31 January 2018
Performance 1: The Date Safe Project
Tonight I went to go see Mike Domitrz (don’t ask me how to pronounce his last name) and his presentation on how to ask important questions pertaining to dating such as “can I kiss you?”. Mike emphasised how crucial it is to ask the other person whether it is okay for you to perform any physical action with them, regardless of your relationship status or assumed level of comfort/intimacy in order to avoid a situation turning into a sexual assault or rape. Mike created The Date Safe Project in order to help educate college aged students, especially athletes, about how to safely date and have these seemingly awkward conversations with someone of interest, largely motivated by his own sister’s rape in her college years. Mike did a great job of interacting with the audience and getting us to engage back with him, not taking silence for an answer, and even going so far as challenging the silence claiming that “survivors in the room are taking note of” the lack of a response in one instance. Some of the topics discussed included the bystander effect, how to prevent a potential sexual assault, how to reach out to survivors, and what kinds of questions two people engaging in an intimate action should be asking each other in order to achieve consent. Mike’s flow of his presentation was amazing: he had the right balance of humorous and serious moments and they came at exactly the right times. You could tell that he was clearly very invested in his message, and he wanted the audience to take home not just more facts and statistics about sexual assaults on campuses, but the motivation to actually participate in putting a stop to such occurrences. I really enjoyed the presentation and am looking forward to reading my free copy of Can I Kiss You?
