This Documentary Wants To End Sexual Shaming

Emily Lindin began the UnSlut Project in 2013 in order to try to fight back against slut shaming and other unhealthy behaviors, especially those enacted against young women. And as evidence that they just keep being awesome, the UnSlut Project is currently working on a documentary featuring stories such as that of Rehtaeh Parsons. Parsons, a Canadian teenager, took her own life in April of 2013 after being raped and bullied by her classmates. This stuff needs to end, and the first part of that is making sure it's not forgotten — and keeping it in the fore is exactly what the UnSlut Project and Slut: A Documentary aim to do.

The UnSlut Project documentary, which is currently looking for crowdfunding support on Seed and Spark, will explore the stories of four sexual assaults, including the high profile case of Rehtaeh Parsons. Every sexual assault is a tragedy, one that occurs far too often in our society. Parsons' case in particular highlights several complicated and troubling factors in our society: The fact that we clearly aren't teaching young people what assault looks like, or making plain enough that it is wrong; the fact that young women are shamed for having sex, and that this shaming is so widespread it happens even when sex is non-consensual; and the particular problem of cyber bullying, where the distance of the Internet makes it so much easier to be cruel. Not only that, but these stories keep playing out again and again: We saw it in the events that occurred in Steubenville, Maryland; we saw it in #IAmJada; and on, and on, and on. All this and more is why it would be amazing to see the subject explored in a documentary film.

The project has already raised the money for production and are now looking to secure funding for post-production in order to make the documentary a reality.

The UnSlut Project's mission is to "create awareness about sexual bullying, slut shaming, and related issues." So far they've been doing that in a variety of productive ways, including through the founder, Emily Lindin's sixth grade diary. It deals with issues of slut-shaming and bullying, and since she first posted online, it has become the #1 non-fiction story on WattPad.

If you'd like to contribute, you can find the Slut: A Documentary fundraising page here.

Image: Jason Barnes/Wiki Commons