For some, the intimacy of having their teens spend long stretches of unsupervised time in pajamas in a bedroom with someone they may find sexually attractive can be unsettling.Īmy Schalet, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, who studies adolescent sexuality, said that American parents tend to believe that by preventing coed sleepovers, they are protecting teens who may not be emotionally ready for sexual intimacy. While teens may see sleepovers as just a chance to spend a lot of time with their friends, parents may worry about their children exploring their sexuality before they are ready and about their safety if they do. “It’s a trusting and bonding experience.” Blaise Aguirre, an adolescent psychiatrist at McLean Hospital in Belmont, Mass., and an assistant professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. “It’s a nice break from a digital way of connecting,” said Dr. He knows that limiting sleepovers was his father’s way of protecting him, but at the time, he recalled, “I felt like it was a planned attack against me.”
Instead of sleepovers, he drives home after hanging out with friends. Now at 16, with his family in the audience, Trey performs in drag at a local club. “If they knew for sure my son was gay, I doubt they were going to let them come over,” he explained. He thought about bullying, and about how other boys’ parents might react. So when he told his family he was gay, his father, Jeff Freund, a principal at an arts magnet middle school, asked himself, “Would I let his sister at that age have a sleepover with a boy?”
IMPORTANT NOTE: Something I forgot to mention was that documentaries that address sexual assault/rape (such as The Hunting Ground, Catching the Friedmans, The Invisible War) will not be included in this list, since it's more about the use of rape as a plot device in media.When Trey Freund of Wichita, Kan., was 13, sleepovers and closed-door hangouts were part of his social life. My goal is to document as many movies that fit the criteria above as possible, no matter how obscure, lowbrow or seemingly insignificant. Remember that all suggestions will always be welcome, as this is an ongoing project that I will continue for the duration of my membership on Letterboxd, and as long as I keep watching movies. Pleaaaase let me know if I've gotten something wrong. I haven't seen most of these, so I could be misinformed about some of the movies in this list. The point is to illustrate how many movies out there have rape or attempted rape in them.Ĭheck the notes for details. There's a world of difference between movies like Mad Max: Fury Road and, say, Gutterballs. Note that just because a movie is on this list doesn't mean that it was bad, or that the topic of rape was handled inappropriately, so you'll probably see a lot of B movie bullshit beside otherwise fantastic films. Obviously, this isn't really a nuanced list, nor is a movie's inclusion meant to be a mark of shame. It doesn't matter whether it's been played for laughs or not. The rape doesn't have to be the focus of the movie. The sex of the victim or the perpetrator doesn't matter. In order to qualify for this list, the movie must depict or imply the act of sexual assault, attempted or successful, or have rape serve as a major point in the plot. Some of these movies' reputations precede themselves but others might be more of a surprise. I really hope people that see this list don't think it's a celebration of the subject matter, or an "ooh, look at how scandalous this is!" kind of bullshit clickbait rather, it's more of an experiment to see just how many movies there are featuring rape, and can maybe exist as a blanket trigger warning for people who are avid movie watchers but are cautious of rape scenes. I feel like the prevalence of sexual assault in media can easily be dismissed unless the scope of the problem is visualized, so that's what this list is for. Her only stipulation was: "No rape scenes." That got me thinking. This list was spawned from a conversation I had with a friend of mine, who was looking for some horror movie recommendations.