When one is accused of something like sexual assault, one might plead the fifth, at least until a lawyer is present. UIC student Muhammad Hossain plead the fifty, “Fifty Shades of Gray” that is. The charge? sexual assault on a 19-year-old female student.
Hossain specifically claimed to be re-enacting scenes from the film. So far there are no reports of alcohol involved in the situation. Although there is awareness brought to the message of the film it should be understood that cinema doesn’t always portray societal norms.
“Game of Thrones” has an arguably larger fan following more sex and more violence, but no one (to this writer’s knowledge) hears about reenactments gone wrong. Personally it sounds like something you say when your are avoiding blame and still denying reality, hoping that it is a bad dream.
This situation would be like a student watching the “Dark Knight” and then stabbing someone’s eye out with a pencil. Or like saying “Mission Impossible” inspires robberies. To show the ridiculousness of the concepts in the book itself College Humor made a video of voice actor Gilbert Gottfried. The idea was based off of a theme of the book, which was to take pleasure in pain and punishment.
What is troublesome is that the female student involved was previously intimate with Hossain and it seemingly started out. She willingly removed clothing (with the exception of undergarmnets) and that is when the “gray area” stops and things get graphic and out of control. It seems that he was the only interested in re-enacting the sex parts of “Fifty Shades of Gray” and none of the dialogue. The absence of alcohol makes this seem that much more malicious.
Although this made news because of the public’s cultural awareness of “Fifty Shades of Gray,” which has made over $156 million as of today in box offices, the media failed to connect the story to recent trends of sexual assault on college campuses and instead focused on the negative impact this film could have.
College may be a time to experiment and find one’s self in some respects, but nonconsensual sex will put everyone involved in a bind (pun intended). According to a recent study published this past December most cases of sexual assault on college aged females did not involve a weapon but a majority of them, both at schools and elsewhere involved injuries to the victim. While in this case the female victim statistically is not unique, it shows some incentive to report for those who have been victims of sexual assault as college students.
