Several months ago, I
was surprised to read what an old high school friend, Aubrey Schuring, had
posted about her last four years. She’d been in a sexually and emotionally
abusive relationship all that time, and now, out of it and trying to heal, was
speaking out against sexual assault, abuse, and rape culture, “an environment
in which rape is prevalent and in which sexual violence against women is
normalized and excused” (Marshall University).
Since the first post I
read, Schuring has posted and talked tirelessly, trying to stimulate discussion
about these issues. She volunteers with the Center for Women and Children in
Crisis as a Rape Crisis Team member, answering phone calls from and making
hospital visits to rape victims. A few months ago, she got a volunteer
position as Staff Photographer for Project Consent, “a non-profit,
volunteer-based campaign that aims to combat and deconstruct rape culture by
raising awareness of the harmful way with which it is regarded in society,
educating our audience about the disparity of discussion of sexual assault, and
promoting positive dialogue about the importance of consent.”
Schuring has created two
photography series for the campaign, Face Value and The Very Best We
Can. In the first, she documented the emotions of herself and three other
volunteers talking about their experiences with consent. In the second, she
created an anonymous survey about consent and photographed models acting out the
emotions and stories shared. That’s two stories in four months. But ideally,
she said, “I would be doing a project every week or two. But it’s been kind of
put on the backburner because people are scared to share.” It’s understandable,
she clarified. Rape and sexual assault are hard things to talk about. But if we
try to talk about assault, abuse, and rape culture without attaching personal
stories, people aren’t going to listen.
Even when she does share
stories like her own, Schuring says people aren’t always supportive. Opposition
has come from all directions, even family, although she attributes a lot of
that to “a generational gap”. The conservative culture in which she is based -
Schuring’s a Utah native - balks at the uncensored language and stories often
used and shared when discussing rape and sexual assault, and she says people
“shut down and they don’t want to listen.” So as passionate as she is about how
she wants to communicate the few stories people are willing to share, she’s
juggling between telling censored, dehumanized stories that people won’t listen
to and the more realistic, more painful stories she wants to tell that people
won’t listen to, either.
As Goldbard said in Human
Rights and Culture: From Datasan to Storyland, “anyone who wishes to make
significant headway on a social problem or opportunity must engage with
people’s feelings and attitudes about it.” She acknowledges the importance of
telling these stories in a way that even - and maybe especially - her conservative
peers, family, and community can understand and relate to. “Right now,” she
said, “I’m trying to find a balance.”
--Catherine Santos and Tabitha Brower
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpZQFCS6umg
--Catherine Santos and Tabitha Brower
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpZQFCS6umg
