<p>I have no quarrel with a college president who urges students to be cautious. I do think it’s important that an authority figure speaking in public get the facts straight, and I suspect that Eastman has grossly oversimplified the nature of acquaintance rape. (My impression is that the research itself is fraught with errors.) I am also troubled that a college president would conflate a discussion of virtue with a discussion of sexual assault.</p>
<p>My guess is he was trying give students a reason other than parental-type lecturing to improve their safety by citing Socrates and history. He tried to give the suggestions some academic basis. </p>
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<p>You’re assuming that the only time a woman could be alone with a man is when she has her mind on sex. You’re also assuming that rape only happens when the woman has her mind on sex. </p>
<p>I fully get that a bad guy could jump out of the bushes and attack either Cathy or Cecilia on the way home from the library. Totally get it. But I still don’t get how you conclude Cecilia is just as likely to be alone w men as Cathy is. Cecilia is alone with men with whom she has a committed relationship. Cathy is alone with men with whom she desires casual sex. Unless you believe there is a problem of men wining and dining women for weeks on end, saying I love you and talking about the future, and then turning out to rape them. Not to say such a scenario never occurs, but if you were a guy looking for women to rape, would you a) wine and dine them for weeks, or b) go to parties / bars where women were eager to go to your room? </p>
<p>I’m not BLAMING Cathy in this instance, or suggesting she is “immoral” or “bad.” </p>
<p>Yeah, but the Eckerd president is saying Cathy is immoral.</p>
<p>People are over-reacting to the use of the word virtue. College women who want to stomp their feet and say I should be able to sleep with whomever a want whenever I want whether I know them or not and be kept safe by someone in the office at my school have some growing up left to do. Try that in a big city. As parents, we should probably help them stay safe in the real world rather than encourage whatever and then get all outraged when it inevitably all goes wrong.</p>
<p>Goody for him. If Cathy doesn’t think she’s immoral, then rock on. Cathy would be well advised to think about her safety, though. Oh, whoops, that’s “slut shaming.” Gag. </p>
<p>Let’s put it another way - if I say to my son, a way for you to significantly decrease the likelihood of being falsely accused of rape would be to engage in sex only in a committed relationship and not casually, is that a reasonable statement to make? Or is that “stud-shaming” or “player-shaming”? </p>
<p>Or are we all going to be dumb here and assume that Charles Committed’s chances of being falsely accused of rape are JUST as high as those of Carl Casual? </p>
<p>"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. "</p>
<p>No, they aren’t; that’s the whole point. </p>
<p>Casual sex with someone you don’t know really well is risky for both men and women. STDs, unplanned pregnancy are just a couple things that can happen to men and women. I kind of like the words stud-shaming Pizza because that happens a fair amount of time here…all frats are bad…all athletes are bad and so on :-)</p>
<p>That’s fine but we don’t need to read this virtue bs when we are talking about violence against women (and a few men too).</p>
<p>Eckard is a private college established by and still affiliated with the Presbyterian church. So if its president wants to preach virtues, I don’t see anything “bs” about it. </p>
<p>Bay, I would be disappointed if you did.</p>
<p>Bay, a sermon about virtue is fine. The problem is that he framed it as a statement about sexual assault. The inevitable conclusion is that rape victims are not as virtuous as non-rape victims. </p>
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<p>I don’t know about you, but I am in a committed relationship and have no interest in straying, and I am frequently alone with a man with whom I don’t want to have sex. It’s very odd to me to imagine that Cecilia wouldn’t find herself alone with a guy often, too. </p>
<p>Neither Cathy nor Cecilia gets raped by the guy she wants to have sex with. They’re both raped by a guy they didn’t want to have sex with. I’m not understanding why it’s germane that Cathy has more sex partners than Cecilia: neither one of them wanted to have sex with the guy that raped them, which is why it’s rape and not consensual sex.</p>
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<p>I thought it was quite clear that the message was that “both genders” (he used that phrase) who engage in casual sex are not as virtuous as those who do not. </p>
<p>I don’t see the comment as irrelevant to preventing many situations (perhaps even most) but not all, that end up in rape. Couples who don’t know each other well being alone together (most rapes occur in the victim’s residence), under the influence of alcohol. That is probably the setting for most rapes on campus. Avoid the alcohol, avoid being alone with men and women you don’t know well in an opportune setting, and many rapes would probably be avoided. </p>
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<p>It’s certainly a true statement. But I fail to see how a guy being falsely accused of rape is analogous to a woman actually being raped in this argument. He increases his chance of falsely being accused every time he has consensual sex. But she does not increase her chance of actually being raped every time she has consensual sex. </p>
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<p>Yes.</p>
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<p>Only if that’s what she chooses to call it. </p>
<p>Can we all agree that a female college student’s chance of being raped is at least two orders of magnitude bigger than a male student’s chance of being falsely accused? Both are serious problems worthy of our consideration, but one of them happens a hundred times more often than the other.</p>
<p>Sure; I wasn’t even remotely arguing they were equivalent-sized problems. </p>
<p>"He increases his chance of falsely being accused every time he has consensual sex. "</p>
<p>With a new PERSON. </p>
<p>Guy A has casual consensual sex with a different woman once a week for a semester.
Guy B has relationship consensual sex with the same women once a week for a semester. </p>
<p>Each time Guy A is with a new woman, he runs the risk of being falsely accused.
Do you think that on week 10 in the semester, Guy B is at the same risk (with his ten times with one woman) as Guy A is with his tenth woman? </p>