Can We Expect Different Results In The Aftermath Of The Vagina Monologues And Teeth

Binge drinking and girls on a seesaw
How a Loyola Marymount University fraternity focuses on rape awareness
The Sigma Chi Fraternity at Loyola Marymount University of Los Angeles last month held its Derby Days, a fundraiser featuring a week of events, including a comedy night, an auction, and a St. Patrick’s Day dance. This year’s Derby Days opened with a “Take Back Night” on March 10, in which four current or former LMU students, all female, related stories about their firsthand experience with rape. A representative from the Santa Monica Rape Treatment Center also spoke at “Take Back Night.” The center, affiliated with UCLA Medical Center, was one of the Derby Days’ beneficiaries – receiving the first $1,000 of the monies received. The rest of the money went to a scholarship fund.

According to its web site, the Rape Treatment Center “provides comprehensive, free treatment for sexual assault victims.” Such treatment includes “24-hour emergency medical care and forensic services, counseling and psychotherapy, advocacy, and accompaniment services.” Among its other services, the center offers “prevention/education programs for children, adolescents, and college students.” As part of its medical care, the center provides treatment for pregnancy resulting from rape. According to the center’s web site, clients can have “immediate treatment to prevent the risk of a pregnancy.”

These treatment “options,” it says, “are most effective if you seek care within 72 hours after the assault.” Clients may “decide to wait to see if you become pregnant as a result of a sexual assault.” If they do become pregnant, “a health care provider can discuss your options with you.” The web site does not say what those options are; but the reference to 72 hours indicates that the center distributes Emergency Birth Control, which says the EBC web site, may be taken up to three days (72 hours) after having sex.

Writing in the March 3 issue of the Loyolan, LMU’s student newspaper, senior theology major Jeremy Tratner writes that, while “spreading rape awareness” and raising money for organizations that help rape victims are noble and commendable, Sigma Chi’s doing so suggests a “contradiction,” since the fraternity is associated with the “rape culture.” “Binge drinking,” says Tratner, “exemplifications of sexualized roles (think of theme parties) and an overt display of misogynistic music and its tendencies (sexually derogatory tunes synchronized to young women bouncing on a seesaw) are not conducive of an organization that focuses its philanthropy on ‘rape awareness.’"

Tratner refers to the Derby Days’ “Sigsaw,” a seesaw on which girls sit for 24-hour periods. A Sigma Chi representative, Dave Maricondo, told the March 3 Loyolan that sitting on the Sigsaw “is not the most comfortable thing on campus, but girls do it. If I had to venture a guess, it probably has something to do with gaining points toward their sorority.”

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Link to the full article in the California Catholic Daily (here)

Vagina Monologues at LMU (here)

Sexually themed play called Teeth preformed at LMU (here)

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Note to Jeremy, comparison of Sigma Chi to the military's prosecution of the war of liberation of Iraq is not morally equivalent. It is not sinful to prosecute a just war. It is sinful to promote licentousness.