Actors play to the crowd, educating on sexual assault

Published April 10, 2009
By Howdy Stout
Tinker Public Affairs

TINKER AIR FORCE BASE, Okla., -- The audience yelled at the actors on stage.

"Go easy," one Airman shouted. "Let him have it," yelled another.

The actors weren't reciting badly-written lines or even well-written Shakespeare to a rowdy audience. They were talking about sex. And they wanted everyone -- all 350 Airmen in the audience -- to participate in the conversation.

Sex Signals is a long-running two-person play designed to raise awareness about rape and sexual assault. The actors, who staged a series of shows last week at Tinker, use audience participation to "guide" the on-stage characters through improvised situations where the lines of rape and sexual assault are not so clearly drawn.

"That's the goal," said Ben Murrie, one of the actors. "If we made it black and white, there'd be no discussion."

The common perception of rape is that it is a violent attack performed by strangers on a victim who is usually in the wrong place at the wrong time, Mr. Murrie told the assembled Airmen. But that image, he said, is false.

"More than 80 percent of rapes happen between people who know one another," added actor Kelly Hayes. "And that's true for the Air Force as well."

Compounding the issue is that often times both the victim and the attacker are under the influence of alcohol, with the inherent risk of miscommunication or a misinterpretation of unspoken "signals."

"I think men and women communicate in really subtle ways when they're attracted to one another," Mr. Murrie said. That communication can become fuzzy when fueled by alcohol. In any event, he said, "rape is sex without consent."

Public misconceptions about rape mean that most people don't intervene to prevent a potential rape situation or provide little emotional support for victims, who tend to be ostracized from society and have a high suicide rate as a result.

"We as a society don't take very good care of (victims)," Mr. Murrie said.

The military in general -- and the Air Force in particular -- have aggressively changed their attitude toward educating their members about sexual assault and rape. The Department of Defense in 2005 required all branches of the military to implement sexual assault policies, including training and compulsory annual re-training. This play, shown to more than 1,500 Airmen over the course of two days, constituted recurrent training.

"There is a little bit more of a buy-in with the military," Ms. Hayes said. And the Airmen enjoy it.

"It was better than the (computer-based training)," said Senior Airman Joel Soto of the 966th. "You definitely had a good vibe from the audience."

Senior Airman Jeremiah Lopez said the actors related well to their Air Force audience, providing good information in a format the Airmen could both enjoy and understand. "It was practical," he said.