Among the young of Sweden today, sexual assault is very seldom talked about.

What impressions we get about it comes through the media; where we hear that yet another rapist has been acquitted, because it could not be conclusively proven that the girl was not consenting to it, or perhaps because she brought it on herself.

It is not strange, then, that it can be hard for a young girl to press charges, especially if it was someone she knew well, who perhaps also gave her a hug afterwards and told her that they should meet again sometime. The question is if she even thinks it was rape. Everything was so confusing and she did want to, at first. Then perhaps it was her fault?

Film production company Rum: Stockholm and ROKS, (Riksorganisationen för kvinnojourer och tjejjourer i Sverige) co-produced the film ”Bye bye pornstar” in 2003. The film was created to get young people to start talking about what it is like to be in a situation where one has experienced a sexual assault, but is unsure about what really happened. Was it really rape? Or wasn’t my no clear enough?

”Bye bye pornstar” is 20 minutes long and the target audience is school pupils from 14 years of age. The dialogue is in Swedish but the film is available with English subtitles.

It will be shown on Swedish television on the 25^th of July and also at the international conference “Nordic Forum” in Åbo on the 12^th of August.

Today most Swedish schools have access to ”Bye bye pornstar” via centres for educational film hire. One example is Växjö, a small town in southern Sweden, where the film hire centre hired it out to local schools over 30 times in just a few months. This was a record for a short-film, and shows how well it has been received at classroom level, where it helps students to start discussing and forming an opinion about this otherwise difficult subject.

Do you also want the opportunity to get a discussion going among your teenagers? Organisations working with women issues can buy ”Bye bye pornstar” for a very reasonable prize, and there are also discussion materials available. Contact Rum: Stockholm via email and we will get back to you as soon as possible for further discussions about your specific needs. For more information, or for questions about the film, you can also contact ROKS at info@roks.se.