Mike Domitrz argues that telling people "don't commit sexual assault" doesn't work. Real prevention requires uncomfortable conversations about consent and mutual respect, not surface-level directives that leave harmful behaviors and cultural norms unchanged.
Why are we more comfortable in the not to do than the to do? Go ahead and raise your hand and give me answers you came up with. Yes? Oh, okay. It's quicker and easier to say don't than to have that conversation on mutually amazing. Right? Is that what you mean by punchline? Okay. So let's go there. If it is quicker to say don't commit sexual assault than to dive into mutually amazing, so is it actually easier if it's ineffective So somebody said yes. How can something be easier if it's ineffective? That means it's going to cause you more harm and work down the road, and you're complicating this issue with an easy solution. Well— That's tomorrow's problem, which, by the way, is the whole problem in this strategy, is if we tell people don't, it's easier to say that, but we don't do anything to change what's actually going on, and we have bigger problems down the road.
