A tool for perpetrators, from survivors

You’re a teenager. You’re scared that you crossed a line with your friend or significant other, but you’re not sure what to do. So, you open ChatGPT and you ask. Or, you look at Reddit, going deep into the threads until you find a suitable answer. Instead of acknowledging that you hurt someone, you find yourself turning to a misogynistic corner of the internet, known as the manosphere. But what if instead of leaving perpetrators of sexual assault uneducated and primed for more offenses, we educated them about their mistakes and gave a clear path forward?

This is what SafeBAE’s new tool, Vibe Check does. Vibe Check is an online tool where people can ask about an experience they had, what they did wrong, and how to move forward. Vibe Check educates people about consent and sexual violence, creating an anonymous and private space for people to go to if they’re worried that they crossed a line. It’s a judgement free space for people to go and learn.

My initial introduction to survivor support work was when I was in eighth grade. At the time, I came to this work because I felt so, so angry that some people didn’t recognize that no means no. I felt like justice for survivors meant isolating and villanizing perpetrators, and that doing anything else meant excusing their behavior. Over the years, I’ve come to understand that justice for survivors takes many forms and it doesn’t solely mean putting perpetrators in jail, and instead means offering a variety of resources, and, ultimately, working to end sexual violence. If the goal is to put an end to sexual assault, we can’t expect that isolating a person for harming someone will result in their not causing harm again. Obviously, survivors (and frankly anyone) should be able to set clear boundaries with people who have harmed them or make them uncomfortable, but how is the person who caused harm supposed to know how to react, reflect, and learn if we don’t teach them?

That’s why Vibe Check is so important. Vibe Check offers a space for consent education and for people to reflect on things they may have done wrong. It’s nonjudgemental, which means that it doesn’t tell anyone that they’re a bad person. It doesn’t sugarcoat harmful mistakes either, though. Vibe Check keeps things real and grounded, offering clear next steps.

Vibe Check was recently highlighted in this article in The Guardian. The article highlighted that many students go to AI with their questions, but that AI tended to affirm even harmful human actions. SafeBAE board member and peer educator Apollo Knapp is quoted in the article saying that, “If humans are messing up consent this much, I don’t even want to see what a robot’s going to do with it.” The article also highlighted the issues with forums, such as Reddit. SafeBAE’s director of Strategic Initiatives, Drew Davis, is quoted in the article saying that if you try to figure out if you harmed someone, these forums either tell you that “you’re an awful person, there is no such thing as accidentally causing harm, you definitely did, to the extent that you should kill yourself – or you did absolutely nothing wrong, you’re perfect, women suck.”

Vibe Check is a valuable tool. It invites us to look deeper into what forms justice can take. And I, for one, want to see more resources built by young people that give us more options. Please feel free to click through it and see what it has to offer, regardless of whether or not you’re anxious that you harmed someone or if you’re worried a friend may have.

You can access Vibe Check here.

If you’re a parent or guardian, you can access a guide to Vibe Check here

You can view the article in The Guardian here.