Sexual Violence No Joking Matter

Unsettling experiences can happen anywhere.

In this case, one happened poolside at the Tampa Palms Clubhouse.

A group of middle school boys were having a birthday party and had taken over the pool. This didn’t matter to me, I was there to ease some post-semester stress by spending time away from my laptop. My friend Amanda peeked over her gossip magazine to comment:

“Oh to be young,” she sighed.

“But would you really want to go through all that again?” I ask.

“Probably not,” she responds. We laugh half-heartedly at the thought. Meanwhile, the boys are tossing a white t-shirt around in the pool, nearly a dozen of them vying for the flying wet cloth while Amanda and I eyed it warily.

One of the boys victoriously snatches the shirt in mid-air and is subsequently grabbed from either side by two of his gangly friends.

“Rape, rape!” he proclaims in a loud voice.

I am, at the least, taken aback by the statement. Some of the boys laugh, others are more interested in the shirt’s next target. There were no parents around, just one mother who sauntered by occasionally to take a photo of the boys. I am tempted to say something to them, yet I do not feel it is my place to teach them the magnitude of their statement.

As a volunteer at a local domestic violence shelter, I was hurt by the boy’s playful cries and shocked as well. A short while later, a female friend of theirs arrives at the pool and several of the boys run out to hug her in greeting. So, this is not an issue of misogyny, I think. I immediately feel silly for even entertaining the thought that middle school boys could be misogynistic. But what if? 

And I think even further: where does this start? Where does the joking about sexual violence start, and even scarier, where could it end? As a witness of domestic violence myself, I feel passionately about the subject and I am horrified at the leisure use of the word “rape” because of how often it occurs. “I raped that exam” to “Yeah my team got raped Sunday.” 

I asked my 19-year-old brother Homam if he has ever corrected his friends’ use of the word or if he has used it. He sheepishly admits “Yeah, I used it sometimes until I went to a Take Back the Night event at USF.” Take Back the Night is an international organization aimed at raising awareness for sexual violence and rallying to educate others while empowering victims.

Back at the pool, another boy is playfully attacked by his friends.

“R-rape!” his voice falters as he says it meekly, like the word tastes bad in his mouth.

Maybe this is a start.

Maybe a weak voice can some day become the strong voice of a proponent for respect for both genders; a voice that recognizes sexual violence as sexual violence, not a word to describe something bothersome or a small burden. 

So, correct someone who does not understand the magnitude of a seemingly joking statement. I am still disappointed in myself for not speaking up. It is up to all of us: parents, feminists, peers, men, women, girls and boys.