Unslut

Unslut  Documentary 

October 28, 2015 

Emily Linden

This documentary uses personal stories of women/girls who have been the victims of sexual bullying and "slut shaming"and interviews with sexuality experts. It demonstrates the effects it has on the victims. It is hopefully able to promote gender equality, positive sexual experience and better sex education classes for students of all ages.

The idea for the documentary came from Emily Linden, who had started where she wrote about her experience in middle school. Throughout middle school Emily was sexually bullied online and in person simply because she let her boyfriend put his hands down her pants.

There were a couple of quotes that really stuck in my mind.

1.  Dr Hernando Chaves who promotes  sex positive studies said " This isn't simply a female issue it's also a male issue and really a human issue.  A great example is the recent viral video of a man being "sexually assaulted" by two women at a gas station.

http://www.jamn945.com/articles/weird-news-104673/woman-faces-10-years-for-twerking-14114831/

2.  Criminologist, Freda Adler said "Rape is the only crime where the victim becomes the accused".  There were 2 examples in this documentary that shows exactly how true this is.

Samantha Gaily Geimer was publicly shamed by the media after she was drugged and raped by director Roman Polanski at the age of 13.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxOpG8Ujm-8

Gina Tron, was beaten, choked and raped was accused of "asking for it" because of appearance and the way she dressed.  They used pictures from Facebook to prove their case, without knowing the circumstances for the pictures. 

The saddest story that was talked about was Rehtaeh Parsons. It showed that sexual bullying and "slut" shaming has real consequences. Girls have a higher risk of becoming depressed, committing suicide or developing self harming behaviors. In Rehtaeh's case she was never the same, she lost a sense of who she was, was afraid to leave the house, started using drugs and became suicidal eventually taking her own life after being bullied for more than a year after being gang raped.

Mike Foley a former wrestler who volunteers his time at RAINN (Rape Abuse Incest National Network) said "What's heartbreaking about slut shaming and sexual violence is that 100% of these incidents are avoidable. We can stop it, it just takes a little bit of effort and the most basic human decency." So when are they going to start talking more about sexual violence and slut shaming in schools. If the kids are old enough to learn about sex education, shouldn't they be old enough to learn the consequences of their actions.

Like Dr Shira Tarrant said "Once we start noticing, we can't stop noticing. We cannot not see the "slut" shaming that is everywhere in our culture". I must admit I have been guilty of "slut" shaming without considering I was doing it.  Who has seen a girl/woman dressed provocatively and not made a comment?