upworthy

rape

Health

Woman 'spikes' all of her friends' drinks at  party to make a serious point about safety

via Shiraah Benarde (used with permission)

Shiraah Benarde spikes drinks at a party,

A new video by TikTok user Shiraah Benarde is a fun way of exposing a serious problem that countless people face when going to bars, nightclubs, or even a friend’s party. It’s a lot easier than most people think to have their drink spiked, especially when you’re not taking any precautions.

Benarde is the CEO of NightCap, which makes products that prevent people from having their drinks spiked.

In the video, Benarde has several gummy candies and Pixy Sticks at a house party. Throughout the video, she drops them into people’s drinks when they aren’t paying attention without getting caught.

“Pregames and private parties are a false sense of security. You don’t expect anything to happen, but it does,” she captioned the video.

@shiraah

With everything going on with #diddy right now, this is do important to remember. Do not let your guard down even at a private party. #diddyparty #drinkspikingprevention #spiked

Benrade’s experiment is even more eye-opening because it happens at a friend’s house, a place where most people wouldn’t assume they’d have their drink spiked. However, it often occurs in places where people feel like no one would ever tamper with their drink. In this type of situation, the person who spiked the drink could fall victim to someone they trust to take of them in a drugged state.

There are many reasons why people spike drinks, the most common being to render the victim defenseless against sexual assault or robbery. Drink-spiking has also been tied to abuse or dangerous pranks.

It can be tough to know the difference between the effects of alcohol and a doctored drink, but here are some warning signs, according to NBC News.

  • You may feel drowsy and nauseated
  • Your cheeks may feel flushed
  • You may feel like your body temperature has gone up
  • You may feel sexually aroused
  • You may feel like you've had many more drinks than you've consumed
  • You may start staggering and have an unsteady gait



Given that many people don’t tell the authorities that they’ve had their drink spiked it’s hard to know how often it happens. A 2016 study of 6,000 students at 3 American universities found that nearly 8% thought they had been slipped something in a drink at one point in their lives. Another 1% admitted that they had spiked someone’s drink.

Benarde says that she made the TikTok video to remind everyone of the dangers of having their drink spiked at a time when sexual assault is making headlines. “With everything going on with #diddy right now, this is so important to remember. Do not let your guard down even at a private party,” she writes in the video’s caption. Sean Combs, a.k.a P. Diddy, was recently accused by over 120 people of sexual assault, some of whom claim they were drugged.

Many of the 200,000-plus people who’ve seen the video thought it was a great way to show how easy it is to have your drink spiked and to encourage people to be more cautious. “This is a good video. You really don’t think it’s this easy! Especially when you trust someone. I got roofied by someone close to me who I trusted,” one commenter wrote. “Honestly, this is a fun way to teach your friends to pay attention to their drinks,” another added.

From Your Site Articles
sexual assault
Joy

Amanda Nguyen, the rape survivor who rewrote sexual assault laws, shares her story on TikTok

So incredibly powerful.

@amandangocnguyen/TikTok

Amanda Nguyen changed the world for sexual assault survivors.

In 2013, while in her final semester at Harvard University, Amanda Nguyen was raped on campus. Like far too many sexual assault survivors, she found herself wrapped up in a criminal justice system that was traumatizing, expensive, difficult to navigate and often ineffectual.

The following year, she founded Rise, an organization advocating for the rights of survivors of sexual violence. She helped rewrite state and federal laws surrounding how sexual assault is handled and played an integral role in getting the Survivors’ Bill of Rights Act of 2016 passed unanimously in Congress. That act, which was signed into law by President Obama in 2016, changed the way rape kits are processed and created a bill of rights for survivors of sexual assault and rape.

But Nguyen didn't stop there. After the successful passage of the Sexual Assault Survivors' Rights Act, Nguyen received more than a million messages from survivors around the world fighting for their own rights and protections. She knew she needed to take her cause even wider, advocating for survivors everywhere.

Nguyen knew from personal experience the impact of having face time with decision-makers. When she was trying to get a survivor rights bill passed in Massachusetts, she almost gave up when she was told there was a slim chance of the bill passing. But she got on a plane and met with lawmakers personally, which swayed them to support the bill.

"There's nothing more powerful than hearing it straight from the people it has affected," Nguyen told TIME. "We pushed the boundaries from a 0 percent chance to a 100 percent chance in 14 hours."

Nguyen took that same energy to the highest international body, the United Nations. This summer, Rise set up a powerful exhibition, "What Were You Wearing?", at the UN Headquarters in New York to highlight the problem of victim-blaming that so often follows sexual violence. For six years, Nguyen and Rise have been working toward an international resolution supporting the rights of sexual violence survivors. Finally this month, the United Nations unanimously passed a resolution providing access to justice for victims of sexual assault.

The vote was welcomed by exclamations of joy and relief from audience members. One of those cries came, understandably, from Nguyen herself.

Nguyen shared a powerful video synopsis of her story on TikTok, which has been viewed more than 18 million times. Watch:

What Amanda Nguyen has accomplished is incredible and will make a difference in millions of lives around the world. The tragedy is in how she got to where she is now—both her own experience and the countless stories that have propelled her to work tirelessly for survivor rights.

"I wanted to be an astronaut, I didn't want to be an activist," Nguyen told Euronews. "But here I am."

Nguyen's accomplishments go far beyond the activism highlighted in her TikTok, however. Her bio on her website is a testament to what she is capable of and an inspiration for anyone who has survived sexual assault:

Amanda Nguyen is the founder of Rise, a 2019 Nobel Peace Prize Nominee, and a 2022 TIME Woman of the Year. Amanda’s 2021 viral video ignited a wave of collective action in the anti-Asian hate movement. She made history by drafting and unanimously passing both the Sexual Assault Survivors’ Bill of Rights through the United States Congress and the Survivors' Resolution through the United Nations General Assembly. Amanda’s directorial debut, Everything I Ever Wanted To Tell My Daughter About Men, won Best Feature at the 2022 Cannes Independent Film Festival. She is the lead of Emmy-nominated mini documentary "Rise Above" by Money Magazine. She served the White House, Department of State, and NASA, and is currently an Astronaut-Scientist Candidate at the Astronautical Science Institute. Amanda graduated from Harvard University. For her work, Amanda has been named a Heinz Laureate, Forbes 30 Under 30, Foreign Policy 100, Fedrick Douglass 100, TIME 100 Next, BBC 100, Marie Claire Woman of the Year. She loves bunnies and dogs.

From Your Site Articles
Wellness

Saying 'I do'—or 'yes' more than once—is not blanket consent for sex

Photo by Photos by Lanty on Unsplash

The other day I read an anonymous article written by a woman who had been raped repeatedly by her husband during their marriage. As terrible as the story was, the comments on the social media share of it were worse.

I was appalled to read comment after comment of women saying their spouses or long-time partners regularly forced or coerced them into sex. Many of those men basically claimed ownership of their partners' bodies, believing they were entitled to sex whenever they wanted it. Some pushed ahead even after she had explicitly said no or begged him not to. Some women would wake up in the middle of being raped by the person who was supposed to love, honor, and cherish them. Sadly, some women thought this was normal.

Too many people seem to think saying "I do"—or saying yes to sex more than once—equals a blanket consent for sex whenever. News flash: It does not.

There is no such thing as blanket consent for sex. It doesn't matter if you're in a committed relationship. It doesn't matter how long you've been together. It doesn't matter if you've said yes a hundred times in a row. If you don't want to have sex, you don't have to. Period.

Particularly disconcerting were the women who said they and/or their husbands were taught by their churches or religions that they had to submit whenever their husbands wanted sex. That it was their "duty" to please their husbands and that they couldn't "deny" them. That they didn't have ownership over their own body at all.

Others talked about how their partner would guilt them into sex, saying they "needed it" or "couldn't help themselves." How they would gaslight them or threaten to go get it elsewhere if they didn't relent.

Comment after comment. Story after story, some describing outright abuse and others describing incredibly unhealthy dynamics surrounding sex and consent within the relationship.

I was horrified to read these stories—but even more horrified by the statistics that back them up. According to the National Resource Center on Domestic Violence, between 10 and 14 percent of married women in the U.S. are raped by their husbands, and one-third of women report "having unwanted sex" with their partner. However, spousal rape also goes largely unreported.

Perhaps it shouldn't be so surprising. After all, up until 1975, every state's rape laws had an exemption for marriage, so legally speaking, married women (or men) couldn't be raped by their spouses. Thanks to pressure from the women's rights movement, all states changed their laws to acknowledge marital rape by 1993. But culture often takes longer to change than laws, and there are still far too many people who don't understand that consent is the standard for everyone in every sexual encounter, regardless of relationship status.

While consent is straightforward, the dynamics of sex are unique to each relationship. In a loving, long-term relationship, sex can be a bit of a complex dance. Different people have different desires, intimacy means different things to different people, and life circumstances (babies, health issues, etc.) can impact a couple's sexual activity. Each couple has to work out the hows and whens and how oftens of their sex life, but it should always be a mutual thing. A sexual relationship requires ongoing communication, and sometimes negotiations of sorts are necessary to make sure each partner feels heard and respected in their wants and desires.

The key is respect. There's a world of difference between saying to your partner "I feel like our relationship needs more physical intimacy," and saying "You need to be ready and raring to go whenever I'm feeling feel frisky." The former is a conversation starter that can ultimately lead to greater connection and a stronger relationship. The latter is just a terrible attitude to take toward your loved one.

Some might say "enthusiastic consent" is necessary, but as someone who's been in a healthy, happy marriage for 23 years, I'd say that's not always reality. There may be times when one partner isn't super into it at first, but they know they will be once they get started, so they say yes because they want to make their partner happy. (Not because their partner pressured them, but because they genuinely want to.) But consent to even head down the road to funkytown always needs to be there in the first place. Always. Every time.

No one should be made to feel like they're a bad partner for saying no when they aren't up for sex. No one should be pushed or pressured into it. No one should be demanding sex or taking it when it hasn't been freely offered. Why would you even want to have sex with someone who actively doesn't want to anyway?

No means no. "Stop" means no. Being asleep means no. Yes means yes. It's really that simple.

I hope both women and men read this and recognize that anything short of that standard of consent is not okay. Everyone deserves a partner who respects their bodily autonomy and understands that sex is a mutually agreed-upon activity—every time, in every relationship.

From Your Site Articles
Related Articles Around the Web
relationships
Popular

A high school biology assignment made kids figure out who 'raped Suzy.' Yes, really.

According to RAINN, teen girls between the ages of 16 and 19 are four times more likely to be victims of rape, attempted rape, or sexual assault. And as if the increased likelihood of sexual assault wasn't bad enough, many high school students are bombarded with reminders about their lack of security. Some are even reminded of the dangers through their homework.

Yes, really.

A teacher at Klein Collins High School in Spring, Texas is in hot water after giving 9th grade students a take-home test on a recent lesson on DNA. Students were asked to figure out who "raped Suzy" by studying DNA evidence results taken from the scene of the crime.

RELATED: A Florida high school just became the first classroom to dissect synthetic frogs

"Suzy was assaulted in an alley and is a victim of rape. The police collected a sample of sperm that was left at the crime scene and now have three suspects in custody. Which of the suspects raped Suzy?" the question read.

Students were then expected to compare the DNA samples of three suspects against the test results of a criminal. On top of being a wildly inappropriate question to make fourteen and fifteen-year-olds answer, the question help perpetuates the myth that rapes are committed by strangers jumping out at women in dark allies. In reality, three out of four rapes are committed by someone the victim already knows, according to RAINN.

A mother sent a copy of the test to KPRC 2 Houston, and the question went viral.

Parents were understandably livid. "It's upsetting and I know girls this age, just the thought ... they know that rape is forced non-consensual sex and that upsets them," Cookie von Haven, a mother of a 10th grader at the school, told KPRC. "That's why I can't fathom a teacher putting that on a test."

Dana Duplantier, the parent of a 9th grader, wondered how the teacher was able to get away with asking the students such a controversial question. "Wouldn't (the teacher) have to get that approved by the school board or teachers or something to put that in there," she told KPRC.

RELATED: Reports of sexual assault on London Underground increasing at alarming rate

It turns out, the teacher didn't get approval from the school board. The question was conceived by the individual teacher and does not appear on a district-wide curriculum. 90 students in total received the take-home test.

In fact, the school district isn't happy about the question appearing at all. "The assignment is not part of the District's approved curriculum and is by no means representative of the District's instructional philosophy. The District has investigated the source of the materials and appropriate corrective action has been taken," Klein Independent School District said in a statement.

It would be wonderful to live in a world where high school students didn't have to fear sexual assault, but in the meantime, they shouldn't be asked to answer questions that reduce the gravity of rape to multiple choice.

Related Articles Around the Web
rape
Trending Stories