10 Culture

Sexual Assault and Mental Health:

Grant Bachand
Team Member

ur twenties and thirties are a time in our lives when we

discover ourselves intellectually, spiritually, emotionally,
and sexually. Many people in their early twenties actively
pursue understanding their sexuality. We leave the
confinement of high school with heavy-handed rules and
enter into college, university, or the “real world.” University,
for many of us, is the place in which much of our sexual
learning will happen; at parties, in dorms, and all manner of
other places. It is in our first couple years that we might find
a partner who will will help us explore our sexual desires and
comforts.

University, unfortunately, can also be a place where people
experience terrible traumas that they will carry with them
for the rest of their lives. When the doors open for the
first semester of university, that is when many students
are at its highest risk of sexual violence. This is according
to Sarah Boyd and Shelly LeBreton from the Women’s
Centre here at UNBC, who sat down with me to discuss
sexual assault, feminism and the role society plays to end
violence toward women. The two work with different
groups at UNBC, such as security, faculty, administration
and NUGSS to support, advocate, and educate people
about the issues that affect women. The centre is a 24 hour
safe space for women, who are looking for support or to
simply just talk. Boyd is heavily involved in the community
working with various groups and people from Shirley
Bond to the court system, and she has become keenly
aware of the problems facing women in northern BC.

When dealing with sexual assault, the Women’s Centre
has been actively working to identify areas and people,
and trends that are problematic. Boyd told me that certain
“hot spots” around campus where violence is a problem
such as the library’s study rooms, and the residence is
where much of attention is focused in terms of preventing
violence. According to Boyd, security has done a good job
in dealing with these areas, and situations that happen in
these “hot spots”. Looking back to the beginning of the
semester, Boyd tells me that is when students are at the
highest risk for violence and that is due to many reasons,
chiefly alcohol consumptions. Our society’s favourite social
lubricant is one of the most prolific date rape drugs.

The question I keep asking myself, why is it that the first
couple years of university are such a problematic time for
violence? When I think about the world we enter into when

we start university it begins
to make sense. When we start
university we are young, and
in many respects truly free for
the first time. In high school
heavy-handed authority
figures tell us what we can do,
when we can do it, and what
is appropriate. Girls in high
school have it even worse
than boys, we have all heard
“no boobs, backs, bellies or
butts,” when teachers talk

to girls about what they can
and cannot wear to school.

At a young age we are already

putting the ownership

on girls to dress a certain

way to “ensure boys can

concentrate,” putting

the importance of sexual

restraint on girls and not

boys. High school gives us a brief sexual education, but
the whole time we are there we are not talking about our
desires, motivations, drives, and needs. Nope, we talk about
understanding our sexual organs and how to put on condoms
on bananas. That is super important, but not the whole
picture. High school is where many of us will try sex for

the first time, however university is where we explore sex.
Not only are we being overloaded by puberty and desires

we have never felt before, but our social stewards are doing
everything to tell us that sex is weird, dangerous and girls
need to not provoke men by wearing inappropriate clothing.
How does this even remotely help us deal with sex, consent,
and love? For those playing the home game... it doesn’t.

Fast forward to university where we have just left this very
uptight institution where they baby us, and entered into
another which treats us as full fledge adults who know what
we are doing. This level of autonomy is liberating, and can
also be very problematic. Going to that first university party
can be exhilarating. We drink, meet new people while trying
to make a good impression and possibly meeting sexual
partners. Though it is in that environment where we are

at a high risk for problems to occur, the excessive drinking
can lead to people taking advantage of the situation, drinks
can be spiked or we simply many not feel that we are able

to stop someone sexual advancements; one of hundreds of

Part Il

NOENT
jUST ASK.

situations could play out. The problems that can occur at the
beginning of the semester is but the tip of the iceberg though.

The real problem is how we as a society looks at sex and
how we deal with the concept of consent. Now when we
hear the word consent many of us think we understand it,
yes means yes and no means no. I think we all have heard of
the No Means No campaign. However consent extends far
beyond simply saying yes once, it is something that when
we are being intimate we should be mindful of. Simply
saying yes at the outset of any intimate interaction does
not extend that consent to every possible intimate act.
Saying yes at every progression is critical. Understanding
our comfort levels and the comfort levels of our partner
comfort is how we determine how our relationship is built.
When one spells it out so plainly I think, for many of us,
we will say well of course that’s obvious, but even though
it is obvious, hearing it and understanding it is different.

Why is it that for something so obvious like consent, we
still have a problem with sexual violence in our society? It

is too easy to simply point to mass media as the outright
instigator though when you couple our terrible education of
sex in high school with the state of mass media it begins to