op-ed Is responsibility for rape social or individual?

Author: Nate Ackerly

So I went into the RAJ today to meet with my advisor and taped right out front of its door is a sign saying "should drunk drivers be punished?," essentially detailing a scenario in which a guy sleeps with a black-out girl, gets charged with rape and is forced to leave campus. Long story short, our villain appeals and gets the right to return to Middlebury, unbeknownst to his assaultee. Later on she is notified that he is returning to the campus and he is charging her with sexual assault. She cannot confront her charger. The flyer finishes with the slogan, "we will not be silenced."

Let me just make this clear - I do not condone the actions of the above man. I would do anything in my power to prevent such events from occurring. I am in no way a misogynist or chauvinist, nor do I condone such behaviors.

I'll guess that most men (if not all) at Middlebury College would say that and mean it. If the initiator is the male, then why do these events occur (though very infrequently) on our campus? I'm no sociologist/psychiatrist. I have not read the case studies. That said, I'm going to venture a guess that alcohol probably is a major factor in each case at Middlebury.

We know alcohol impairs our judgment, but few of us realize how, or just how much. Alcohol can be classified as an anesthetic. It literally dulls your body's senses. At a certain point, what we consider to be our psyche, our personality, is actually disengaged from the actions of the body entirely and a baser set-up takes over, a black-out. My friend has joked about Wild Turkey "gobbling inside him" and him not actually saying things. Think about it that way.

Let's apply this to our scenario. The girl's black-out, not really responsible for her actions and runs into a guy who probably is in a similar state. Both of them are not themselves, and would not be making the same choices were they sober. What happens happens, and in the morning the girl wakes up with a guy she never met before lying next to her. I would have called the cops, too.

That said, neither the guy nor the girl had complete control over the events after the initial decision was made to drink. The prime factor was, say, a bottle of Crown Russe. The initiator was drinking that one shot too many, and much of the rest is just pure dumb luck. Alcohol to me is like the insanity plea after a certain point - a drunk driver, after four or five drinks, doesn't really make the decision to drive, the drunkenness does. That said, both of them should have known better - the girl and the guy. Their poor decision involving alcohol became a direct factor in a nasty event in their lives that both of them will take to their graves. Learn from that, and make decent decisions, whatever those are.

Why the hell did I go through all that? You don't care. Well, in my time at Middlebury, I have been exposed to some very strange styles of activism. I wonder what the environmentalists would say about the amount of paper we put up every year in the name of causes. But the thing that has bothered me most has been the feminists, who tell me that I am the root cause of their problem because I'm male. I'll try to detail how this has affected me.

I first noticed this behavior during the graffiti incident last year when I saw a poster stating "If you hate F------, then you must hate B------ too!: Love diversity, fight misogyny." I felt as though that post pointed a finger at me (a man) and said "homophobe" and "misogynist." The 77 cent/$1 candy sale would be a great idea, if the candy was scotch and it was sold to CEOs and bosses around the world, not a bunch of poor college kids. It was for a just cause because women do make a drastically lower amount of money than men. However, Midd is comprised of poor college students, most of whom would probably not make such a bad decision should they become CEOs. By holding the sale, the participating students seemed to imply that 1) we as males at Middlebury were responsible for this, and 2) that when we left college, we would continue this cycle. Please give us the benefit of the doubt and focus on the true perpetrators. The big posters about rape last semester made me feel really comfortable and at home on my campus. I felt stereotyped when the "90 percent of all rapists are men" posters came out.

I'm not trying to diminish the pain and anguish that victims of sexual assault feel. In fact, I don't think I could ever look a rape victim in the face and say that her rapist wasn't completely in control of himself. I can't imagine what it must be like to go through each day with those memories in my mind. But I didn't do it, and I take no responsibility for the actions of a man I never knew.

I think what I'm trying to say is that being stereotyped and offended works both ways, and gender issues are touchy subjects. I am offended when I see these posters. I feel as though a big finger is being pointed at me, though I have never done anything that could be construed as misogynist, nor have most of the males on this campus. It is insulting to be associated with rapists, misogynists and other such scum. I'm not saying "shut up." I believe that the feminist movement has a very important part to play on our campus and in the world. That said, I would appreciate it if I didn't have to see posters implying that I might rape and oppress women. I don't, I won't and I'm sick of being told I could. Sexual assault and gender discrimination are big issues anywhere, but it is possible to spread awareness about these issues in a way that doesn't make men feel uncomfortable and stereotyped.

Nate Ackerly is a Political Science major from Las Cruces, N.M.