The Super Bowl, Sexual Assault, and Stepping into Uncomfortable Spaces

As I write this, the Super Bowl hasn’t yet started. By the time you read it on Monday or Tuesday, it’ll be history. However, as I write, the sex trafficking industry which sees the Super Bowl and other major sporting events as lucrative sources of revenue, has set up shop in Miami and is selling the services of males and females who it has imprisoned, brutalized, held against their will, and frightened into submission. The Miami Herald this week suggested that one sex trafficker could net $50,000 this weekend alone by selling the services of just a few girls.

Oh, geez, is she going to spend a whole blog post talking about sex trafficking?

I don’t have to, I could branch out to sexual assault as a whole. I could write about Harvey Weinstein who just finished his second week of trial in New York after having been accused of sexual assault over the last couple of decades by dozens of women who either felt overpowered by his status and influence over their careers or were literally physically overpowered by him. Weinstein as much as admitted that many of these assaults occurred when he paid out over $25 million in a settlement in a civil case involving over 30 women in December 2019.

He’s an old rich guy, what does that have to do with me?

Ok, let’s forget about Weinstein. Let’s talk about the fact that “every 73 seconds an American is sexually assaulted. Every 9 minutes that victim is a child, and only 5 out of 1000 perpetrators will end up in prison” (https://www.rainn.org/statistics).

Sexual crimes don’t happen just at major sporting events like the Super Bowl. Sexual assault is not only perpetrated by old rich white guys who have power and influence. Sexual assault impacts people you see every day and likely someone who is very close to you, even if you are not aware of it.

Come on, I thought this was a Christian blog. I read this for encouragement!

To be fair, I only promised that this blog would share my thoughts about life in this next chapter, but I hear you. So let’s find a way to encourage one another, shall we? Is it possible that though we live in a world where sex crimes are ubiquitous, we have an opportunity to effect change? Do we dare believe that we have opportunities to shift a culture?

Just this weekend, my husband and I were looking for a movie to watch. We clicked on a popular flick and watched for about 10 minutes before we found ourselves inside a strip club full of pole dancers. The scene ran for three to five minutes and the shots were up close and meant to serve as eye candy for this otherwise action/adventure movie. It’s not the first time such a scene has popped up in a movie that is targeted towards men — those that include crime, guns, high-speed chases, and gratuitous sex scenes.

What might happen if, when we are encountered by such scenes, we choose to interrogate them? Rather than flipping the channel or ignoring their existence, what might we shift if we actually asked some questions? What assumptions do these movies make about men? about women? How do these assumptions impact our thinking? How does that thinking impact what we do and what we say? How does our choice to pay money to watch a movie that promotes such assumptions compare to the choice of someone in Miami to pay for 30 minutes alone in a room with someone they believe to be a prostitute?

I would say there are fewer degrees of separation than we might like to tell ourselves.

I mean, come on, can’t I even watch a movie without dissecting it?

Of course you can, but what might change if you tried something different? What if we agreed to question these tropes, talk about them, reveal them for what they are? Can we ask out loud: Who among us would go to a strip club? What is alluring about it? What is dehumanizing? Who is being served? At what cost? What is being added to the movie with this scene? What purpose does it serve? How am I impacted by it?

Geez, that sounds like a real buzz-kill.

I can see how you’d feel that way. Maybe it’s too much to ask.

Maybe it would be more reasonable if we all just agreed to examine our language. How do we speak and think about men and women? Does our language promote stereotypical views of male and female? Do our words imply that men need to be strong, man-up, bite the bullet, or wear the pants? Do we unconsciously expect men to be strong, to dominate, to control their women? Do the ways we speak suggest that women be pretty, docile, sweet, and kind? Do we expect them to be agreeable, passive, nurturing, and to not bring up topics like sexual assault in their blogs?

Geez, Kristin, calm down. Why are you on this rant, anyway?

Good question. I didn’t start here. I was staring at a blank screen this morning when I started thinking about the Super Bowl, and once my fingers started flying, they just wouldn’t stop.

You know why this happens sometimes? Because it’s personal.

I know many of the “1 in 3 women” who have experienced unwanted sexual violence in the form of physical contact, and I am very close to some of the “1 in 5 women” who have experienced rape (CDC). These are not strangers without names. They are people that I love.

When I consider that right now young people are being forced to perform sexual acts with complete strangers, I feel angry. When I try to watch a movie and it — much to my surprise — depicts sexual assault, or even some kind of sexual manipulation, I feel ill. When I see a man in a position of power eyeball a subordinate from head to toe, I want to gouge his eyes out. When I hear someone comment inappropriately about someone else’s body — “We’ll, doesn’t that fit you in all the right places?” — I am instantly charged.

Sex, when enjoyed by two committed consenting partners, is one of the most beautiful unions we can enjoy. The fact that it is twisted and manipulated so that one person weaponizes it against another and sometimes a third party benefits financially, sickens me.

It’s Super Bowl Sunday and I can’t do anything about those who are being victimized as I write this post, but I can tell my small group of readers that it doesn’t have to be this way. We can do better. We can create shift toward a culture in which people are not afraid of being harmed in their bodies behind closed doors, in dirty alleys, or right in plain sight. We can ask hard questions, challenge the status quo, and refuse to be entertained by the objectification of human beings. We can work to protect the lives of those who are at risk. We can refuse to participate in activities that promote rape culture. We can hold perpetrators accountable.

We can do this. We can make these shifts. It might be uncomfortable, but the lives of those we love are at stake.

Will join me? Will you step into this space? Do you dare?

“We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”

2 Cor 10:5