Features
- In-Person Presentation
- Research & Trauma Informed
- Title IX & VAWA Compliant
- Customizable
Program Details
Catharsis Productions' Sex Signals incorporates scripted dialogue, audience-driven improvised scenes, and a focused, presenter-led discussion designed to analyze and interrogate the components of a rape-supportive culture. The program also utilizes humor as a strategic teaching device, engaging audiences and framing the issue in ways that reduce resistance to the content, and build comprehension. Delivered by two well-trained educators, the program begins by examining the messages audiences have received about sexual health and intimate relationships in general. This provides a baseline that enables the audience to agree on what the components of a healthy, respectful relationship are. This is essential; without agreement on what connotes a positive relationship or intimate interaction, it is unlikely that audiences will be able to identify the elements of an unhealthy, coercive interaction. This component is intentionally inclusive of a range of gender identities and sexual orientations. The program then explores the ways in which our culture justifies unhealthy sexual behavior, engaging audiences in a critical analysis of how entitlement and privilege enable individuals to perpetrate sexually violent acts, and explicitly situates consent as the necessary, principled component of any relationship. It also addresses the difference between risk reduction and its emphasis on the victim’s “responsibility” for protecting themselves, and the critical role a community can and must play in reducing the risks for the vulnerable among them. Last, the final program component is structured like a talk show, where the presenters play an interviewer and a college student defending his buddy from a recent accusation of rape. The college student tells the narrative from his perspective, and describes his role as his buddy’s “wingman,” targeting first-year girls to attend his buddy’s parties; ensuring the girls came alone; furthering the girls’ intoxication; and, enabling his buddy to isolate the girls in order for him to “get laid.” This scene challenges audiences to take the view of the bystander not only to evaluate that role as a contributor to sexual violence, but also to emphasize their role as upstanders and interveners. This scene then leads to a focused discussion on the role of intervention, and enables audiences to identify intervention strategies that build on the earlier programmatic components.
