The world is full of stereotypical jocks and frat guys but the Maven event brought together these stigmatized groups and worked to defeat stereotypes and stigmas alike.

On Wednesday night in Ice Auditorium, Todd Denny led the discussion before an audience of jocks and frat guys with an open and honest perspective. All four fraternities on campus represented themselves with pride and an eagerness to be informed.

Denny broke the ice with Frisbee tricks before he dove into the complex and emotionally charged subject of sexual assault and violence against women.

The national Frisbee champion and former hockey player Denny immediately identified with the jock persona but what brought the whole room together was his perspective on the vile group that is perpetrating these acts.

“Most men want to do the right thing and are. It is such a small percentage of men that actually do these heinous things but they over represent men as perpetrators,” Denny said.

At that point every man in the audience felt comfortable enough to let down their guard and have a valuable discussion.

Each man in the audience had something to share regarding sexual assault or violence against women and each anecdote led to increased insight into these sensitive subjects.

“I really appreciate how candid you guys have been,” Denny said, “What we have started to do here is create a meaningful dialogue about things that desperately need to be talked about.”

Denny invited the crowd to engineer methods of intervention in the midst of a potential gang rape scenario. Several men admitted that they could never imagine something so atrocious happening at a campus like Linfield but Denny urged them to prepare for the situation.

The audience made a list of words they associate with gang rape, all of which sung to a similar tune of disgust and hatred.

After that a list of intervention methods was created that ranged from simple confrontation, to distraction, to humanizing the potential victim by saying “hey where are you going with my sister?”

The audience was left with the message that there is no bad idea for intervention in a potential rape scenario, except doing nothing.

The goal of the evening was to open athlete’s and fraternity men’s eyes to the reality of rape and prepare them to rise above a bystander and become an ally to women.

Maven’s workshop took good men and made them better, building a healthy and constructive dialogue that will help Linfield become more informed and aware of rape prevention strategies.