What kind of people would manufacture anti-rape clothing? And who would give them money to produce a range of lockable shorts? New York based duo AR Wear claims its product will deter an attacker and prevent what it terms "a completed rape". So successful has its crowd-funding appeal on Indiegogo been, despite the criticism and doubts over whether the project is actually a hoax, that it has just reached its $50,000 fundraising target – in little over a month.
AR Wear claims its product "can give women and girls additional power to control what happens to their bodies in case they are assaulted". All evidence suggests, however, that this modern-day chastity belt is yet another product of a society that teaches women to avoid being raped rather than men to avoid raping. Where victims are blamed and not the rapists.
Why don't we see people rushing to donate to awareness raising campaigns that aim to change society's attitude to women and to lock away more rapists, rather than our vaginas? Why do we still live in a world where the onus is on a woman not to get raped?
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Curious about the motives of the AR Wear designers, I decided to contact them. Called Yuval and Ruth (they won't share their surnames), the latter has been a victim of multiple sexual assaults, awful experiences which gave her the idea for the underwear. "I had been subjected to two attempted rapes, one at the age of 18 and one in my late 20s," she says. "In both cases, delay had kept the rapes from being completed. In the first case, I had fought off my attacker until he heard noises nearby and broke off the attack. In the second case, my attacker had me around the throat with one hand and with the other hand somehow managed to pull down my tight jeans and underwear while throwing me to the ground. I started screaming and something caused my attacker to run off. The memory of how he had pulled down my clothing so quickly made me believe that AR Wear could be effective at preventing some rapes by causing delay."
They also attempt to acknowledge that their product isn't part of the long-term solution on their website. "As long as sexual predators continue to populate our world, AR Wear would like to provide products to women and girls that will offer better protection against some attempted rapes while the work of changing society's rape culture moves forward."
AR Wear's motives might be good but there are still many issues around this product. For a start, it excludes many potential victims. Men get raped. Disabled people get raped. Children get raped. Overweight people get raped. Transgender people get raped.
It also perpetuates the myth that most rapes are committed by an evil stranger, lurking in the shadows, ready to pounce on a woman who has "put herself in a dangerous situation". The site describes situations whereby a woman could be at risk of stranger rape, such as going for a run or on a night out. But approximately two thirds of sexual assaults are committed by someone known to their victim.
Ethically, isn't it a bit wrong to profit from the existence of sexual assault anyway?
In a world where an Australian judge ruled that a sexual assault "must have been consensual" because she was wearing skinny jeans that he "doubted could be removed without any collaboration", aren't we giving the misogynists out there another weapon to excuse away rape? If your AR shorts are faulty, will you be blamed for the attack? And if, heaven forbid, this product becomes a du jour item of female fashion, will a victim of rape be called into question for not wearing them?
The sad fact remains, however, that in the UK alone only one rape victim in 30 will see their attacker prosecuted. Our justice system frequently fails victims of sexual assault. Some women are discouraged from even pressing charges – something I have experienced firsthand. In 2010, I was followed, harassed and assaulted. The experience, and subsequent inadequate police response, led me to launch the UK Anti-Street Harassment campaign, which lobbies authorities to make the streets safer for women and challenges societal stereotypes about whether a woman is "asking for" sexual harassment or assault.
Sadly, resorting to literally locking away our vaginas in order to prevent rape indicates just how much work there is for us to do in the fight against rape culture. A modern-day chastity belt demonstrates just how little women's sexual rights have progressed since medieval times.
