Castleton State in Vermont has kicked off a terrific sounding sexual assault prevention campaign that focuses on the need for consent every time you initiate sexual activity. They’ve got a full roster of events around freshman orientation and the first week of school and it sounds like students are responding well. I particularly like the t-shirts they’re handing out – the front says “Got Consent?” and the back says If it’s not consent, it’s not sex.” Although the grammar troubles me, and is probably a typo, I really like the sentiment on the back. It does a nice job of refusing the normalization of rape as “bad sex.” When SAFER talks about real prevention programs, this is the kind of education it would like to see more schools engage in.

We met some wonderful students from Grand Valley State in Michigan at V to the 10th who also had “Got Consent?” shirts, so I hope this fashion trend keeps spreading across the country!

Also, kudos to Castleton State’s CHANGE group (who are behind this campaign):

CHANGE is made up of students, faculty and staff, and was created last school year in response to two stranger rapes on campus last fall, with a mission to create gender equity through the elimination of sexual assault, sexual harassment and homophobia.

Nice work on taking the publicity and outrage that stranger rapes generate and turning that energy towards the far more prevalent problem of acquaintance rape.

What to say about New Orleans and V to the 10th? It was a crazy, sleepless, awe-inspiring, deeply moving two days—I am so, so glad we went. I spent Friday and Saturday mostly in the Activist Lounge at the Superdome, talking to students about what they are doing on their campus and what challenges they face. I heard good news and bad news—the administrations at Wichita State, University of Puget Sound, and Bowdoin College got high praise from their students, but I also heard several horror stories from students at other schools. I was blown away by the activist campaigns a lot of students have already started, and hopefully in the next few weeks I’ll be posting interviews with and links to the student groups at schools like Shippensburg University, Grand Valley State University, Connecticut College, Valdosta State University, Marquette University and others.

For me, talking to students was the best part of the weekend, and that’s really high praise, considering all the other fantastic things I did and saw. I spent some time on the floor of the Superdome listening to some of the Superlove performances and speakers. One that really stood out for me was the interview with Dr. Denis Mukwege, a doctor from the Democratic Republic of the Congo who does reconstructive surgery on women whose vaginas were damaged by rape. To date he has helped thousands of women, and his commitment and compassion is one of the biggest assets the DRC currently has. V-Day will be supporting his work this year. My other favorite thing from the floor was the huge plastic purple and pink illuminated vulva. You can see the pictures on our flickr page, although I’m not sure they quite do it justice. I have a long-standing fascination with cunt art from the early feminist movement, and it was really exciting to see a 2000s addition to that canon.
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