Recently I saw something that made me absolutely sick to my stomach. I was sitting in a speech that was about sexual assault and domestic violence and when I looked down at the phone of the man sitting in front of me, I saw him texting his friends and the message that he sent was this.

"I would rather get raped than be sitting through this presentation right now."

My first thought was simply "why".... Why would you even think about turning a current social issue that is effecting millions of women in college into a joke for your friends? Why would those words even think about coming out of your mouth when we are sitting in a presentation about assault? Why would you say that you would want to be assaulted when the girl we learned about died because of domestic violence? The fact that you would even think about using those words in that form of disrespect is shocking to me. I get that you may not understand the severity of your ignorance, but you could at least find the decency to make sure that the words you used were anything other than what you used to describe your boredom.

I know several young women who have been assaulted in their young lives and the results are shocking. The late night tears, the darkness that consumes their mind, the belief that the attack was their fault, every other emotional, physical and psychological effect that invades them... it sticks with them for the rest of their lives. Yet when rape cases actually happen, they aren't reported. Most people keep their assaults hidden and this needs to change. The young women who go through treatment and get help are told that their attacks are not their fault, but soon are told by the society and media around them that "skimpy outfits" and slutty behaviors combined with alcohol are the reasons that young men feel the need to get lucky with a woman no matter what the cost.

I then started to realized that the reason the man said those things was solely out ignorance. Many young men look at the issue of sexual violence and don't realize the severity of it. Think about how many movies, tv shows, songs and media messages promote sexual behavior in our current generation. The "blurred lines" of media, the blatant disrespect of real life rape cases, the fact that one in every FIVE women are assaulted. One in five. Think about how many that is. Rape culture is a real thing people and the sooner we recognize this, the sooner we can being working on shining a light on the ignorance that surrounds this nation.

So, to the man today who said he would rather "be raped" than to sit through a speech about sexual assault... I hope you realize the power of your words and how they effect the women around you. I hope that the women in your family read this and react by teaching you how to act like a gentleman and treat women with respect. I hope the girls in your life who may or may not have been assaulted realize that you and your blatant ignorance are part of the problem of rape culture. I hope that you learn from your mistakes and work towards giving the women in your life the respect they deserve. Finally, I hope no matter what outfit they are wearing or how "drunk" they are, you wouldn't dare think about going through with the action you described to your friends, even though you only meant it because of how "bored" you were at a presentation on sexual assault.