The Pennsylvania Control Board pushes new campaign that justifies rape with alcohol

Pennsylvania Control Board Approves this Ad

To: The Pennsylvania Control Board
Email: contact@controltonight.com

Greetings,

My name is Ressurrection Graves, an author and victor of Rape and Child Sexual Abuse. I am appalled that a campaign targeting women as the fault of rape would be deemed acceptable in your eyes.

While young women, and men drink and their thoughts impaired, at no time should a woman who has clearly said “NO” be told that her drinking played a role in her misfortune.

In your ad, a teenage girl has her panties around her ankles and the text reads, ” She didn’t want to do it but she just couldn’t say NO!”

The misrepresentation that all teenage girls who are drunk may say “yes” is alarming and I fear that this kind of commercialism toward gender inequality will lead to more difficulty in the prosecution of rape. You present a “She asked for it” attitude.

You are saying that a teenage girl who is drunk may live in regret after having sex however, if she has in fact proven herself impaired of judgment, and penetration is taking advantage of a vulnerable situation.

Instead, the risk of teenage drinking should include impaired judgment but you need to pull that ad immediately. It is never a woman’s fault if she is assaulted. And there is never an excuse for a man to have sex with a woman if she says NO, or if she appears to be unable to give you a clear answer about whether she wants to have sex or not.

Perhaps an ad with a man looking at a woman who is clearly impaired in a seductive way should be a more appropriate anti-rape campaign where you say something like, “She couldn’t say yes, but she couldn’t say no- and I wanted it anyway.” Then you’d have to have a big sign somewhere on the ad that says “drink responsibly: a campaign FOR making better choices”.

I do not expect you to go with an ad that I just came up with in writing this letter, but the one that you are using sends a false message to women/girls, men/boys all over. Rape is never justified and is never the fault of the victim.

Please remove the ads immediately and as a bonus, terminate the person that created and approved the campaign.

UPDATE:

A few days after writing this letter, and sending it to the Control Board, I received a lengthy letter back stating that they would indeed pull the campaign. Who says writing a letter doesn’t work? I consider this a fantastic victory!

Thank you,

Ressurrection Graves
202.717.7377 (RESS)
www.facebook.com/ressurrectiongraves

www.identitycrisisbook.com

http://ressurrection.wordpress.com/2011/07/22/what-does-the-bible-say-about-child-sexual-abuse-and-molestation-and-what-will-we-do-as-a-body-to-prevent-it-within-the-church/

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