Date: December 2018-20

Team: Rachel Chaldu, Sarbani Ghosh, Sabetty Heyme, Masimba Hwati, Trev True

Role: Board Member, Mattress CEO

Background:

As current and recent college students we were all aware of abhorrent stories of sexual misconduct. The cultural and institutional responses were contentious and hyper focused on adjudication methodologies and punitive measures. While those are important areas of inquiry that have been woefully mismanaged historically, they do little to combat the underlying malignancy of sexual violence. We saw this as the difference between preventative care and emergency room medicine and were interested in treating the underlying malady rather than the symptoms. We all recognized that there wasn’t an easy fix, but we thought that nurturing a broader discourse aimed at promoting healthy sexual encounters was a goal worthy of our effort.

Challenge:

Develop an open architecture where cultural producers can work together to eliminate rape culture by promoting affirmative consent in sexual interaction.

Research:

We knew that sexual violence was a major problem among college age adults and the CDC’s National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey confirmed our suspicions. The overall number of sexual assault survivors in the United States was significantly higher than we expected and confirmed the dire need for community intervention. We interviewed university administrators, campus security, dormitory managers, and resident advisors. We spoke with campus healthcare workers and reviewed sexual assault response procedures mitigation strategies. We reviewed literature on affirmative consent and sex positivity. We workshopped potential interventions like the consent form and held a town hall style critique of the entire project and made appropriate adjustments.