By Erin Yazgan
Gender/Sexuality Reporter
With the fourth-highest rate of forcible rape in California, the city of Santa Cruz is hushed about discussing sexual violence. The Consensual Liberation through Intimate Tactics Collective, better known as the CLIT Collective, brings these crimes and their roots out into the open with its seven-week series of intimate violence and consent workshops.
Started at Cabrillo College by four core members, the Collective’s workshops are held through Free Skool Santa Cruz at the Resource Center for Nonviolence, and work to inform people on the sociopolitical reasons for sexual violence, the definitions of consent and ways for victims to heal. The first workshop, “Consent & Sexual/Intimate Violence: Understanding the Complexity of Consent and How it Relates to Our Lives,” held Nov. 3, discussed the connection between consent and social justice.
Later in the series, the CLIT Collective will discuss the interconnectedness of all forms of oppression, including rape; teach how healing is a political act of resistance; and present tools for supporting victims of sexual violence.
Many different people, including survivors of sexual violence and people who want to teach about sexual violence, have attended and given positive responses to the Collective’s past workshops at Cabrillo.
Sarah Jane Smith and Seth Kramer, two of the core members of the CLIT Collective, have now brought their workshops to the Resource Center for Nonviolence since transferri ng from Cabrillo to UC Santa Cruz. They hope to integrate the group into the Santa Cruz campus and even receive funding for their efforts.
The Collective’s bigger dream is to take it even further.
“We want this to be a worldwide issue that’s talked about, and not just within this small, segregated community,” Kramer said.
Barbara Hayes, a staff member at the Resource Center for Nonviolence, thinks that the CLIT Collective plays an important role in the Santa Cruz community.
“They’re approaching [sexual violence] both on a personal level and also on a societal level,” Hayes said. “They’re trying to broaden people’s vision of what violence is and trying to empower them.”
Smith says that people tend to shy away from the topic of sexual violence, and that the Collective was founded on bringing these suppressed issues to light.
“Why does it hardly ever come up, and when it does come up, why does it feel like people run the other direction?” Smith said. “Why is it that the survivor doesn’t feel support?”
To help the survivors receive the support they need, the Collective calls for healing in a safe, community environment.
“Things don’t just go away when someone goes to a psychiatrist,” Kramer said. “Healing needs to be community-based and not just individual.”
Smith also wants sexual violence to be included in discussions of all forms of oppression.
“Sexual violence is the product of patriarchy, it’s the product of racism, it’s the product of classism, capitalism, globalization, sexism, homophobia — all these elements,” Smith said. “If we are consistently talking about [these] issues, sexual violence always needs to be a part of this conversation.”
The CLIT Collective’s workshops meet from 6-9 p.m. every other Monday, Nov. 3 to Jan. 19, at the Resource Center for Nonviolence, 515 Broadway St. For more information, visit Myspace.com/clitcollective or call the Resource Center for Nonviolence at (831) 423-1626.
