The Date Rape Backlash; Sexual Harassment: Building Awareness On Campus; When A Kiss Is Not Just A Kiss: Sex Without Consent

"55% of men who raped had sex again with their victims." That statistic comes from "When a Kiss Is Not Just a Kiss": Sex Without Consent, one of three new programs dealing with the issues of sexual harassment and date rape on college campuses. If your eyebrows are reaching for the sky over the aforementioned statistic, it means you're a rational human being who wonders how the words "rape" and "victim" are being defined in this instance. Statistics delivered from on high--usually without reference or explication--mars "When a Kiss Is Not Just a Kiss", an otherwise effective mini-play making the college circuit in which a quartet of thespians put on a very well-acted and convincing example of date rape and its ambiguities. An eager young man cajoles the object of his attention into drinking a lot of beer, and later, after making out, has sexual intercourse with her, even though the woman through both her body language and her words makes it clear that she doesn't want to proceed. The shadowy gray area lies in the fact that the woman doesn't actually say "no." But the film makes it quite clear that she had sex without consent. After the play, members of the college audience ask questions of the cast, and discuss methods by which date rape can be avoided. Recommended, with reservations, for college and university libraries.Statistics crop up again, and indeed become the focus of The Date Rape Backlash, an examination of how the "epidemic" of date rape reported in 1987 was reduced to the phrase "rape-hype" by 1993. Pointing the finger at conservative male journalists in general, and Katie Roiphe's book The Morning After, in particular, the video, hosted by Thelma & Louise screenwriter Callie Khouri, features interviews with an impressive group of commentators, including Katha Pollit, Susan Faludi, bell hooks, and Susan Douglas. What's odd about this group is that they tend to portray their targets as one-sided polemicists with axes to grind...and they do this without a sliver of irony. Roiphe is ridiculed (but not interviewed); conservative feminist Wendy Kaminer's Atlantic Monthly cover story "Who Stole Feminism?" is pointlessly flashed on the screen a couple times (Kaminer's article barely touches on the subject, and in no way takes a "rape-hype" stance), but Kaminer herself doesn't appear; and Camille Paglia--brutally edited--shows up briefly in clips, but not as an interviewee. In short, this is not an objective Frontline style, let's-listen-to-both-sides approach to the issue; it's as much a slanted affair as the media version it sets out to correct. Defending the now-famous 1 in 4 figure about women in college who have been raped or were the victims of attempted rape (often mistakenly cited as 1 in 4 college women have been raped, period), the program points out that 73% of those women would not use the word "rape" to describe their experience. Supporting studies are also offered with figures ranging from 11% to 27% (but, wait a second, isn't a nearly 1 in 10 ratio very different from a nearly 1 in 4 ratio?). I don't mean to just play devil's advocate here: The Date Rape Backlash really does offer persuasive arguments that the media--always a fickle beast anyway--has turned a deaf ear (or disdainful eye) on the issue of date rape which unfortunately continues to be a horrendous, traumatic, and common occurrence on college campuses across America, regardless of what Katie Roiphe found to be her "personal experience" at Harvard. Still, we're missing the final form of Hegel's classic model of dialectics. We've seen the thesis, heard the antithesis in this tape, now it would be nice to find a program that offers a true synthesis: vigorous investigation towards a (not previously determined) truth. College and university libraries will surely want to consider this: it's certain to spark heated discussion and doesn't carry the $350-$700 price tag often found on institutionally-oriented videos on emotionally charged topics.While poorly edited interviews are an occasional occurrence on The Date Rape Backlash, on Sexual Harassment: Building Awareness on Campus, it's a trademark. The producers, on both of the programs, seemed to be satisfied with single-take interviews and don't hesitate to either brusquely edit an interviewee mid-stream or leave in a comment that is essentially incoherent. Host Jean Kilbourne--who thankfully works from a script--defines sexual harassment and offers suggestions for dealing with unwanted sexual advances, while interviewed professors address these topics and the subject of consensual relationships between faculty and students. Some of the worst interviews appear during this segment just before the close (one interviewee--a professor of communications, no less--uses the word "sanction" when she clearly means "censure," which is nearly opposite in meaning). Larger college libraries might be tempted to consider simply because of the controversial subject matter, but this program neither effectively covers the material nor presents it well. Not a necessary purchase. (R. Pitman)