Slate: 'College Women: Stop Getting Drunk'

http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2013/10/sexual_assault_and_drinking_teach_women_the_connection.html

“I’m not saying a woman is responsible for being sexually victimized,” says Christopher Krebs, one of the authors of that study and others on campus sexual assault. “But when your judgment is compromised, your risk is elevated of having sexual violence perpetrated against you.”

Any time someone starts a sentence with, "I'm not saying," you can rest assured that a shitstorm will follow.

In a passage our own Bodie will love, the columnist says that binge drinking needs to be stigmatized:

I don’t believe any of these statistics will move in the right direction until binge drinking joins smoking, drunk driving, and domestic abuse as behaviors that were once typical and are now unacceptable. Reducing binge drinking is going to require education, enforcement, and a change in campus social culture. These days the weekend stretches over half the week and front-loading and boot and rally are major extracurricular activities. Puking in your hair, peeing in your pants, and engaging in dangerous behaviors have to stop being considered hilarious escapades or proud war stories and become a source of disgust and embarrassment.

I drank in college. A lot. I drank after college for a few years. A lot. I no longer do. It makes me fat. It makes me hungover. It makes me make bad decisions. But I won't lie: It was fun while it lasted.

That said, do college students drink more now than they did back when? We never played drinking games, for example, which seem to be ubiquitous now. I read that Dartmouth had 130 alcohol poisoning incidents in a single school year requiring an ambulance. My school was about 1/4 Dartmouth's size, and in four years, we had one that I remember. It was huge news on campus, and the girl involved never really shook that first impression entirely.

Is the author right - do women need to take an active role in rape prevention by laying off the booze? Or is this blaming the victim?

 

I drank a lot in college. I rarely touch the stuff now for all of the reasons Dick mentioned and I'll add another. It's expensive.

We can afford it, but when we go to dinner with another couple and our portion of the bill is $50 and their portion of the bill is $85 and the only difference is they each had three drinks... That's money I would rather spend on my kids...

 

I read this article. Author (who also writes the Dear Prudie column) bent over backwards to not blame the victim. It's silly that we now have to wrap common sense advice up like that. Good article.

 

Front-loading? It was pre-gaming back in my day.

 

Mizzou, my brother and his girlfriend are really into the craft beer culture. He makes his own stuff - it's really good, actually - and enters it in contests and such. He's more fluent in craft beer than I am in any subject. Their entire social life is planned around beer and wine events and tours. They aren't drunks or anything. Just really into it as food.

I bring that up because of the last sentence of your post: They don't have children. We do. Hence the difference. They also live in a big city with public transportation.

 

Also, as a Richmond resident, I noticed the article on the UR student who was acquitted of rape. There may not be a more UR name than Sebastien Roland Fauchet. Does he have Pennsylvania or New Jersey plates on his Land Rover?

EDIT: Didn't read far enough in. It was New York.

 

I dunno.
Did you see the most recent Ohio University incident?
http://www.buzzfeed.com/ryanhatesthis/an-alleged-sexual-assault-that-happened-on-a-sidewalk-during

There's a line between not blaming the victim and slut-shaming. I think a lot people are painted into one corner or the other when sometimes the truth is a little of both.

 

I've been with my wife for more than 10 years and we've been drunk together once. I drank a lot when I was younger. I was never an alcoholic, I just kind of outgrew it. I'll have a drink every now and then, but I've gone stretches where I didn't have even a beer for a couple years at a time.

I can't imagine college without alcohol. I had so much fun in school and got so much out of my system that I think it's a big reason why I don't drink now. Been there, done that. ...

 

I've always been a drinker. Because beer is great. But over the last year or two, I've been more into trying new beers than just going out and drinking 12-15 Miller Lites while watching the game. I mean, I'll still do that occasionally, but I get way more excited to go to different places and bars to try new beers.

College was a debacle the first time. Fun, but a complete debacle.

 

So, once again, women get written about because they are women, and are sexual beings.

Why does the media have such a hard time covering women?

 

It's amazing to think about the amount of sex that is had, especially in college, that likely would not be had without liquor.

I'm not talking about a bunch of idiots taking advantage of someone who passed out, I'm talking about hooking up at a party and letting things get a bit further than you probably would if you were sober.

 

Liquor makes overweight college chicks look 30 lbs lighter.

A few shots would make Kate Upton look as thin Gisele Bundchen