Eckerd College President: You Can Stop Rape By Not Drinking Or Having Casual Sex

[Recursion]

12. The worst thing is, it's good advice. Here's my attempt at rephrasing it in a better way.

Alcohol is a powerful drug whose biochemistry is still not entirely understood. Many people partake of alcohol moderately as a fulfilling part of their lives. Nonetheless, young adults who are unfamiliar with alcohol have a demonstrated risk of multiple types of injuries from inappropriate consumption. Federal health guidelines limit drinks to 4 in one night and 14 in one week, with at least two days a week with no drinking. As the President of your college, I strongly urge you to adopt those guidelines at least as a start, until you are familiar with alcohol's particular affects on your body and mind. (And obviously, since the drinking age in Florida and the rest of the US is 21 I am afraid I must insist that underclassmen not drink, in accordance with the law.) If at any point you feel you have a problem with being unable to control your drinking of alcohol, you can visit the counseling center completely anonymously, or you can come by my office with complete amnesty if you prefer.

Furthermore, there is a dangerous nexus between alcohol and sexual assault, that reveals itself in multiple ways. The plainest is this: the most common "date rape drug" in use worldwide is alcohol. Far, far too many of our students (and particularly female students) are already victims of sexual assault. Maintaining control of alcohol consumption is not by any means a panacea, but in addition to the health benefits it also prevents alcohol from being used as a drug against you.

While we are talking about sexual assault: sex is a beautiful and wonderful thing, and statistics tell me that most of you will probably engage in it while you are here. If you will take a codger's advice for a moment: please, please, please be careful. You're of an age that you know about diseases and pregnancy and their prevention; that's not really what I'm talking about. Sex is possibly the most powerful force in human life, in some ways. But as with anything powerful, it can be dangerous. You will have many opportunities to have sex in the next four years, and some will be more felicitous than others. Trust your instincts, trust your feelings, and most importantly only have sex if you trust your partner.

One more note on that: consent. It is only sex if there is affirmative consent. If that consent is not granted, it is not sex, it is violence. And the transformation from sex to violence, from the most beautiful to the most horrible aspects of human behavior, is possibly the most tragic and reprehensible transformation possible. Regrettably, we see that transformation all too often on college campuses, and Eckerd is not immune from that. While sexual violence affects all persons, it is unequally balanced from a gender perspective: men are more frequently the perpetrators, and women more frequently the victims. So, I would like, as a man, to address the following paragraph to the men matriculating at our fine college:

As a man that, I hope, you at least partly look up to: I must insist that you only engage in sex when you have the explicit and clear consent of your partner. This is what a real man does, and I expect no less of you. I am coordinating with the residence assistants and Greek liaisons to get this message out, and my office is always open for any questions whatsoever that you have.

I would also like to address the following comment to all students, male or female, who experience sexual assault: We at Eckerd take you seriously, and we will do everything within our power for you. If you are a victim of sexual assault, please speak up immediately. Talk to your RA, your Greek leader, a professor, or a student affairs representative. We will not dismiss your problem, and we will listen to you. If none of these avenues work for you, my office is Room X in Building Y. The door is always open to students and it is a Safe Space for any concern.

Thank you for coming, blah blah blah.


There we go. I offer this speech freely to any higher ed administrator who wants to copy it.