<p>I’m a little surprised by some of these responses. Most rapes of college students happen by serial rapists who often choose and groom their victim for that purpose. Most are premeditated. Most happen during the “red zone”, the early part of the fall semester before Thanksgiving, and usually to freshman women by upperclass men. Sure, there are some rapes that happen “spontaneously” during drunken hookups but don’t stop seeing the forest for the trees! </p>
<p>Eckerd may not have the usual frat boy/football scene that encourages rape but any college President that doesn’t know how and why sexual assault is perpetuated is not doing their job. And for him to use virtue to describe in any way rape prevention is just insulting on top of being wholly ignorant. </p>
<p>Can you link a source? And is alcohol generally a part of this or not?</p>
<p>My own college experience is a couple of decades old, but those I knew at the time who had issues were at events with alcohol for both the guys and gals. Freshmen girls were a target - mainly because they were “new” and rather naive. This would match the timing of early fall semester as many learned from the experience of others as the year went on.</p>
<p>Even so, lessen the alcohol and I suspect there’d have been fewer issues as not all of the issues were without consent - it was just regret afterward for some of them (this is what THEY said). Others were unwanted issues totally, but at that time, most of what was done afterward was just sharing tears with others.</p>
<p>Society has changed a bit since then. It still makes total sense to warn young ladies (and men) rather than just assuming we’re living in an ideal world. It in no way, shape, or form is victim blaming to warn of danger. The analogy to locking doors and valuables is a good one. In an ideal world, it’s not an issue, but we live in the real world and evil exists. (Even evil caused or enhanced via alcohol.)</p>
<p>I understand the link between drinking and rape risk-- a woman who has been drinking is making herself more vulnerable to rapists and other violent criminals.</p>
<p>But I don’t see the link between casual sex and rape. If a woman chooses to have casual sex with a man, then she is not being raped. And if she doesn’t choose to have sex with a particular man but he rapes her, then it doesn’t matter what other men she might have chosen to have sex with, if any-- she didn’t consent to sex with this guy.</p>
<p>Oh good grief. By engaging in casual sex, you PUT yourself in circumstances where you are more at risk of being with a guy who is up to no good. Look, if guys could come pre-certified “no STDs and when you say stop, I stop”, great. But they don’t. </p>
<p>Look, who is more at risk for being raped, mugged or murdered? The girl who goes with her girlfriends to a bar where they all agree to stay with one another (and do so), or the girl who breaks off from the pack and somewhere with the guy she just met? This is a toughie. Think it through. </p>
<p>I’m not talking about morality. I couldn’t GAS about passing judgment on the second girl’s MORALITY. It’s her SAFETY I’m concerned for. </p>
<p>Honestly, this is as dumb as saying that I don’t increase my chance for being a mugging victim if I walk down a street in a bad neighborhood late at night by myself with my purse hanging open. Of course I have every “right” to do so, and it is not my fault if I get mugged, but it’s a riskier behavior. </p>
<p>And yet, if their stuff gets stolen, often the first question they will be asked is “Was your door locked?” or “Do you always lock your doors?” If the answer is No, then I bet you’d see them at being at least partially <em>at fault</em>.</p>
<p>Sexual assault is always 100% the assailant’s fault.</p>
<p>Sigh. No one is saying otherwise! It is not blaming a victim to note that certain behaviors are riskier than others. </p>
<p>No one is blaming mugging victims by saying that all else bring equal, it’s best not to go walking in bad neighborhoods after dark by yourself wearing expensive jewelry. </p>
<p>If there was a problem on campus of students mugging other students, administrators wouldn’t tell students not to walk in that part of campus and think their work was done. They wouldn’t even think their work was started. </p>
<p>If you take what you say at face value in post 31 then the college president had every right to tell the kids what he did. Of course if a college had dark area that was attractive to muggers they would tell the kids not to walk alone until they had a blue light box installed and then the college president would still say don’t walk alone. People have to take some degree of personal responsibility to keep themselves safe and to argue otherwise is just silly. This starts when kids are toddlers…don’t touch the hot stove, look both ways before you cross the street etc. </p>
<p>There is absolutely nothing wrong with telling young people they should not binge drink or there could be consequences…the least of which might be an mip or a trip to the er.</p>
<p>If we take alcohol out of the equation, are young women who have casual sex more vulnerable to rape than young women who do not have casual sex? That is, are sober young women who have casual sex more vulnerable than sober young women who don’t, and drunk women who have casual sex more vulnerable than drunk women who don’t? I presume that even women who don’t have casual sex will at some point intend to have some sort of physical intimacy with guys.</p>
<p>If rapists are predatory, then of course women who are open to engaging in physical contact with them alone behind closed doors on the first encounter are much more vulnerable. Rapists are unlikely to wine and dine a woman for three weeks first. </p>
<p>A woman who is alone with a predatory man is vulnerable to being raped, whether she intended to kiss, play Scrabble, have a drink or discuss Sartre. Not being inclined to casual sex isn’t going to protect her. Indeed, in a backwards way being inclined to casual sex will protect her from being raped if he merely doesn’t care about consent.</p>
<p>“we take alcohol out of the equation, are young women who have casual sex more vulnerable to rape than young women who do not have casual sex? That is, are sober young women who have casual sex more vulnerable than sober young women who don’t, and drunk women who have casual sex more vulnerable than drunk women who don’t? I presume that even women who don’t have casual sex will at some point intend to have some sort of physical intimacy with guys.”</p>
<p>Yes. And when they have that physical intimacy, it’s most often in the context of a long standing relationship where both partners care one another beyond just for sex. </p>
<p>Let’s think for a minute here. Cathy Casual intends to have casual sex. Over the course of her year, she will be alone with, oh, I don’t know, 15 guys. Cecilia Committed has a boyfriend. They become intimate after several months of dating. Is 15 greater than 1? </p>
<p>I don’t think most women who have casual sex are that casual about it, Pizzagirl. Fifteen sounds high to me. Let’s say it’s 4 or 5-- Cathy is alone with four or five guys (at different times) when she is intending to pursue her casual sex.</p>
<p>So that’s 3 or 4 more times that Cathy is alone with a guy in a year in romantic/sexual situation, compared to Cecilia. But both Cathy and Cecilia are alone with guys at many other times, when they do not intend to be in a romantic/sexual situation. And remember, we are comparing like to like here; by hypothesis, Cecilia and Cathy are drinking the same amount. So Cecilia is going to the same number of parties with alcohol that Cathy is going to, and she is drinking the same amount Cathy is drinking. The only difference here, by hypothesis (because we’re separating out drinking behavior from inclination for casual sex), is that Cecilia is not inclined to casual sex. </p>
<p>The rapists and predators at the parties Cecilia goes to are just as rapey and predatory as Cathy’s rapists, and just as likely to take advantage of Cecilia’s drunkenness as Cathy’s. Drunk freshman Cecilia is just as vulnerable to the rapist who pretends he just wants to help her get back to her room as drunk freshman Cathy. Sober Cathy and sober Cecilia are equally vulnerable to the chem lab partner who gets her alone to “study” and rapes her. And drunk or sober Cathy, going off to have casual sex, is less likely to be raped, because she has agreed to sex already. It’s drunk or sober Cecilia, who never wanted to have casual sex but who thinks she is going off for some less physical intimacy, that is vulnerable to the unscrupulous rapist in that situation.</p>
<p>Consider Jackie. If we take her story at face value, she does not seem to be planning to have casual sex. She had a date with the guy, which suggests she is contemplating a relationship. And yet she is raped. Her (presumed) virtue didn’t protect her. </p>
<p>“has been held in high esteem in Western Culture for millennia because those who are virtuous are happier as well as healthier”</p>
<p>I have a problem with his grasp of social history. It may be that people nowadays who are “virtuous” according to Western tradition are happier, but if so, that has nothing to do with why such “virtue” was esteemed for millennia. Personal happiness as an ideal is a pretty young concept, dating from the Enlightenment at the earliest and much later where women are concerned. In fact, for much of the last two millennia, Christian teachings about sexual morality praised mortification of the flesh and deliberate suffering for spiritual gain. Loneliness and pain were revered. In addition to religion, there were practical economic reasons behind those sexual mores (controlling parentage of children; controlling wives and daughters as economic assets).</p>
<p>I’d expect someone with a Ph.D. in British literature to understand this cultural evolution better.</p>