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E-PrinceAs sexual harassment/Assault Advising, Resources and Education (SHARE) peer advisers and SpeakOut advocates, we feel compelled to respond to Iulia Neagu’s column on Monday, “The Real ‘Sex on a Saturday Night.’ ” To begin with, we would like to ...(back to the article)
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Thank you, thank you, thank you to SHARE and to SpeakOut for responding to the referenced column. Neagu's column was an absolute disgrace to the issues at hand, and not only showed a lack of knowledge on the subject, but a complete disregard for decency and etiquette. This response is well articulated, statistically accurate, and carries a crucial message. Sexual assualt is real. You may be sitting in a room with multiple peers who have been victims of sexual harassment or assault. Commentary like this is essential to working toward a world in which those peers do not exist.
Katie, Avital, Amanda, and Jillian have all done something amazing here with their expedited response. Again, thank you.
Excellent article and response. Bravo!
1) How do you know how many sexual assaults are not reported...if they aren't reported? A survey? Good luck with the phrasing and response bias issues.
2) Moreover, if supposed "victims" choose not to report whatever happened, perhaps it is because they don't consider what happened rape. No doubt in many cases embarrassment or fear play a role, but you don't know in how many. If you assume that the SHARE/feminist definition of rape is the correct one, then naturally you will attribute all non-reports to intimidation or shaming by "the rape culture". This strategy has the particular benefit of making it so that the fewer the reports, the more pervasive the rape culture.
3) If the absurd 25% victimization rate numbers were true (and even if they were, Princeton would probably be well below average), don't you think that college women would change their behavior after hearing the statistics? There's no crime in even the most violent of places that comes close to approaching the vicinity of outskirts of this 25% number, and yet we're supposed to believe that in universities, where students are intelligent and wealthy relative to the general population, a horrific crime is being perpetrated at this astronomical rate. Surely in the face of such an unprecedented epidemic women would never walk alone, never let go of their pepper spray, never go out after dark, never drink a sip of alcohol, and certainly never isolate themselves in a room with a man. But since college girls in fact do not demonstrate quite this degree of prudence, despite having been made very aware by SHARE,etc. of their imminent peril, we must conclude either that the statistics are wrong or that college women lack the intelligence and autonomy to appreciate and act on good evidence. SHARE advisers, which do you want to choose?
It might be worthwhile to mention at this point that the 25% statistic is women who are victims of either attempted or successful rape - not necessarily only assaults which are carried out all the way to rape.
"Commentary like this is essential to working toward a world in which those peers do not exist."
Who knew that the solution to sexual assault was a campaign to eliminate its victims?
@@grover
I would even think that 25% percent victimization rate for sexual assault among college women would be high or would entail a very broad definition of sexual assault. I also wonder about what this mean in terms of the perpetrators. These seems to imply a fairly large number of aggressors in presumable college men.
That is not to say this statistic isn't true however it makes a very strong claim and such claims require strong proof. This statistic appears or is mention often without reference. Such a statistic would be very difficult to obtain accurately and without bias. As such, I couldn't place any value in this statistic without first examining the methodology used to discern it. If someone would be so kind as to reference this statistic here and when it is used in the future, it would certainly give the statistic more confidence. With its overuse with out proper support, this statistic sadly is nothing more than a number.
THANK YOU to the authors of this fast, intelligent response. the preceding article was an abysmal spit in the face of any survivor of sexual assault, and how distasteful of the daily prince to publish it without any trigger warning.
Everything said in this response is both true and important. It also, in my opinion, largely avoids addressing the actual issues which the original article attempted (with debatable success) to grapple with. the question at hand is not whether or not we should blame rape victims for being raped. As this response points out, that is a ridiculous concept: nobody is ever responsible for being raped. The question is one of whether or not rape in fact occurred. Phrasing the situation otherwise, with the conviction already included in the accusation, is deliberately inflammatory and irresponsible for any group that hopes to be taken seriously and have a significant impact on important social issues.
Having clarified the question, I would be very interested to hear your (the authors of this response) take on the actual situation which Iulia wanted to discuss. In a situation where neither party has a clear recollection of events, or at least both parties were "mentally or physically incapacitated," how does one go about apportioning blame and responsibility? Assuming that neither party said no, that both parties indicated consent, did rape still occur? Can there in fact be two-way rape where both parties clearly acted irresponsibly?
Of course when a person chooses to drink they are not consenting to being raped, or even having sex. They ARE however consenting to making poor decisions. Possibly including a poor decision to have sex.
Katie Rodriguez, Avital Ludomirsky, Amanda Yamasaki, and Jillian Hewitt--
THANK YOU. so much.
the article and many of its comments sent me straight back to the days following my assault, and i felt like 2 years of recovery had been for naught. i am so grateful for organizations like SHARE and SpeakOut-- and although they have been successful at opening the eyes of many students (some of the comments are a huge relief in their evidence of this), it is clear that we all still have work to do. keep up the good work, and thank you again for your dedication and all that you do.
Thank you for coherently phrasing the argument Iulia poorly attempted to make.