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The Harvard Salient |
October 21, 1996 |
My younger sister went off to her freshman year at Cornell this fall. My father, thinking it would sound more credible coming from me, asked me to give my sister a little advice on young women, alcohol, and college parties. I imagine that from my father's perspective, the three should not be mixed. As we often tell people of our parents' generation, "It's a little more complicated than that."
One of the student counseling groups on campus had a poster last spring: "I was drunk. He was drunk." The jury is out for a few short lines and then the judgment is made: "It's still rape." My response is, "It's a little more complicated than that."
The phrase "date rape" is something of a misnomer. On a first reading, it conjures up images of a young couple who go out to dinner and a movie. Then they head back to her place for some conversation. He makes his move. Then he makes a few more moves, thinking he deserves something in return for all the money he has spent. She says no. He goes ahead anyway. That is rape. We do not need a neon green poster to confirm it.
However, the present usage of the term "date rape" now encompasses a much broader range of incidents. The latest phenomenon which has been placed in the category of date rape is perhaps best named in Jimmy Buffett's words: the "Why Don't We Get Drunk and Screw" syndrome. The title accurately depicts the situation set out in the poster and also demonstrates modern America's extremely casual attitude toward promiscuity. Even more disturbingly, it demonstates the prevailing attitude towards the combination of sex and alcohol.
There is a provocative dichotomy here. It has become culturally inappropriate to become serious about sex until the next morning. Contradictory opinions can be seen on the kiosks all over the Yard. An inch or two away from Response's posters identifying rape are Peer Contraceptive Counselors' posters advertising "FREE CONDOMS." It is clear that public attitudes about sexual mores have become more casual over the years, and college students have helped to pioneer this trend.
If there has been a shift in the attitude of our entire culture toward sex, why then have the instances of "Why Don't We Get Drunk and Screw" syndrome been on the rise in large part on college campuses? The explanation is simple: in no other place in society is there such a large population of single people and freely flowing alcohol, and in no other place are we likely to drink with friends and strangers at most a few blocks from our bedrooms. These factors should make women especially all the more careful about the way we conduct ourselves at parties.
But what happens the morning after? Who takes the blame? When both people involved are drunk, when neither one is capable of making deliberate decisions, the solutions offered by Harvard's well-meaning counseling groups are dubious. While I certainly sympathize with anyone who has had a sexual experience she would have refused had she been thinking clearly, I doubt that the appropriate response is to blame only the man involved, especially if, as the poster explains, "He was drunk."
I would not argue that when we choose to drink, we automatically choose to "get drunk and screw." In some sense though, we choose to give up our rights. In the same way that we would not give up our political rights to vote or to speak freely, we should perhaps think twice about giving up our personal rights to people we don't trust. When we give up our right to speak freely, there is no guarantee that our point of view will not be represented. On the other hand, there is no guarantee that it will. The outcome is completely unpredictable. When we drink, we leave our fate in large part to those around us, whether they be drunk or sober, friend or stranger.
Many would say that if college parties are not safe places for intoxicated women, then there is a larger problem. Women are not being treated with respect by their male peers. It would be nice to think that with a little "reeducation," the social climate at these events would be different and it is certainly worth our while to continue educating people about appropriate behavior, sexual and otherwise. Nevertheless, there are no guarantees that the resulting situations would be completely safe, especially when the man is drunk too.
There is a disturbing trend in our generation to ignore the possible consequences of our actions, a mental gap between our choices and the results. For instance, the reason for the high number of abortions performed in this country every year is not that people don't understand that women can get pregnant from having sex, even with protection. It's because people refuse to be responsible for unintended consequences. People make the first decision &emdash; to have sex &emdash; knowing full well that they are taking their chances, but when something goes wrong, they act as if it were an accident. Women obviously don't intend to be raped when they get drunk, but that doesn't mean that we can attribute the repercussions of their actions to "accident," let alone place the blame on someone else.
What the poster does, then, is to remove all responsibility from women. The message is that it doesn't matter whether you were in your right mind &emdash; it's still the man's fault. It is, in fact, the same attitude we have toward statutory rape. It doesn't matter if the minor was consenting or not, the decision was the adult's. Is it really in a woman's best interest to demand that she be treated like a child in our society?
Rape is a serious crime. Women who are victims of rape have not willingly given up any rights. They are in complete control of their mental faculties. They have made the right decisions. They are not children, but they have become victims. We should not trivialize their trauma by calling every case of "Why Don't We Get Drunk and Screw" syndrome rape. Women who are not able to say no are not "asking for it," but they are certainly acting with an indifference and naïveté they can ill afford.