On September 18th, Lady Gaga released a music video for her new song “Till It Happens to You.” It shows the chilling reality of sexual assault on college campuses. The video aims to spark the conversation about sexual assault and how it is handled throughout our country. “Till It Happens to You” is a song for the upcoming documentary, The Hunting Ground, which investigates the way college campuses truly handle sexual assault cases.
Sexual assault according the Webster Dictionary is “illegal or unwanted sexual contact that usually involves force upon a person without consent or is inflicted upon a person who is incapable of giving consent (as because of age or physical or mental incapacity) or who places the assailant (as a doctor) in a position of trust or authority.”
The music video and trailer for the documentary are linked below. As a disclaimer both are very graphic and extremely difficult to watch. Yet, it is imperative that you watch them anyway.
Powerful. Shocking. Scary. Were just a few words that came to mind when I first watched them.
Among the many messages that stuck out to me in “Til It Happens to You,” the most powerful was the statistic that the video closed with.
“One in five college women will be sexually assaulted this year unless something changes.”
One in five. Statistically that means one in my five girl cousins. It means two people in my group of college best friends of 10. That means six people in my sports team of 30. Those statistics are just for this year.
I know you have probably read the articles with lists of statistics about sexual assault. I know you have read the articles that urge our society to teach not to rape rather than teach not to be raped. I know you have read articles about how it is not your fault, because it is not. I know you have read articles about what to do after it happens. I am not bashing those articles by any means. I am not devaluing them in anyway, I completely respect and admire all of those types of articles. They are all very important.
However; the most important thing I want you to understand is to not have a specific mindset that many women and men have. Please do not have the mindset that you know sexual assault is happening out there but it could never happen to you. The mindset which knows that sexual assault is real and scary but is not happening on your campus. Do not have the mindset that it could never happen to you, because it can.
We need to look out for one another. I hate that I cannot simply say “don’t rape anymore” and then have the problem completely go away. I hate that I even have to say this but please be careful. Look out for your friends at parties. Help the drunk girl or guy walking home by themselves at night. Trust your instincts, if something seems wrong, it probably is. If someone comes to you after a sexual assault, help them.
I, as a 19 year old college woman, do not have every answer on how to fix the problem of sexual assault on college campuses. I simply want to start the conversation. I want to bring justice to survivors. I want to make you a little more aware of what is really going on.
For more information on The Hunting Ground please visit their website.
man running in forestPhoto by 
