ColumnIt’s not easy for people who have gone through a sexual assault to come forward. Yeah, that’s not exactly a groundbreaking statement. It’s a point that deserves repetition, though, because it seems like every week there’s news about how yet another person who has experienced assault is hurt by someone in power, or archaic laws.

Oral sex and consent in Okla.

In 2014, a 17-year-old boy gave a 16-year-old girl a ride home from a Tulsa park after they drank and smoked weed with their friends. “Blood tests later showed her blood-alcohol level was .341, indicative of severe alcohol poisoning,” Mother Jones reports.

“She was unconscious when he dropped her off at her grandmother’s house and taken to the hospital, where she woke up in the middle of an examination for sexual assault. The boy’s DNA was detected around her mouth. He claimed she had consented to have oral sex, but she says she can’t remember anything after leaving the park.”

So, how is this not rape? The answer is simple. If you closely examine this very outdated  forcible sodomy law:

“Forcible Sodomy cannot occur where a victim is so intoxicated as to be completely unconscious at the time of the sexual act of oral copulation,” the Guardian reports.

And apparently, “Oklahoma’s forcible sodomy law only prohibits oral sex with someone who’s unable to provide consent because of mental illness or mental disability, not because of intoxication or unconsciousness,” Mother Jones reports. Because of this designation, the court’s ruling was deemed appropriate. “The state has a separate rape law that protects victims who are too drunk to consent, but only in cases of vaginal or anal penetration, not oral sex,” Mother Jones adds.

So, that’s why all the judges on the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals decided this girl wasn’t raped.

Let’s pause so we all can vomit.

There are quite a few people who are, understandably, upset by this ruling.

One such person is Benjamin Fu, the Tulsa County district attorney who lead the case.

“The plain meaning of forcible oral sodomy, of using force, includes taking advantage of a victim who was too intoxicated to consent,” Fu said. “I don’t believe that anybody, until that day, believed that the state of the law was that this kind of conduct was ambiguous, much less legal. And I don’t think the law was a loophole until the court decided it was.”

Fu also said that placing focus on why the victim couldn’t consent puts the victim at fault.

Bingo.

There also are many legal experts who think that the ruling should serve as a “wake-up call for legislators to update Oklahoma’s laws,” the Guardian adds.

For example, “Michelle Anderson, the dean of the CUNY School of Law who has written extensively about rape law, called the ruling ‘appropriate’ but the law ‘archaic.’”

Yeah, no shit.

Okla. lawmakers need to change this law right now. It puts sexual assault victims in danger, gives rapists a loophole to get away with their crimes, and could potentially mindfuck victims into thinking that what they experienced wasn’t rape when it clearly was.

Rape in the LGBTQ community

If you had to guess which community is at a high risk for being sexually assaulted and having that assault be ignored, who would you choose? The answer may surprise you.

The Association of American Universities conducted a survey last fall that found “rates of sexual violence for LGBTQ students are actually higher than for heterosexual and cisgender students,” the Establishment reports. The survey included responses from 150,000 students at private and public research institutions.

“Among female undergraduates, 73% of gay women and 77% of bisexual women experienced harassment, intimate partner violence, or stalking, compared to 61% of straight women,” The Establishment adds.

“Rates of unwanted sexual contact involving force were also higher for LGBT students: 19% for gay women and 32% for bi women, versus 18% for straight women (still a startling number). The disparities between gay and bisexual men and straight men were similar. Those identifying as TGQN (transgender, genderqueer, questioning, or otherwise non-conforming) consistently reported more incidents of forced or coerced sexual contact than either men or women.”

The rates may be higher in the LGBTQ community because these individuals could “face violence and harassment from those outside the community who use sexual force to reinforce heterosexuality and gender norms, or they may be hurt by people within the community who have internalized those norms,” The Establishment explains.

Utterly depressing.

Obviously, anyone can be sexually assaulted. Straight men and women, transgender people, as well as bisexuals, lesbians, and homosexual men, can be (and are) raped and assaulted. So, once and for all, can we just recognize this and give people the justice they deserve?

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ColumnWhen people take a yoga class, they expect to practice in a safe place. The keyword here, especially in the case of Bikram Choudhury’s students, is expect.

Chowdhury is known for a few things. He founded Bikram’s Yoga College of India and Bikram yoga, “a rigorous, 90-minute routine performed in a room that can reach more than 100 degrees,” reports NBC News. Bikram has also been accused on several occasions of  harassment— and for allegedly sexually assaulting six female students.

Those last two things kind of cancel out the awesomeness of bringing yoga to millions of students, huh?

You’ve likely heard about Choudhury and his penchant for being a predator and a run-of-the-mill creep. He’s been in the news for a while now for both of those designations.

All the women who have brought sexual assault and rape allegations against Choudhury have said that the Bikram founder betrayed their trust, and preyed on them because they were young and vulnerable. The first sexual assault allegation against Choudhury was filed nearly two years ago, but we’re going to detail what happened to Jill Lawler, a Canadian yogi, who says Choudhury “raped her during a teacher-training in the spring of 2010,” The New York Times reports. Delightful.

Lawler filled her lawsuit against Choudhury on February 13, 2015. The sexual assault took place “during a teacher training session she allegedly shelled out $10,000 for,” The New York Daily News reports. “This alleged attack came after he apologized to her for groping her during massages and promised to ‘make her a champion’ before he lured her back to his hotel room and allegedly sexually assaulted her.”

Now, let’s talk about the news that broke this week. This past Monday, Choudhury was ordered to pay a hefty sum in a harassment lawsuit. Minakshi Jafa-Bodden, the attorney who filled the charges, says Choudhury fired her for “investigating allegations of sexual harassment against the guru” in June 2013, NBC reports. “A Los Angeles jury ordered Bikram Choudhury to pay the attorney $924,500 in compensatory damages after finding he had subjected her to harassment and retaliation.” And this past Tuesday, the Los Angeles County jury ordered Choudhury to pay about $6.4 million in punitive damages to Jafa-Bodden, as well, reports The LA Times.

The harassment Choudhury “subjected” Jafa-Bodden was nothing short of terrifying. It’s reported that he touched her in an inappropriate manner and attempted to get the lawyer to stay with him in a hotel suite.

This news doesn’t bode well for the yoga mogul, especially considering the first sexual assault trial against Choudhury is set for April. Although, Choudhury’s lawyers are trying to discredit the women already by playing the but-it-took-them-too-long-to-come-forward card. We say, who cares? If he has sexually assaulted the six women who have raised allegations against him, we hope Choudhury is sentenced harshly, never allowed to teach yoga again, and is put away for a long, long time. And it doesn’t matter that it took the women a long time to come forward — we’re just happy they did.

Not surprisingly, this isn’t the only big sexual assault news story that broke recently.

A number of women have called out Heathcliff Berru, CEO of Life or Death PR, a popular music promotion agency, on multiple instances of sexual misconduct. Many of the women who experienced abuse from Berru went on Twitter and retold their stories. Luckily, most of them were received positive comments and support. Amber Coffman of the band the Dirty Projectors was just one of the women who told her story. Here’s one of her tweets about Berru:

Was just re-telling/re-remembering a story abt how a very popular music publicist RUBBED my ass and BIT my hair at a bar a couple years ago

The second story concerns multiple women who were groped, grabbed, and in one case, raped, at a Cologne, Germany New Year’s Eve party. While the city was quick to respond to the attacks, Henriette Reker, Cologne’s mayor, said something really dumb about the attacks. She’s “been widely criticized for suggesting that women ‘keep at an arm’s length’ from strangers to avoid sexual harassment,” reports The Guardian.

Reker also suggested that women “stick together in groups, don’t get split up, even if you’re in a party mood.” Cool, thanks.

To combat Reker’s unhelpful advice, female artists who are part of the “all-female exhibition Exquisite Corpse” are using their art to speak out and fight “regressive attitudes” about women, Dazed Digital reports. In general, the show is about “confronting widespread assumptions about how women should appear and behave both IRL and online.”

While it’s great to see that some women are getting justice and more people are taking sexual assault allegations seriously, it’s still disturbing that these attacks are still happening at such a high frequency. But the only way we can stop sexual assault and abuse is with action. Because, whether you tell your story in the form of a lawsuit, tweet, or an act of art, your voice and story definitely  matters.

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Any dog lover or owner knows that these four-legged, furry beasts can make a bad day better. While service dogs have been helping people with various disabilities, and soldiers with PTSD for years, these pups are now serving a different population in need – sexual assault survivors.

In late November, The Atlantic published a story about how service dogs are helping rape survivors recover from the trauma they endured during their attack. According to the story, almost 30 percent of sexual assault survivors suffer from PTSD. Service dogs also can help people with depression, bipolar disorder, and autism cope with every day life, as well.

“Experts say that service dogs could be beneficial for sexual-assault victims as well, and may even be uniquely suited to help them overcome their issues with trust and relationships.”

So, awesome right? Right! But there is a slight problem – it’s really difficult to get a service dog. The Atlantic reports that the cost of a service dog is often upwards of $20,000. The only way to bring down this cost is with solid research – and sadly, this field is underfunded. Additional research would help prove (or debunk) that dogs can help people with PTSD recover. Here are some of the hypothesized ways that service dogs can help people with PTSD:

Working with dogs can help people with PTSD feel more aware and in control of their emotions.

Service dogs can boots self-esteem and helps people interact with others.

Training a dog takes a confident and calm demeanor – this helps the person with PTSD keep their stress level in control.

While I don’t have a service dog, I did get my first dog, Daphne (that’s the one licking her chops), when I was going through my first round of therapy for PTSD, depression. My little beagle did wonders for me. Not only did she teach me that I could really, truly love and care for something, she also got me out of my house. She (and now my second pup, Cash (he’s the one with the crazy eyes) are two of the best buddies I’ve ever had, and I couldn’t be more grateful for their presence.

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We all know that stories about rape in college are common. Also common: Stories about colleges doing absolutely nothing to help support sexual assault survivors!

The women who go through these horrific assaults typically have to work diligently to receive justice — and solace. Well, while the following story is similar to the ones we’ve heard lately, this one has a slight, totally awesome and unique twist, and involves a woman taking a stand to get action.

A Columbia university student raped Emma Sulkowicz, a Columbia University senior. The university found the rapist not responsible, but later, it came out that Columbia had botched its investigation, as well as 23 other sexual assault investigations.

Later, Sulkowicz decided to report the rape to the police, but officials dismissed her. Sulkowicz’s rapist has allegedly assaulted two other women, and his name appeared on the “Rapist List” that was circulated this May.

Since Sulkowicz has gotten absolutely nowhere with officials, she’s embarking on a new fight – in the form of her thesis project. Recently, the Columbia Daily Spectator reported that Sulkowicz will carry her mattress to class every day until her rapist is expelled, or leaves the school. Sulkowicz is calling this act an “endurance performance art piece.” Well, in a recent act of solidarity, other Columbia students are joining her in her journey to justice.

Sulkowicz explains that she’s choosing to carry her mattress because that’s where the assault took place – on her own dorm bed. To show the emotional burden she has to carry inside herself, she’s decided to represent it as a physical burden. She said to the paper that: “I feel like I’ve carried the weight of what happened there everywhere since then.”

Her protest couldn’t have come at a better time because recently another university – the university I attended — had a similar, inept reaction to a woman who was raped on campus. Recently, the University of Kansas’ administrators have received a vast amount of criticism for how they handled a student’s assault. As punishment to the rapist: He was banned from university housing and had to write an apology letter to the victim… Seriously. To add insult to injury, the university referred to the assault as “non-consensual sex.” Obviously, this has garnered a lot of attention locally, and luckily, the outcry has changed how the university will handle these issues in the future. However, the changes are not perfect.

I’m so happy that young women like Sulkowicz and other sexual assault survivors aren’t taking their universities’ inaction. The swell of young women who are forcing the world to see the gritty truth of rape are incredibly strong, and I hope that one day all of their work will be recognized. Large institutions, such as colleges, need to realize that they can’t blame victims, and must investigate rapes with force and speed.

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