Abby Sewell

From June 24 to 26, survivors and radical activists from around the nation met at Portland State University to talk about sexual assault. The Born in Flames conference, which was over a year in the making, drew people from around the nation to talk about issues of prevention, survivor support, and holding perpetrators accountable.

Unlike more mainstream conferences on the issue of rape, one of the intentions of Born in Flames was to put sexual violence in context with other forms of power play and oppression. As organizer Alix Shedd said, “What made it radical is, when discussing sexual assault, we were trying to bring discussions of institutional oppression, hierarchy and patriarchy.”

Emi Koyama, who led a workshop entitled “What’s So Special About Sexual Assault?” said, “There’s a tension in treating sexual assault as separate from all different types of assault and violence...I want to look at ways to take sexual assault seriously and also take everything else seriously.”

In discussing the power dynamics that lead to sexual assault, many of those present agreed that “survivor” and “perpetrator” are not always two separate entities. Most perpetrators have themselves been victims of violence, and many survivors have also abused power one way or another in their lives. Although there was a feminist bent to much of the discussion, the conference also attempted to break down some stereotypes, such as that men do not become victims of sexual abuse or assault, and that sexual assault does not occur in queer relationships.

Many of the topics covered in the conference were controversial, sometimes intentionally so. With emotions running high, a number of workshops ended with at least one person leaving the room. In many other cases, however, people were able to talk honestly about painful issues in an attempt to find a collective solution. Few concrete solutions did come out of the conference, but out of the many conversations that were started there, some will likely lead to more concrete organizing in the future.

The conference was set up to deal with three separate aspects of sexual assault: prevention, supporting the survivor, and holding the perpetrator accountable. The prevention segment included workshops on boundary setting, consent, and healthy relationships; the support segment included discussions on mental health, a discussion on how do-it-yourself (DIY) pornography can be a liberating experience, and a further workshop on consent. The most difficult and controversial issue was that of accountability. Everyone agreed that it was necessary; but few people had concrete ideas on how to enforce it. The only real consensus reached on the issue was that communities must react based on the specifics of a situation and not apply the same model of response to every incident.

The problem centered specifically around how activist circles can deal with sexual assault without relying on a criminal “justice” system that most radicals agree traumatizes survivors and fails to rehabilitate perpetrators.

“For a lot of reasons, going to the police and pressing charges is not always an option; because it breaks apart families and because the prison industrial complex is so oppressive that we don’t necessarily want to subject someone to it,” said Shedd.
In the absence of alternative structures devoted to supporting sexual assault survivors and holding perpetrators accountable in a fair manner, many communities of activists find themselves at a loss for how to react when an assault does happen to someone they know. In some cases, a known sexual predator may go un-chastised because of his status in a social scene.

“It’s really hard for people to give up the person who’s a really amazing artist or musician who’s a real asshole to his girlfriend,” said aby Skunkrising A. Midnight, a member of the PMS Media video collective. “Who’s going to believe the girlfriend?”

In other cases, the rumor mill may blow a questionable situation out of proportion, and people find themselves labeled as sexual assaulters and ostracized without really understanding the charges against them or having a chance to tell their side of the story.
The suggestions that people brought up for dealing with perpetrators ranged from violent vigilante justice to mentoring perpetrators, attempting to draw them into counseling and self help groups. Others suggested starting a national sexual assault newsletter as a forum for discussion and perhaps as a way of making sure that perpetrators are not able to simply leave the activist community in one town and go to another to do the same thing over again.

Some grassroots groups are already attempting to take these issues on. In Portland, the Hysteria collective formed about two years ago, with the intention of acting as a survivor support group. They raise money for survivors’ counseling; they also have often found themselves in the position of being the ones to approach perpetrators with a list of demands from the survivor. This dual role has often turned messy in the past, leading some members of the group to say they believe there should be two separate organizations - one to support survivors and one to deal with the perpetrator.

The conference attendees were largely young and white, the majority of them women, but with a sizeable contingent of men and transgendered people. Many were queer. Most probably came from an anarchist political perspective, or at least from a background in DIY culture. Organizers said they attempted to make overtures to Sisters in Action for Power to bring more women of color to the conference, but without success. Some felt that the effort had been too little too late, and others pointed out that racial division is a problem with all political organizing in Portland.

In other respects, conference organizers had taken great pains to make the event accessible to as many people as possible. Free food and childcare was provided throughout the weekend, as were sign language interpreters. There were gender-neutral bathrooms available, a “quiet room” for people to decompress from discussions that may have triggered old traumas, and security people on duty.

“I think we did an amazing job for the number of people we had organizing [a group of about five core people] and the financial resources we had,” Shedd said.

A second Born in Flames conference will likely be in the works for next year, perhaps to be held in Seattle.

Abby Sewell is a regular contributor to The Portland Alliance and a member of the Back-to-Back Cafe Collective.