Rape Culture in Music Festivals?

I recently read an article on Vice.com which focused on the sexual harassment received by women who attend music festivals.  The author was prompted to write this article after a coworker attended Cochella 2015 in California and snapped a photo of a man grinning while wearing a  t-shirt titled “Eat. Sleep. Rape. Repeat”.  The extremely inappropriate shirt is an ill-fated pun on the phrase “ Eat. Sleep. Rave. Repeat”. The phrase, was first coined in a song by Fatboy Slim, Riva Starr and Beardyman called “Eat. Sleep. Rave. Repeat” and has quickly become synonymous with rave culture. If one were to go to any festival around the nation, you would probably see someone wearing a shirt with that phrase. However, by changing one letter in the expression, the shirt quickly become an uncomfortable eyesore.

As the author points out and I agree, free speech should not necessarily limit rape jokes, but there is a time and place for everything. Music festivals, a  place where people are intoxicated, dancing and possibly under the influence of illicit drugs is most definitely not one of those places. It’s like yelling fire in a movie theater, you just don’t do it. I was curious about why the individual felt that wearing that shirt was acceptable. This point connects to one of the readings discussed earlier in the semester about acceptance of sexual harassment. Researchers found that when participants were exposed to promiscuous and non-promiscuous views of women, the participants attributed greater responsibility onto promiscuous women ( Ferguson et. at., 2005). Participants also perceived that promiscuous women suffered less trauma than non-promiscuous women when exposed to verbal and comment sexual harassment ( Ferguson et. al., 2005). If you have attended a large music festival, especially an electronic-dance music fest, you will notice that many women wear interesting costumes, usually scantily clad. Is it possible that this exposure, could lead men to classify women as promiscuous and thus view women at these festivals as deserving of sexual harassment?

Ferguson, T., Berlin, J., Noles, E., Johnson, J., Reed, W., & Spicer, C. V. (2005). Variation in the application of the 'promiscuous female' stereotype and the nature of the application domain: Influences on sexual harassment judgments after exposure to the Jerry Springer Show. Sex Roles, 52(7-8), 477-487. doi: 10.1007/s11199-005- 3713-y

Lhooq, M. (2015, April 13). What the "Eat sleep rape repeat" shirt at coachella says about rape culture at music festivals | Thump. http://thump.vice.com/en_us/article/what-the-eat-sleep-rape-repeat-shirt-at-coachella-says-about-rape-culture-at-music-festivals