Arts & Life, Events

Slutever

The “Unslut” documentary calls for social change in highlighting the damage of slut-shaming. The “Unslut” documentary left its audience in silence and caused tears of empathy and sympathy to fall from the eyes of its viewers.

The film, which was put on my the Women’s Gender Equality Center, YWCA and the Division of Student Affairs,  provoked an educating and healing conversation among students, faculty and guests after its screening last Thursday in the USU Beach Auditorium.

The movie began with filmmaker Emily Lindin’s personal story, retelling her experience of being slut-shamed at age eleven and the effects it had on her life throughout middle school and high school.

Once in college, Lindin had seen stories on the news of young girls committing suicide as a result of similar hostility she had faced in her teen years. These stories sparked the Unslut Project.

“There were so many things about my young self that I really resented, that I found disgusting, that I was ashamed of. [I thought] everyone’s got to have something like this,” Lindin said.

Lindin posted her middle school diary on storytelling webiste Wattpad.com and dissected its content to give clarity and understanding to the struggles she had faced being bullied and having suicidal thoughts.  

“I was this privileged, asshole white girl who [had] no self-awareness and there were things that just felt icky to retype, but I needed to because if I have the privilege to do that and I don’t, how can I expect anyone else to come forward and share their experience?” Lindin said.

There were three main stories within the documentary that touched on sexual assault, distribution of nude photos and the repercussions of those actions.


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The film discussed various topics, but the most frequent focus was rape and, even more specifically, the aftermath of rape.

The film gave a chronological account of the events that caused the suicide of 17-year-old Rehtaeh Parsons in 2013.

When Parsons was fifteen, she had been gang-raped during a party while she was highly intoxicated. This brought up the discussion of consent, which explained what this agreement means, what it does not mean and the conversations that must occur in order to educate the youth.

The ramifications of Parsons’ assault were permanently damaging. She was labeled a slut and shamed constantly online and at school, which led to her drug and alcohol abuse and eventually her suicide.  

The film left the audience in a silent state of contemplation, prompting a discussion led by Lindin.  

The audience thanked Lindin for bringing these issues to light and also asked several questions about how our society can change.

Lindin invited the audience to practice “calling people in” rather than “calling them out” because a thoughtful discussion is more impactful than simply scolding someone’s bad behavior.

Collectively, the group and Lindin talked about the importance of sex-positive education and her efforts to screen the movie in high schools as well as lead appropriate discussions in middle schools.

This has been a struggle she hadn’t expected and has faced resistance from public schools due to the film and her project’s sensitive subject matter, Lindin said.

“It’s part of the problem that we are unable to talk about it in the places where we really need to,” Lindin said.

Lindin’s project is now at the forefront of mainstream media and no longer dwells exclusively in the stratosphere of the feminist eco chamber, which, she said, has attracted some trolls.  

“I wouldn’t call it resistance. I would call it proof that the project needs to exist,” Lindin said.

The documentary is available for purchase at UnslutProject.com. The website also provides support for victims of slut-shaming and sexual assault as well as future screenings of the film.

— In Monday’s publication of the Daily 49er, the article titled “Slutever” incorrectly attributed the YWCA to holding the “Unslut” screening and Q&A. Funding and organizing was spearheaded by  Rosie Kar, Cal State Long Beach women’s studies professor.

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