rape. A band-aid, if you will, covering a bigger issue. The reality is we don’t need another thing to protect women from being raped. Not another condom with teeth, not chastity belt underwear, not pepper spray, not another thing before we teach and train men not to rape women. Camille Paglia articulates it well when she says, “Generation after generation, men must be educated, refined, and ethically persuaded aways from their tendency toward anarchy and brutishness.”
Paglia’s project in the essay “Rape and the Modern Sex War,” is to unmuddy the waters that feminism has made murky with blame and shame. Those feminists who’d suggest that those claiming women ought to be more responsible and careful are blaming women for rape. Paglia believes that women must take responsibility for their actions and she states that this is not “blaming the victim” but encouraging women to use common sense. She suggests that if a woman goes to a frat party with her girlfriends, she needs to leave with those girlfriends and that women shouldn’t go up to the room of a guy they don’t know or even a guy they know, particularly if they’ve had something to drink. These are common sense tips to help women protect themselves in situations that are ripe for sexual violence, but, as we all know, a woman protecting herself goes only so far before a man overcomes her. Thus the solution is not always in arming a woman to the tooth with anti-rape weapons, but in changing the perspective of men. I’d like to argue that Paglia knows there are limitations to common sense in rape culture when she says,
“Men must do or risk something to be men. Men become masculine only when other men say they are. Having sex with a woman is one way a boy becomes a man. College men are at their hormonal peak. They have just left their mothers and are questing for their male identity. In groups, they are dangerous.”
We’ve seen this played out on college campuses among groups of men–fraternity or not. Young men’s masculinity and bravado is measured by their conquests, not their lack thereof. I’ve seen it play out on MTV’s “Virgin Territory” where, if there is one male virgin in a group of male non-virgins, the non-virgins will dominate the group discussions and dynamic and encourage the virgin to do what he must in order to have sex with the young lady he is most interested in. The virgin is seen as immature and inexperienced and only when he finally has sex with a girl is he granted full access into the social circle because now he understands the symbolic world his peers operate in. This is all to Paglia’s point about how men are socialized and how group dynamics might drive a man. All of this pressure to perform may weigh a man down psychologically. Nevertheless, not to sound like I am giving men the benefit of the doubt or taking pity upon them because their male relationships can put a lot of pressure on them, I think it is important that we educate, refine, and ethically persuade men against aggressive and sexually violent behavior against women from an early age.
Educating them to understand that the moment a woman says no, regardless of how many blurred lines they perceive in that no, that no is no. Straight up. Teaching them that they are not entitled to a sexual encounter with a woman just because she got drunk with them, is wearing a short skirt, or she flirted with them. Better boundaries must be erected in how men interact with women in social situations where things can get easily misconstrued and this is not all about the woman using common sense, it is also about the man using self-control. (And dare I say, though this is a totally different situation, the same goes for men in the church who balk and complain that women with tight clothing or high hemlines are distracting and tempting them. We are not the ones who need to be controlled, it is the men who must control themselves, their desires, and their wild imaginations.)
Men must be refined to understand that the world doesn’t rotate on the axis of sex and getting it by any means necessary. Sex that is consensual between two adults is good sex. Sex within a loving, monogamous relationship is better. Sex within marriage is best. (And I know I’m getting into territory that is a hot topic so I’m going to leave that there.) All of this to say that all of the striving for sex outside of the parameter of consent is the worst sex you will have in your life. So this refining has to do with fine-tuning understandings of sex and relationships between men and women.
Much of what was said above can also be included in an ethical persuasion to men against sexual violence. Respecting a woman’s “No,” establishing behavioral boundaries in social situations, controlling one’s self for the good of the other, refining understandings of sex, and right and good places to have it contextually speaking. But one thing that hasn’t been mentioned is respecting the dignity of all persons. Dignity establishes that every person has the intrinsic right to be valued and receive ethical treatment. Every person, man or woman, has the intrinsic right to be valued and receive ethical treatment. To promote this teaching among men means they must see women as valuable beings sharing a common humanity, not as objects of refuse for pleasure. To take this one step further, I dare to insert some Kantian ethics here and say that the categorical imperative should be considered here too. Of the categorical imperative Kant says, “Act only according to that rule whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law.” Another way of understanding the categorical imperative is do unto to others as you would have them do unto you, this is universal law. Therefore, to put it quite bluntly, do not sexually force yourself upon someone unless you are fully prepared for the same to happen to you. I acknowledge that saying this is difficult and possibly problematic because there are some men out there who are more than ready to rape and be raped because they are that depraved. But I am addressing a group more in control of their mental faculties and able to learn and re-learn some of the things that they have been taught about sex.
Indeed I could go on and on about this but other things await me in this day. Suffice to say that I can’t celebrate the creation of a date rape drug detecting nail polish before some real work is done to stop the men who rape in the first place. I’m tired of the burden being on women to protect themselves when some men are the ones who must work on themselves. Nail polish, underwear, and sharp condoms don’t help the underlying issue involved in sexual violence and that’s where we need to start focusing.
Nicole Symmonds 