Flickr photo courtesy of Lucas.
Trigger Warning: Sexual Assault
Sexual assault is inevitable in our society and there is very little we can do to stop it. Prevention efforts can only do so much, and even then, their effectiveness is extremely limited.
There has been a surge in awareness regarding sexual assaults on college campuses over the past few years, yet according to a report by the federal Department of Education, the number of reported forcible sex crimes have actually increased from 2,200 in 2001 to 3,300 in 2011.
According to the most recent statistics from the American College Health Association, 7 percent of college female students reported being sexually touched without their consent and 3 percent of college female students reported experiencing non-consensual attempted sexual penetration. At Emory, that statistic is slightly higher at 7.5 and 3.5 percent, respectively.
From my first impressions at Emory as a freshman, I’m not exactly surprised by this data. No, I haven’t observed any explicit instances of sexual assault. I have, however, experienced situations that have made me more than uncomfortable.
There are two things I can take away from these statistics and observations. The first, and most obvious, is that incidents of sexual misconduct happen all too often at Emory and on other college campuses. But that’s something people have been saying for years. The second, and more important lesson, is that sexual assault is virtually inevitable. And while I don’t think we should be completely defeatist regarding education about sexual assault, I believe education can only go so far. As of now, there does not appear to be evidence of a decrease in total sexual assaults due to educative programs.
There are, however, ways we can help stem the tide and combat the devastating consequences of sexual assault: increase the support for sexual assault survivors and increase the excommunication of perpetrators. I actually believe Creating Emory and Sexual Assault Peer Advocates (an organization at Emory that trains students on how to support survivors of sexual assault) deal with the former decently well by advocating for students to be trained in supporting survivors and having a discussion about the right way to support survivors. Creating Emory is on the right track to creating an atmosphere with the proper support infrastructure.
But I find it hard to believe that the majority of sexual offenders are unaware that what they are doing is wrong, and I don’t think education is an effective enough way to stop them, and to a certain extent I consider it to be futile. No amount of education can convince those who force themselves onto someone else that what they are doing is wrong.
According to a 2014 study by the U.S. Department of Justice, community education and public awareness on college campuses did see an increase in bystander intervention, however showed no proof of actual decrease in sexual misconduct attempts.
Thus I believe that once a sexual assault takes place, it is more important that we have the appropriate systems to deal with the aftermath than worrying about preventing the assault through education. We need to continue to make sure that we breed an environment in which survivors always have someone to talk to and somewhere to go after an assault happens.
Furthermore, we need to create an environment in which perpetrators are left with nowhere to go. The best way to do this is to no longer allow sexual assaults to be dealt with internally on college campuses. They should instead, be dealt with as a criminal matter and, if found guilty, perpetrators should receive very lengthy sentences.
Of course, the privacy of the survivors should be protected, but that must not inhibit us from ensuring that perpetrators get the sentences they deserve.
The only way to deter people who may be inclined to commit an act of sexual misconduct is to ensure the intense and unequivocal ostracism of already convicted perpetrators. We need to tell the community that these people don’t deserve a place in our society when they commit this crime.
While I still don’t believe that this will completely eradicate sexual assault, I think it is the best tool we have in quelling its prevalence.
And, as Creating Emory and Sexual Assault Peer Advocates seem to be working toward: we need to train as many people as possible to be able to help out others and deal with various situations of sexual misconduct appropriately.
We’ve known for a long enough time now that sexual misconduct is unacceptable. Yet it still occurs on a fairly regular basis and there is no indication of its end. Simply put, education regarding sexual assault doesn’t work. Education at this point is obsolete. There are a certain number of people in our society who are going to continue to commit these heinous actions.
We need to make sure the Bill Cosby’s and Edward Heath’s of the world know they haven’t gotten away with anything. In doing so, we will alert others that they won’t get away with it either. Only once we outwardly and aggressively scream that these perpetrators have no place in modern society, will we see a decrease in the number of sexual assaults.
I don’t have a defeatist outlook, I have a realistic one. And once we can be realistic about ourselves as a society, we can more efficiently and effectively combat this epidemic.
Zack Ashley is a College freshman from New York City, New York.
“If you have been affected by violence and/or would like to speak with someone, students can get free confidential advocacy and support through Wanda Swan, the Respect Program Advocate, at wanda.swan@emory.edu or 404.727.7388”
“The only way to deter people who may be inclined to commit an act of sexual misconduct is to ensure the intense and unequivocal ostracism of already convicted perpetrators”
This solution has done nothing to lesson re-offense rates, or to deter future sexual crimes.
There is no other response in society to sexual deviency except the criminal justice system. That means, no mother can seek help for their child who is acting out (as young as 8 year olds are put on a registry), no person who has a problem with sexual deviency can seek help without involving the criminal justice system.
I left the registry, Zack! I left it because the registry was leaving me hopeless, isolated and alone, and finally alienated. Only when I left the registry, was I able to become a productive member (AND SAFE) member of society.
You are not realizing that there is a psychology to offending. Handing someone a pamphlet or having a lecture on those “bad people” does nothing to lessen sexual abuse. Telling someone if they seek help to STOP sexual abuse BEFORE the criminal justice system gets involved could go a long way to stopping sexual abuse.
Do you know anything about sexual proclivities or sexual deviency or the psychology of offending? Of course you don’t. You are a college freshman.
In the years ahead you will take a few classes, possibly in the social sciences. Or maybe psychology, or even devient psychology. But maybe you will take classes of geology or chemistry.
Did you know that the registry was built based upon democtratic proccesses? That means, chemists, truck drivers, and salespeople have as much input as a human behavior psychologist.
This is why there is no difference in sexual abuse rates with a registry and without one. This is why you believe ostracism is a valid solution. You just have no idea what you are talking about (as with most people), but you believe your opinion is valid regardless.
If you decide to take pschology as your major, in 4 years you will have a totally different opinion almost guarenteed. No psycholgoists things ostracism is any solution. If you take computer programming as your major, your opinion will be exactly the same in 4 years. It is not the ideas of psychologists that win in a democracy. Do you get my point?
this is a rather heinous and immature step backwards in “journalism” covering sexual assault. I don’t doubt that this young author likely had “conversation-starting” intentions in writing this piece, but I must implore upon him that this is a severe misstep as far as how to
go about it. Sexual assault is an extremely serious issue and simply put, needs to be treated with much more care, tact, and accuracy than this.
I no longer wish to berate this author and article, but rather to put out a call to other students on campus to please write a (or several) counter article(s) in response
“As of now, there does not appear to be evidence of a decrease in total sexual assaults due to educative programs”:
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMsa1411131#t=article
I’d like to congratulate the author of this piece for ensuring their own social isolation/blacklisting after publishing this.
Why would they be isolated for having a conversation-starting piece? The only people that would get so upset about this are fat SJWs who literally no one would even want to know.
> “Sexual assault is inevitable in our society there is very little we can do to stop it.”
Stopped reading right there. Get a better editor, proofread your shit, or even walk away and come back a few hours later. This sentence, along with trivializing victims, is so poorly written that any middle school student could have come up with a better intro.
Dear Zack Ashley,
If you wish to learn more about sexual assault on college campuses, I invite you to attend a SAPA 101 session. The next session is on September 22 at 6:30.
Signed,
A concerned citizen
This reminds me of those freshmen that take one polisci/Econ/phil course and suddenly believe they alone have the answers to the world’s problems.
Thanks for the enlightenment, Zach!!!!!!!!!!!!! You’ve just been here for ages so you definitely have the experience to talk about the subject.