No Frills About It

All this week, students have been trickling back to campus. The vibe of the new school year is intensifying. My office has two large windows that look out to what we like to call the WRC (women’s resource center) park. This week in particular, the park had more activity with the residence hall staff training. Tuesday afternoon in particular, I was distracted, so I found myself looking out the window quite a bit at the various groups doing team builders. You know you’ve spent time in Residence Life when you can identify the team builder from sitting inside your office.
This afternoon, our office was asked to be a part of the residence life staff training. There were four groups of about 50 students, and they rotated through different presentations. Since I was new, I just observed the presentation, and took notes on what I’d tweak for next year. I found myself, after listening to the presentation the first time, adding in my own flare, thoughts and anecdotes. There was one question that came up consistently throughout the presentations. The question always came up after introducing the word “consent”. Seeing how this was a prevalent topic today, I thought I’d write about it this week for No Frills About It.
Let’s first start out by defining what consent is and when it can and can’t be given. Consent is the verbal agreement to engage in sexual activity. Sexual activity can cover a range of things. As the levels of sexual intimacy increase, consent needs to be obtained for each stage. Consent can be withdrawn at any time, no matter whether or not previous activity was agreed upon.
Consent can’t be given when someone is mentally or physically impaired ie: under the influence of alcohol or drugs, or when some is coerced in to it. It can’t be given when someone is under the legal age. It can’t be given is someone is sleeping.
The question that came up today is, if both parties have been drinking who’s responsible if one person says it was sexual violence. There is no black and white answer to this. However, what we advocate to the students is that the responsibility lies with the person who’s initiating the sexual activity. This continues to get stickier, because how can they be consenting if they’re mentally impaired? If you were driving drunk, and an officer pulled you over for driving recklessly, do you think you’d be let off because you were under the influence? Heck no! You were driving that car! The responsibility lies with the person who’s initiating the activity. The best bet is to not mix alcohol and sex. 90% of college sexual misconduct cases involve alcohol…it’s a recipe for disaster.