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Thursday, March 28
The Indiana Daily Student

Call for Consent

It was 7:30 p.m. on the Thursday of Little 500 week, so the line on Kilroy’s on Kirkwood was already out the door and down the sidewalk to the next crosswalk. Nearly everyone in line craned their necks to watch the protesters as they marched past on the opposite side of the street.

They were hard to miss. Almost 100 students and community members carrying neon signs marked with bold letters and chanting anti-slut shaming, pro-consent incantations drew attention.

“Fuck You Robin Thicke,” one sign read. Another one read, “If she was asking for it ... why couldn’t you?” in black capital letters with red marker further emphasizing the “asking for it” and the “you.” Several other signs said things like “stop slut shaming” or “rape hurts everyone.”

The march was part of SlutWalk Bloomington, an event hosted by the IU Feminist Student Association Thursday night to raise awareness about providing consent and preventing sexual assault.

SlutWalk began at 6:30 p.m. in Dunn Meadow.

Other groups such as Stop the Kyriarchy, Sexual Assault Crisis Service and The Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction set up tables as well.

Beyoncé music blared out of the speakers as students milled around from table to table, picking up signs or putting anonymous slips into a tissue box colored with pink roses with an index card on it reading “SLUT STATEMENT.”

At 7 p.m., speeches started as Emily Springston, the Title IX ?coordinator at IU, emphasized the importance of consent.

After Springston spoke, Evelyn Smith, Crisis Intervention Services Coordinator at Middle Way House, encouraged listeners to stop judging people by the way they ?present themselves.

“We are labeled as sluts, we are labeled as whores, as bitches and we are labeled as monsters,” Smith said. “And the truth is, we are monsters. Not because we are agents of destruction, but because we are agents of change.”

Then Ladies First, an a cappella group at IU, performed two songs before Morgan Mohr and Hannah Milner, director of activism and co-president of IUFSA, respectively, stood on stage and read some of the anonymous “slut statements,” which gave reasons for why people decided to come to the walk.

“I’m here because when my best friend was raped at knife point, the lawyer told her that she probably liked ?it rough.”

“Because I am not a piece of meat,” one said. “I am a person, respect me.” Cheers, whoops and a couple “yeahs” erupted from the audience.

“Also, Trad Youth can fall off a white male ?Orthodox cliff.”

Milner said her hope was for SlutWalk to promote awareness of sexual violence in a way that’s different and would catch a college student’s attention rather than blurring into the background and being forgotten.

The march started at around 7:30 p.m., beginning at the edge of Dunn Meadow and continuing down ?Kirkwood Avenue.

The marchers didn’t fail to turn the heads of many they passed. They turned right on College Avenue, right again on Sixth Street, right on Walnut Street and left to continue back up Kirkwood.

A man who was mowing the lawn at First Christian Church stopped in his tracks, mouth open, to gawk at the marchers. One man pointed his thumb down and booed.

“Raise your voice, get on your feet! Fight for ourselves, fight for our streets!”

Several cars honked while driving past. One car slowed and the passenger stared at the protesters, mouth open, eyes narrowed.

“This one’s for you,” a girl shouted, pointing at the ?passenger.

“This little black dress does not mean yes!” the crowd chanted.

Laura Dolezal — the girl who was holding the “Fuck You Robin Thicke” sign and a sophomore at IU — wore polka-dot tights, shorts and a lacey black corset-style shirt with two cherubs on it.

When picking out her outfit, she said she deliberated carefully.

“Those assholes we walked by — what’s something they’d look at and demean me for?”

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