We Need to Apply Gun Safety Rules to Sex.

Applying basic firearms rules when getting jiggy.

Photo by Maria Lysenko on Unsplash

To get a gun licence in New Zealand, you have to attend a variety of classes and be able to recite the seven basic rules of firearms safety. I was thinking about the issue of victim-blaming that often occurs when a victim has faced sexual violence and the level of misunderstanding that everyday people have about the causes of such horrid acts.

“She was asking for it.”

Without a doubt, the biggest problem to tackle is the issue of consent… and how some people still think it’s a grey area.

There’s an assumption that sexual violence only happens to women but 1 in 6 men will also face some form of sexual violence too. This issue affects people from all walks of life, regardless of gender or sexual orientation.

There’s still this assumption that if people wear revealing clothing that it implies consent (Hot tip: it doesn’t), that if someone was drinking and laughing with someone for the evening that this meant that they were asking for it (Hot tip: they weren’t). In fact, statistics…