There are limits to how far we students should go. Getting drunk once in a while is one thing, but getting drunk and then vomiting in different spots all over the dorm is not acceptable. While we are essentially free to act as we wish for the first time, we’re also expected to act like young adults and should behave as such. This is especially relevant for the men on campus and how they react to women.
Guys, I can understand how tough it can be at times to know what is and isn’t appropriate around college women, especially the insane ones. At times, they out-drink and out-party even the heaviest of male alcoholics, wear what would amount to in other cultures as rags for fashion and sometimes can be shameless flirts. This manner of behavior can be very confusing for men, and sometimes you may not know how to proceed. However, before you say or do anything to a woman; you should ask yourself one simple question:
Is the thing I’m going to say or do ethical or legal without her consent, or has she given me consent?
The rest of it.
I feel for Steve Campbell. I mean, he's got to deal with the insane women on his campus, who are drunk, underdressed, and shamelessly flirting with him. What's he supposed to do, really?
ReplyDeleteI mean, as Steve suggests, when women pull their crap, with their miniskirts and their drunken flirting, they don't have to face any sort of social or legal punishment for that. When a guy goes too far, though, he gets branded as a creep or a rapist or may even have to do time in jail. This could obviously make a guy pretty angry, because it's so very unfair. But it's true they need to get over it. Women have all the power here, really. Guys just need to realize that.
But Steve's got a good point about how women react as well. Ladies, if some guy does something "dumb," like manhandling you or perhaps having sex with you when you're not in any state to consent, remember that guys most often are just not thinking. They're just young and confused, ya know? It really can be confusing for them when a lady says "Get away from me" when she's underdressed and flirting with other guys.
Mixed signals, ladies. Don't send them.
He's trying, but his moral compass (such as it is) seems to work only when the ethical and the pragmatic point in the same direction.
ReplyDeleteMaybe I'm hopelessly prudish and old-fashioned, but it seems to me that putting some distance (like, say, days or even weeks) between first acquaintance and first sex act of the sort that might bring repercussions if it is later determined to be involuntary on either of the parties' part might solve most if not all of the problems he describes. There's also something to be said for sober sex, terrifying as that idea may be to many college students.
Mind you, I'm not saying "wait until marriage," just "wait until you've had lunch together a few times." That wouldn't eliminate all problems (marital/relationship rape and other abuse certainly happens), but it might be some protection for both parties involved (not to mention allowing them time to discuss and procure protection of other sorts).
But Cassandra, that means they'd have to be acting like responsible and matuuuuuuuure aduuuuuuuults! That's so boooooring and uncoooool. Just paint a square on their chests, 'cause that's what they will beeeee.
DeleteI'm probably showing my age using a term like 'square', but I have the impression from the 50's that college students back then were more mature, less entitled and generally better adjusted.
Gary, Google "phonebooth stuffing" and "panty raids." 8-)
DeleteGranted. That's still a long way from binge drinking, date rape, and bludgeon murders.
ReplyDeleteMy point was that earlier generations seemed, on the whole, more mature at a younger age. Supposedly, the pre-frontal cortex does not become fully developed until age 25, but I'm beginning to wonder if it's not all biochemistry. I would say there's a strong argument for environment playing a larger part than was thought. Summing it up as "Nature vs. Nurture" is incomplete. I think parents expected more of their offspring 50 years ago, and that while there may have been some snowflakiness, it hadn't reached the magnitude of blizzard that proffies are facing today.
I, too, have my doubts about the whole timeline for development of the pre-frontal cortex thing. After all, for most of human history, people of 25 were long-married/mated, and perhaps even verging on what we'd consider middle age (though admittedly life span averages are deceptive, including as they do a lot of babies and children who died very young, and some women who died in childbirth). It may be that more close-knit societies with more rigid rules and fewer choices (some of which would still apply to the 1950s) provided enough external structure to make up for some of the underdeveloped internal structure, but I still wonder.
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