...Perhaps significantly, though, both rape victims depicted (Schwartzman's friend Netanya was also raped, by a stranger) eventually contact their attackers to explain what the men did wrong. Victims shouldn't have to do this, but their words make a powerful point — rapists themselves, not alcohol, revealing clothing, homelessness, or "bad choices" are responsible for victims' pain. As activist Don McPherson explains, "we do nothing to talk to men about not raping, but we do talk to men about how to protect themselves, which is [...] why we place the blame on women when something happens." The attitude that sex is something men are supposed to want and women are supposed to evade doesn't just result in victim-blaming — it also creates a monolithic view of sex that denies the experiences of people like Schwartzman (as Sokolow points out, "consent to one form of sexual activity isn't consent to every other form"). Part of teaching men (and women) not to rape is the lesson that sex should be cooperative and communicative, not something, as McPherson says, that "we do to the Other."

"The original rules against drugs and knives soon swelled, with schools that once called parents now calling the police. Suddenly middle schoolers were being suspended for puddle stomping and Alka-Seltzer possession or referred to a drug-awareness program for accepting a breath mint. A 6-year-old in Delaware was suspended and threatened with reform school for taking to school a camping utensil that served as a fork, spoon and knife. A 9-year-old perp was questioned by police about a plan to launch a spitball with a rubber band; he had to undergo psychological counseling before he could go back to class. A 12-year-old New York City girl was led off in handcuffs for scribbling on her desk with an erasable marker. A high school sophomore was suspended for breaking the no-cell-phone rule when he took a call from his father ... who was serving in Iraq. A Florida honor student faced felony charges when a dinner knife — not a steak knife or a butcher knife — was found on the floor of her car, which she had parked at school. "A weapon is a weapon is a weapon," the principal said.

Except it's so obviously not. Sometimes a weapon is just a dinner knife. Making distinctions is part of learning. So is making mistakes. When authorities confuse intent and accident, when rules are seen as more sacred than sense, when a contrite first-time offender is treated no differently from a serial classroom menace, we teach children that authority is deaf and dumb, that there is no judgment in justice. It undermines respect for discipline at a stage when we want kids to internalize it."

-nancy gibbs. excerpt from "zero tolerance, zero sense"