Social Secrets
Anne Saffron 1
Senior Thesis MECA 2013
Social Secrets
Raising Awareness about Rape Culture
Anne Saffron
Author, Editor, Designer, Ceramicist
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Anne Saffron That Feels Good April 2013 (Image Grace Brown)
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You Might Be A
Rapist! Let’s talk about rape. Rape is something that unfortunately happens every single day to men, women, and children. Rape is an underreported crime since many of the victims cannot or do not press charges against their attackers. Why is that? Fear? Shame? Guilt? Whatever the case these victims keep their mouths shut and their attackers walk free. From 2000-2005, 59% of rape cases were not reported. 38% of victims were raped by a friend or an acquaintance.
28% by “an intimate” and 7% by another relative. 26% were commited by a stranger to a victim and about four out of ten sexual assaults take place at the victim’s own home.
Paul Rubens Rape Of The Daughters Of Leucippus 1671
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Cover Artemisia Gentileschi Susanna and the Elders 1610
It turns out that a whole lot of people know next to nothing about rape. Surprise surprise. Why would they know anything? It isn’t taught in schools, it’s not a topic of discussion in friendly conversation. No one is teaching young boys that raping someone is wrong. We shouldn’t be teaching girls how to avoid being raped we should be teaching boys to not rape. Steeping our selves in denial of what is happening in society is hurting too many people and has the potential to hurt a lot more. We need to educate people and raise awareness to what is happening.
http://brookeolin.tumblr.com 2012
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http://criminology.iheartsociology.com 2012
Here’s some real, fact-checked information from a list originally published in RHRealityCheck.
• Percentage of rapes not reported: 54 percent
• Pentagon’s estimated percentage of military assuaults not reported: 8090 percent
• A woman’s chance of being raped in the U.S.: 1 in 5
• U.S. state in which, in September 2012, mentally disabled rape victim was required to provide evidence of her “kicking, biting, scratching” in objection to her rape: Connecticut
• Number of women in the US impregnated against their will each year in the U.S. as a result of rape: 32,000
• Ages of girls forced to marry a 59 year old at the Tony Alamo Christian Ministry in Arkansas: 8, 14, 15
• Percentage of rapists who are never incarcerated: 97 perent
• Chances that a raped woman conceives compared to one engaging in consensual sex: At least two times as likely
• Country where women are imprisoned for being raped: Afghanistan • Chances that a woman in the U.S. is raped versus gets breast cancer: 2 to 1
• Rank of U.S. in the world for rape: 13th
• Number of rapes reported in the military in 2011: 16,500
•Country where 12 year old was forced to participate in the rape of his mother: U.S.
• Percentage of sexual assault and rape victims under the age of 12: 15 percent
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“Rape is a criminal act whatever the circumstances. A woman riding the subway nude may be guilty of indecency, but she may not be raped. If she invites or even sells sex at 10:00 and refuses it at 10:45 the partner who disregards her refusal and forces sex is guilty of rape. If she is drinking, asleep, mentally defective, paralyzed or dead, she must not be raped. Why? Because sexual congress must be by consent� - Toni Morrison 8
http://www.democraticunderground.com 2013
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Historical Connections
The history they forget to teach us. The concept of rape, both as an abduction and in the sexual sense, makes its first historical appearance in early religious texts. The rape of girls and women is a very common theme in Greek mythology. Among the rapes or abductions committed by Zeus, the ruler of the Gods, are Europa and Ganymede.
a sex crime committed through violence or coercion (cum vi or per vim). Raptus ad stuprum, “abduction for the purpose of committing a sex crime,” emerged as a legal distinction in the late Roman Republic. In the Christian Empire attitudes toward rape changed when the Roman Empire became Christianized. St. Augustine interpreted Lucretia’s suicide as a possible admission that she had secretly encouraged the rapist, and Christian apologists regarded her as having committed the sin of involuntary sexual pleasure.
During the early 1970s, feminists began to engage in consciousness raising efforts to educate the public about the reality of rape. Up until that point, rape was rarely discussed or even acknowledged. Unfortunately until the 1970s, most Americans assumed that rape, incest, and wife-beating rarely happened. The idea of rape culture was one result of these efforts to educate the public. According to the Encyclopedia of Rape, “The term ‘rape culture’ originated in the 1970s during the second wave feminist movement and is often used by feminists to describe contemporary American culture as a whole.” This idea appeared in multiple forms of media during the mid 1970s. In Roman law, raptus (or rapito) meant primarily kidnapping or abduction; sexual violation is a secondary issue. The “abduction” of an unmarried girl from her father’s household, in some circumstances, was a matter of the couple eloping without her father’s permission to marry. Rape in the English sense of “forced sex” was more often expressed as stuprum, Charles Christian Nahl The Rape of the Sabines:The Captivity 1871
Today so many women are victims of victim blaming. blamed for their attack and made to feel like it was their fault when it wasn’t. Women are told that they instigated it and asked for it, and that is never the case and never will be the case.
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If you’re married, you’ve contractually agreed to be available for sex whether or not you want to have it or not. If you’re a woman of color, you must be lying about your attack. If you don’t have much money, you’re just looking for some easy cash. If you’re in college, you don’t want to ruin your poor young rapist’s life by reporting the crime. If you’re a sex worker, it wasn’t rape it was just “theft.” If you said yes at first but changed your mind, tough luck. If you’ve had sex before, you must say yes to everyone at all times. If you were drinking you should have known better. If you were wearing a short skirt what did you expect? Many different people have given rape many different meanings over the years. There is the physical act of rape, which has been defined in multiple ways. These ways include but are not limited to: only virgins, only women, only women who have cried out loudly enough to attract witnesses, only women who have been violated with the male genitalia. Nowadays many people don’t see it this black and white anymore. Men are raped just like women. Any item can be used to sexually assault a person and it’s still rape. Rape is rape.
Grace Brown - Project Unbreakable Untitled
“The definition of who is a rape victim has been whittled down by racism, misogyny, classism and the pervasive wink-wink-nudge-nudge belief that all women really want to be forced anyway. The assumption is that women are, by default, desirous of sex unless they explicitly state otherwise. And women don’t just have to prove that we said no, but that we screamed it.”
–Jessica Valenti Ending Rape Illiteracy
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STFUConservatives.tumblr.com 2012
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The mission of Project Unbreakable is to increase awareness of the issues surrounding sexual assault and encourage the act of healing through art.
Project Unbreakable is a photography project created in October 2011 by a woman named Grace Brown. Grace works with survivors of sexual assault, photographing them holding a poster with a quote from their attacker. Grace has photographed over three hundred different people and has received over a thousand submissions of photographs done by the subject themselves. Grace began this project at the age of nineteen. While out one Saturday night with a friend, her friend told Grace the story of her rape. This story changed Grace’s life forever and inspired her to start this project. Originally the project was meant to be a small way to spread awareness but quickly evolved into a healing project for sexual assault survivors. Currently Grace travels to colleges and universities around North America to discuss the importance of sexual assault awareness and to feature her photographs from Project Unbreakable as well as to contine to photograph survirors.
To learn more about Project Unbreakable visit: http://project-unbreakable.org/ http://projectunbreakable.tumblr.com/
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Grace Brown - Project Unbrekable Untitled New York City, June 8th 2012
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Anne Saffron I’m Not Kidding April 2013
Anne Saffron Joke’s On You April 2013
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Anne Saffron It Sickens Me April 2013
Clay and Rape
Functional Messages through Ceramics. As a ceramic artist I am always looking for new sources of inspiration. Usually my favorite peices of work to look at are soda/ wood fired pots. I love the smooth curves of a pot, the beautiful flashing, and the functionality of the work. When I came across Project Unbreakable I knew I had found my new source of inspiration.
I decided upon the plate form for a variety of reasons. The plate is typically a family friendly item. You eat all your meals off your plates. You handle the plate carefully, you use it to serve others, and it can be brought to our lips. Using a family friendly item is a very non traditional way to raise awareness about rape.
I was angry at how people blamed the victim and I knew I needed to create something beautiful and passionate with all that built up energy. I came across Project Unbreakable and was instantly struck by the work. It was exactly what I wanted to do, raise awarenss in a powerful and beautiful way.
These plates if used, would only be used once by any one person. To use this item only to be greated with such a terrible topic would cause some sort of reaction from the user.
These series of Rape Plates was born from Project Unbreakable and with permission to utilize these photographs and quotes I quickly got to work.
Whether on the wall or on the dinner table my goal is to get people talking about this topic which is often overlooked and brushed aside.
I use a high fire porcelanious clay body fired to ∆ 9/10 in a reduction kiln. I used a Haynes Satin White Glaze for the face of the plate to get a smooth satin white surface. I use decals to get the crisp image on the plate. The plates are refired to ∆ 04, just hot enough for the decal to melt and adhere itself to the plate. The redish/brown color comes from the iron in the ink used to originally print the decal.
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Anne Saffron It’s Your Fault April 2013
DC-based feminist group projected the phrase “rape is rape” onto the US Capitol building.
“No means no. No means no if you’re drunk or sober. No means no if you’re in bed in the dorm or on the street. No means no even if you said yes first and changed your mind. No means no—and it’s a crime…” –Vice President, Joe Biden
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Rape in Politics? Why do so many old white Republican men think they know what’s best for the female body? During the 2012 United States election cycle, a series of controversies arose as a result of statements by Republican Party candidates about rape, pregnancy, contraception, abortion, and related topics. The first and most widely covered controversy concerned Republican U.S. Senate candidate Rep. Todd Akin of Missouri. He stated that pregnancy rarely occurs as a result of what he called “legitimate rape”, a phrase which many women’s rights groups found demeaning. Akin’s comments had a far reaching political impact, changing the focus of political campaigns across the country to the War on Women.
Some analysts identified Mourdock’s and Akin’s comments, as well as those of various other candidates, as a principal factor in their election losses. The comments may have had an effect on the national election results, especially among women voters who supported Democrat presidential candidate Barack Obama.
Following Akin’s comments, additional controversies about comments made by other socially conservative Republican candidates arose. The most notable of these was Indiana State Treasurer and U.S. Senate candidate Richard Mourdock, who said that pregnancy from rape was “something that God intended.” 19
Different faces of Rape & Rapists Anger Rapist The aim of this rapist is to humiliate, debase, and hurt their victim; they express their contempt for their victim through physical violence and horrid language. For these rapists, sex is a weapon to defile and degrade the victim. Rape constitutes the ultimate expression of their anger. This rapist considers rape the ultimate offense they can commit against the victim.
The power rapist tends to have fantasies about sexual conquests and rape. They may believe that even though the victim initially resists them, that once they overpower their victim, the victim will eventually enjoy the rape. The power rapist needs to believe that the victim enjoyed what was done to them, and they may even ask the victim to meet them for a date later.
Anger rape is characterized by physical brutality. Much more physical force is used during the assault than would be necessary if the intent were simply to overpower the victim and achieve penetration. This type of offender attacks their victim by grabbing, striking and knocking the victim to the ground, beating them, tearing their clothes, and raping them. The experience for the offender is one that is of conscious anger and rage.
Sadistic Rapists For these rapists, there is a sexual association with various concepts, so that aggression and the infliction of pain is eroticized. For this rapist, sexual excitement is associated with the causing of suffering upon his/her victim. The attacker finds the intentional maltreatment of his victim intensely gratifying and takes pleasure in the victim’s torment, anguish, distress, helplessness, and suffering. The offender finds the victim’s struggling an erotic experience which excites them more.
Power Rapist For these rapists, rape becomes a way to compensate for their underlying feelings of inadequacy and feeds their issues of mastery, control, strength, authority and capability. The intent of the power rapist is to assert their own power. The power rapist relies upon verbal threats, intimidation with a weapon, and only uses the amount of force necessary to subdue the victim.
Sadistic rape usually involves extensive, prolonged torture and restraint. Sometimes, it can take on ritualistic scenarios or other bizarre qualities. The rapist may use some type of instrument or foreign object to penetrate his/her victim. Sexual areas of the victim’s body become a specific focus of injury or physical abuse. 20
Date Rape Date rape is a non-domestic rape committed by someone who knows the victim. This constitutes the vast majority of reported rapes each year. It can occur between two people who know one another usually in social situations, between people who are dating as a couple and have had consensual sex in the past, between two people who are starting to date, between people who are just friends, and between acquaintances. They include rapes of co-workers, schoolmates, family, friends, teachers and other acquaintances. The term date rape is often referred to as ‘acquaintance rape’ or ‘hidden rape’ and has been identified as a growing problem in western society. Gang Rape Gang rape occurs when a group of people participate in the rape of a single victim. Rape involving at least two or more violators (usually at least three) is widely reported to occur in many parts of the world. Systematic information on the extent of the problem, however, is low. Spousal Rape Also known as marital rape, wife rape, husband rape, partner rape or intimate partner sexual assault (IPSA), is rape between a married couple. Research reveals that victims of marital/ partner rape suffer longer lasting trauma than victims of stranger rape. Rape of Children Rape of a child is a form of child sexual abuse. When committed by another child it is considered child-on-child sexual abuse. When committed by a parent or other close relative it is considered incest and can result in serious and long-term psychological trauma. When a child is raped by an adult who is not a family member but is a caregiver or in a position of authority over the child, such as a teacher, religious leader, or therapist, to name a few, on whom the child is dependent, the aftermath effects can be similar to incestual rape. 21
Statutory Rape National and regional governments, citing an interest in protecting “young people” (variously defined but sometimes synonymous with minors), treat any sexual contact with such a person as an offense (not always categorized as “rape”), even if he or she agrees to or initiates the sexual activity. This offense is often based on a presumption that people under a certain age do not have the capacity to give informed consent. The age at which individuals are considered competent to give consent, called the age of consent, varies in different countries and regions; in the US, the age ranges from 16 to 18. Prison Rape Prison rapes are more commonly same-sex crimes (since prisons are usually separated by sex). The attacker usually does not identify as homosexual. The attacker is most commonly another inmate. War Rape During war, rape is often used as means of psychological warfare in order to humiliate the enemy and undermine their morale. Rapes in war are often systematic and thorough, and military leaders may actually encourage their soldiers to rape civilians. War rape has been considered a war crime only since 1949. Rape By Deception Rape by deception occurs when the attacker gains the victim’s consent through fraud. Corrective Rape Corrective rape is targeted rape against non-heterosexuals as a punishment for violating traditional gender roles. It is a form of hate crime against LGBT individuals in which the rapist justifies the act an acceptable response to the victim’s perceived sexual or gender orientation and a form of punishment for being gay. Some rapists claim that if they rape a lesbian woman she won’t identify as one anymore.
“Men should be
OFFENDED
when someone claims that women should prevent rape
by not wearing certain things, or not going to certain places, or not acting in a certain way. That line of thinking preseumes that you are incapable of control. That you are so base and uncivilized that it takes extraordinary effort for you to walk down the street without raping someone. That you require a certain dress code be maintained, that certain behaviors be employed or that maybe today, just maybe, you WON’T rape someone. It presumes that your natural state is RAPIST.
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–Unknown
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Things that don’t cause rape:
Things that do cause rape:
If A Woman:
Rapists
is dressed a certain way. has been drinking. is walking alone at night. is flirting. has had sex with you before. has had multiple partners. is a sex worker. changes her mind. has passed out. is at a party. is smiling at you. doesn’t scream no. is naked. isn’t able to give consent. is afraid to say no.
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Slut Walk London May 16. 2012
“Rape, ladies and gentlemen, is not today what rape was. Rape, when I was learning these things, was the violation of a chaste woman, against her will, by some party not her spouse.” – Tennessee Senator Douglas Henry, 2008
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Now what have we learned? Rape is a serious problem that is often overlooked and made to appear as something that isn’t of much importance. Some look at victims of rape and want to fight for justice and others tell her it’s her own fault. No one ever deserves to be raped, no one ever asks to be raped, and it is certainlty never the victims fault.
News That Matters Not 2013
Girls are told they should keep their rape a secret. If men really believe that it’s the woman’s fault for acting or dressing a certain way than why do they need to remain silent? They know what they did was wrong and don’t want anyone to hear about their disgusting crime. Let’s bring this rape culture to an end and fight back!
“If people aren’t educated then they are ignorant and igorance only allows the problem to continue.” –Anne Saffron
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Sources
Brown, Grace. Oct. 2011. “Project Unbreakable.” Project Unbreakable. http://project-unbreakable.org (Accessed 25 March. 2013). Chemaly, Soraya. Oct 26. 2012. “50 Actual Facts About Rape” Huffington Post. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sorayachemaly/50-facts-rape_b_2019338.html (Accessed 21 March. 2013) Curtis, Amy Stacey. “Women, Trauma & Visual Expression.” (Portland, ME: 2005) “History of Rape.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 27 Jan. 2013. (Accessed March 9, 2013) Smith, Merril D. 2004. Encyclopedia of Rape. Westport, CT: Greenwood “Types of Rape” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 31 March. 2013 (Accessed March 27) Valenti, Jessica. Oct 23. 2012. “Ending Rape Illiteracy” The Nation. http://www.thenation.com/blog/170767/ending-rape-illiteracy# (Accessed 22 March 2013)
For more information on rape and to contact a help center please visit: http://www.rainn.org/
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Back Cover Tsukioka Yoshitoshi The Gang Rape of Hisazo’s Girlfriend, Omatsu
A note from Anne
Author, editor, and designer of Social Secrets.
My name is Anne Saffron and I am a senior ceramic major (as well as the author, editor, and designer of Social Secrets) at the Maine College of Art. This book and my thesis ceramic work focuses all around rape and rape culture and raising awareness. Throughout this thesis I have studied and researched really violent and terrible things. I have felt myself drain mentally and emotionally over such a heavy topic. People don’t like talking about this and many choose to ignore it. I decided upon this thesis about a year ago. I had always been into creating something that was aesthetically pleasing as well as functional. I knew something in my world was changing and that would change the way my studio work would progress through the year. Friends and I would discuss everything surrounding feminism. I was especially interested in rape and how it is treated in our society today. Hearing how people will defend rapists with excuses like “Boys will be boys” or “She was asking for it” (such as in the Steubenville case) absolutely appalled me. I could never understand how I could live in a world where so many people believed it was okay to rape a young woman and that it was somehow her fault because of how she was dressed or if she had been drinking. I mulled over much of the information I had gathered for weeks and found it hard to wrap my mind around how some people treat this topic. I wasn’t sure what I could really do with this information and how I could channel my anger and obsession into something productive. During the early summer months I really narrowed my interest into how to raise awarness surrounding rape and how to make people understand how violent and serious this act is. My obsession with educating my family and friends overtook me and I researched and
studied and ranted and one day I realized that my passion for this was much larger than I ever thought. I’ve seen multiple artists use art to raise awarenss, if they could do it why couldn’t I? So I did. I contacted Grace from Project Unbreakable and with her permission I used her beautiful images in my own way and with clay I began my project of Rape Plates to raise awareness. Clay can be used in a variety of ways to express a variety of things. It can be used to express beauty, functionality, politics, enviromental problems, togetherness, gender, identity, and the list goes on. For most of art history rape has always been romantized in art. Most paintings and sculptures of scenes depicting rape show a relaxed woman who seems to enjoy what is happening. There is just a feeling of acceptance in these paintings and the woman is just letting her fate play out. In today’s culture we all know that isn’t how rape should be viewed. It’s a violent act and many ceramicists (and other artists) have used their medium to express it in their own way. Someone recently called me a “shy activist” and I couldn’t agree more. I quietly produce work that loudly states my stance on what I believe is right and wrong and if I can touch one person, shock one person with my art and a disscussion starts, then my work will be considered a sucess. I want to show people what is happening in our society and how secrets about rape are kept away from the public and out of schools. They say the best way to keep a secret is to tell another person, so this is me telling you about the violence of rape and how it can destroy the lives of many people. I hope you take this information and share it with someone too. Maybe we can start a rumor about how terrible rape is. If enough people are talking and enough people are getting mad then we are one step closer to bringing rape culture to an end. 27
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