Wednesday, April 08, 2009

Acquaintances

From the Toronto Police Sex Crimes Unit (PDF)

According to Statistics Canada, 2003, in cases reported to police, 80% of sexual assault survivors knew their abusers. About 10% were assaulted by a friend and 41% were assaulted by an acquaintance, 28% were assaulted by a family member, while the remaining 20% were assaulted by a stranger.

The Canadian Panel on Violence Against Women found that 38% of sexually assaulted women were assaulted by their husbands, common-law partners or boyfriends.


I'm not sure how the 38% corresponds with all the previous numbers. Maybe because it's a different survey? Maybe husband/partner counts as family member and boyfriend counts as friend? But that's not my point here.

My point is the large percentage for acquaintance, because personally I find the acquaintance dynamic the most difficult to manage in terms of saying no. Friends/lovers/partners/family members you know well enough to have assessed for yourself, and you trust them or not on their own merits. Strangers are strangers and you owe them nothing socially. But acquaintances you generally know through someone who knows them better. So it's not just the not-terribly-relevant-to-you acquaintance you might be dissing, but also the judgement of someone who's closer to you.

Imagine you're out somewhere and you need a ride home. You didn't arrange a specific ride because there are dozens of people there that you're close enough to that they'd be happy to give you a ride. Your brother is there, your best friend is there, your boyfriend is there, you've done this without a specific ride dozens of times before, you're certain you're not going to be abandoned. But life and logistics are complicated. So when it comes time to go home, your brother says "I can't give you a ride, but my former roommate is going your way." Or your best friend says "I can't give you a ride, but my neighbour here has room." Or your boyfiend says "I can't give you a ride, but my co-worker totally can." So now you're getting a ride from a strange man. Your brother/best friend/boyfriend totally trusts this dude and if you were to protest "WTF I'm not taking a ride with a strange man!" they'd be all "That's not a strange man, that's Steve!" and might even be insulted.

Most of the times I've been alone with a strange man have been because there's some presumption of acquaintanceship, i.e. we have been Properly Introduced. When I was a kid sometimes I might end up getting a ride home from a friend's father. When I worked on campus doing tech support I'd often go alone to profs' offices and students' res rooms. Sometimes in my apartment-dwelling life my super or a contractor might come into my apartment to do work while I was in there. Nothing ever did go wrong, but I had no way of knowing that going in. If I had refused any of these things - if I had insisted on getting a ride from a female adult or my own parents, if I had refused to go alone into male profs' offices and male students' rooms*, if I had insisted on the presence of the female super when there was one or that the work wait until I could have someone else in my apartment with me, it would have been a Big Hairy Deal and I'd be inconveniencing everything and perhaps insulting some people.

With strangers you're under no obligation, and we all learn from an early age not to talk to strangers so you're perfectly justified in snubbing them. With friends and family you know them well enough to use your own judgement unapologetically. But with acquaintances, especially acquaintances to whom you've been Properly Introduced, you have to thin-slice and then do a whole etiquette dance with the person who introduced you if you don't trust the new acquaintance.

We need a workaround.

*I did once refuse to go to a male student's room because I wasn't comfortable with him as an individual. He had invaded my personal space on the pretense of casual chitchat, and had repeatedly dissed my boyfriend. It was no big deal - I just said I wasn't comfortable going into this individual's room so another (male) tech went instead - but it would have been very high-maintenance and inconvenient if I had issued a blanket refusal to go into strange men's spaces.

1 comment:

laura k said...

In sexual-assault-speak, "acquaintance" just means someone who is not a stranger but not an intimate partner. Teacher or coach qualifies as acquaintance. Guy you've had one date with qualifies as acquaintance.

Not sure this helps.

[These busy work weekends are killing my Imp Strump time!]