The “Rape Vans” - Stop Calling Them That!!!

Guest comment by Bryan R., SBI Health Education intern

You take a stroll down a frigid Main Street and hear the murmur of the students as they discuss their different modes of transportation home. Many of them slightly inebriated; ready for some pizza and their beds. If you listen in on their conversations, nine times out of ten, somewhere along the way the “rape van” will come up in conversation.

As a senior here at the University at Buffalo, I have far too often heard the Anti-Rape Task Force Safety Shuttles falsely referred to as the “rape vans.” The Anti-Rape Task Force (ARTF) was started in the late 70’s for women by women as a walk station located specifically on South campus. Over the years, it expanded to walk stations on both North and South Campus, and Safety Shuttles that run within a mile and a half radius of South Campus.

When I was a freshman living on South Campus, I vividly remember all my friends waiting inside the lobby of Goodyear Hall on frigid Buffalo nights waiting for what all the referred to as the “rape vans.” But why did they call it that? The main focus of ARTF is to help protect and provide safety services to students of the University at Buffalo, and help protect against rape. The vans are designed as deterrents of violence.

The misnomer has been passed down from student generations to generations. When I went out and polled friends who used to call it the “rape van” why they did so, they replied, “That’s what everyone else called it!” When receiving this response over and over again, each time I chuckled and thought to myself: if only these students were actually educated about rape, and how many people around them have been or will be raped or sexual assaulted at some point within their lifetimes. I had one friend suggest that perhaps as every student exits the van, or if a joke about rape or sexual assault is overheard on the van, that they receive a pamphlet with real statistics like the ones below, and maybe that will be a start:

The Facts (courtesy of RAINN.org):
• Between 1 in 4 and 1 in 5 college women experience a completed or attempted rape during their college years (National Institute of Justice, December 2000).
• 1 in 6 women in the U.S. has been the victim of an attempted or completed rape in their lifetime. (National Institute of Justice and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1998)
• “Almost two-thirds of all rapes are committed by someone who is known to the victim. 73% of sexual assaults were perpetrated by a non-stranger (38% of perpetrators were a friend or acquaintance of the victim, 28% were an intimate and 7% were another relative.) (National Crime Victimization Survey, 2005)”
• 2.78 million men in the U.S. have been victims of sexual assault or rape (National Institute of Justice & Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, 1998)

So, would this work? Would passing out facts like these help students to
realize that rape and sexual assault is NOT a joke, that ARTF services are benefiting them and helping to keep them safe, and that the term is offensive and wrong? Until someone finds an answer, the legacy of the “rape vans” will move onto the next incoming freshman class and the ones following on behind them.

Date Rape Myths & Facts

Myth: Rape is only committed by strangers in dark alleys and parking lots.

Fact: As many as 84 percent of women are raped by someone they know, such as friends, family or an acquaintance.

Myth: If a woman is raped, then she must have deserved it, especially if she agreed to go to the man's room or wore sexy clothing.

Fact: No one deserves to be raped. Being in a man's room or wearing revealing clothing does not mean a woman has agreed to have sex.

Myth: Women who don't physically fight back haven't been raped.

Fact: If a woman did not or could not consent to having sex, it is considered rape. Forcing a woman to have sex against her will, whether she physically fights back or not, is rape, plain and simple.

Myth: If there isn't a weapon involved, you haven't been raped.

Fact: Whether the man uses a weapon, his fists, the weight of his body, verbal threats, drugs, alcohol, or takes advantage of a woman's diminished physical or mental state to force her to have sex, it is rape.

Myth: It's not rape if the man is her boyfriend or husband or if they have had sex before.

Fact: A woman has the right to decide what she does with her body at all times - if she does not want to have sex, it is her decision, even if she willingly had sex with the man before.

Myth: If a woman lets a man buy her dinner or pay for a movie or drinks, she owes him sex.

Fact: No one owes sex as a payment to anyone else, no matter how expensive the date.

Myth: When a woman agrees to "make out" with a man, she is implying that will have intercourse with him, too.

Fact: Everyone has the right to say "no" to sexual activity, regardless of what has preceded it, and to have that "no" respected.

Myth: Women lie about being raped, especially when they accuse men they date or other acquaintances.

Fact: Rape really happens -- to people you know, by people you know.

Myth: When men are sexually aroused, they need to have sex or they will get "blue balls." Also, once they get turned on, men can't stop themselves from forcing sex on a woman.

Fact: Men don't physically need to have sex after becoming aroused any more than women do. Moreover, men are still able to control themselves even after becoming sexually excited.

Myth: Only women are raped.

Fact: Ten percent of rape cases involve men as a victim.

Myth: If both people are drunk at the time of the incident, no one can be accused of rape.

Fact: Being drunk does not mean someone cannot be accused of and convicted of rape.