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Model Amber Rose has an official date for her Los Angeles 'SlutWalk,' a movement that started a few years ago after a police officer told a group of female college students that if they didn't want to get sexually assaulted, they should avoid dressing like 'sluts.'
Rose's SlutWalk will take place on October 3 in Pershing Square from noon to 5 p.m. There will be a full day of events surrounding the walk, though those events have yet to be released. You can follow the event's progress on Twitter here. Sponsor, vendor and volunteer information can be found online here. If it's anything like other SlutWalks, we can expect to see people in various stages of dress promoting empowerment.
The 31-year-old model is no stranger to 'slut shaming.' Kanye West, whom she dated between 2008 and 2010, said in an interview on Power 105.1's The Breakfast Club, "It's very hard for a woman to want to be with someone that's been with Amber Rose…I had to take 30 showers before I got with Kim [Kardashian]." This was after some back and forth jabbing in interviews and social media, beginning with Rose saying that Kylie Jenner and rapper Tyga's relationship was inappropriate (Tyga's 25 and Jenner's 17). Khloe Kardashian shot back, bringing up how Rose once said in an interview with Jamie Foxx that she began stripping at age 15.
Though Rose first seemed to do a little slut shaming of her own, bringing up Kardashian's famed sex tape with singer Ray J., Rose decided to organize a Slut Walk. She explained her reasons for it:
It's important for me because I deal with it every day. I deal with it via social media, people out on the street. I feel like women deal with that constantly on a daily basis, and I'm sick of it. I'm here for my girls. We're going to do the Amber Rose Slut Walk this summer, and it's going to be awesome. I'm going to do it in L.A. this year, and hopefully New York, Chicago, Miami.
SlutWalks first came about in April of 2011 in Toronto as a protest. On January 24, 2011, Toronto Police Constable Michael Sanguinetti spoke with another officer about sexual assault on campus at a York University forum on student safety. Sanguinetti interrupted the other officer's comments to say something unfortunate: "I've been told I'm not supposed to say this. However, women should avoid dressing like sluts in order to not be victimized."
Well, that didn't go over too well. Sanguinetti later apologized for his comment, saying it was "hurtful" and that he was embarrassed that he'd made it in the first place. Both Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair and spokeswoman Meaghan Gray denounced Sanguinetti's comments, but his statement did seem to highlight a pervasive problem of victim blaming, according to SlutWalk cofounders Sonya Barnett and Heather Jarvis.
Barnett and Jarvis organized the protest to reclaim the word 'slut.' "We are tired of being oppressed by slut-shaming; and of being judged by our sexuality and feeling unsafe as a result," SlutWalk Toronto's website reads. "Being in charge of our sexual lives should not mean that we are opening ourselves to an expectation of violence, regardless if we participate in sex for pleasure or work. No one should equate enjoying sex with attracting sexual assault."
Barnett also drew attention to the case of Kenneth Rhodes, a Canadian man who was sentenced to two years house arrest being convicted of sexual assault in 2011. Rhodes had met a woman at a bar and invited her to a party, but ended up raping her on the side of the road instead, telling the victim that it would "only hurt for a little while." Justice Robert Dewar, a Manitoba judge, was lenient with Rhodes. Dewar pointed out that the victim and her friend were wearing tube tops the night they went out with Rhodes, and that Rhodes believed "sex was in the air." Dewar called Rhodes "a clumsy Don Juan."
The first SlutWalk in April in Toronto drew 3,000 attendees, some dressed provocatively and others not. SlutWalks then sprung up all over the U.S., as well as in Europe, Latin America, South Korea, India and Singapore. Many of these SlutWalks are now annual events.
Rose discusses her SlutWalk in the video below:
