In 2012, Jen Sorenson published ?An Open Letter To The Supreme Court About Health Insurance.? The comic was widely distributed and for it she was honored with the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award for editorial cartooning. Yesterday, she published a second biographical piece about a friend’s experience being date-raped in college during the 1970s and the recent phone call the woman received from her rapist. It’s worth your time to read.
While we’re on the topic of Jen, a hearty congratulations goes out to her for her new gig with Fusion as a comics editor of their Graphic Culture section. Fusion is a digital and TV network from ABC News and Univision for young adults.
There are a lot of touchy issues around attempting to differentiate “types of rape” but I think it’s safe to say that, since they were not on a date, and there was no level of “failure to obtain clear consent” or “no means no,” this is not a story about date rape.
It’s a chilling story that raises significant issues, but it’s not about date rape.
She was drugged and kidnapped and raped by someone she sort of knew – where oh WHERE is the DATE rape?
This was really well done, with a lot of subtly. I hope it gets a lot of circulation, especially on campuses.