This is a piece that I decided to write about from the perspective of a girl and boy about the teaching and prevention of rape. I feel that rape culture is something that needs to be discussed with all gender classes. I hope you do enjoy it, and I hope that you can be brave to have discussions about something that can and does have an impact of all of us.
Girl: My school was fairly progressive; they even taught contraception in our sex education class.
Boy: When I was 14, my dad handed me a box of condoms, and said, "You know how to use these, right?"
Girl: We were taught which preventative methods were the most effective.
Girl: And where to go if something broke
Both: What to take, how to fix
Girl: This mess you've gotten yourself into. We were taught about herpes, and gonorrhea and syphilis.
Both: And how to keep all your fluids to yourself.
Boy: My friends taught me which clinics wouldn't tell my parents
Girl: Which ones handed out free condoms
Both: But I was never taught that there are worse things that could happen than a baby or a disease
Girl: Yeah, we learned about roofies
Boy: We learned to respect when a woman says 'No.'
Girl: We learned about protecting your drink, carrying pepper spray
Boy: We learned what to do when a woman is assaulted
Both: But not that this could happen to me
Girl: I was a virgin when I was raped for the first time
Boy: When IT happened to me, it was 10 AM, and my parents were home
Both: My textbook hadn't described the way I wouldn't even try to fight, there was no paragraph for how to stop them without making a scene.
Girl: There wasn't a worksheet for how to stop him without waking my parents
Boy: there was no correct answer to her threats of suicide when I wasn't in the mood.
Girl: There was no manual for the police victim
Both: You know, it wasn;t like they said it'd be
Girl: I was sober, he was sober
Both: We were...
Girl: 17
Boy: 15
Girl: They didn't teach me that I wouldn't know how to protect myself
Both: That my lungs would close up, and we would make pretend husband and wife, make pretend love.
Boy: The thing about pretend
Both: Is that it flattens everything to one color
Boy: It makes it too simple
Girl: It makes it one syllable
Boy: I learned that if you don't scream
Both: No one will listen to you
Boy: They don't write about the ones that got away
Girl: I learned that foundation comes in different shades
Both: No one wants to hear
Girl: The struggles that are associated with your skin color
Boy: They only ask how you're doing
Girl: I don't wanna blame my school
Boy: I don't wanna blame her
Girl: I don't wanna blame my church, or my mother or even the boy
Boy: We were just children
Girl: But this is preventable
Both: So someone must be responsible for preventing it, we can teach this better.
Boy: Some paintings are built from a thousand points of color
Girl: If you stand too close, a sunset becomes just speckles of red dots.
Boy: We teach that rape is always a man in an alley
Girl: Always a clenched jaw and a closed fist
Boy: Always a stained white shirt
Girl: But I never used my pepper spray
Boy: I never had to worry about an uncle in a locked room
Both: Do not confuse one story for all stories
Girl: Do not stare at a red dot and say...
Both: The whole painting is just one color
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