S T O R Y PAUL WELLMAN
C O V E R
The Fab Four of the Classical Music World
Danish String Quartet
Program
Haydn: String Quartet No. 1 in B-flat Major, op. 1, no. 1 Mozart: String Quartet No. 17 in B-flat Major, K. 458 Widmann: Jagdquartett Brahms: String Quartet No. 3 in B-flat Major, op. 67
The author looks out over Isla Vista.
< CONTINUED FROM P. 26 men. He recalled his male friends once “brutally and disgustingly objectifying” a female friend, “comparing her to an animal.” Biel objected, and his friends not only dismissed his point but also began to distance themselves from him. “It’s one thing to change one person’s mind, but it makes it way more difficult when it’s groupthink,” he said.
Stamping Out Tolerance For a while, I gave myself to the rhetoric of sexual assault that lingers around Isla Vista, allowing this violent culture to exist. She chose to drink; if she doesn’t remember what happened, we can’t trust her; she was irresponsible and thus equally at fault; she was asking for it; she just wants attention; worse things have happened to other people; that’s not rape; it was just a typical college experience. I allowed these stigmas to govern me — I refused to see my experience as one that fell anywhere on the spectrum of sexual violence. I spoke about it to nobody. I discredited my own emotions and became disgusted by my own body. I punished myself for everything — I slut-shamed myself. “A lot of women have unfortunately built up a tolerance to it,” said Houska. “If we got caught up on every incident, or everything we heard related to sexual assault and under the umbrella of rape culture, it would be impossible to live,” she said. It was not until I began conducting interviews for this article, one I originally thought would be a dispassionate anthropological investigation into the rise of sexual assaults in Isla Vista, that my understanding of my own experience began to shift. I realized that I, too, had built up this “tolerance.” In doing so, I was letting the stigmatized undertones of Isla Vista flourish. While I am still unsure of what to make of my experience and do not personally care to label it rape, I do see
it as a gruesome product of the dangerous mentalities for which we are all culpable. I am far less concerned with classifying my experience than I am with fighting for every person to feel comfortable in their skin and safe in their communities. I publicize my embarrassing and uncomfortable experience (very hesitantly so) because these issues desperately need to come out of the shadows. I love Isla Vista — these two square miles of quirkiness, sunshine, and energy. However, I think it is time that the community faces its role in propagating sexual assault. Rape happens everywhere — it is not isolated to I.V. But in a place so packed with college kids, we need to be especially conscious of the conversations we’re having. This crime is as much public as it is personal. I challenge our community to shift its dialogue about sexual assault — I have found that it is easier for people to dissect and criticize an individual’s personal experience than it is to challenge the doctrines at work beneath all of our feet. My stumble into the underbelly of Isla Vista has generated my understanding that perhaps the spectrum of sexual assault does not abruptly end at physical violence but rather tapers into the mangled manifestations of hookup culture. While they do not themselves constitute assault, these mentalities lay a foundation on which hookup culture becomes rape culture, a foundation on which perpetrators feel entitled to stand. While this does not absolve assaulters of their blame, we are all liable for perpetuating their actions, and we must all assume responsibility for combatting them. I want to dig up these foundations and take a bat to their beams. I want to kick the floor out from under sexual assault.
UCSB has several programs to support those affected by sexual assault, most notably CARE. For more information and support services, visit sexualviolence.ucsb.edu.
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