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On Friday, Nov. 7, rapper and internet star Cupcakke performed a lively show hosted by WRMC in the Pit in Johnson Memorial Building. The 20-year-old performer from Chicago is known for her sexually-explicit and sex-positive songs such as “Deepthroat” and “Vagina” which have both gone viral on YouTube.
A small group of students met in Chellis House for a information session on Planned Parenthood on Oct. 19. Paige Feeser, the Vermont Public Affairs Organizer for Planned Parenthood of Northern New England, led the session. Feminist Action at Middlebury (FAM) hosted the event, reestablishing the Generation Action initiative, the collegiate activist branch of Planned Parenthood. Feeser welcomed the group and, arranging the seats in a circle, shared her own experience working with Planned Parenthood. She admitted that she did not initially feel the same passion for the organization as her colleagues until the Supreme Court struck down the Massachusetts “buffer zone” law in June 2014, siding with abortion opponents. “I really for the first time saw this systemic oppression that is happening in that our country does not fully support women and the choices that they make about their own bodies,” Feeser said. “It was from there that I said I can’t stand idle.“ Feeser then launched into discussion, stating that she wanted to give the group a basic understanding of Planned Parenthood so that they could understand the organization on both a national and local level when talking to other people on campus. She explained that there are three important elements to the organization, the first being healthcare. “We are a trusted healthcare provider, and in fact we’ve been providing healthcare for over a hundred years,” Feeser said. “We provide a wealth of different services, including abortion, but really our focus is both reproductive and sexual health.” The second element is education. “We truly believe that all people should be able to make voluntary choices about their health,” she said. “So we’re providing education during people’s appointments, during counseling sessions, we are providing 24/7 up-to-date information on our website.” Feeser also discussed Planned Parenthood’s peer educator program, which offers high school students sexual education training that they can then use to teach their fellow students. The third element is advocacy, which is a critical piece in ensuring that people have access to healthcare and education services. “Our mission statement is to provide, promote, and protect access to reproductive healthcare and sexuality education so that all people can make voluntary choices about their healthcare,” Feeser said. Feeser also gave a few of Planned Parenthood’s northern New England statistics. “We have 21 health centers across Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine. Last year we served 41,956 patients,” she said. “The majority of our patients are in their 20s, and that is interesting because it challenges what most people think, that people who use our services the most are in their teens.” There are many other misconceptions about the organization. For example many people assume that patients only go to Planned Parenthood in times of crisis, such as an unplanned pregnancy or STI. But Feeser repeated that the organization offers many different services. “[In the Northern New England branch], abortion care is at six percent, five percent pregnancy testing and five percent other counseling,” she said. “[Health care for transgender individuals] is a service that is up and coming in our health centers, as well as lab-testing.” She also mentioned other services, such as birth control, cancer screenings for both males and females, preconception education, STD preventatives and men’s health care, including erectile dysfunction treatment. Feeser mentioned another myth about who uses services at Planned Parenthood. 87 percent of patients in Northern New England are women and 13 percent are men. “Even amongst our supporters I hear all the time, ‘Planned Parenthood is a women’s organization.’ We’re trying to break that and certainly we are really working to bring more males into our health center, and really putting a focus on LGBT care as well,” Feeser said. Feeser then turned the discussion back to the students and discussed sexual education and awareness in a school environment, a topic that the student organizations have been taking on recently. Natalie Cheung ’18, who attended the session, is working with other students to start a sexual education initiative on campus, but the students who attended Feeser’s talk felt that people should receive sex education before college. FAM president Cara Eisenstein ’18 acknowledged that there are already sex-positive education organizations on campus, but she thinks that increasing this number is important. “I think it’s great that there are a couple of different organizations doing similar and somewhat overlapping things, but with a different main focus, because that way the labor can be divided,” she said. She also mentioned that FAM and a few other organizations and individuals are working to bring a sex educator from O.School, an online sexual education platform, to campus in early December. Eisenstein has also been working with Feeser on Planned Parenthood advocacy for the past few months. “I think that as someone from Vermont who is relatively young, Paige is a great window into Planned Parenthood for students at Middlebury [who are interested in being] part of Generation Action,” she said. “I’m really glad we were able to reinstitute Generation Action on campus because it is an important organization for helping young people get involved in the fight for reproductive justice and focusing on advancing the goals of feminism through an intersectional lens.” FAM is incorporating Generation Action into its meetings every Wednesday from 9-10 p.m. in the Chellis House. The club plans to have a tabling event in Proctor within the next few weeks in order to draw attention to current events surrounding reproductive justice.
Assistant Professor of Economics Erick Gong delivered a talk in the Franklin Environmental Center on Oct. 25 titled “Information, Income, and the HIV/AIDS epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa.” The talk was presented as part of the Carol Rifelj Faculty Lecture Series, and addressed the HIV/AIDS epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa, which afflicts 25.5 million of people who live there (36.7 million people are infected worldwide). The issue is so widespread that the task of preventing further infection is daunting. Gong explored the current situation and possible solutions to the crisis. One common belief Gong highlighted in his presentation is that increased education and access to HIV testing will result in safer sexual behaviors and lead people to seek treatment, but he cited a study which indicated that this theory is only partially true. He noted that participants who frequently engaged in high risk sexual behaviors and then discovered they were HIV negative showed a dramatic decrease in unprotected sex. However, the same study indicated that low-risk participants, such as those in long-term relationships, dramatically increased their engagement in unprotected sex when they tested as HIV positive. Gong called this a “negative externality,” one which doesn’t necessarily negate the usefulness of education and HIV testing but certainly argues that education and testing alone cannot solve the problem. Another prevalent theory that Gong spoke about is that countries with higher income per capita will have fewer cases of HIV because people can afford treatment. Gong pointed out, however, that the most effective treatment, Antiretroviral Therapy (ART), is often either provided free of cost by the government or is unavailable regardless of income due to supply issues. Likewise, research has found that there is no correlation between per capita income and HIV prevalence in the sub-Saharan African countries Gong cited in his study. Rather than look at income, Gong hypothesized a correlation between HIV prevalence and a concept known as “income volatility.” Income volatility refers to negative income shocks, such as losing a job or having to pay for an expensive medical procedure, specifically in countries without the infrastructure for what Gong calls “consumption smoothing”, or programs such as those created by credit and insurance companies that generally negate drastic income fluctuation. People living without consumption smoothing methods respond to negative income shocks by pulling children out of school to join the labor pool, selling valuable assets, and most importantly to Gong’s research, engaging in transactional sex. To broaden the scope of the studies and definitively prove the effect of income shocks, Gong and his team gathered data about 200,000 people from across sub-Saharan Africa. Direct communication with the study subjects was impossible, but Gong hypothesized that the most important economic shock for rural sub-Saharan Africans, who are primarily farmers, would be drought. Gong’s survey found that rural areas affected by drought showed a 20 percent increase in HIV prevalence. After demonstrating this correlation between income volatility and HIV prevalence, Gong proposed that increased access to insurance, credit, and savings could be a partial solution to the spread of HIV. Without established savings programs, however, sub-Saharan African communities must save on their own. This presents a problem because saving money is difficult for most. Gong suggested that saving could be made easier with combination of “mental accounting” and mobile banking. Mental accounting is an economic concept established by Nobel Prize winner Richard Thaler which dictates that people are likely to divide assets based on source or usage and are likely to treat their money differently accordingly. By incorporating this theory into mobile banking, Gong proposed a solution easily accessible to those at risk. Gong tested his idea with a study of 627 Kenyan women, a combination of urban sex workers and rural widows, separated or divorced women, and unmarried heads-of-household without male support. The women were divided, regardless of their original category, into two test groups. One group did their banking as normal, while the other was given two accounts, with one specifically to be used for emergencies. Gong found that the women who had the second account tended to decrease spending and increase savings. Gong referred to this as an increase in “highly liquid savings.” They then determined which women from the original test grouping experienced a negative shock since the start of the trial. Unmarried women coping with shocks were less likely to resort to transactional sex if they were part of the group with emergency funds. Furthermore, both the sex workers and the unmarried women coping with shocks had fewer STI symptoms if they had the second account, indicating a decrease in unprotected sex. Anna Cox ’21, who attended the lecture, was pleased that the topic of HIV in her native Zimbabwe is getting academic attention. From a cultural perspective, however, she pointed out that more often than not men control family finances. “It’s the men who would have the accounts,” she said. “Women are financially more bystanders.” Cox believes this fact may complicate the results of the saving study. “There’s a lot less research done on men. It’s a big gap in our understanding [of HIV prevention],” he said. Research is like a ball of yarn,” Gong said. “The more I pull, the more untangled it becomes and the more I discover.” Gong’s research concluded that while not a definitive solution, the combination of mental accounting and mobile banking is an exciting solution to help curb the spread of HIV by combatting income shocks. For more information on Gong’s research, visit his website at sites.google.com/site/erickgong.
First things first, figure out the roommate problem. Now that you’ve cleared the room, affirmed consent, and done what evolution commands, you’re just sweaty and cramped up in a twin bed. Most students on this campus sleep in a twin extra long bed 39” x 80”; barely enough room to fit you and your laptop side by side. Yet, you’ve made the decision to bring a full sized human in there with you. Constant shuffling and repositioning stifles creative and engaging sex. Cuddling, a wonderful piece of the sexual experience is reduced to a negotiation with space limits. Sleeping (everyone’s real goal) is simply out of the question. Size really does matter. Seems impossible to rectify? Try these simple tricks: 1) Try getting off the bed to have sex. Standing can be hot if done with intent and passion. 2) Fans. Fans. Always use a fan. It will cool you down and mask some of the noises or your rumpus lovemaking. 3) The gear room rents sleeping bags and pads. Lay them out on the floor and zip the bags together. Just make sure to have them back by the end of your rental! 4) Sometimes you don’t want to stay over. Twin beds are a great excuse to leave. Your partner(s?) might even appreciate it. 5) If you are staying over, make sure you each have a pillow. Nothing ends a relationship faster than fighting over a pillow. Trust me 6) Ask your partner how they like to sleep If all this is too much and you just want your space, you can always masturbate. Stay safe everyone. XOXO (with a slight purr), Sex Panther
Jogging, panting, and feeling accomplished, 83 runners crossed the finish line of the Reproductive Justice 5k on Sunday, Oct. 8. The event, a collaboration by students with support from the Department of Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies (GSFS) and Chellis House, took place under windy conditions, but the rain fortuitously stopped just in time for students and townspeople to set off past the Mahaney Center for the Arts and around the golf course. Along the trail, staked into the ground, were signs with little known facts about the state of reproductive rights and teachings in the United States. The main purpose of the race, as one of the founders, Mika Morton ’19, stated, was education, teaching people that “reproductive justice is a lot more than just abortion…or being pro-choice.” The creators of the event, Morton, Cicilia Robison ’18, and Miranda-Max de Beer ’19, based their event on SisterSong, a reproductive justice collective comprised of women of color that defines reproductive justice as “the human right to maintain bodily anatomy, have children, not have children, and parent the children we have in safe and sustainable communities.” This broad definition takes into account other variables such as race, class, geography, and orientation, which play vital roles in determining who gets what type of access to reproductive rights and procedures. Black women, for example, are four times as likely to die in childbirth than white women, being less likely to receive lifesaving treatments. The inspiration for the 5k, this being its second year, emerged out of a Politics of Reproduction class taught by Carly Thomsen, an assistant professor of GSFS, last year. As Thomsen explained, all the students “complete a course project through which they translate an academic argument articulated in a course text into an alternative format with the intention of making said argument mobile.” The founders of the 5k, who were awarded an honorable mention for the Alison Fraker Prize by the GSFS department for their project, intended to create a platform that could explain reproductive justice in its broadest terms. The goal, as Morton said, was to “reach a different demographic,” bringing an academic subject into the realm of athletics.. One of the main hurdles of spreading awareness of reproductive justice is that it is typically considered to be a priority only for women’s rights groups. Katie Cox ’20.5, one of the participants, pointed out that the people fighting for these rights are usually “feminist groups, working to make reproductive rights available to everyone.” Education was the primary goal of the event, and, for all intents and purposes, the goal was fully achieved. Organizer Miranda-Max de Beer said that, despite the time crunch in getting the race organized, she was “really happy” with the results. The race gave students an open, relaxed environment in which to talk about hard topics, she said. And talk they did. After the race, students congregated in Axinn, where they tie dyed t-shirts over snacks. Nina Cruz ’21 said that the race changed her perception on the issue. She now has a more, “expansive and inclusive view of what reproductive rights are, which include access to affordable birth control and sex education.” This broadened understanding stemmed from the signs posted along the running route and from pamphlets handed out after the 5k. Statistics about reproductive justice and access to health care posted on signs around the course included: 45 percent of pregnancies in the US are unintended, some HIV-positive women are sterilized during childbirth without informed consent, 24 states and Washington, D.C. require sex education, yet only 13 states require it to be medically accurate, there have been 57 abortion restrictions enacted in 2017, being child-free can be liberating and the U.S. has the largest gap between parent and non-parent happiness in comparison to 22 other industrialized countries. For additional information, Morton suggests going to the Guttmacher Institute website. “If you want to go be outraged sometime, go check out their website,” she said. Thomsen said she thinks the event was a success. “The GSFS department and Chellis are wildly proud of these students and excited to continue to partner on student initiated and feminist theory-informed events,” she said.
Those who have gotten to meet me probably know that I am a 21-year-old freshman, that I took part in two gap years before coming to Middlebury, and that I am running for first year senator. I noted throughout the application process that during my second gap year I enrolled in a computer science course, coded, worked, pursued my passion for bicycles, worked on college applications and spent time with family. Yet I left behind details about my life that I did not feel comfortable sharing at the time. I left out the fact that most of that year was spent dealing with the aftermath of sexual assault, both in hospital beds and at meetings for an investigation that would culminate with the impunity of my perpetrator. After having completed a highly rewarding gap year abroad in Leon, Nicaragua, working with renewable and energy efficiency initiatives, I returned home to partake in a summer program hosted at the university I was expecting to attend. But shortly before the program’s end, my life encountered the same predicament that too often affects young, college-bound men and women across the nation. The story is all too familiar: a drunken night. A clouded mind. Unwanted touch. And finally, overwhelming confusion, anger, fear, sadness, powerlessness and even self-hatred and blame. I was unable to leave my dorm hall, eat in the dining halls or even sleep. I was forced to silently catch a train home and take a second gap year. Fast-forwarding to my life here and now as a new Middlebury student I find myself running for first-year senate. I feel it is important to echo the words of Gregory Buckles, dean of admissions, during his convocation speech this past September: “We’re not looking for perfection, nor should you get wrapped up in finding perfection here at Middlebury,” he stated. “The truth is you’re not going to find it.” While I do not expect Middlebury to be perfect, I do expect it to be better than what I encountered at the other college I was planning on attending (and thankfully never did). I expect it to be better than that place where I was told by an administrator to ‘learn my lesson,’ after painfully recounting my sexual assault. And thus far it has. Over this past summer I contacted Sue Ritter (Title IX coordinator) asking for resources for survivors and received support. I recognize the complexity of the issues that permeate Middlebury’s campus, as well as my own personal lack of sufficient knowledge needed to form a fully educated and rational opinion. But I see that the college still has a long way to go when it comes to addressing sexual assault, health, transparency and accountability. While I would like to refrain as much as possible from engaging in the gratuitous enumeration of the several positions that make up my platform, focusing on the source of the passion that drives this campaign instead, I feel it is important to discuss ways in which the school can more seriously tackle gender-based violence. Health Care Access To improve students’ access to their healthcare needs, the school should follow in the footsteps of colleges and install vending machines providing emergency contraception (Plan B), condoms, tampons, Advil and other medical products that students may need access to when Parton Health Centre is closed. This is particularly relevant for emergency contraception which research shows is most often needed during weekends. Student Accountability One of the main policies that I would like to pursue includes the creation of a student accountability office to facilitate avenues of cooperation between students and administrators, and provide productive criticism. This office would afford students the ability to report safely, comfortably and anonymously inappropriate behaviour by administrators and staff. To improve students’ access to their healthcare needs, the school should follow in the footsteps of colleges and universities like Stanford, Pomona and UC Davis, among others, and install vending machines that provide Plan B, condoms, tampons, Advil and other medical products that students may need access to when Parton Health Centre is closed. This is particularly relevant for emergency contraception which research shows is most often needed during weekends. Finally, but most importantly, a school that aims to seriously tackle gender-based violence should promote the following: Climate Surveys Performing a campus climate survey yearly to recognize the extent of this problem. Climate surveys allow students to anonymously and candidly describe their experiences on campus and evaluate the effectiveness and access to the resources that the college makes available to them. This tool is the first step to effectively addressing gender-based violence on campus, and is championed by national organizations like Know Your IX. Data Transparency The school should maintain easily accessible statistics of gender-based violence, extending beyond the limited Annual Security and Fire Safety Report mandated by the Department of Education under Title IX, which only go back three years. Furthermore, prints of such statistics and reports should be provided to incoming first-years during orientation. Improving Bystander Training and Sexual Education The sexual education offered to incoming freshmen is currently very cursory and brief. A more comprehensive sex-ed programme that addresses affirmative and enthusiastic consent, safe sex and healthy relationships (among other issues) more in depth is needed. The creation of said programme needs deep collaboration between students, faculty and staff but some of the points I would like to pursue include: No first-year or incoming freshman should be allowed to receive ID or access to dorms without completing such a training course, and orientation should include more small group discussions on the issue sexual assault. Group Therapy Middlebury college, in partnership with the local organization WomenSafe, used to facilitate group therapy for survivors of gender-based violence. But this service was suspended due to “low-attendance.” As a SGA senator, I would like to pursue the reinstallation of this resource to better serve survivors. Commit to Obama-era policies Throughout this past summer, Betsy DeVoss’ Department of Education introduced significant changes to Title IX that reverse Obama era mandates — including the 2011 Dear Colleague Letter, which ordered universities to adjudicate sexual assault cases under the preponderance of the evidence standard. As a SGA senator I would urge the administration to commit to these Obama-era protections and standards, following in the footsteps of other colleges like Amherst. Emergency Lights Middlebury’s campus is spread out and can be quite dark at night. There should be more blue emergency phones located around campus to promote a more safe and comfortable environment.
In a move that outraged many advocates for survivors of sexual assault, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos announced on Sept. 7 that her department would reexamine Obama-era guidelines regarding how colleges handle sexual assault claims under Title IX. DeVos’s remarks, delivered at George Mason University, came after she met with various groups to discuss sexual violence on campuses. Title IX is part of the Education Act of 1972, and it states that “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.” Many people associate Title IX with the effect it had on women’s athletics in schools, but Title IX also includes provisions about how colleges and universities handle cases of sexual assault. Sue Ritter, the Title IX coordinator at the College, explained that because the College receives federal funds, we must comply with Title IX, which includes directives that govern the implementation and enforcement of sexual assault and sexual harassment policies. “Any college or university that receives federal funding regardless of whether they’re public or private has to comply with Title IX and it’s the federal law that prohibits sex discrimination,” Ritter said. “Sexual assault is a form of sex discrimination just as sexual harassment is a form of sex discrimination — the theory being that if you are sexually assaulted it has such a profound impact on you that it essentially denies you equal access to educational programs or activities.” Though DeVos did not make any concrete policy proposals during her speech, she emphasized the need for due process in Title IX enforcement. “The truth is that the system established by the prior administration has failed too many students,” DeVos said, adding that part of why our system is failing is because it lacks due process. “Due process is the foundation of any system of justice that seeks a fair outcome. Due process either protects everyone, or it protects no one,” she said. “The notion that a school must diminish due process rights to better serve the ‘victim’ only creates more victims.” Ritter explained what a renewed emphasis on due process might entail. Due process “means notice and an opportunity to be heard,” Ritter said. “The college must notify the responding party of the actual charges instead of just investigating and not letting them know what they’re investigating. The respondent should also have an opportunity to present their side of the story.” Karen Guttentag, a judicial affairs dean at the college, noted that DeVos’ focus on due process could reflect DeVos’ desire to rebalance the system. “I think that her reference to due process is because of her overall assessment that the pendulum has swung too far in favor of complainants as a result of the directives in the Dear Colleague Letter,” Guttentag said. She explained that due process grants important rights to the respondent in sexual assault cases, including the right to tell their side of the story and the right to be informed of the nature of the charge. Guttentag also added that the College’s policy for adjudicating sexual assault already grants grants respondents and complainants these identical rights. In her address, DeVos identified the Obama administration’s Dear Colleague Letter from 2011 as one of the main reasons why she believes the current system does not function properly. The letter, which Department of Education published to augment existing Title IX regulations, served as a reminder to colleges that lack of compliance with Title IX can lead to loss of federal funding. It also provided new guidelines, including how quickly schools need to respond to reports of assault and what information they need to provide to all parties involved in a complaint. In an interview with CNN, DeVos said that her department had already starting rolling back guidelines set back by the letter, and she confirmed her intention to revoke the letter entirely. In her speech, DeVos echoed a common critique of the letter — that Obama administration published it as a directive, rather than go through the legislative process to turn their new guidelines into law. “For too long, rather than engage the public on controversial issues, the Department’s Office for Civil Rights has issued letters from the desks of un-elected and un-accountable political appointees,” she said. She seemed to indicate she would not take the same route, adding, “The era of ‘rule by letter’ is over.” One potential impact of the Department of Education changing the guidelines set forth by the letter would be a change in what standard of proof schools use to rule on sexual assault cases. The letter dictated that schools’ use of the “preponderance of the evidence” standard, one of the lowest burdens of proof in the U.S. legal system. The preponderance of the evidence standard says that if it is more likely than not that an assault occurred then colleges should rule that an assault occurred. Many advocates for the accused and legal scholars have proposed changing that standard over the years, and in her speech DeVos referenced a paper from the American Trial Lawyers Association that suggests raising the standard to “clear and convincing evidence.” Proponents of the Obama-era guidelines were quick to criticize DeVos, including former Vice President Joe Biden, who called DeVos’ speech a “step in the wrong direction” in a Facebook post the same day. “Any change that weakens Title IX protections will be devastating,” he said. “Students have taken on this fight. Keep fighting. Tell this administration that we refuse to go backwards.” Others praised DeVos for taking steps to balance the system, which some fear swung too far in favor of complainants under the Obama administration. Robert Shibley, the executive director of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, an organization that has challenged the Dear Colleague Letter in the past, praised DeVos’ speech. “I thought it was a strong signal from the department that they understand the current approach is unworkable,” Shibley said in an interview with The Washington Post. As of now, it is unclear exactly what changes will be made to the Department of Education policy regarding Title IX sexual assault enforcement on campuses. In her address, DeVos announced her intention to gather more information from relevant groups through “a transparent notice-and-comment process” in order to improve our system. “We will seek public feedback and combine institutional knowledge, professional expertise, and the experiences of students to replace the current approach with a workable, effective, and fair system,” DeVos said. Until definite changes to the policy are announced, Ritter said it is hard to know how DeVos’ speech will affect the College’s policy. However, Ritter also pointed out that our current adjudication process was modeled after the 2013 reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), which includes additional requirements about how campuses handle sexual assault claims. Ritter said that the provisions in this act cover some of the concerns DeVos raised about equity. “VAWA answers, I believe, a lot of the concerns Betsy DeVos has about fairness to both parties. It’s scrupulous in that regard,” Ritter said. “What you do for one you have to do for the other and you have to be fair, thorough, balanced and unbiased for both sides.” According to Ritter, the College has tried to model their policy closely to VAWA in order to promote a fair process “because if you don’t do that the [system] will collapse on itself,” she said. Ritter and Guttentag both said that unless the Department of Education issues or passes a policy change, they plan to keep the college’s current policy in place. “Until we know more from DeVos, we plan to stay the course,” Ritter said.
Full disclosure: The Sex Panther wrote this piece while slightly (okay — quite) tipsy. And she loves you the most. Alright, y’all. I’m graduating in 17 days. That’s a scary short amount of time. I debated about what I wanted to leave you with in my final edition of the sex panther — an ode to female masturbation (seriously a god-send, y’all!), an interview with a professor who researches sexuality, why you should take a chance and reach out to someone you have a crush on in these last few weeks, or real-life stories of people doing it right (pun intended). Instead, I want to leave y’all with the bullet-points version of everything I know about sex and relationships: One: Communication is key. I said this in the very first SP column I wrote and it’s the truest thing I know about relationships, whether a brief sexual encounter or long-lasting partnership. Being honest with our partners leads to better relationships and better sex. Two: It’s great to experiment. If you want to try out something new, find a pressure-free way to introduce a new concept into your sex life. “Just for fun” trying something out is a lot easier to do than making a new component a big deal and loading on the pressure for both you and your partner to have a good time. (Handcuffs, blindfolds, dildos are highly recommended as first steps to introducing some kink into your relationship.) Three: Masturbation is the bomb. Seriously. There is such a deep pleasure in knowing yourself and giving yourself time to explore your fantasies in the safety of your own bed. Plus, it’s a lot easier to explain to a partner what turns you on when you’ve done some solo exploration. Four: The key to staying friends with your ex is (duh) communication. Be open to letting them know if you need space from them, especially at the beginning. Sometimes it helps to have horrifying fights about why you broke up, as long as you keep in mind that under all that hurt, you still care for each other and respect each other as human beings. Of course, if you don’t care about them deeply anymore and a friendship doesn’t matter to you, don’t bother. Five: Tell the people you care about that you do care. I tend to talk A LOT, but when I need to tell someone how much I care for them, I let them know that what I’m saying is really important by slowing down, making some eye contact and saying really bluntly how important they are to me, how proud I am of them, etc. Implied love and affection is not communicated as clearly as we might think. Whether with friends or lovers, you have to let them know every once in a while. Six: Don’t sleep with someone your friend dated, unless you’re willing to change that friendship forever in order to pursue a relationship the ex. I don’t care how chill your friend is, sleeping with their ex will change y’all’s relationship forever. Maybe it’ll change for the better in the long-run, but in the short-run, things will inevitably be tense. You have to be ready to deal with that tension in a mature way. Seven: CONSENT! Constantly! This can just be a check-in, but it should happen during the entire sexual experience — from the first moment you approach one another at a party to the first kiss to post-sex cuddling. Eight: No sexual desire should be shamed. That doesn’t mean you have to personally be willing to participate in something, but don’t shame the act or the people who might want to participate. Nine: It’s not always about coming. Sex is ideally sensual and erotic, and that doesn’t always mean getting yours. It can mean being a generous and selfless partner one minute and the recipient of a lot of love the next. There is a lot of social baggage that goes along with this advice — cis-hetero men tend to think that the goal (and end) of sex is their ejaculation. But the point is really (besides baby-making) mutual pleasure, which doesn’t necessitate male ejaculation or even female orgasm, necessarily. My sex life has benefitted from a wider definition of sex that allows more room for the sensual and erotic outside of standard definitions of “sex.” Ten: Don’t judge yourself for what you like. There is no shame in any sexual preference. Shame about sex is pretty much just a social construct that you don’t have to accept into your life. (Obvi, this doesn’t apply when a fantasy requires that a partner not give consent… consent rules all!) Thank you, dear readers, for being open to my thoughts on sex and relationships this semester. I hope you found something you can use in your own life. Look out for a new sex panther next year — there’s always more to think about when it comes to getting it on! Xoxo, Sex Panther People who nail the combination of sexy, consent, comfort and new excitement. These are just examples of how some people were Scene 1: A couple is walking home from the library... Person A: Do you want to sleep over tonight? Person B: Sure, I just have to be up early. Person A: Okay. You know, it doesn’t have to be about sex… I just want to see you tonight. Person B: *feels respected and honestly a bit horny*
CW: sexual harassment Last week, the Campus published an op-ed by alumna Esme Valette ’16 about “predatory pack behavior” on campus — male students dominating the Middlebury party scene in a culture of men “hunting” women. Thank you, Esme, for talking about this facet of campus culture. The issue with pack mentality is that the group social norms override individuals’ initiative and decision-making. We get lazy and start relying on societally established rules of interaction and conduct to tell us what is a good or a bad decision. This leads to the tacit acceptance of rape culture on campus — in the way we talk about hooking up when sober and in the way we interact when we’re drunk. This is what leads so many to accept that we can put our hands on someone’s waist and start dancing with them without consent, for example. We see it as “just the way it works” in Atwater, or a function of the drunkenness, the cramped spaces, and our own horniness. Y’all, horniness or drunkenness is never an excuse for not getting consent for physical contact. Male students can go a long way to apply positive peer pressure on each other to stop this predatory mentality. On the flip side, women can and do access a similar kind of pack mentality to combat the effects of this male-dominated, rape-culture-tinged party scene. This less acknowledged female pack behavior takes the form of a quick check-in as to whether a friend is okay with receiving attention from a guy, running dancefloor interference if a friend is receiving unwanted attention or texting the friends you came with when you leave a party, especially if it’s with a guy. This sister-pack attitude is even more often fostered among members of a sports team, with upperclassmen and especially captains checking in with younger players to make sure they’re comfortable with the crowded situation. Some teams also talk about including other women in this party safety network, too — meaning they’ll reach out to any woman who seems uncomfortable or alone. Women looking out for women is amazing, but this sisterhood dynamic a deep reservoir of power that has yet to be fully tapped into. Upperclassmen women: let’s step it up. My first year at Midd, I was dancing with teammates in an Atwater suite when a guy came up behind me and put his hands on my waist. I brushed his hands off, but he put them right back on and tried to dance with me. So I brushed them off again, turned around and said, “Sorry, I don’t want to dance with you.” He reached for my waist yet again and said, “Aw, come on.” He swore at me when I didn’t swoon into his arms and ran off as I glared after him. I was shaken, but proud that I had stood my ground, especially after a senior told me, “Good for you. What a creep.” But what if, in the moment that a guy put his hands on me without my permission, a senior on the team had told him, “Hey, she didn’t say you could do that.” But the reason no senior did that is that speaking up would have had a social cost. If no one else reacts to groping on the dance floor by pointing out that it’s essentially sexual assault, then the person who does point it out sounds dramatic, or like an outsider who can be ignored. To change this reality, it would take all of us. A concerted effort among all female athletes to shut down these commonly accepted forms of sexual harassment and assault. If first years started their party experience at Midd with the understanding that it wasn’t acceptable to touch people without permission and that it was socially acceptable for women to stand up for each other in these moments, in four fast years, they could have completely transformed Midd’s party culture. So, to next year’s upperclassmen women — especially up and coming team captains — let’s harness our power, as the ~alphas~ of our packs of teammates, friend groups and student orgs, to set an agenda against the casual acceptance of a sexist party culture. Xoxo, Sex Panther
Donald Trump has proclaimed April as “National Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month,” affirming his commitment to reducing and ultimately ending sexual violence in our Nation. Kind of ironic coming from the man who’s been accused of sexually assaulting more than fifteen women and caught on tape bragging about his right to “grab ‘em by the pussy.” While I do not support our country’s president, I am committed to raising awareness about sexual abuse and fighting against it. So in keeping with this month’s theme, let me tell you about some of the predatory pack behavior that I was privy to at Middlebury College.
On April 11, sex and relationships educator Kate McCombs delivered the keynote address of the College’s programming for Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month (SAAPM). McCombs spoke about the importance of enthusiastic consent. “Enthusiastic consent is more than just ‘can I touch you?’” she said. “[It] is about shifting from just avoiding a ‘no’ to seeking an eager yes.” McCombs suggested that learning to get better at hearing no, working to make a partner feel comfortable saying no and learning to rethink consent as applying to every type of contact we have with other people, and not just to sex, are ways to start pursuing enthusiastic consent. McCombs stressed the importance of improving communication skills in conversations that might normally be uncomfortable, and urged students to talk about sex outside the bedroom. “Good communication is what opens the door to finding out what you like,” she said. “I want you to have sex that’s good for you and for your partners– I want to encourage the idea that you will know what’s best for you. There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to good sex.” McCombs’ talk followed the launch of the MiddSafe Online Advocate tool, a website that contains all of the resources of MiddSafe’s 24 hour hotline. Advocates demonstrated how to use the website and answered questions in a reception in Crossroads. The Online Advocate can be accessed at go/onlineadvocate. Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month is recognized nationally, and aims to raise public awareness about sexual assault and methods of prevention. The College’s SAAPM events, sponsored by the Health and Wellness Education office, MiddSafe, Queers and Allies and Green Dot, included Green Dot Bystander Training, the launch of MiddSafe’s Online Advocate tool, a consentthemed carnival called ConsentFest and a workshop entitled “Queering Sex Ed.” While programming for Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month has occurred annually at the College, ConsentFest was a new event to the College this year. “ConsentFest is based on a successful program model from other schools including Bentley University and Amherst College. [It] aims to create space for conversations and questions about consent,” Director of Health and Wellness Education Barbara McCall wrote in an email to the Campus. Participants played games and spoke with representatives from various College offices and programs in the Axinn Winter Garden. The Spring Symposium will also feature a number of academic presentations concerning sexual violence. “I hope students see that violence response and prevention are important areas of work at the College,” McCall said.
What do you get when you cross three upperclassman actors, a red prop phone and gardening sex metaphors? You get Does This Woman Have a Name? — a short and energetic play by Theresa Rebeck that follows two enterprising women who turn to phone sex to make some extra cash. The show was acted and directed by Matthew Blake ’17, Paige Guarino ’18.5 and Mariah Levin ’16.5, and was performed in the Hepburn Zoo Nov. 18–19. The project came about spontaneously when Blake, Guarino and Levin auditioned for the First Year Show and were turned away because they were “too old.” They still wanted to pursue an acting project, however, which is how they stumbled upon Does This Woman Have a Name? “The three of us really wanted to do some theater this semester, but the right opportunity didn’t already exist anywhere,” Guarino said. “Not willing to give up on the idea, we decided to create our own opportunity and put the show together ourselves.” The trio had the help of First Year Show director Rebecca Martin ’04.5, who acted as consulting director for the performance. “My goal was to help them with their acting,” Martin said. “A couple of them had never done a show before, so I wanted to teach them the basics of acting and just guide their process. I directed their acting but other than that, they did all of the rest.” Does This Woman Have a Name? follows the lives of two friends, Mel and Sarah, who are struggling to get by in the city. To solve their money problems, the duo team up to work a phone sex line, using their writing and acting skills to create scripts and act out callers’ fantasies. The line soon becomes successful, much to the dismay of Mel’s boyfriend Jon. Jon insists on financially supporting Mel, but Mel wants to be independent, and she tries to reassure him that phone sex is not as bad as he thinks it is. The couple’s relationship is called into question, all the while Sarah and Mel learn the ropes of their new business. The show, while light and humorous at the surface, is actually a source of deeper social commentary. The cast excitingly and masterfully grappled with themes that ranged from intimacy to occupational independence. “I think it’s easy to see this as a play about phone sex, but there are underlying issues of power dynamics and whether it’s important to take care of ourselves,” Levin said. “Especially at this age, we’re getting to that stage where it’s like, do we rely on our parents, do we rely on our significant others or do we rely on ourselves?” “This is a complicated play that reflects how we all speak different languages of love and all have different understandings of empowerment,” Blake added. “Communicating these contrasting views of success and love is difficult but necessary in order to have healthy, interpersonal relationships — and who doesn’t want those!” Does This Woman Have a Name? was Blake’s first show at the College. “It was a special opportunity to have such a personal, active and engaged role in my first show at Middlebury,” Blake said. “This process has definitely inspired me to do more acting. Acting allows you to live inside another’s mind and soul. It sharpens your empathetic faculties and encourages you to see the world through different eyes.” Nothing like a show about phone sex to really dive headfirst into acting.
Among the attendees of the first ever Feminist Alumnx Retreat this weekend was Melian Radu ’13, a former English and American Literatures major with a focus in Creative Writing and a Gender, Sexuality & Feminist Studies and Sociology minor. A recent MFA graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, Radu has been featured in Vetch, the first literary journal devoted to poetry by transgender writers. The mission statement of Vetch is to “help bring into the world trans poetry that does not feel the need to translate itself for a cis audience.” On Friday, Nov. 4, Radu performed in an intimate poetry reading, which included such works as “Premortuary School,” “How Much Google Will You Do, Gull?” and “The Part of the Penal Code Which Applied to Drag Queens Was Section 240.35, Subsection 4.” Her work offers commentary on technology, intimacy and surveillance. She is currently working on her debut manuscript at her new home in L.A. The Middlebury Campus had the opportunity to speak with Radu on her experiences at the College, the inspiration behind her poetry and her recent publication in Vetch. How did you start writing poetry? I was interested in writing as long as I could remember, but I figured I could do novels. I wanted to write fantasy novels – I still want to write fantasy novels – but my junior year of high school, I was like, “I want to improve the descriptive writing in my fiction. All the imagery is very bland, and poetry is about cool images, so I’ll write some poems to practice.” And from there I tried poetry and never went back. The most serious-ish poem I can remember writing that year was inspired by the movie The Brave One with Jodi Foster, which at the time I didn’t have much of a political-ish, theoretical sense of. But now that I look back, it speaks deeper. It’s a vigilante justice sort of movie, where her husband’s long-term partner is mugged and the system fails to do anything about it, so she sort of takes it into her own hands. It’s sort of this somewhat feminist-y, action-y, dark, intense thriller. So I felt compelled, I guess, to write a poem about that and explore sort of what her motivations were. What did you study at Middlebury? I was an English and American Literatures major with a Creative Writing focus. It’s a very unofficial-ish sort of thing, but it does mean you take some extra creative writing classes and you get to do a creative writing thesis instead of a big long paper – which is why I picked the major, really, initially. It was still a very new thing when I got to Middlebury. My main intellectual pursuits were in my minors, which were Gender Studies and Sociology. How did those two fields of academia intersect with your writing? The more I got into critical theory and whatnot, the more it kind of came into my poetry. And my undergraduate thesis was about true incidents, mostly, of people attacking or in some way damaging works of art – even though I do have rather a suspicion of poetry. I’ve seen lots of poetry that wants to be political and therefore ends up not being very interesting or poetic. That’s not the case in a broader sense. I mean, Claudia Rankine is part of the most famous at the moment. You know, incredible books she’s put out in the past few years that just electrified people in the sense of what people can and should be doing in terms of our larger culture and society. But I’ve also seen the other side, where it’s just very hand-fisted, schlocky and not interesting. So I want to avoid that. But I am, of course, drawn to these concerns. So yeah, that thesis, whenever I mention it to people, I guess the contrast was pretty immediate. People were like, “Oh my gosh, someone would blow up the statue or they would splash acid on this famous painting or punch a hole in a Monet? Like, that’s disgusting, how horrible. That’s worse than, like, beating somebody up. They should be in prison for that.” That, to me, is horrifying. So I guess the concern at the center of it was, of course I like art. I love these classic works. But at the same time, I also, in the end, place a lot of value, more value, I can come right out and say it, on human life. So when I see people being actually in prison for long periods of time or whatnot for these things, it immediately unsettles me. I was interested in exploring that sort of contradiction in those poems. Like, different ways of looking at these incidents. Do you see your poetry as a form of activism? I don’t know how much of it is known at Middlebury anymore, but I certainly did some things when I was here. I mean, all-gender housing, all-gender restrooms, whatnot. I believe deeply in that kind of work, and I sort of believe deeply in the artistic work that I do. So somehow there’s definitely the overlaps to it, and I’m cool with those. But also for me, I draw some line in the sense of, I want to write poetry that’s interesting and effecting change or affecting a person. But I do have a distrust of people who want to see their poetry as the first and foremost activist thing they do. I mean, I see ways in which it’s worked, and I guess it relates to my own work a lot, but there was a particular discussion a few years ago of drone poetics. Like, we have this dislike of this uprising drone usage, drone warfare, so we’re gonna write these poems in the sense of, we’re gonna look back at the state, we’re gonna surveil them. Our poems will be like little drones watching over the government or something. I don’t know, you can hear my skepticism – like, are these poems gonna be read to people in the government? Are they gonna suddenly be like, “President Obama’s gonna realize what terrible thing drones are and stop using them to bomb small children”? I doubt it. The people who write these poems probably do other things as well, but I guess I would be skeptical of anyone who thought that was the first and foremost way we’re gonna have impact. As one tool in a toolbox, great, I guess that’s the bottom line of it. But I like concrete action for sure. I like very much that I was able to write poems that said interesting, cool things while I was at Middlebury, and I also did other things that would have concrete effects. Your work will be featured in the newest issue of Vetch. Can you speak more on nature of this publication? It’s the first publication primarily of trans-authored poetry, at least on an ongoing basis. [The editors] are very much interested in the idea of what is it like to write poetry from a trans perspective. Every issue seems to have a great theme they bring up to anyone who’s submitting, with a broader concern that’s also rooted in a trans experience. This new one that’s coming out, they gave us “ekphrasis” – literal Greek – which is looking at something, describing something, in the oldest classical sense. The perfect ekphrasis sense is, you look at a statue, describe it in words, and then someone who saw those words would have the exact same experience as the person who looked at the statue. Now, that perfect description is kind of tough to pull off, but it’s the idea of work that responds to something that you see. A lot of my own thesis was ekphrasis in terms of reacting to the work as I was seeing it, to a photo that was being damaged, or reacting to the site of somebody damaging it. So that was the theme of the issue, but they made it like, “We think transness is often involving rewriting one's experience in a certain sense. How can you rewrite as you also reinterpret something you see visually?” What inspires your poetry? What I do like about Vetch in their mission is a way to engage a trans identity in a way that is not totalizing. It’s not all about that. It is nice to be able to expand outward. Like, yes, we’re trans, we’re writing from that experience, but also there’s a lot more than that going on. It’s very rare for me to write a poem anymore that is about my gender dysphoria or something, but certainly it’s in there. I mean, I do write a lot about sex and nudes and whatnot. So it’s really shot through with a lot of queer sexuality. But technology is really the driving force. What is one piece of advice you would give to an aspiring poet? This may be overly prescriptive, but I know it worked well for me and I’ve given it to a lot of people: to very aggressively pursue change or avoid sameness in their writing. Very much my Middlebury writing career was gradually trying a new thing in every poem. If the last two poems were first person, this one's gonna be third person. I haven’t written a formal one in a while, so I'm gonna do a villanelle [a 19-line poem with two repeating rhymes and two refrains]. This one’s from my own perspective about my life, but now I'm gonna do a persona poem from somebody else's poem. Avoid getting caught up in a “this is my style” if you want to develop a voice. That’s a concern that people have and I very much had at one point – and did I really develop a voice? I don’t know. I guess people say, “That sounds like you, that’s unique, so that’s a voice” – but what is, anyway? What would you say to anyone interested in your work? That they should feel free to jump at the chance to critique it. ’Cause it is very much in constant flux, and I am always more than ready to have somebody say, like, “No. Not working. On any number of levels.” Which can be creative or, like, “No, I think the way that you engage with surveillance is overly informed by this particular idea you have that is inaccurate. ’Cause there are other aspects to how technology shapes people’s lives in ways you’re not considering.” Because poetry is very much informed by one’s perspective and mine has those limitations. I’m always interested in exploring and plugging holes in, but also expanding in different ways. PEER REVIEW Your dog dies and you give him to Science. You do this with all your things. On a hook on the wall of the study glints Journal of Microbiotics: Science saw fat content in the rate your ice cream melted. His study has reduced obesity and was widely hailed in Europe. Winter was hard, with Science taking up the whole couch. Poor St. Nicholas— your parakeet whose body you gave to Science who gave it back: Husk is husk, he said. There is nothing to learn from this. When the ice thaws you think you will sink Nick to Belize. Science is getting a PhD in psychoanalysis and asks: Who are the men in your life? What else will you give me? I am hungry and could eat nine cigars. Your dog has died but his stem cells cure your SAD. Science will save you yet.
It is rare to find a story so relevant that it feels like it takes place on your college campus. It is rarer to find a story so relevant that makes you realize it does. One such story is found in Wrecked, the latest novel by Maria Padian ’83. Padian, who lives in Brunswick, Maine, is also the author of Out of Nowhere (2013), Jersey Tomatoes are the Best (2011) and Brett McCarthy: Work in Progress (2008). The story, which chronicles sexual assault on college campuses, shifts between the perspectives of Haley and Richard, two college students who see their worlds change after a fateful night of partying. One night, Haley’s roommate, Jenny, returns from a party as a different girl, shaken and wounded. Richard’s friend, Jordan, returns from the same party telling a story about a drunken hookup with a freshman. When Jenny accuses Jordan of rape, the worlds of these four people collide and change forever. It is a story often told in young adult literature. Wrecked, however, is different. Its story is not told by the victim but by two outsiders without all the details. Their perspectives mirror our own as readers, as we are never quite sure what really happened. Haley and Richard come together as they struggle to sort out truth from lie and memory from imagination. They are confronted with the rape culture and victim-blaming that too often affect the lives of women and men who face the realities of sexual assault. Because the story isn’t told from the victim or the accused, the task of weeding through the many details to find the truth becomes even more complex. It underscores for the readers the toll sexual assault exacts on peoples’ lives, highlights the unhealthy relationship some college students have with the words ‘yes’ and ‘no,’ and demonstrates how easy it is for doubt to creep in. The story takes place at MacCallum College, a fictitious but eerily familiar small private school. The characters party, concern themselves with sports and grades, engage in casual sex and even occasionally recline in an Adirondack chair on the green. Padian said that “[t]he setting is very much influenced by living in a small college town,” but she maintained that it was not actually based on Middlebury or Bowdoin College. MacCallum College is probably based on all small private schools. It’s easy to see the similarities between its setting and characters and any liberal arts college or university in America. The very fact that the setting can take on so many real locations is why the story feels so possible and so visceral. If something like this could happen at MacCallum, it could happen at Middlebury. And it certainly does. Padian’s characters come beautifully to life in this enthralling and powerful novel. They allow us to step into their shoes and wonder how we would act, what side we would choose and if right and wrong can be defined as sharply as the world wants them to be.
Two student leaders of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, a national evangelical Christian organization that has a chapter at Middlebury College, were asked to resign their leadership posts by other members in the chapter in January 2015 because of their sexuality. The two students chose not to speak about the incident until now. The students, Jonathan O’Dell ’18 and Josiah Stork ’15, were approached several times in 2014 by another student board member, who has since graduated. According to Stork, the student told the two that Intervarsity (IVCF) had a national policy against openly gay student leaders, meaning O’Dell and Stork would have to step down. The board member who asked the two to step down declined multiple requests for comment, and instead directed The Campus to Chris Nichols, the IVCF’s regional director for New England. Nichols denied that such a national policy against gay student leaders ever existed. “There is (and has been) no national policy in place in InterVarsity that bars student leaders from serving if they are openly gay,” said Nichols in an email to The Campus on Oct. 4. Nichols did say that the IVCF expects its leaders “to affirm our doctrinal basis and to share a common approach to faith with the group.” According to IVCF’s website, the doctrinal basis is “the basic Biblical truths of Christianity.” Interpreting Scripture While IVCF does not explicitly prohibit gay students from serving as leaders, the student who asked them to step down was interpreting the IVCF policy as Biblical tenet, O’Dell and Stork said. As much of this was going on, the College IVCF chapter organized a speaker series during Winter Term 2015. The series featured regional directors from IVCF leading discussions based on “close scripture reading.” The series explicitly marketed gender and sexuality as its main theme. Nichols was one of the speakers at the series and spoke about passages from Romans 1:1-32. The chapter describes “sinful” acts of humanity that provoke God’s wrath. “Men committed shameless acts with men and received in their own persons the due penalty for their error,” the passage reads (Romans 1:27). Later, it continues, “They know God’s decree, that those who practice such things deserve to die — yet they not only do them but even applaud others who practice them” (Romans 1:32). According to Stork, Nichols’ speech affirmed a traditional homophobic interpretation of these passages, which have been interpreted in many other ways within the religion. O’Dell and Stork reported their concerns to the College Chaplain’s Office in January 2015. Throughout that spring, O’Dell and Stork met with the Chaplain of the College Laurie Jordan and the other MIVCF leaders during what O’Dell called “negotiations.” A member of the Chaplain’s Office served as a moderator during these meetings, O’Dell said. “We intentionally did not involve the Judicial Board or the Dean of Students in the process,” Stork said. “We didn’t want to cast a negative light on the religion as a whole because of the actions of a few bigots.” By notifying only the Chaplain’s Office about the College chapter’s requests, no administrator was made aware of potential violations of the College’s non-discrimination policy. The Chaplain’s Office is a strictly confidential resource, and so it could not relay any information about the incident to proper disciplinary channels. “In our roles as Chaplains we welcome students to speak with us in a safe, private and confidential environment, and we hold that trust dearly,” said Chaplain Jordan. “Of course, in any given situation, students may speak for themselves, but we will always honor our commitment to confidentiality.” Revising Policies Beginning in April 2015, MIVCF’s leaders began revising their constitution at the request of Stork and O’Dell. All student organizations need to have a constitution in order to be officially recognized by the College, and thus eligible for funding from the SGA, said Ellen McKay, a staff member at the Scott Center for Religious Life who directs the Religious Life Council. The amendments included a provision that allows the entire membership to call new elections by a majority vote. A description of the proposal said it would make leadership changes a formal matter, rather than dependent on informal conversations among the leaders. On May 12, 2015, a quorum of members voted in favor of adopting the proposed amendments. The membership clause of the constitution has always included the Middlebury non-discrimination statement. However, the statement only ensures non-discrimination in membership and does not specify a policy on leadership positions. According to Stork, this was a point of contention. “MIVCF shall not discriminate in its membership or activities on the basis of race, creed, color, place of birth, ancestry, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, or marital status,” it reads. MIVCF’s funding is granted by the Religious Life Council, which receives a lump sum and then distributes it to all religious student organizations. The SGA Finance Committee oversees the Religious Life Council, but the council has broad leeway in determining exactly how their funding is allocated. “As stewards of the student activity fee, we make it our priority to fund organizations equitably,” said Kevin Benscheidt ’17, chair of the SGA Finance Committee. “This news raises interesting questions about the role of the SGA in regards to censorship. However, I can assure you we were never made aware of any discriminatory practices.” Student organizations are required to undergo a review process every three years, in which they submit reports of their activity to the SGA Constitution Committee. The committee last reviewed MIVCF in Jan. 2015 and approved the MIVCF’s status as a registered organization. The committee will conduct its next review of MIVCF in Jan. 2018. “Potentially discriminatory practices are definitely taken into account when reviewing a student organization,” said Nick Delehanty ’17, chair of the SGA Constitution Committee. “Notice of an organization failing to comply with College policy would definitely call into question a student organization’s status as an officially recognized organization during the review process.” National Conversation The conversation surrounding IVCF’s beliefs on human sexuality is happening at the national level as well. On Oct. 7, TIME reported that Intervarsity Christian Fellowship USA, the national office, told its 1,300 staff members that “they will be fired if they personally support gay marriage or otherwise disagree with its newly detailed positions on sexuality,” effective November 11, 2016, reads the TIME article. According to the article, the national office called the decision a process of “involuntary termination” for any staff member who comes forward and disagrees with its positions on human sexuality. Staffers are being asked to come forward voluntarily if they disagree with the theological position. TIME called it a “theological purge.” In a response statement made the same day, IVCF claimed that the TIME report was not true. “No InterVarsity employee will be fired for their views on gay marriage,” it states. TIME reported that the decision was the outcome of a four-year internal review on what the Bible teaches about human sexuality. IVCF confirmed that it had been re-examining its position on human sexuality through a four-year process in which “we reiterated our beliefs on human sexuality and invited our staff to study and to reflect on how our beliefs about Scripture and our hermeneutic approaches to Scripture lead us to those conclusions,” said Greg Jao, InterVarsity vice president and director of campus engagement in the IVCF statement. It continues, “InterVarsity’s process invited all employees to take 18 months to work through a nine-part curricula, read a variety of resources, and study the relevant biblical texts to conclude whether they were in agreement with InterVarsity’s unchanged position.” “It’s clear that InterVarsity has their conception of what they believe but that they’re not really being tolerant of a lot of other beliefs that are still within the framework of Christianity,” said Stork. “I think InterVarsity’s by-line has often been, ‘come and see what you believe, figure out who you think Jesus Christ is.’ But, assuming the TIME piece is right, asking people who disagree with their belief patterns to leave is narrowing the score of what they can direct students to, and what they can really claim as far as letting people explore belief.”
What does it mean to combine laughter and healing? To be the “perfect” survivor? And what do clowns and “panda puppies” have anything to do with it? Trying to explain the Post Traumatic Super Delightful (PTSD) play to those who did not watch the show was challenging at best. Performed in Hepburn Zoo on Thursday, May 5, Post Traumatic Super Delightful is most simply described as a one-woman show about a community trying to heal after a sexual assault. In practice, it is a heartbreaking, hilarious and nuanced tale of survivors, perpetrators and bystanders – and the impacts of a system that has not done anyone any favors. Post Traumatic Super Delightful is written and performed by Antonia Lassar, directed by Angela Dumlao, stage-managed by Olivia Hull and further supported by a large team of women with varying backgrounds and skill sets. The fictionalized content stems from interviews with survivors, perpetrators, administrators, faculty and staff within the judicial system, and contains only two moments from Lassar’s real life. Director of Health and Wellness Education Barbara McCall, Molly McShane ’16 and Rebecca Coates-Finke ’16.5 worked to bring the play to campus through the Department of Justice Grant. First, we meet the clown – a woman dressed in typical clothing who dons a red nose and performs ridiculous antics against the backdrop of voiceovers and music. Each interlude featuring this nameless, smiling character is infused with humor and stark realizations. At one point, the clown walks out with a pile of placards and begins to dance to the pulsing beat of “Survivor” by Destiny’s Child. One by one, she shows the front side of each placard: “I’m pretty.” “I’m white.” “I’m a girl.” “I’m the perfect survivor.” (She pauses after “I’m white” to show off her most awkward and invigorating dance move yet, before pointing to the sign again in a hilarious, self-deprecating recognition of her own whiteness.) Flipping the cards to the opposite side, she continues: “I’m not like the angry ones.” “I cry but I’m not a mess.” “I hate my rapist.” “None of you know him so none of you doubt me.” “I’m also perfect.” “At rolling my tongue.” The clown proceeds to roll her tongue repeatedly with impressive dexterity, causing the audience to laugh in bewilderment. The contrast between this hysterical demonstration and the difficult truths conveyed by the placards is strategic and intentional. Society has constructed the narrative of the “perfect survivor” of sexual assault – white, female, pretty and not too teary-eyed, among other characteristics – to the detriment of anyone who does not fit this elusive mold. The clown highlights these identity politics by presenting the situation in the most straightforward manner possible. “The play takes the trauma and pain that may be associated with being a survivor and doesn’t try to define it, which is the purpose of the clown,” Coates-Finke explained. “It’s responding to the myth of the perfect survivor, the narrative of what one should do and how one should be. The clown takes away identity in some ways, and just gives space.” Lassar, who drew on her own training as a clown to create Post Traumatic Super Delightful, sees great potential in healing through laughter. “Clowning has been used in sacred rituals in some cultural contexts. The sacred clown can be a presence that reflects back the truth of the community to the community, and mimics what you are doing,” she said. “The laughter is a recognition that we do act like that, people do talk that way. Getting a group of people to laugh about anything is to acknowledge that it exists. This is very powerful in a society that often invalidates survivors’ experiences.” Though Post Traumatic Super Delightful was written largely for and by survivors, “Julia” – the fictional college student who was sexually assaulted by “Bryan” – never makes an appearance. Instead, her name comes up only in heated conversations featuring Lina, the school’s Title IX Coordinator, faculty member Dr. Margaret Roach and Bryan himself. Because it is a one-woman show, however, these conversations are enacted in a one-sided manner by the ever-evolving actress Lassar. Responses are implied rather than uttered aloud – and due to prominent changes in vocal and physical expressions, there is never a doubt as to which character is speaking at any given moment. Lina uses brash language cloaked in a thick Russian accent, with inflammatory statements such as, “But I push her [Julia]! You know, I can file complaint myself, but if she won’t let me use her name, it won’t go anywhere. I’m not upset. I am upset. I shouldn’t be upset, but this is my first case. I want justice!” In contrast, Margaret speaks with a stiff, high-strung formality, while Bryan’s light Texan drawl marks all of his confused, frustrated and painfully honest musings. In featuring a variety of voices, Post Traumatic Super Delightful is a reflection of how sexual assault is perceived by – and therefore affects – an entire community. “Instead of hearing a story from a very singular perspective – which is a really important perspective of a survivor, but which can be limiting in terms of a full understanding of sexual assault and the ripple effect – we get a context and a way to process the pain,” Coates-Finke said. “It allows us to think bigger about what the possibilities for awareness and activism are – the way that sexual assault affects people beyond the two or more people involved in one encounter,” McShane added. “It’s exciting both for people who are new to this conversation and for people who have been having this conversation for a long time.” Through the dialogue, the audience becomes aware of the ways in which harmful narratives are reproduced. “Bryan is not capable of rape. He is not a monster,” Margaret, his faculty advisor, says at one point. “Julia does not look like a rape victim, okay? I had her in class. I know her.” In response to the question “Do you think she was making it up?” Margaret states, “When you’re a drinker, there’s always the possibility you misremembered.” Bryan’s pain and misconceptions also come to light through his interactions with Lina, the Title IX Coordinator who is adamantly advocating for Julia. “I’m a freaking 21-year-old-boy! I’m going to have sex!” Bryan exclaims. “Rape is about power, it’s not about sex. What if this was just about sex?” “I knew a guy in high school who got raped, real raped. And it’s really different. It’s like, I mean, he was bleeding. It was like on a walk home from a bar, and someone just appeared on the street. That’s rape. When you have to fight.” Faced with these faulty assumptions – that drunk sex does not ever count as rape, that only monsters are capable of rape and that rape victims must look and act a certain way – it becomes clear why sexual assault has become such a blurry and complicated issue, particularly on college campuses. Post Traumatic Super Delightful addresses this complexity partly by stating these misconceptions aloud in the first place, and partly by emphasizing the humanness inherent in everyone involved. For instance, though Lina demonstrates care and compassion, she is not always great at her job. She pressures Julia to file a Title IX complaint in the name of “justice,” but then realizes, “What is point of justice, if survivor will still be hurt?” Meanwhile, Bryan is an accused perpetrator – yet his goofy demeanor and adoration for baby animal videos defy the common expectation that rapists cannot possibly be human. According to an anonymous feedback form submitted by an audience member, “It was tough to watch/hear from the perpetrator, because he was so nice… Ugh. I guess it’s easier to think of perpetrators as horrible evil people.” Amid the stress of the judicial process, Bryan explains that all he can handle at this point is watching videos of “panda puppies” – a confession that drew huge, perhaps empathetic laughs from the crowd. Combined with his genuine, pleading questions – “I don’t know what I did! How could you not know if you raped someone? What’s non-consensual? What’s consensual?” – Bryan’s confusion becomes obvious. And in some ways, his actions become understandable. Like everyone else, Bryan is the product of a system, his thoughts shaped by a flawed education and harmful media messaging. All of these factors have led him to misunderstand what it takes to hurt another individual, or what it means to be a “good” or a “bad” person. If certain lines from the play resonated with you in a strange or uncomfortable way, it may help to remember that we are all products of a system. Through our words, actions and willingness to listen to those around us, however, we can all play a part in dismantling rape culture. “Even if you think you don’t know a survivor and you think you don’t know a perpetrator, everyone is so connected and complicit and responsible and in a positon to do something about sexual violence,” Coates-Finke said, “because you definitely know a survivor and you definitely know a perpetrator on this campus. Especially on one as small as ours.” The multifaceted characterization within Post Traumatic Super Delightful proves that nothing and no one exists in black-and-white terms. Through its nuanced telling, the story becomes more real, and thus more relatable. Above all, it shows that laughter can, indeed, serve as an unexpected catalyst for healing. Perhaps the anonymous feedback from the audience phrased it best: “I am feeling heavy and light simultaneously,” a 21-year-old female stated. “Trauma and sexual assault is not an easy topic to face, but I feel the load is always a bit lighter with the aid of the community and new tools.” “As a survivor, I thought it was healing to see this performed in a serious and comedic way,” a 19-year-old male wrote. “I feel hopeful.”
The College hosted the tenth annual Spring Student Symposium in McCardell Bicentennial Hall on Friday, April 15. The event, which ran throughout the day, featured an array of oral presentations, posters, artwork and other performances by current students. Topics ranged from Abraham Lincoln’s speeches to Zambian gardening programs, encompassing a wide variety of academic disciplines. Mitchell Perry ’16 delivered an oral presentation entitled “Down with DOMA: America’s Evolution on Marriage Equality Policy.” The presentation, which Perry adapted from his Political Science senior thesis, focused on the methods by which same-sex marriage advocates reshaped public opinion on the issue. Using Vermont, California and Minnesota as case studies, Perry determined which techniques caused the greatest shifts in public support for same-sex marriage. “As a gay male who grew up in Minnesota, I came out right as Minnesota was voting on a ban on gay marriage, and they defeated that ban,” Perry said. “And then, six months later, they passed same-sex marriage. So for me, that shift had a lot of personal reasons why I thought it was really interesting. But from a political science perspective, the rapid shift in marriage equality policy and public opinion is just fascinating.” Perry said he relished the opportunity provided by the symposium to showcase his work on a larger scale. “My thesis research allowed me to pursue [my interest]. But what the symposium does that’s special is give you a venue to share something that matters to you personally. You’ve spent hours and hours researching it, and your friends are genuinely excited about the academic pursuit you’re doing. We always go to plays, we always go to friends’ sports games, but how often do you get to applaud somebody or give support to your friend for an academic interest?” Morgan Raith ’16.5 presented her senior thesis work for Architectural Studies. Her poster, titled “A New Approach to Middlebury,” contained a plan for a new public transportation center in Middlebury, featuring indoor play spaces, including a climbing gym and dance studio. “Making the poster was the easiest part,” she said. “Putting all of the designs together and figuring out how to visually communicate my ideas — that’s always a challenge.” She continued, “Coming to the symposium is really fun, because normally we’re just presenting our designs in Johnson and a couple people come, and it’s relatively quiet. But it’s awesome to be placed in an arena where so many other amazing research opportunities and projects are happening.” Weston Uram ’18 based his project titled “My Emoji” on the Kimoji app recently released by Kim Kardashian. “It made over $80 million in a week, and it’s baffling that people are actually spending money and engaging with it,” Uram said. “And what does it mean for someone to take that body representation and send it to somebody else, therefore identifying with Kim herself? So I was like, ‘well I can just do that — I can just create that application.’” Uram’s presentation included a television screen displaying samples of his work, including a stylized depiction of his own winking face. Lisa Gates, associate dean for fellowships and research, helped organize the event as co-chair of the Symposium’s Planning Committee, and seemed to share the excitement of the hundreds of others gathered at Bicentennial Hall. “Someone once described this as ‘like a party about thinking,’” Gates said. “It’s really an amazing opportunity to learn about the diversity of topics and areas our students are researching and thinking about. It’s really impressive to see the kind of work that they’re doing.” “It’s not evaluative — you’re not being graded,” Gates said. “So it’s really a chance to share, learn from and just to celebrate.”
Only in a show entitled Sexpectations would it make sense to utter the words “biddy,” “Atwater” and “Grindr” within mere minutes of each other. Last weekend (March 11-12), students flooded the Hepburn Zoo to watch the first ever play based on Middlebury hookup culture. Written and directed by Mary Baillie ’18 and Roxy Adviento ’18, Sexpectations was born from 57 anonymously submitted stories and brought to life by 10 students: Haroon Ashraf ’18, Sam Boudreau ’19, Stella Boye-Doe ’19, Emily Cipriani ’19.5, Ian Driscoll ’18.5, Lucie Heerman ’19, Ojaswi Pandey ’18, Madelyn O’Kelley-Bangsberg ’19.5, Omar Valencia ’19 and Elizabeth Warfel ’19. Following a mere two weeks of rehearsals, the cast danced, delivered monologues and occasionally donned scanty outfits in a humorous and at times uncomfortable reflection of life at the College. Describing the show as “a series of depictions of the stupid stories that everyone has to go through every day at this place,” Baillie was intentional in portraying as many experiences as possible. “We wanted to represent a diverse range of people, because hooking up can mean so many different things to different people,” she said. “We tried to use all the definitions.” The play opens with a scene that is likely all too familiar (and cringe-worthy) to many: A swarm of sweaty bodies moves to a pulsing beat in an Atwater suite. The room smells of cheap alcohol, and an eager male student, played by Valencia, is in search of a hookup for the night. His inner monologue blares through the speakers as he surveys the room: “Okay, Matty. This is it. This is the night when you finally finally get some legit, real-life pussy. Do not f*ck this up.” When he finally finds Lisa, played by Cipriani, on the dance floor, awkwardness immediately ensues – from the moment he utters the phrase “Yeah, baby” in a misguided attempt at sexiness to a run-in with Lisa’s roommate that prevents the two of them from ever getting past first base. The disastrous night ends with the roommate, portrayed by Boye-Doe, saying to Matty, “Umm....can you get the f*ck out now?” Overwhelming sympathy seemed to be the sentiment in the room, as the scene likely prompted audience members to relive their own awkward hookup experiences, be it untimely boners or a “cock-blocking” roommate. A sense of goofy self-awareness pervaded much of the show, particularly in scenes centered on Tinder, the popular dating app, and Grindr, its gay-male equivalent. Tia, played by O’Kelley-Bangsberg, smiled and waved to the audience while an invisible narrator read her profile out loud in a tone so exaggeratedly serious, it could have fit right into a National Geographic documentary. “Tia is a sex-positive gal looking to have fun. Sunglass emoji,” the narrator stated. “Ergo, she wants to weed out the creepers. Her pictures consist of one mysterious selfie, one sexy group with her friends, one smiling and one full body pic. Tia doesn’t want to work on her profile much because she is not THAT desperate.” In acknowledging the ridiculous amount of thought that goes behind any online dating profile, Sexpectations perhaps validated many audience members’ own self-doubt. Meanwhile, the Grindr skit featured a wide range of gay males, from an anonymous lurker to a toned, 6’1 guy who likes long walks on the beach, to the boldly named user “BottomBoy248.” Portrayed hilariously by Driscoll, this final character states with an unabashed eagerness that he enjoys “choking on cock, getting pounded hard, hands tied, rough stuff.” The crowd watched on curiously as the males attempted to navigate this provocative, complex and at times frustrating platform, where users may block other users upon receiving an unflattering face pic, have their boundaries pushed to uncomfortable extremes or arrange for a sexual interaction within minutes of virtually meeting one another. Grindr can be a strange and scary place, but it can also lead to lighthearted fun between individuals who would not have otherwise connected. Sexpectations sought to shed light on both of these aspects. Baillie and Adviento consulted with members of the cast who were familiar with app to ensure that the scene was representative of Grindr culture. They explained that the characters they chose to spotlight did not stem from common stereotypes of gay males (although that may have seemed to be the case), but rather from real-life accounts of stereotypical Grindr profiles. Amid the silly reenactments, the show gave way to several moments of somber reflection concerning inequity within heterosexual relationships. In a tense interaction between a male and female student, played respectively by Boudreau and Warfel, the boy demands a blow job from the girl on the false assumption that she will “want it again.” When she refuses, he responds, “What the f*ck?! Okay fine bitch, whatever.” The emotional monologue that Warfel delivers in the next scene recognizes the “strange barbed wire of careful sexuality” that females must walk if they want to participate in college hookup culture. “I like to have sex, have fun and be liberated. But there can only be so much, ya know?” Warfel states. “They see my body, I see theirs. But when they don’t even know my f*cking name, I literally become just a f*ckable body.” Another point of concern arises during the Atwater scene, as bodies bump and shake against one another in the semi-darkness. “Stop touching me!” one girl exclaims. “Well, f*ck you then!” the random guy who is trying to grind on her responds. In our world of structural gender inequality, women are simultaneously shamed for their sexuality and expected to go out of their way to please their male partners, regardless of their own desires. Meanwhile, consent exists as a blurry concept rather than as the bare minimum for all interactions. Sexism and double standards are not a problem of the past – and in refusing to shy away from the painful, lived experiences of individuals all around us, Sexpectations offered a powerful contribution to a dialogue that deserves far more attention than it currently receives on our campus. Beyond the acknowledgement of harmful patriarchal norms, the show also brought to light subtle, but equally concerning, issues concerning race and gender. At one point, the characters all describe their “type.” Their answers include “smart athletes,” “Ben Wyatt,” “the slightly geeky but still coordinated music enthusiast,” “high IQ” and “someone who stops when I say ‘no’” – but some mention racial and ethnic stereotypes, such as “half Asian, half white guys,” “Jewish guys,” “black guys,” “Hispanics,” “Scandinavians” and “girls from Russia.” The fact that these phrases came from real-life submissions is concerning, as they reflect society’s tendency to fetishize members of different identity groups based on racist generalizations. Even worse, the problematic nature of these preferences often goes unchecked, since they are perceived as compliments rather than as objectification. During the scene in which a girl makes out with her Atwater hookup, her “sexiled” roommate says angrily, “Wait, what?! I swear this is the third time!” to which she responds, “I’m no slut.” The culture of slut-shaming – that is, the sense of inferiority that society instills in young women whose sexual expression clashes with traditionally rigid, patriarchal norms – rings painfully clear in this exchange. Whether intentionally or not, Sexpectations brought this unfair double standard to light, and in doing so, hopefully pushed some audience members to think twice about their own choice of words. It is unclear how aware the playwrights were of the implications behind these subtly problematic scenes. After all, the purpose of the show was to portray hookup culture on campus as it currently exists, not as how it ought to be. In terms of entertainment value, Sexpectations was a success, bringing laughter to every corner of the room and reminding us just how endearingly awkward young love can be when it is not taking place on the Atwater dance floor. On a more uncomfortable note, it also revealed the ways in which we, as a campus community and as products of large-scale media messaging, may not be nearly as progressive as we consider ourselves to be.
This letter was co-authored by three Middlebury survivors. It is not our intention to speak for all survivors, but rather to speak from our own situated experiences. The identities inhabited within adjudicatory processes are not divorced from the world outside of them – race, class, ability, gender, immigration status, etc. continue to matter. We appreciate the full range of survivors’ experiences; the decision to speak out is an entirely personal one. Dear Editor, As a collective of Middlebury survivors, we wish to respond to last week’s article “Reexamining Our Sexual Assault Investigative Process.” We intend to rebut many of the sentiments expressed in this article. Although the author claimed to abhor victim-blaming, we believe that they largely reproduced the violence of victim-blaming in their own writing. The author’s primary concern surrounds the idea that some rapists are actually innocent; we must be critical of survivor’s stories. “Skepticism is the defining trait of any good learner,” including skepticism of lying survivors. Such concerns surrounding false reporting are grossly overstated. The FBI Bureau of Justice Statistics has collected data on false reporting for decades, consistently finding that the rate of false reporting in instances of rape is somewhere between two and eight percent. This isn’t to say that false reporting does not exist, but that it is incredibly rare. The rate of false reporting for rape is significantly less than the rates reported by the FBI for other serious crimes. Would we question a victim of robbery in the same way? The bottom line is that survivors of rape, as a category, continue to be marked as suspect, and misconceptions about false reporting have direct, negative consequences on why many survivors don’t report their assaults (see Lisak et. al. 2010). The author also raised concerns over the preponderance of evidence standard, meaning the evidentiary standard used by colleges to adjudicate Title IX cases across the country (for more on the federal government’s justifications for the use of this standard, see the April 4, 2011 Dear Colleague Letter). It is worth noting that even under a preponderance of evidence standard, a finding of “not responsible” does not necessarily mean “innocent.” For a number of reasons, cases of interpersonal violence remain notoriously difficult to “prove,” and many methods of collecting evidence — such as through rape kits — remain incredibly traumatic and invasive. The author would lead readers to believe that the preponderance of evidence standard causes potentially innocent respondents, such as John Doe, to be routinely expelled from this institution. Yet in contrast to the sentiments expressed in last week’s op-ed, the Doe case signals the degree of agency and recourse that respondents actually have, both through Title IX claims as well as through civil law. Here are some facts that last week’s author failed to disclose to The Campus: Clery data indicates that Campus Security Authorities became aware of 17 possible allegations of forcible sex offense during the 2013 reporting period. Of those 17, College Disciplinary Actions data reveals that only five cases resulted in a sexual misconduct proceeding. Of those five, only three saw an end to their adjudication processes. Of the three that went through a complete proceeding, two cases resulted in a finding of “responsibility.” Of the two cases reaching “responsible” decisions, one respondent was suspended and one received “Official College Discipline.” To insinuate that the Middlebury system or society at large disfavor “alleged rapists” is nothing short of factually inaccurate. “You want justice? Don’t go to the administration, go to the police.” As if this decision was so easy, or was an alleged rapist’s decision to make. There are a number of reasons why a survivor may elect to forego a criminal proceeding. Some Middlebury survivors have taken their respondents to court. But at the end of the day, it is up to each survivor to determine how they want to proceed — whether they elect to transfer, not report, report to the campus, confront their rapists themselves and/or pursue criminal or civil charges. Rape is often experienced as a site of great choicelessness, and who makes the decisions matters. It is not the job of society to tell survivors what justice should look like; it is up to the survivor to reassert their agency to best meet their own justice needs. For those of us who choose to co-exist on campus with our assailants, that decision is extremely difficult. Yet that remains our decision to make. The one thing that we’ll agree with the author on is that Middlebury’s SMDVS policy is a highly imperfect and adversarial process; “The College’s system for dealing with sexual assault does not give you what you deserve, regardless of whether you are an alleged victim or alleged perpetrator of violence.” This reality was echoed by a video made by Middlebury survivors a year ago entitled Middlebury Unmasked (go/unmasked). Each choice comes with unfortunate consequences, yet we stand firm in the belief that it remains a survivor’s task to analyze the array of options before them and decide which option(s) they should pursue. The author of last week’s op-ed emphasized their own feelings of isolation as they underwent their campus judicial process. Does the author seriously think that their sense of isolation would have been lessened during a more visible proceeding in a court of law? For survivors, we’d argue that such experiences of isolation in this community are likely amplified. Isolation is pervasive in sentiments which reduce survivors’ lived experiences to nothing more than (a heteronormative) “he said, she said.” Our feelings of isolation are augmented by the enduring impacts of our trauma, including PTSD. Our trauma is by no means neatly contained in one night; in terms of attaining “justice,” there is no silver bullet. “If someone approaches you and asks “did you do it” it feels an awful lot like the “are you sure?” question we choose not to ask alleged victims.” We’d like to debunk the author’s notion of a “post-victim-blaming era” right now. It simply does not exist. Survivors are still asked “are you sure?” in a number of arenas — within sexual misconduct processes, within criminal court and within our friend groups and families. We are still asked “are you sure?” in op-eds which would call into question our capacity for truth or our ability to make decisions for ourselves. The fact of the matter is that many Middlebury survivors often feel the need to reassert our voices in this community, even in the smallest of ways. That’s exactly what we’re doing in this letter. We are deeply convinced that the judicial process at Middlebury leaves much to be desired, yet we also believe firmly in our rights to pursue our educations free of sexual violence. Unlike proceedings in criminal court, the heart of Title IX requires educational institutions to bear some responsibility for our experiences within them. The irony of last week’s op-ed is that it replicated the violence that many survivors experience in the aftermath of their rapes; under a barrage of disbelief, we were once more forced to take time out of our educations to defend ourselves from tired stereotypes. We are multidimensional, and we are so much more than the passive “victim” reproduced in last week’s op-ed. Many of us have felt isolated and alone in our experiences, but we are complex human beings who are also full of joy, desire, empowerment and opinions. We need not be spoken for, and we reject the author’s notion of protection. We are an integral part of this community, and we have a right to be here and to continue to take up space. The resolution mechanisms for these sorts of cases remain imperfect and limited, yet it’s our job as claimants to pause and decide which resolution mechanism seems like the lesser of several evils at the time. To insinuate that survivors’ don’t or can’t take into account the treatment of their perpetrators when selecting a resolution mechanism is insulting. Moving forward, many of us remain committed to reforming the judicial process and continuing to assert our right to a violence-free education. Some of us remain interested in the possibility of using restorative justice to address campus claims through a more harm-centered discourse. Yet one thing must be made clear: if you truly support survivors, you will empower them with the agency to determine their unique path moving forward. You have not been in our shoes and you do not get to pretend to see with our eyes. This never has been — nor will it ever be — your decision to make. Anonymous ’15 Anonymous ’16 Anonymous ’16
To the editor, I laughed out loud when I saw Middlebury making national news with its recent ban on Red Bull. So did the entire station full of paramedics and EMTs where I volunteer, since I couldn’t help but pass around the NBC News article quoting college officials who blamed energy drinks for “high-risk sex and drug use.” We had dramatic readings and re-readings of portions of the article in which a room full of colleagues with 100+ years of combined experience in emergency medicine could barely get through Dining Services Executive Director Dan Detora’s quote - “I see it as the equivalent of banning cigarettes” - without hyperventilating. As a friend who’s a doctor and fellow Middlebury alum put it: “The college that wanted to drop the drinking age to 18 is now banning caffeine.” I can just picture the scene now: members of Community Council huddled around the WebMD symptom checker, inputting their daily energy drink consumption and convincing themselves they were in the middle of a major cardiac episode. Those of us who attended Middlebury before the school turned into Nanny University eagerly await the college’s coming bans on saturated fats, soft drinks over 12 ounces, sharp objects and any items that may hurt when thrown. Derek Schlickeisen graduated in 2009.