When to Keep Your Pants Zipped Up: Campus Sex, Campus Rape

A commenter on a recent Jezebel article, "How Colleges Fail Rape Victims -- And How Students Can Help," wrote, "My friend came down to our floor common room claiming he had been 'sexiled,' and reported that his roommate was carrying some girl back to his dorm who was too drunk to walk and he 'knew to leave' because this had always meant 'sex' when it happened before." For anyone out there who is fuzzy on this, that's not called "sex," it's called rape.

If your intended sex partner is too drunk to walk, don't hoist her over your shoulder caveman fashion and carry her off to your room to ravage her. If she can't even walk, she can't consent, and that is rape. Yes, this goes for both genders, but since the vast majority of perpetrators are male, this is especially a message to the guys.

I don't always agree with college-run anti-sexual assault programs, which often have a disconnect with the reality of social interactions in saying that someone under the influence can never consent. I attended Dartmouth College, where the social scene is frats, Keystone, and pong. There's not a ton of sober sex going on, and sadly, some of what goes on is rape. But despite claims such as a recent Princeton student's article accusing her female peers of crying rape, women don't consider every hook-up they have while intoxicated to be rape. If a woman wakes up after drunk sex, she might regret it, or she might say hey, I had fun, but a situation of two kinda tipsy people getting it on with the intention of mutual enjoyment probably won't be deemed rape. A guy carrying home a girl clearly way beyond the ability to consent? Rape.

Obviously there is a small percentage of false rape accusations, just like there are for every other crime. This is why we don't automatically give the accused a prison sentence -- they get an investigation, a trial. But people don't show the kind of hostile skepticism toward someone who says they were mugged as they direct toward a woman who says she was raped. Meanwhile, when a guy is repeatedly bringing home girls too drunk to walk, much less consent, his actions are consistently treated as normal by his sober roommate (and those who the roommate complained about being "sexiled" to) who could intervene. Screwed up.

I knew a student who woke up one day in the bed of a guy she knew. She didn't remember the night before, so she asked him if they'd had sex. He said yes. She mentioned that she must have been blacked out. His response? "Yeah, I figured that you wouldn't have slept with me otherwise." I don't know whether he didn't understand that it's rape to push sex on her knowing she wouldn't consent if she weren't blacked out, or if he just figured that, like most rape victims, she wouldn't report it (she didn't). It's a disturbing fact that men will admit in surveys to having sex with someone by force or who they knew would not consent if not intoxicated, without seeing themselves as rapists. For future reference, this is rape. Doing it makes you a rapist.

If you are the more sober party, it is your responsibility as a decent human being to look out for your partner, whether they're a significant other, friend, or someone you just met. Bottom line: I get that there's going to be sex while under the influence. But if you have the slightest inkling that your intended partner is too drunk to consent or doesn't really want to have sex, keep your pants zipped up.

Photo credit: erion