Blue Notes from a Red Zone

Spring Break: The Dark Side

A few months ago, I was invited to participate on a review board dealing with a community's response to rapes. The meeting was almost over before it began, since the prosecution representative opened the proceedings with the statement, “We don’t have any rapes to report this month; just a rash of men having sex with underage girls.”

At that point, most of the responders began to pack up their briefcases and head out. Although momentarily startled into silence by the idea that statutory rape wasn't real rape, I found my voice before the first man reached the door. The meeting proceeded, and was quite lively.

This memory came back to me as our beach town began its preparations for spring break. As thousands of college students headed to our coast, hoping for a vacation from term papers and midterms, the likelihood of sexual assault increased drastically. Especially vulnerable are the local high school girls who drop by the beaches to check out the activity and daydream about college guys.

One of the traditions that have grown up around spring activities is the constant presence of alcohol. Various reports from the federal government and the American Medical Assocation estimate that college men on spring break consume an average of 21 drinks per day, while women consume an average of 14. If these figures seem insane, you weren't on the beach from mid-March to mid-April. Of women present during binge drinking activities, 26% report having been sexually assaulted, whether they were drinking or not.

Rape is rape, whether it is occurring to 19-year-old women who have had too many drinks, or to 15 year old girls who are trying desperately to be seen as grown-up and cool, and who may or may not have participated in alcohol consumption. Drinking beer is not equivalent to giving consent to sexual activity, and should never be construed as such, whether the girl drinking is old enough to consent to sex when sober or not.

That said, it still breaks my heart when a young girl’s first experience comes as a result of a forced sex, as happens to 10% of all teenage girls (President’s Report on Abstinence Education). Sexual contact is meant to be a form of communication between loving adults who are in a committed relationship, and are old enough to know what a committed relationship is. Adult men forcing or otherwise coercing sex with teenage girls do not meet that definition.

Yes, I’ve heard that “teenage girls know what’s going down,” and “they want it.” Sometimes, sadly, these girls do know what is going down, because they have been molested or sexually abused as children. This does not give subsequent men a free pass to take advantage of them. And while teenage girls may well want attention, they are not looking for sex with strange men, and they have neither the experience nor the emotional capacity to deal with it. Statutory rape is against the law, because it is a rape of the body, the spirit, and the mind – and a crime in every sense of the word.

Spring break is nearly over now, and while the beach was packed, the amount of alcoholic beverage consumption and rape reports in our town was far less elevated than in years past. This was not true of some of our neighboring communities, where hospital emergency rooms were packed with cases of sexual assault, alcohol poisoning, and accidents caused by loss of judgment. There is an advertising campaign to the effect of "what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas," but this is not true. The effects of near-death experiences and sexual assaults are souvenirs that hang around a very long time.

Summer is rushing hard upon us, and with it a renewed surge of vacationers. I hope each and every one has a wonderful time, and remembers a different kind of campaign slogan: stay smart, and stay safe.

posted by Lenore Wilson @ 9:29 PM