I don’t take off. I first read the testimonies collected by my colleague Josée Blanchette (“SHOOTER! — Rape culture, bottoms up!”) on the use of GHB, the date rape drug, in bars. Then I heard other testimonies. I knew the phenomenon. It’s the scale that amazes me. “I don’t know any girl who hasn’t been raped or assaulted,” said one of the victims. Same thing for GHB. All the girls have experienced it or know someone close to whom it has happened. “They advance a figure:” It is 90% of girls who are affected. This is not a debate! It would be 5% that would already be intolerable.
My probes confirm. C., 30 years old: “Having myself been drugged with GHB several times (and because all my friends have been too), we know that this has been a problem for a decade. I’ve been close to being mugged a couple of times, but I’ve always had the advantage of hanging out with guys, so I’m a little less accessible and more protected. Several friends have been raped. »
V., 50 years old: “Personally, I know two girls who were drugged, without rape or assault. One who picked herself up at the hospital, the other who found herself a few blocks from her home, completely lost. G., 25, reports not knowing anyone who claims to be a victim, although rumors abound. It is therefore impossible to correctly quantify the phenomenon. Its mere existence is scandalous.
What to do ? “I don’t think if you write a column about it, guys are going to say, ‘Hey, in The duty, Mr. Lisée said it was not correct, so we abstain”! It’s my 21-year-old son who talks to me like that. Like what, with us, irreverence is hereditary. But he is right. You have to hit extremely hard. Use all the levers available to come to the aid of our young women and make this criminal behavior, how to say?, undrinkable.
I am told that very well done videos on consent are being shown in schools. But faced with the scum, no logical explanation will hold. Prevention messages must reach their level: at the bottom of the belt. I would test the following slogans, which should be displayed where they cannot escape: above the urinals. “GHB, the drug of cowards”. I would decline: “GHB, the drug of choice for losers » ; “GHB, for those who have no balls”.
A second series would deal with the consequences of its use. Not the consequences on the girls… they obviously don’t care. But on them. Close-up on one of these young guys recovering from a good slap. Written at the top: “I finally had a blonde, she slammed me”. Bottom: “Ella knew about the GHB. The girls tell each other everything. »
There would also be this one, featuring a well-built, tattooed, dirty-looking prisoner staring straight ahead. At the top, it would read: “With GHB, you cheat for five minutes of sex. Bottom: “Then you’re my bitch for five years inside!” »
On the intimidation side, there would also be: “Thanks to GHB, your photo here! writes above the arrest photos — face, profile — of those accused of using the date-rape drug. The middle square would give way to a mirror.
Raising awareness in high schools, CEGEPs and universities could begin with a screening of Promising Young Woman, where the protagonist traps one by one the drinkers and poisoners of women, the better to punish them. It will give them a good scare (and girls stuff). You have to talk to other young men, the non-cowards, whose reputation is a collateral victim of this criminal behavior, much more serious for girls, of course. But their anger must serve as a lever to isolate, ostracize, neutralize the rapists.
M., 24, says: “Often men shout ‘not all men!’ when it comes to rape culture. They are right. However, the number of dangerous men and men who turn a blind eye to the behavior of their friends is high enough that, for my own safety, I have to be wary and act as if it were indeed “all men”. »
This is how the GHB rapists (and the others) ruin the lives of all the young fauna who would like to flirt in peace and not be constantly on their guard in these places where, by definition, carelessness and pleasure are sought.
Moreover, these advertisements should be sociofinanced by a new group, that of the guys insulted that one takes them for cowards. I propose: the Guys in Host against the Barbarians (bandits? bastards? drooling?), the GHB against the GHB.
The Minister of Public Security should take this matter seriously. Make it a national issue. For starters: require bars to equip themselves with state-of-the-art security cameras. Our genius in artificial intelligence, Yoshua Bengio, should produce an algorithm allowing these cameras to detect any suspicious movement of pouring substance into a glass, take the shot and project it on the screens of the bar! And then, adds C., “it seems to me that the bars could be better equipped to help us, and it’s very true that the staff is often drunk, so that makes it complicated”.
Did my Twitter feed sense my anger about this? He shows me a text about a law in Nigeria. Rapists there are surgically castrated, and anyone who rapes a child faces the death penalty. Should we do the same here? I don’t suggest it. I’d settle for five years of chemical castration for a first offence. I’m talkable for 25 years in case of recidivism.
Which would allow us to put this last poster, above the urinals of bars: “The GHB? If castration interests you! »
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