To stop campus rapes, start a conversation

Recent sexual assaults at the University of Minnesota have instigated a much-needed conversation on the issue of safety on college campuses. While I applaud the decisiveness of the fraternities on their alcohol ban, I think it is imperative that as a community we discuss long-term solutions to this problem.

Measures such as dry fraternities are shortsighted and temporary. While underage drinking and fraternity parties may always be part of college life, sexual assault does not have to be.

In my sophomore year of college, I was underage, poor and bored. I would attend fraternity parties as a cheap way to be social. On Halloween, a group of my friends and I went to a party hosted by a close friend's fraternity house.

From the moment we left our dorms, one of my friends was talking to a guy who was not in the fraternity but was going to the same party. They knew each other, and they seemed to be hitting it off on the walk over. Once we arrived, our group tried to watch out for her, but they repeatedly left to dance or go outside.

Later in the evening, our friend came to us, shaken and in tears. We rushed her back to the dorms. She had kissed the guy and voluntarily gone into a room with him. She repeatedly refused to have sex with him. He held her down and raped her.

My friend wasn't overly intoxicated; she simply put herself in a risky situation that she didn't know how to stop. She was so surprised that she didn't know what to say or do. Afterward, she refused to seek any help, because she felt that it was her own fault.

In this instance, as in 73 percent of sexual assault cases, the victim knew her attacker. Many girls find themselves in compromising situations but don't want to offend their attacker if they have a previous relationship. They don't know what to say, or any appropriate way to end an unwanted sexual encounter. To reduce this type of assault, colleges need to facilitate real discussion with women about sex. College women need to think ahead about their decisions and boundaries and know how to end any encounter that crosses those boundaries.

The man in this story did not recognize that he had committed a crime. He persuaded the woman not to press charges. This shows a lack of understanding about consent and the role that both men and women have in preventing assault. The way to change this is to engage college males at an adult level and in a way they can relate to.

Many sexual assaults, like this one, go unreported because the woman feels it is her fault, or because she does not want to press criminal charges against someone she once had a relationship with. While some instances of sexual assault warrant criminal charges, many, like the one I described, might benefit more from mediation. A discussion in which both parties can talk about what happened in a safe environment would have much more positive effects.

We need to engage college students as adults. Banning alcohol, or telling women to go out only in groups, are not legitimate answers to the problem. Creating a real discussion about sex, providing social tools to deal with the challenges of relationships in college, and engaging students at a level they respond to are the solutions.

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Shannon McConnell, from Sherburn, Minn., is a senior at American University in Washington, D.C., where she studies the role of women in development both in the United States and abroad.

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