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Critics say a new ad by the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board (PLCB), the part of state government that sells you wine and liquor, suggests that young women will be raped if they get drunk—and that it just might be their fault.
The high-end advertisement is shocking: it reads "Date Rape: See what could happen when your friends drink too much" over a woman's legs on the bathroom floor, underwear around her ankles.
“We have gotten lots of feedback, both positive and negative, on the campaign,” says PLCB spokesperson Stacey Witalec. “First and foremost our intention was never to offend anyone with the images but to bring about a greater conversation about the dangers of binge and problematic drinking. We did a lot of work with focus groups and a lot of research for this campaign, and heard from our target — individuals 21 through 29 — that these are scenarios they have faced and their friends have faced.”
PLCB has spent $600,000 on the campaign, produced by the Pittsburgh-based Neiman Group, which includes advertisements on the web and internet radio Pandora.
The ad links to the Control Tonight website, which includes a play by play of an evening gone wrong: “3:14am. Sexual Assault. That's what Anne's attorney will call it a month from now. She said no, but he kept going. And now, your friend is on his bathroom floor, bruised and victimized. See how you could have prevented this.”
Other pages tell the stories of a woman who gets alcohol poisoning and a guy who gets a DUI: “Arrested. Yup, that's your buddy Chris in the back of that cruiser. He'll be waking up tomorrow in a cell with a nasty hangover, and a brand new criminal record.”
As the feminist blog Jezebel put it, the ad “almost defies parody to make the case that if you drink too much, someone might rape your friend, and it will be your fault.”
“It's victim blaming,” says Siobhan Brooks, assistant professor of women's studies at Temple University. “It implies that it's ultimately the female's responsibility...instead of interrogating men and male culture around date rape.”
It is, she says, an extension of the “don't wear that” or "you're asking for it" argument: “if you do drink too much, the message normalized is that date rape will be a natural outcome. It reinforces the ideology that rape is natural for heterosexual men to do towards women.”
Witalec says “it was never intended to feel as if blame was placed anywhere but the perpetrator of the sexual assault. That specific ad is encouraging people to maintain control, and if you see one of your friends losing control, step in and help.”
They even, she said, did fieldwork. “We went into licensed establishments and engaged with the target group while they were engaging in consumption activities.”
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