About 1,000 people gathered in downtown Portland yesterday afternoon for the Portland Slutwalk, the local incarnation of an international movement of marches against sexual violence (yesterday was also a Slutwalk in New Delhi). I talked with an organizer of Portland’s Slutwalk last week and was a bit skeptical—will dressing up slutty actually make onlookers rethink sexual violence? But the event itself was far more interesting and powerful than I was afraid it would be (and also surprisingly fun), though I showed up the start a little late and only heard about 20 minutes of the kick-off speech making.

Organizer Sophia St. James teared up at the start, mixing alarming statistics about the rates of rape in America with the story of her own personal history of sexual assault. While St. James describes herself as a sex worker, pornographer, and mother, she says that after she was assaulted by a former friend, she felt like she could not turn to anyone, even in Portland’s sexually-liberal communities. “I’m not only a victim of rape, I’m a victim of rape culture,” she said. “I don’t want anyone else to go through three years of isolation and depression.”

The march, escorted by police and stretching a little over a city block, took over SW 4th Avenue and then a short stretch of Burnside as Slutwalkers chanted, “Whatever we wear, wherever we go, yes means yes, no means no!” Did anyone else go? What’d you think?

Lots of great costumes and signs and one totally slutty live snake, all in the photos below the cut. You can see the whole set of photos on Flickr. Some are NSFW.

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Sarah Shay Mirk reported on transportation, sex and gender issues, and politics at the Mercury from 2008-2013. They have gone on to make many things, including countless comics and several books.

7 replies on “Portland Slutwalk Recap and Photos”

  2. @dmitrir – The tech lesson learned today is that Flickr slideshows don’t work in some browsers if the photos are set to any security higher than just “public.” Good to know! Anyway, I scrapped the slideshow idea and just uploaded some photos into the post regularly. They should work now.

  4. On one hand: I absolutely 100% agree with everything that these people are saying. Hell yes.

    On the other hand: Such events remind me of overzealous (and often ineffective) college-era radicalism. They seem to be more about galvanizing the already-solid left rather than persuading the squishy, tractable center. Turning flip-floppy centrists into reliable, voting progressives is where the real work is. That’s true of cultural, economic, and, yes, sexual issues as well. I don’t know if events like this are truly effective at doing that.

    On the third hand: This looked like lots of fun.

  5. Graham, did you present two red herrings and then, in the same post, link to articles refuting them? Who brought up the 1-in-4 statistic or the Super Bowl? Is this a form of disassociative disorder or just desperate trolling?

  6. Regardless of the methods used, it is a good cause. I don’t have any problem with the approach as it garners attention

  7. What a collation of lesbians, gays, trannies, and sociology students. Any normal people bother to attend this mutual mental masturbation session?

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