Really? And what if you get behind the wheel and kill somebody? Are you still only responsible for your own hangover?
Of course you are ALWAYS responsible for your own criminal or negligent or just plain stupid behavior. And guess what? You are NEVER responsible for someone else’s criminal, negligent, or stupid behavior (unless you were involved in a conspiracy, or blackmailed them or otherwise COMMITTED YOUR OWN CRIME).
Is it really that hard to get people to stop blaming victims? I don’t like the drinking culture but that’s a separate issue. Judgmental people chiming in with “well, what did you expect?” is quite another.
In the title of this thread the OP mentioned sexual irresponsibility. Some people take that as necessarily meaning promiscuity and victim blaming. But to me there is another aspect of sexual irresponsibility which is not learning the fundamentals of consent and respect in the sexual context. And I would be interested if there are any studies about the pervasive availability on the internet of degrading porn for young boys these days.
In the old days there was pornography but a 14 year old boy had to make more of an effort to get his hands on it. Now he has an endless supply available on the internet. I do think that pornography objectifies women, and much of it distorts and degrades a young male’s expectations about sexual relations. None of that excuses the crime. But as with all violent crimes, it’s good for society to ask what can be done, in addition to incarcerating criminals, to stem the tide. I wholeheartedly support the rejection of victim blaming, but I also think that often in our zeal to reject victim blaming, we shouldn’t shut down inquiry into other facets of the rape problem. I don’t think Brock Turner was born with some sort of sexual predator gene. I think he was raised without learning personal accountability including for what you do while drunk, and respect for ALL women,
Today we have programs like DARE in middle school and programs in high school to educate young people about the dangers of drugs and alcohol. We are careful to educate young drivers about the dangers of driving while intoxicated including the expectation of going to jail or prison for DUI’s. But sex is such a hot button topic that it’s hard to even get schools to teach contraception much less anything about consensual vs nonconsensual sex until they arrive for freshman orientation at college. And by that time, for a lot of Brock Turners, bad behaviors have already been learned. I’m not sure what the answer is.
Yes, but criminal and negligent behavior occurs. You can accept reality and adjust your behavior or pretend it doesn’t occur and hope for the best. The consequences for being wrong are brutal.
I find the whole “stop blaming the victim” approach, when used alone, to be one of the misleading things that can be told to a young woman. How many more rapes and sexual assaults occur because a young woman believes that there will be no consequences regardless of how she dresses or how drunk she is? There SHOULD be no consequences for this, but the criminals don’t care.
What I think is needed is a balanced approach of 1) Teaching men that sexual assault is never acceptable, and 2) Women can greatly reduce the incidence of sexual assault by being mindful of their sobriety and their surroundings.
this behavior is not confined to college campuses! I know of people who have never been to college who drink, do drugs , assault their spouse and miss a couple days of work because they were waiting in jail to post bond. you know who normally bails them out? (the spouse) college students are people too! they do stupid stuff and you can lecture an 18-19-20 etc… old all day about being ethically ,morally and legally responsible but you know what is going to happen with many folks!
the fact they are in college does not make them different than any other young adult. (or sadly many older adults)
p.s. that is why the company I worked stopped allowing alcohol at the christmas party years ago, because even adults 30-40-50-60 years old have issues with being responsible when they drink.
To put it succintly, you are a MORON if you don’t recognize the overwhelming connection between alcohol and sexual assault. 80% of campus sexual assaults involve the use of alcohol by one or both persons. Female students are 19 times more likely to be assaulted on days when they have four or more drinks. 72% of campus assaults occur when the female victim reports being too intoxicated to consent. Men are much more likely to misbehave when fueled by liquid courage. Ever seen a bar fight among sober guys? As someone who worked his way through school tending bar, these statistics are as surprising to me as hearing that today is Saturday.
We’ve known this forever. Recall that the temperance movement was led by women who got tired of having the stuffing beaten out of them by drunk husbands and fathers!!
Knock yourself out saying that we have to just make men not be rapists. Good luck with that. Rapists, like the poor, will always be with us. So will 18 year olds drinking alcohol. Although it is illegal to consume under 21, 80% of college students drink alcohol.
The data is EXTREMELY clear on this. It works to train bystanders to intervene. There’s a lot more bystander potential in a public licensed bar than there is in a dorm room or bedroom with a closed door.
It works if you keep the kids from getting too drunk too fast. Near beer is like a cigarette lighter. Vodka shots are like a flame thrower.
It works to train females to defends themselves. Check out the study from Canada that confirms this total common sense proposition.
So I say do the things that work. That’s what I do with my daughters. Rather than prattle on mindlessly about all things that have been said and tried and don’t work.
^^^
This. A thousand times.
So? Is our society going to eliminate drinking?
How much?
If 1,000 guys drink, 5 are rapists, and for some reason 900 guys stop drinking, we end up with 100 drinkers.
How many rapists are eliminated?
Maybe we end up with 100 drinkers and 5 rapists.
In other words, how do we know if some people drink less, rapes decline?
People commenting on the Brock case should read the police report.
Teen boys and girls are getting way too drunk (and high) and apps like groupMe, snapchat and instagram basically exist to brag about how much and how hard you party. Your snapchat story isn’t worthy of watching if it doesn’t have you and dozens of peers doing drugs, backdrop of liquor bottles and loud music, etc. It creates a competition to get drunker and higher and more scandalous. Too many girls think it’s cute to be a hopped up and sloppy Miley Cyrus and boys think it’s macho to act like perpetual frat boy apes. The combo fuels about 98% of campus assaults.
Are kids getting more drunk now overall than they have been in the past? Is there evidence one way or the other?
I can remember doing a ton of dumb stuff in high school and college. But no one was there to record it. A benefit/cost that I have discussed with my kids: tech is really cool and provides a lot of great opportunities. But it also comes with costs. Social media posts will live forever. Even if you are not recording something, there is a good chance someone else is. That can live forever as well. Like everything, you have to take the good with the bad.
As an LA resident I thought instagram exists solely to document your Runyon Canyon workout. Who knew it was used for other things?
Drinking to the point of drunkenness is a risky behavior, much like hiking off trail in Yellowstone NP. We need to educate young people to minimize risk, while at the same time punishing those who pray on those weakened by drinking. It’s not an either or proposition.
As adults we know that problem with this. Young adults believe they are bulletproof. They believe the bad thing won’t happen to them. It’s an uphill battle convincing them of the dangers ofor binge drinking.
I do like the bystander training as its applicable to many situations. I also like that it emphasizes the community aspect of college, of having each other’s backs.
This reminds me of a fascinating Ted Talk I watched awhile back, by a woman who dated younger men and observed how differently they saw sex, because of that ubiquitous exposure to porn. Her Ted Talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FV8n_E_6Tpc ← warning - some graphic language in there
So true. It’s left to parents and so many aren’t ready/willing/able to talk to their kids on that level.
Cindy Gallop’s case in the Ted Talk above is that online porn has taken the place of the sex ed vacuum for young people especially.
“So? Is our society going to eliminate drinking?”
Absolutely not. We tried that and it didn’t work. So we shouldn’t do it again. And we also should stop trying to eliminate drinking for those between 18-21. Because we tried that and it didn’t work – 80% of college students drink even though it is illegal.
So what you do is do things that reduce the harm associated with young people drinking. One of which harms is campus rape.
We don’t ban driving because there are car crashes. But we do have speed limits, air bags, seat belts, traffic signals and drivers ed. Because they reduce the harm.
Do the same thing with alcohol. Limiting 18-21 year olds to beer/wine in licensed bars is like having a speed limit on vehicles. Forcing kids to chug vodka illegally behind closed doors is like having no speed limit and no driver licenses and no traffic signals. No surprise then if you get a lot of car crashes.
One issue with 21 yo drinking age for college kids (many/most of whom with drink anyway) is that it is pushed underground. If they were at bars, there is some supervision. Bartenders can cut kids off when they have had too much. Call a cab. Bouncers keeping an eye on what is happening. But if they have to hide their drinking, those protections are gone. Same thing is true with frats/sororities.
If you aren’t already aware, fake IDs are big business. Doesn’t take much in the way of a google search to find a Chinese guy who can make them for you. Uses same equipment, paper, etc. as states use for driver’s licenses (because states buy that stuff from China as well). From what I have heard, its very difficult to tell fake from real. Your kids likely know about this (even if they are not customers) even if you do not.
Also creates issues from a security standpoint because fake passports can also be made that are difficult to detect.
" Forcing kids to chug vodka illegally behind closed doors" Oh come on, no one is forcing anyone to do anything. These kids are trying to get falling down drunk and if the bars won’t serve them enough beer for that, they will still chug the vodka.
Many 18 year olds can already drink in bars because they have fake IDs. If you make it legal for 18 year olds to drink, we will have the 14 year olds back in bars like they were when I was in high school.
dstark you are not completely wrong but other than sociopaths and predators (who will be what they are no matter what ) many people lose there moral compass (for lack of a better term) when under the influence. like people who think they can handle alcohol and driving and we all know how that story ends over and over and over again. I do not have an answer because many people will do whatever… and rules and laws will not change their behavior. sure I would love to think of college students at parties being responsible and wooing dates with their knowledge of politics ,chess or science without drugs/alcohol in their system. that is a fantasy.
I agree with nortwesty that trying to ban under 21 drinking is silly/not working. but , there is no easy real life solution to fix the problem, because everyone at a club or party or hanging out in a dorm room has heard the lectures 1000x times and the story plays out again and again.
Nonsense. You can do like Dartmouth is doing. Turn a blind eye to beer and wine around campus. But flat out ban hard liquor and crack down on it like it was cocaine. Even for 21+ students and staff. Net gain in safety.
I think it’s wrong to expect that lowering the drinking age would mean that most college drinking would take place at bars. Drinking at bars is too expensive for most college students. Much cheaper to drink with your friends in your dorm, frat or off campus housing. Plus there is the transportation issue. College students in general have been educated about the dangers of drinking and driving, and not every college has lots of bars in easy walking distance. Also, if you are female you may feel safer drinking in your dorm with trusted friends or drinking at an on campus party rather than drinking in a bar where older men may start hitting on you. Moving drinking off campus to bars may just create a different set of problems.
“I think it’s wrong to expect that lowering the drinking age would mean that most college drinking would take place at bars. Drinking at bars is too expensive for most college students.”
You might be right. Or not. Since it has not been tried.
Alternatively, you could make beer/wine or near beer/wine legal for 18-21 (purchase or in bars) but not hard liquor. And then crack down massively on the booze like it was hard drugs (which it kinda is).
There’s a lot of ways you could funnel the 18-21 YO drinking into safer forms and locales. For god sake, folks, don’t you remember when there was a campus bar located in the basement of your student union? There was one in mine and it didn’t cause many/any problems. You could easily have a rule that says you can’t have any alcohol in the dorms but you can have all the beer/wine you can stomach at the Rathskellar.
But we can’t try out any of those ideas clearly reasonable ideas because it is all banned, all the time. And that ban is ignored all the time too.
corinthian I agree…on campus (preferably not in a frat house) is a better choice. but schools are in a bad spot. following the 21 and over law and knowing a large % of kids drink underage and wanting them to stay on campus …not driving drunk or walking back to campus alone at 3am .