Sexual violence and discarded bodies

The first item in this collage that caught my attention and, in fact, required that I stop and take a moment is the image of the red undergarment-appearing piece of clothing third image from the top in the first column. The red fabric is contrasted by the concrete backdrop of the ground. The first thoughts/images that came to mind were that of sexual violence and assault on university campuses and UCLA no exception. The red piece of fabric when viewed in relation to the cement, reads as warmth in body and color against the concrete, lifelessness of pavement. The intersections of “student life” and “(toxic) aspirations” cannot be more apparent. While the image does not confirm nor deny what the article of clothing, if even that, is, the red undergarment-looking item evokes a history where bodies, mostly those of women and queers of color, have been victims of sexual assault and violence on those streets. The levity of “student life” cannot be detached from the realities of sexual assault on university campuses. As a teaching fellow at UCLA, I was confronted with the realities of sexual assault on this campus when one of my students reached out to asking me to take her to UCLA’s Santa Monica Rape Center, because she had been raped by a person whom she met experiencing her “student life” and in pursuits of her “(toxic) aspirations.” Her clothing, like the one pictured here, became evidence she needed to collect in order to pursue charges. The image raises several questions for me: Where did that piece of clothing come from? Was there a body that was discarded, like trash, onto the sidewalk for others to step over, passby, see? What bodily wastes can be collected from these pavements? What evidence has been smeared onto its sidewalks? What institutional legacies of sexual assault and violence can be mapped onto the streets in and around the campus? These questions call into question any reference to those “filthy privileged students” as frivolous or careless. Rather, the intersections of race, class, sexuality and privilege converge in producing sites of filth predicated on sexual assault and violence.