Lady Gaga just recently released a music video to a song called, “Til it happens to you”. If you haven’t seen or heard the song, put it on your to do list because it’s extremely important.

Sexual assault is a huge problem, not only on college campuses, not only in this country, but in every country all over the world. One in every three women is raped in their lifetime and that’s just too many. It’s hard for me to understand how there are people out there who view sexual assault as a joke. It’s even harder for me to understand why people don’t think it’s as big of a problem as it is.

The artist does an amazing job at doing her best to depict what these survivors go through. Just as a reminder though, men can also be assaulted, but the statistics for women are a lot higher (maybe it’s because men don’t get attacked as often or maybe because men don’t report it as often). In one part of the video the girl is being attacked by someone she seems to know, which is the case most of the time; most of the time, a person you know, you trust, you call a friend, turns your life into a nightmare. In the other two stories, the girls don’t seem to know their attackers; while one gets jumped in the bathroom, the others are drugged at a party.

It’s ridiculous, that as a woman at a party, I have to be focused on making sure my drink isn’t tampered with. It’s ridiculous that as I’m walking around a bar with my friends I have to keep one hand over my drink just to make sure someone doesn’t want to slip something into it while I’m not looking. I would love to not have to explain this all to my sister when she heads off to college in two years. I would love to not have to be worried about my friends whenever we go out. I would love it if we could teach people to keep their hands and other body parts to themselves and not teach people how to keep themselves from getting assaulted.

Instead of condemning the attacker, our society does this disgustingly inhumane thing; we victim blame. Well, maybe if they were dressed more appropriately, well maybe if they weren’t so drunk. They really shouldn’t have been walking that late at night by themselves. Did you say no? Why didn’t you fight harder? Why didn’t you scream? All of that, all of those thoughts, all of those questions are stupid. You could get attacked regardless of what you’re wearing, whether you’re drunk or sober, whether you’re walking in broad daylight or midnight; it doesn’t matter. The worst thing of all, is telling this person that they ARE LYING. Imagine going through this traumatic situation and then be told that you’re making it up, it didn’t actually happen. Instead of blaming the survivor and criticizing them for their decisions that they have a right to make as a human being, maybe try blaming the attacker for doing something so awful to another person. Blame the attacker for taking a person’s free will away, their control, and their happiness.

Lady Gaga hits the nail right on the head with her title. Nobody knows how it feels until it happens to them. We don’t know the humiliation, the vulnerability, the fear, and the utter distress that comes along with the attack. We also don’t know the amazing strength and bravery that comes along with just getting up in the morning and taking each day as it comes.

If you’re reading this and you have been sexually assaulted, just know that you’re so amazingly brave and so strong. NONE of what happened to you was your fault and it never will be your fault. Please continue to heal and live your life.