Several days ago, I (along with the rest of the world, apparently) heard about a group of North Carolina State University students who had developed a nail polish that would detect date rape drugs. With a swirl of your manicured finger in a cranberry vodka handed to you by some new guy you met, you'd be able to tell--based on whether or not the polish changed color--if it'd been laced with something.
My first thought was: Hey, that's kinda cool. My second (slightly embarrassing) thought was: Does it come in different colors?
Here's the thing--I'm not as outraged by the invention of this nail polish as many of my feminist peers seem to be. And I'll say up front that they have made some excellent points, many of which I agree with.
I am just as angry about the expectation that women do all the work of preventing rape and sexual violence, about the idea that if you'd just worn less revealing clothing/not gotten drunk/stayed at home like a good little lady this horrible thing would not have happened to you.
I am just as angry about the idea that rape happens, and that there's not much you can do about it except stay away from rapists, who conveniently wear badges that say "RAPIST" on them and are never someone you personally know, like your boyfriend or your classmate or your coworker you thought was cool.
It's just that I don't really see a nail polish that can detect some date-rape drugs as part of the problem. I see it as a tool: just one tool in the entire war against sexual violence.
My freshman year of college, I was threatened by a guy who lived in the same dorm building as me after I told him (following one date and a few make-out sessions) that I didn't really feel like seeing him anymore. There'd been more than a few signs that told me he was a little unstable, a tad insecure, and I was starting to get grossed out. ("If you wanted fries from McDonald's right now, I would walk there and get them for you," he sobbed at me in the middle of a frigid February night, and I was like, "okay...thanks, I guess," silently wishing he would go away so I could get some sleep.)
Some time after I ended things, he came by my dorm room and showed me his poorly slashed wrists, a tribute to his affection for me--evidently it was my fault he'd decided to cut himself. I showed him out. After that came the phone calls, which I didn't pick up. Then there were the voicemails in which he informed me that I deserved to die, stupid, cold-hearted bitch that I was.
At that point the police got involved. The dude quit bothering me, though we continued to live in the same dorm building for the rest of the school year and I'd see him wandering campus or standing outside in his pajamas during a fire drill. My heart raced every time I saw him. I was nineteen and I didn't know what to do. I did, however, buy a small canister of pepper spray to keep on my keychain.
I never had to use it. I think it was only in the last year that the thing finally got chucked it out. But having that little weapon on hand, closing my fingers around it inside my coat as I went from class to class, made me feel a little safer.
Date-rape nail polish is hardly the answer to the problem of rape. But if it lends any sense of control or empowerment to the person wearing it--if it means she feels comfortable going out among strangers--I cannot begin to tell anyone that this is a bad thing.
All that said, however, we all need to be clear on a couple of very important points:
1. Drug-detection nail polish is NOT anti-rape polish. It will detect a few common types of drugs used for the purpose of date rape (we'll get to that in a second). Never, under ANY circumstances, should a woman be blamed for not wearing the damn nail polish if she's raped or assaulted after being drugged. The victim-blaming BS has to stop.
2. Here are the drugs that the nail polish can detect: Rohypnol, Xanax, GHB. These are NOT the only drugs used for date rape. (I mean, usually it's just as simple as getting someone really drunk on plain old alcohol.) Trust your instincts. Don't drink anything you don't feel is safe.
3. That last point might have a few folks bristling, because again--why should it be a woman's job to keep herself safe from rape and sexual violence? I know. I agree. But please don't tell me not to look out for myself. It sucks, it absolutely does, but we are not yet at the point where everyone gets that rape is horrible and no one should do it, ever. Until we get there--and it's not going to happen in my lifetime--I'm never going to fault a woman for doing whatever she thinks is best for her own safety.
4. This is the hardest one, for me: talk about this shit. Out loud, with people who possibly don't agree or don't understand. The pushback against date-rape nail polish has primarily been about the fact that a fashion accessory isn't going to solve the problem; only educating people about the reality and the horror of rape, about the concept of consent, will get us there. So do it. It would be great if there was, like, a high school class that you had to take in order to graduate that was all about various forms of sexual violence and how none of it is ever okay. But until that happens: call people out for their gross jokes and their misogyny. Share your experiences, if you're comfortable. If you get drugged and/or assaulted and/or raped, report it.
And believe women who tell you they've been raped. It happens more often than you think.
