The Browsing Lounge in the Smith Memorial Student Union had been known to host a number of important lectures in the past where mouse-quiet crowds listened attentively to a guest speaker.
However, last Thursday afternoon a different crowd of about 150 people occupied the room. They were not quiet—in fact they were encouraged to speak and participate.
Empty beer bottles littered the scene, set up that way to look as if a raucous college party were coming to an end. It was the work of the Portland State Women’s Resource Center (WRC), who hosted “Drunk Sex,” a performance in collaboration with Act for Action and the Tri-County Sexual Assault Task Force.
The event posed two questions to the attendees, the majority of whom were college students: Is it rape, or just drunk sex? What is the difference? The event was created in conjunction with Sexual Assault Awareness Month, which goes during the month of April.
Jeannie LaFrance, director of Act for Action, explained the difference between drunk sex and sexual assault.
“Sexual assault is the situation where someone does not consent to it,” she said, “either because they were too inebriated to give consent or because they couldn’t fight back.”
LaFrance called sexual assault a social issue that affects all genders and said she wants to change the societal view that sees men as the oppressor. She said the purpose of the event was to first inform the public of the difference between drunk sex and rape, and second to shed light on society’s tendency to blame the victim for what happened.
“We usually hear that if you don’t drink, or if you don’t wear a short skirt, you wouldn’t get raped,” Jessica Amo, assistant coordinator for the WRC said. “We tend to hold the victim accountable, not the perpetrator.”
As the director of Act of Action, an organization that incorporates theater into promoting social causes, LaFrance and her troupe of actors have performed at various institutions such as Portland Community College and the Oregon Department of Human Services. Past performances have centered on issues such as racism, mental health and gay marriage.
The performance on Thursday about sexual assault was developed especially for the WRC event.
“What I want to get out of this is to learn how to put myself out of those situations where my personal values might be compromised by the alcohol or the guys,” said Natosha Bend, a Portland State student who was in attendance.
The play went something like this: Imagine seeing a potential sexual assault incident happen to a friend, but you were not able to see the warning signs from the start and stop it from taking place. Now imagine again that you get the chance to rewind the incident up to the beginning, from the moment that friend first took a sip of alcohol at a party.
Hindsight is 20/20, and the purpose of the performance is to give the audience that hindsight.
LaFrance incorporates the audience into her play by asking the audience during the second run through to yell out “stop” every time one of them sees a warning sign. That audience member then walks up and assumes the role of a friend and acts in way that would prevent the assault from happen.
The actors have to improvise with whatever dialogue is throw at them by the audience member. The purpose is to shift the blame away from the victim and allow the audience to see the difference that a friend could have made in any situation.
Throughout the night, audience members recreated more than 10 different versions of the play with a common theme being that there is someone who steps in to help the female out of a compromising situation.
Sarah Konkolewski is a Portland State student who was one of the audience members who participated in the play.
“Our group of friends have a code word that we use when we go out,” she said. “If I said that word to one of my friends, then that mean that I’m in an uncomfortable situation and one of my friends would swoop in and get me out.”