Imagine this, you’re 18 years old, just graduated from high school, a freshman in college with your entire life ahead of you. Fortunately it’s the fall; you’re excited to begin classes and reinvent yourself, should you choose to.
College is a great time to do this. Starting over, sometimes away from the parents for the first time in your life, and finally able to make decisions for yourself. You choose which classes you take, you choose when to sleep, study, party, you choose what time you want to go to class, and it’s the best time of your life.
Now imagine this, you’re walking alone heading to your car or home, maybe it’s early morning or late afternoon, and all of a sudden someone grabs you from behind and tells you not to scream and they won’t hurt you. Whoever this is takes you to the nearest alleyway or their car or home and rapes you, leaving you alone afterwards, like trash.
There’s always this one as well: you’re with your significant other or a close friend studying for finals and they decide to get a bit more intimate than you would like. After asking them to stop or flat out saying "no", this person you trusted chooses to do the one thing you thought they’d never do. Your trust is shattered and so is your entire identity.
It sounds pretty horrible, huh? Unfortunately, that’s not only the watered down version, but that is the reality for one in five women and one in sixteen men across the country, according to the National Sexual Violence Resource Center. This is what they go through and what they must live with for the rest of their lives.
More than 90% of rapes that occur on college campuses go unreported. Why? Because 79 to 88% of victims knew their offender. Too many people convince themselves, “Oh they won’t do it again” or that it won’t affect their lives. Men and women, victims, tell themselves that it was too little to be worth ruining someone’s life, or that they deserved it because they were drinking.
If a person is raped while even slightly intoxicated, they often do not report it and if by the off chance they do or a friend they told does, their B.A.C. is brought up more often than it needs to be. This leads to colleges banning alcohol from their campuses, sorority buildings, or events instead of cracking down on the people that perform the act. They get off with a slap on the wrist because, “They were drunk and he thought she said yes.” So the college bans the alcohol that “led to the incident” to keep it from happening again.
Unfortunately, there are not many statistics for college athletes that commit rape, but we all know the story of Brock Turner. You know it, the one where the swimmer got off with 6 months in jail because going for longer would have a severe impact on him. What about the impact that his “20 minutes of action” did on the woman that was less than willing to receive those 20 minutes? The fact that he was an athlete may not be the main reason he received a six month sentence and only served three, but it was brought up almost as much as the fact that she had had a drink or two the night before.
With so many young people in college, and how many of those cut loose during their first chance to be away from the parents, you would think that the colleges themselves would do more to protect them. However, as much as the blame wants to be put only on the colleges, it can’t. The people that commit these crimes, the ones who believe they are entitled to someone else’s body simply because they want it, they are to blame. We do our best, but there’s only so much that can be done to try to keep students safe. Raising awareness is the only thing we can do at this point. Maybe this one article will make a difference, maybe it won’t. I just hope that one day, men and women across the country can safely go to class and not have to worry about what will happen to them if they’re alone walking home or trying to tell someone "no".
