3 ms·
There is some debate[1] around how this statistic is interpreted, but I am not an expert on the matter so I would not challenge it. Still I believe even if we
by skohan 6y ago
There is some debate[1] around how this statistic is interpreted, but I am not an expert on the matter so I would not challenge it.
Still I believe even if we do take it as true that 1/4 of young women will experience sexual assault during their undergraduate years, this would not disprove my assertion.
1. It could be the case that many of these young women have many, many healthy sexual encounters during university, and one incident would still put them in that statistic, but it could still hold true that a vast majority of overall sexual encounters are unproblematic.
2. Undergraduates in their late teens and early 20's who are still learning how to navigate lives as sexual beings - in a permissive social environment lubricated by alcohol - are likely at an outsized risk of encountering grey areas of consent, or finding themselves in bad situations they haven't learned how to avoid or extricate themselves from. I don't know that this statistic should be generalized to the population as a whole.
Now please understand that I am not trivializing this statistic. I can believe that sexual assault on campuses is a prevalent and serious issue, and causes serious harm to the people who fall victim to it. In this environment, I believe it is warranted to take these matters seriously, and put a strong emphasis on explicit, verbal, enthusiastic consent.
However, I think it is probably not warranted for a happily married couple, or two people in their thirties meeting for a date to operate under the same set of assumptions as a couple 19 year olds at a frat party.
[1] https://time.com/2934500/1-in-5%E2%80%82campus-sexual-assault-statistic/ https://time.com/2934500/1-in-5%E2%80%82campus-sexual-assaul...