Vodka is really cheap. They’re not drinking Armagnac!
When I was a college student, for big campus events the college would hire a beer truck w taps mounted on the outside panels of the truck. Free beer for all.
Is it me or are all these newer brands and flavors of hard alcohol more recent and targeted towards the younger crowd? I wasn’t ever a drinker but I don’t remember Fireball being around when I was in high school or college. I also don’t remember things like Cookies n’ Cream or Cotton Candy Vodka. Is anyone over the age of 25 drinking that swill?
Mr R’s family (including his parents) LOVES fireball and other flavored alcohol.
I can’t stand it. Give me a good beer any day.
We didn’t drink Cotton Candy Vodka, but we did drink rum and coke, White Russians, daiquiris and all sorts of other pretty sickly sweet drinks.
Things that DON’T cause rape… beer, vodka, shots, fireball, cotton candy vodka, fruit loop vodka, short skirts, flirting, walking alone, saying someone is cute, dancing, grinding, kissing, walking home alone
Things that cause rape: rapists.
If only life were so simple.
There are a lot of things marketed to young people. Weren’t there alcoholic popsicle treats? Hard lemonade, hard root beer. But I agree that people would just make sweet alcoholic drinks if they weren’t readily available.
No fireball when I was young but hello…chocolate sombrero, sloe gin fizz, sex on the beach, fuzzy navel…it’s not like this generation created strong sweet alcoholic drinks. Please.
I haven’t seen anybody in 10 pages on this thread disagreeing with that. People can agree that rapists cause rape and still think there are problems on campus with drinking, drugs and sexual irresponsibility. Those are not mutually exclusive positions.
That’s a valid point, @OHMomof2, but I doubt many of us were whipping up sloe gin fizzes in our dorm rooms. Maybe some grain alcohol punch, though.
I guess my point is it all adds to the alcohol fueled culture.
And to belabor the point that intense alcoholic beverages aren’t anything new, I don’t know about when y’all were teens, but back in the 80s everclear parties were a thing—and folks trying to outdo each other with shots of everclear, well, that’s not really what one would like to see, whether food is available or not. (And yes, we lost more than one high school student a year for alcohol-related reasons. Didn’t stop any of it.)
And @momofthreeboys’s link to that Times piece reminded me of a (fairly long) series the Chronicle of Higher Education ran on the issue of alcohol and college a few years back, titled “[A River of Booze](A River of Booze)”. It’s rather eye-opening, really, especially the parts that describe the ways that colleges’ hands are tied in a lot of very weird ways, both culturally and, more troublingly, legally.
Blaming factors external to the criminal and his/her act on external factors like alcohol, video games, etc is often a red herring used by folks with the following agendas throughout history:
- Diverting attention and thus, deflecting/minimizing culpability of the criminal for crime(s) committed or in the case of rape/sexual assault, minimizing the crime and its impact on victims or worse....effectively blaming the victims and putting them on trial instead which furthers the diversion, deflection, and attention away from the criminal and crimes in question which weakens efforts to hold the criminal accountable for those crimes.
- Attempting to sway folks through powerful emotional rhetoric to get them on the bandwagon to ban whatever external factor is being used as a scapegoat for the badly behaving/criminal individuals and their actions. One great example of this....prohibition which caused so many issues such as strengthening the hands of organized crime that it ended up being repealed in less than 2 decades after it was passed and even some past proponents of prohibition admitted the actual consequences proved the policy was a great failure in practice.
Also, alcohol does not “make someone behave badly/commit crimes”.
If it did, everyone at a bar or restaurant serving alcohol such as the beergarden my friends and I were at last night to celebrate a friend’s Biochemistry M.S. graduation should have committed crimes and been arrested/locked up. Instead, we celebrated, acted respectfully, and when the celebration ended, we all went home via public transit, walking, or by hailing a cab.
Especially considering I ended up drinking the most of all my friends because they weren’t able to finish the 3 pitchers of Hofbrau and Spatan. Probably drank around a pitcher and half of those 3 pitchers.
And yet neither my friends nor I…nor anyone else at the crowded beergarden ended up being compelled by alcohol to behave badly or start up a crime wave contrary to some rhetoric about alcohol or other external factors “making” someone commit crimes/behave badly.
@cobrat I understand your point and do think that the majority of the people on this thread (now 11 pages) are against victim-blaming. But it’s also true that our world has many complex and interrelated problems, and often a high profile crime draws attention to other problems besides the crime in a salutary way. For example, if a serial rapist were preying on homeless drug addicts, the first priority would be to catch and punish the rapist. But that might also motivate people to try to address the problems of homelessness and drug addiction. You wouldn’t say “No, don’t even talk about homelessness and drug addiction because that’s victim blaming.” You’d say “Good. Someone finally noticed the homelessness and drug addiction. About time.” The entire fields of study of sociology and psychology are dedicated to discovering why groups and people do the things they do (including commit crimes). The “don’t blame the victim” admonition is an important caution but shouldn’t be used to shut down any inquiry or discussion about a problem.
I just don’t get it that as a society we are absolutely convinced that its not possible to have a fun social gathering without alcohol and how we are passing on this notion to our youngesters through personal behavior, media and movies.
There is a continuum of behavior ranging from very good to very bad.
At one end you have people that are completely honest, highly giving, and would never seek to take advantage of others. Those people will remain the same way whether drunk or sober. At the other end you have people who have reckless disregard for human life, whether drunk or sober.
But it is the middle that is most susceptible to alcohol’s lowering of judgment and inhibitions. Men who objectify women but control themselves when sober, either because they know it is wrong or fear the consequences of getting caught, may lose that inhibition when drunk.
I do agree there is a continuum.
Where I disagree with you is about the folks you describe as being “in the middle”. If the loosening of inhibitions from alcohol causes someone to commit crimes/behave badly…they’ve already have an inclination close to the spectrum of the folks with reckless disregard for human life. They’re just better at hiding it until they drink and behave badly or commit crimes such as DUI, violent assault, rape/sexual assault, etc.
How someone behaves when their inhibitions are reduced/eliminated is precisely the “true self” which alcohol’s properties of reducing inhibitions tends to reveal which tends to be concealed by those very inhibitions when the individual concerned is sober.
By “in the middle”, I only meant not at the extreme. Perhaps “in between” would have been a better choice of words.
I agree with what you wrote, particularly that alcohol can reveal the “true self”. But the people who are problematic when they are drunk are precisely the people we would prefer to stay sober. Alcohol is the enabling factor in this case, just as guns are the enabling factors in many murders.
However, I disagree those who have latent inclinations to behave badly/commit crimes when their inhibitions are reduced via alcohol or some other means are “in between”.
IMO, they are adjacent to the group who have reckless disregard for human life…they’re just better at hiding it when sober.
If we as a society focused more on seeking out and holding folks close to the “reckless disregard for human life”…including those who act similarly when their inhibitions are reduced/eliminated accountable…we’d be much further ahead without wasting accountability/enforcement resources on policing the majority who aren’t inclined towards behaving badly/committing crimes.
From the original post of this thread:
I think society, for the most part, gets it. A small minority can appear to be a “dangerously high rate” due to the fact their actions create so much pain. I’d like to solve the world’s ills via an anonymous online forum, but in lieu of that, I’ll just try to teach my kids what my expectations are and more importantly, set an example with my own choices.
My daughter, an incoming college freshman, like most young women is painfully aware of how much danger she is in. I think as a society we have purposely AND inadvertently made it clear to women: No! Don’t become too drunk/high, someone will hurt you. No! Don’t wear that, if people consider you sexy they will judge you harshly. No! Don’t walk alone at night; that’s a invitation to be preyed upon. No! Don’t flirt with a lot of guys; they will be confused by your mixed signals if you say no later on.
I think we are less successful as a society with drilling into our kids the flip-side of these messages: No! You can’t engage in sexual acts if you or your partner is drunk or high. No! What someone chooses to wear is not an invitation. No! You have no right to say or do something wrong just because no one is around to witness it. No! Flirting is not consent.
Finally, where I think the largest room for improvement is, making good choices as a by-stander. Yes! If someone is drunk or high, do everything in your power to get them home safely, including contacting authorities. Yes! If you witness sexual activity that does not seem 100% consensual, intervene or if you feel scared to intervene, call an authority who can.