Why the focus on “a young male’s expectations” [emphasis added]?
Women consume a lot of porn, too—are their expectations being distorted and degraded? If so, how does that factor in?
“You are NEVER responsible for someone else’s criminal, negligent, or stupid behavior”
And no one on CC has said otherwise.
Number of kids who would go out to a bar if they could age-wise will vary from school to school and will depend in large part on the bar options. Not every bar sells $8-10 beers and $15-20 glasses of wine. And you don’t need all or even most kids to do that for it to have a significant impact.
For some campuses, off-campus bars are often (or could be – big reason why many campuses do not have nearby bars is because more than 1/2 the kids cannot legally drink there with a 21 yo drinking age) across the street or a block of two from campus. No driving necessary.
Some girls may prefer to drink in their dorm with trusted friends. But others won’t.
Seems to me there is no silver bullet here. No one change that will address the issue. And what works at one campus may not work at others. Doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be tried at campuses where it would work.
@OHMomof2 and @dfbdfb I watched that Ted Talk linked to in #111. Yes that’s exactly why I think hard core porn can distort the perceptions and expectations of both males and females. I don’t want to get explicit just recommend people watch the Ted Talk and check out her website.
So basically there are no effective measures to minimize drinking, drugs,porn, irresponsible sexual behaviors, frat parties and rape on campuses? All we can do is to remove age limits and hope for the best?
worrhurry411 you are asking if you can change human behavior that has existed since humans have been around…the answer is most people given the choice will hopefully do the right thing…those who do not need to be removed from the situation where they can harm others.(easier said than done) BTW, porn is not an issue… that sounds more like a morality thing and an individual choice to watch or not. as well as “irresponsible sexual behaviors”…assault and rape are the issue…what are you referring too? (LGBTQ or other things between consenting adults) what I think we should expect from society and college students is to treat others with dignity, respect, obey personal boundaries, and not ever touch a person without that persons consent!
Yeah, drug and alcohol abuse has been around since the Stone Age, but it is not the same in every place and time. It isn’t even the same at every campus in the USA in 2016. So of course there are things society/universities can do to impact self-destructive behaviors. It’s beyond my area of expertise, but there are public health researchers who design and measure different kinds of interventions. These have political, financial, and market implications that may make them harder to implement, but if the adults in this society really wanted to make a dent in the problem, I believe we could.
Good question hegebege
And I am a woman and earn less than my male peers but I choose not to go for meetings I choose not to take on administrative work so I do not complain that I am paid a little less.
@zobroward I’m not talking about a morality crusade against porn. I’m raising the question about whether the easy availability of porn at a young age affects behaviors negatively. The woman who gives the Ted Talk says she herself watches and likes porn and she she likes dating (and having sex with) young men. But she says she often has to “rehabilitate” them first and that it’s a problem when we have a generation (both male and female) that is getting its sex education from porn. She advocates for educating young people about “real world” versus “porn world” sex. And while I haven’t ventured into her website, I definitely get the impression from her Ted Talk that her “real world” version is about equal empowerment and equal enjoyment. To me that is sexual responsibility.
I think there are approaches to all of these that can work.
In the case of porn-as-sex-ed, substituting actual sex ed with a discussion about respect and feelings and such would be preferable to saying nothing at all and basically letting porn do it for us, as parents. IDK how that might affect rape or “irresponsible sexual behavior” but I feel it can’t hurt.
There are measures to minimize drinking too…offering lots of great stuff/activities that don’t involve it, experimenting with ideas like allowing bear beer or whatever but not hard liquor, stuff like that.
@sailakeerie, in the documentary Hazed (about the alcohol poisoning death of Gordie Bailey at Colorado/Boulder), I remember one of the experts saying that binge drinking as defined by having 4 or 5 drinks in a session had not increased significantly over the decades. However, college binge drinking as defined as having 10-12 drinks in a session had increased SIGNIFICANTLY.
I didn’t go through the literature to see if this statement was accurate, but I imagine it could easily be vetted.
Unless you are the person’s parent. Then you may feel responsible and may actually be responsible to some extent.
I think most of us have felt some degree of responsibility for undesirable acts committed (or omitted) by our children when we realized that the problem might not have occurred if we had taught our children the appropriate behaviors more effectively.
For example, my children have been grown up for a long time now, but I still feel guilty about the fact that one is sometimes absentminded and the other sometimes neglects to recognize other people’s special days (such as birthdays). I feel I could have and should have taught better organizational skills to the one and better courtesy to the other.
In addition to what you note above, there is also the issue of food. Back when the legal age was 18, we would generally drink in bars where they had food being served (happy hour hors d’oeuvres) or at burger joints or other restaurants. So we were usually eating while we had a couple of drinks, which helps to slow absorption of alcohol from the stomach. The kids nowadays are pre-gaming with hard alcohol, and I think it’s often on an empty stomach.
^^^ Excellent point that I had forgotten. At the college bar we had a plate of nachos with our pitcher. Even back in the dorm there was often pizza or chips with the Huber long necks because food goes with beer more than it does with liquor. We were not setting out to get drunk; we were drinking beer with our friends and having fun.
Yah, I watched “127 Hours”
Memo to self:
carry spare sharp Swiss Army Knife, in case you have to cut off your arm, without anesthesia.
I like your posts @northwesty and I do like what Dartmouth is doing. Raising the drinking age drove drinking behind closed doors. Kids now drink hard liquour because it gets them drunk quicker and it is easier to conceal. People go to frat parties or house parties having already consumed alot of alcohol before they even get to the parties. The inability to go to bars, where there is some modicum of supervision, made house parties and campus parties way more prevelent than when we were in college and drinking beer at 18. The atmosphere is entirely different on campuses than it was 3 decades ago.
I had this bookmarked because since 2007 I’ve had kids in college. It is a very good overview on the campus alcohol issue and worth reading:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/15/us/why-colleges-havent-stopped-binge-drinking.html?_r=0
I’ve mentioned it before but my middle son’s college got a grant to crack down on alcohol abuse by adding immediate parental notification for any student under 21, conduct violations for any alcoholic cans or bottles in dorm rooms or dorm garbage, joint partnership with local police to help with the off campus policing as well as on campus policing for noise violations, open containers, drunk and disorderly and a trip to the judge upon a receipt of an MIP. The fine in that state was only $50, but the student had a mandatory meeting with a judge. It was quite effective although much student grumbling.
Prohibition 2.0 hasn’t worked. Lower the drinking age to 18, the age of majority, and then strictly punish dangerous behavior such as drunk driving. Bring us in line with the rest of the civilized nations with 18 as the drinking age
Back in my day, it was 18 for beer and wine (21 for hard liquor) in the jurisdiction where my college was. There was a large pub of sorts on campus. Other parties did happen, but one did not need to go off campus to drink (no greek life). It was either hall parties that were openly taking place or hanging out at the campus pub eating and drinking pitchers of cheap beer with friends. It was all very much social. Yes, people got drunk but it was very rare for someone to pass out. No one had to sneak their alcohol or get a buzz on by throwing back shots in their room. I think overall, it used to be better.
However, sexual assaults still took place. Who knows the exact statistics as it just wasn’t discussed back then as much as it is now. At least now, slowly the stigma of being a victim is going away. It’s a step in the right direction. Now we need to address eliminating a good chunk of it. I still think putting the onus on the victims isn’t the right tact to take in that regard. It’s like telling girls to not wear short skirts or tank tops because it “gets the boys excited”.
Agree doschicos…much the way my college was with the alcohol. We also had some great all campus parties (with beer) sanctioned by various student organizations that generally took the place of “house parties”. House parties were so infrequent they were almost special…more likely to walk down to the local pub and split a pitcher on Friday night if there wasn’t any party on campus. I know for fact that my kids social lives revolved around house parties and the campus parties were “dry” which is alittle sad in some ways. Very different college experience.
I’m not sure about assaults back then, the only thing I heard about was a woman who beat off an intruder (from town) with a tennis racquet…I never heard any of my women friends say anything like that but plenty of friends talk about things they did that in the light of day they wished they hadn’t done after a few too many beers, myself included, but perhaps in today’s environment those same women would feel they were assaulted instead of feel they had done something stupid. I don’t know which is worse…thinking you did something stupid or thinking you were assaulted. I would think women would know the difference. “We” certainly viewed ourselves as strong, intelligent women. I had to laugh, at a college reunion last year one of the guys I graduated with told my H that my house of women were known as the “untouchables” so maybe even back then men preyed on the weak unless the strong were so weakened from beer they did something they regretted. I don’t think I could even afford hard liquor until my mid-twenties either. We were always in search of the cheapest pitcher or free beer at a campus organization’s party. I don’t know how the kids can afford to drink vodka.