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My central question asks how universities can engage with local communities to work
towards
increased sexual safety on campuses. Specifically, I first argue that universities
can improve sexual safety
on campuses by incorporating ideas about consent and sexuality from alternative sexual
communities
into safety initiatives. I then argue that universities can further improve sexual
safety on campuses
through engagement with off-campus business that are central to student life. Student
activists and
university administrators must reach outside the university to engage with local communities
and unite
against all forms of sexual misconduct.
I cast a wide net in Chapter One to look at the various notions of safety, consent,
and gender in
contemporary BDSM (bondage, discipline (or domination), sadism (or submission), and
masochism)
communities in hopes of finding new ways to restructure modes of though around sexual
assault and
harassment prevention. I find that the normative response from Duke University (and
their peer
institutions) against sexual assault and harassment prevention to add more policy
and review boards is
not working. Chapter two brings readers back to the relationship between Duke and
Durham to
evaluate how restructuring sex education and community engagement can form a better
response
against sexual misconduct and improve sexual justice at its core.
My research led me to realize how important sexual autonomy is to community health.
As it
currently stands in the United States, policies, laws and ideologies around appropriate
sexual conduct
damage sexual autonomy. Our autonomy forms how we interact with our outside community,
not just
intimately but socially. Therefore, if Duke University wants to strengthen sexual
justice on campus, they
need to first invest in sex education to re-build students’ sexual autonomy.
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