My first college party experience has been a positive one, regarding alcohol and behavior.
It's an hour and a half into this party, and my drink of choice is pink lemonade (ah, the joy of being a good underage kid at a college party). Every other person here has been drinking (except for one), and it hasn't been anything like the stereotypical "college party."
The alcohol consumption has been mild, girls sipping on hard cider or fruity vodka. I haven't been pressured to drink, and they haven't judged me. The night has been filled with laughter and bonding.
College parties (especially at Witt) are notorious for being binge-crazy, leading to nights of regret. On college campuses, heavy drinking is one of the biggest factors for sexual assault and rape cases.
Being a journalist whose beat is in sexual assault stories, I've done extensive research on the subject, and the numbers (which I'll get out my notes and update later on when I'm home) are disturbing.
But this party...this is how a college party should be: people of age drinking in moderation and just having fun. People have buddies to walk home together and it's in a safe environment.
Jess, I really like your lead: it really pulls the audience in as a lot of people, I'm sure, would be compelled to read a college student's first party experience.
ReplyDeleteI do, however, have some quibbles with some of the substantive implications with the rest of the blog. More specifically, I don't think that the "binge-crazy"-ness of certain parties is what leads to the disturbing sexual assaults; I, contrarily, think that it’s men raping women that cause sexual assault. I think suggesting otherwise releases hyper-aggressive, men from responsibility: "the party was crazy and wild, it lead my to sexually assault someone," so men could say. It is also to implicitly blame the victim: “If you don’t binge-drink, you won’t get assaulted,” so the logic goes. Ultimately, I think that women should be allowed to get plastered drunk without worrying about being sexually assaulted. That's, in my opinion at least, the way partying should be.
Trevor, I agree with you on how female party-goers should feel. And I'm not trying to say in any way that if you get plastered, you're going to get assaulted. Perhaps I didn't make my feelings clear (and if that's the case, I apologize), but statistics have shown that the cases in which binge-drinking causes mental impairment has been a significant contribution to sexual consent becoming a blurred line.
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