A recent blog on the New York Times’ site about a discussion of “gray rape” includes a panelist’s quote that suggests some sex education messages may influence how women perceive this phenomenon.
The New York Times post focuses on “gray rape,” which was recently discussed at a John Jay College of Criminal Justice event. The discussion was fueled by an article in the September issue of Cosmopolitan magazine, “A New Kind of Date Rape,” which defined “gray rape” as the following:
“Sex that falls somewhere between consent and denial and is even more confusing than date rape because often both parties are unsure of who wanted what.”
The author of the Cosmopolitan article, Washington Post writer Laura Sessions Stepp, didn’t believe in “gray rape” when she began writing the article.
But in the course of her reporting, Ms. Stepp said, she came across descriptions of “sexual encounters where usually both parties were very drunk and really didn’t know what they had said to each other the next morning.” In such cases, consent is uncertain. Such cases are more likely to emerge today, Ms. Stepp argued in the article, in an era when sexual boundaries and rules for women have loosened and when it has become socially acceptable for women to pursue casual sex.
This relates to sex education because curricula often suggest women are accountable for men’s sexuality and actions in these situations, according to Katie Gentile, who directs the Women’s Center at John Jay.
The message in most of these educational materials, Dr. Gentile said, is: “Girls, you better be careful, because you’re in charge of the sexuality of men and you’ve got to control them. Across the board in these curricula, they are not taught sexual responsibility in these relationships.”
The idea that women are blamed in date rape or gray rape situations is not entirely new. Feminists have argued for years that women are unfairly viewed as the gatekeepers in society, in charge of both their own sexuality and that of males. But Gentile ties the view of women as gatekeepers with sex education and, in her view, sex education’s inadequacies in teaching sexual responsibility.
