On Wednesday, September 27, an incredibly inspiring speech was given in San Diego State University by feminist writer, speaker, social justice activist, and prisoner rape survivor advocate: Kamilah Willingham.

Essentially, this speech was about Kamilah’s personal story as a victim of sexual assault and highlighted the importance of standing up to rape culture- an environment in which rape and other forms of sexual violence are normalized and morally justified.

Kamilah’s story of strength in overcoming and growing from a tragic situation made a tremendous impact on the majority of the attending students.

Kamilah Willingham spoke to the room about how, in her last year at Harvard Law as a graduate student, she was sexually assaulted by a fellow classmate and “friend”. In short, she and a girl friend of hers were very drunk one night and took a cab back to their apartment.

One of Kamilah’s guy “friends” accompanied the two drunk girls, uninvited, inside their apartment.

At the time, neither Kamilah or her friend thought anything of the fact that he followed them in; they simply thought he was there to continue to help them.

However, much to Kamilah’s dismay, she woke up to her “friend’s” tongue in her mouth and his hand in her pants.

Worse even, she turned to her side and saw her girl friend laying half naked on the bed beside her.

Kamilah and her friend are victims of sexual assault.

No question about it.

Yet due to the complicated and controversial topic of rape culture itself, the process of reporting this tribulation caused Kamilah a vast amount of pain and stress.

Prior to reporting, Kamilah was well aware of the fact that the entire process would most likely cause a disruption in her life; however, she was unable to foresee the extent to which it would do so.

Regardless of the stress reporting caused her, Kamilah knew that she would not be able to ever fully heal if she did not act upon her discomfort and anger. She also felt compelled to report the incident due to the fear that this man would do something similar to another woman in the future.

After many long months of trial, the man who Kamilah accused of sexual assault was only found guilty of “misdemeanor touching of a non-sexual nature” (Kingkade).

After the speech was finished, myself and about 18 others were invited to go to a private dinner with Kamilah Willingham at the Women’s Center at SDSU. By speaking to Kamilah in a more personalized setting, she has become an additional source of motivation to act upon my desire to stand up for issues that I perceive as significant.

She also gave us invaluable advice on how to be a true friend for someone who is a victim of sexual assault.

She told us that a large support system was something that she very much lacked during her own process of recovery. Therefore, she advised us that if we are ever friends with someone who claims they have been sexually assaulted, we must be just that: a friend, in every capacity of the word.

We must be there for each other because that is all any of us truly desire in times of need: companionship, support, and love.

The entire topic of rape culture caused me to reflect upon the debate of sexual ownership.

Due to an undeniable history of oppression and violence towards women, many women have not been taught about the complexities of their own bodies.

Looking back, I have come to the realization that I was partially robbed of my sexual ownership growing up. For my elementary and middle school years, I attended a conservative Catholic school.

At this school, we were required to wear uniforms and were educated from a very young age that we must not wear provocative clothing that could possibly “distract” the boys.

We were not even permitted to wear tank tops because, god forbid, one of our peers got sexually aroused and thus distracted by the exposure of our bare shoulders.

At the time, I remember being a bit annoyed at the fact that I couldn’t wear whatever I wanted, but never once did I realize how this dress code, highly critical of what girls wore in opposed to boys, was a form of sexual discrimination and diminished the ability to express one’s self.

Additionally, this has a relation to a current debate surrounding sexual assault: whether a woman or girl could be at fault when sexually assaulted, simply due to the clothes that they chose to wear when the incident occurred.

I believe that in order to gain sexual ownership, we as a society have to instill into our children that women are not sexual objections.

Every person is the sole owner of their body and no one should ever be able to tell them otherwise.