Alcohol Sexual Assault

Both Brock Turner and the woman had drank heavily that night. The woman’s blood alcohol content at the time has been estimated at three times the legal driving limit. Brock Turner’s blood alcohol content was two times the limit. Brock Turner’s defense argued that the woman may have consented but cannot recall the memory of it because of the alcoholic blackout (Knowles). However, if both parties were heavily affected by alcohol, then Brock Turner cannot recall memories from the sexual assault.

“...he said he was in the process of establishing a program for high school and college students so that he could ‘speak out against the college campus drinking culture and the sexual promiscuity that goes along with that,’”("20 minutes”). The assault that Brock Turner took place in, is not defined because of the level of their intoxication, it is explained through basic moral and knowingness that rape is wrong. Because the victim was unresponsive, the act is directly considered unacceptable. Even more so, the act of rape should not be undermined to something as under-represented as sexual promiscuity. Turner and his attorney’s claim that he only committed the assault because he was under the influence of alcohol and that he should personally participate in programs that enforce the effects of binge drinking.

In 2015, Brock Turner, a student from Stanford, sexually assaulted a young woman on campus. Turner claimed that “his actions [were] the product of a culture of drinking, peer pressure and ‘sexual promiscuity’’ which led him to having 6 months in jail on Judge Persky’s ruling. The aftermath of the case, Stanford University, according to Erik Ortiz, “banned hard liquor at all on campus parties; [however], beer and wine are still allowed”, meaning that Stanford made minor changes to address future problems and had little action on the topic. College should focus on sexual assault on campus by enforcing punishment, passing more policies, and learning to ignore their image to reduce the number of rape cases on campus.

One in five women and one in sixteen men are sexually assaulted while in college. 63% of sexual assaults are not reported to police and only about 2 to 10% of reports are found to be false. In Jon Krakauer’s book: Missoula, Rape and the Justice System in a College Town. Krakauer focuses on the many rapes that occur on the college campus in Missoula. Most of the rapes that happen on college campuses are done by men, but to say all men are rapists is unjust and sexist.

A prison sentence is designed to punish people who break Society’s laws, but that isn’t always the case. In March of 2016, Star Student athlete Brock Turner at Stanford College was convicted of sexually assaulting an unconscious and intoxicated woman behind a dumpster, while he also was intoxicated, he was possibly facing ten years. June 2nd, 2016, Turner was sentenced to 6 months in Jail by Judge Aaron Persky, his reason being that “A prison sentence would have a severe impact on him. I think he will not be a danger to others” (Why Brock Turner Only Got 6 Months in Jail, 1). Although his sentence was light, he also had to register as a sex offender.

Sexual assault remains the most underreported crime for teens as well as adults, (Why Don’t They Tell? In the award-winning novel Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson writes about a character named Melinda Sorinado who was raped in the summer of freshman year and during freshman year we read about her dealing with the trauma she experienced. “Its choppy, nonlinear narrative gradually reveals that shortly before the first day of school, Melinda went to a party, where she was raped by a handsome, popular senior… But also, I had been sexually assaulted a month before ninth grade started,” (Interview with Author). Due to him being so popular, she didn’t tell anyone, some of the reasons that may have happened could be.

Not only does alcohol abuse lead to death of loved ones, but also has been the cause of many date rape incidents. Around 75% of men and 55% of women, involved in date rape, had alcohol play a factor in what happened. Date rape can lead to unwanted pregnancies, STDs, and

In their opinion piece published in the New York Times, Miriam Gleckman-Krut and Nicole Bedera, two students from University of Michigan, claim that students being accused of sexual assault on-campus should not be the ones providing the definition of sexual assault because more victims will stay silent. Their article tackles the research question “how does allowing the accused to define sexual assault affect the victim?”. The piece was written in response to Betsy DeVos, Secretary of Education, who claimed that former President Obama’s policies on on-campus rape stripped the accused of their liberties because less evidence was required from the victims, who often struggle to create concreate evidence due to trauma or difficulty remembering.

The documentary called The Hunting Grounds, had multiple concepts that relate to sociology. Using a sociological perspective, it was very prevalent to see the ways college campuses use patriarchy and gender stratification to keep women who have been sexually assaulted on campus from disclosing information or even getting help about these issues. Through the discrimination against women at these gender institutions the women formed a Feminist movement to bring awareness and help to the victims on campuses all around the world and to stop the assaults from reoccurring. The Hunting Grounds is a documentary that reveals the untold stories of women on college campuses and how these women have fought to have their voice heard about sexual assault on campuses. Sexual assault and rape on campuses has always been a major problem for colleges all over the world yet very little has been done to protect the students.

Although the numbers have decreased somewhat, there is no evidence that the number of sexual crimes is decreasing significantly. It is also important to remember that these numbers only include reported incidents and many cases go unreported. In many cases, sexual assault victims suffer from trauma. One of the most common post-assault disorders is PTSD. Victims who suffer from PTSD tend to have panic attacks when something triggers memories of the events (Marston-Salem).

When college students under the age of Twenty-one old drink, they are damaging their brain and their way of succeeding in life. Drinking five drinks in a row at a party in college can also lead to unplanned sex and even danger to their own memory. “Compared with students who binge drink one or two times in a 2-week period, those who binge three or more times are twice as likely to experience alcohol-induced memory losses (27 percent vs. 54 percent, respectively), not use protection during sex (10 percent vs. 20 percent, respectively), engage in unplanned sex (22 percent vs. 42 percent, respectively), and get hurt or injured (11 percent vs. 27 percent, respectively), and are equally likely to need medical treatment for an overdose (1 percent vs. 1 percent).” White also says, (White) “ Whereas binge frequency is associated with an increased risk of negative outcomes, additional research indicates that there is a relationship between how often a student binges and the peak number of drinks he or she consumes.”

It looks scary how vulnerable the survivor can be at the time of assault. However, as long as the matter of violence is associated, the students at college campuses are safer than their non-college mates. Some training and education has been administrated to the students for awareness about the violence and sexual assaults. Even, with increased training and education, most of the college campuses have much longer way to go for decreasing the intensity and number of assaults and the incidents have immense negative impact on the society and people around us.

With that in mind it is not hard to believe that sexual assault is directly linked to alcohol intake. What is shocking are the exact numbers of sexual assault cases that involve alcohol. In an article about sexual assault, Robin Hattersley-Gray writes that “Forty-three percent of the sexual victimization incidents involve alcohol consumption by victims and sixty-nine percent involve alcohol consumption by the perpetrators” (par. 12). The consumption of alcohol impairs impulse control and risk assessment. If alcohol is involved, victims are likely to fail to realize they are in any danger before it’s too

Study participants were undergraduates from three universities taking part of a greater alcohol intervention study. Out of 2,139 students, the final sample of 607 participants were chosen by only selecting students who’ve hooked up in the last three months and had to be of the age 18 to 26 years old. After selected the students, and answering yes to hooking up in the last three months, they were given 17 questions in regards to their negative impacts after the hookups. The questions were based on qualitative and quantitative research on the negative emotion, social, and health impacts of hooking up (Napper et al, 2015 pg. 5). They also had to report how many partners and how often they hooked up.

Every 98 seconds an American is sexually assaulted. Many people experience sexual assault men and women both. Throughout the years the way sexual abuse is handled has not changed much. People tend to ignore issues when it comes to the possibility of a friend or family member gets sexually abused. When the issues are ignored most victims tend it hold all the feelings in from their traumatic experiences.