I’m sure this is just coincidental that April is the month that the nation raises awareness on sexual assaults with Sexual Assault Awareness Month. It is also the month that many high school seniors get that long-awaited letter of acceptance into the college or university of their choice. The two things don’t seem to have any connection on the surface. Therein lies the problem. Sexual assaults on college campuses lie below the surface out of sight.
College campuses provide a unique environment that makes sexual assault seem almost second nature. They provide an atmosphere for their incoming 18-year-old freshman living away from home and parental guidance, in groups of their peers 24/7, often with little in the way of boundaries and in tight living conditions.
Nationally one in four sexual assaults take place on a college campus and college-age women have a one in five chance of being assaulted at some point in their four-year career at a university. Female self-defense is at high risk especially on a college campus.
Add in alcohol or drugs, which are prevalent in 90% of all campus sexual assaults, and you have an explosive environment. With hormones raging, regular standards with regard to respect and consent are often discarded, and taking offense to sexual advances is often seen as “overreacting”.
Sexual assaults on college campuses are nothing new. They fly under the radar to outsiders. But to the students on campus, they are painfully aware of this ever-present threat to female students. Administrators do their best to hide the facts for one big reason-protecting the reputation of the University. Here are some new thoughts on the subject.
While most students see sexual assault as a problem in the college community campus officials don’t seem to agree. They are coming from a different place where the protection of the reputation of the University is the most important item on their agenda, because money flows from that reputation. Donations from corporations, alumni and the local community are critical to the University maintaining its place in the social strata of competing Universities.
Parents can do their high school senior children a favor and take a preemptive strike at educating them on the potential dangers involved in date rape, a.k.a. acquaintance rape, especially with the use of alcohol. In a sit down discussion with them ask some probing questions about how they view giving consent to sex? And do they have any plans on defending themselves against sexual assault?
It won’t be long before the parents’ voice is drowned out by the excitement of a new way of life that puts enormous stress on socializing and being part of a new environment-fitting in.
Have that talk before they head off to school and make a present to them of a pepper spray. They may laugh at it then, but when the time comes for them to use it, and chances are pretty high that it will come, they’ll be glad you thought of them.
A self-defense product such as a pepper spray is good for female self-defense. It can disable an attacker for as much as 45 minutes giving the victim to get away and seek help
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