Topic : 10/14 Campus Crisis

My post is addressing on campus rape in partying situations.
Young gals need to be taught to value their safety at all times. They have something precious - their bodies and soul- if they are not vigilant with safe guarding their own bodies, who else will be??? 

Don't miscontrue this as blaming the victim,but this is the how I see it; people safeguard their possessions for example lock up the car, lock up the house, lock money up in a safe etc so that a robber doesn't get to it.  SAME thing with your body, protect it so a rapist does not get at it!!! Do you walk around displaying hundered dollar bills that you have?? NO!! because that is asking for trouble from a robber.  SAME thing with your body - if you get drunk and lose control of your safety, that's asking for trouble from a rapist. 

I don't get this idea that gals 'should be able' to trust fellow male  students  and to be safe with them - why?? U don't know these guys you just met in your 1st year of college. They don't know you either, so why would they care about U??   U cannot let  your guard down when with people U don't know. If you are partying, be responsible for yourself and don't drink too much.  The guys in these parties are drinking too, and lose control.  How can a very drunk guy understand  that your no is no?? Again, I'm not excusing such a horrific act, but trying to show it's a situation where a woman can never win by simply expecting men to do 'right' by her.  U can't expect the drunk guy to act responsibly anymore than a drunk woman would.  So don't get into those situations to begin with!!!  After you are raped, so what if he is sent to jail?? U will live forever with that hurt!! 

Protect your body and soul from rapists in the same manner you protect your belongings from robbers and thieves!!!

I wasn't even at my first college a full year and there were three sexual assaults. All of which involved alcohol. When my literature proffesor brought up the subject, one girl said "don't get drunk and cry rape." Its a touchy subject, on the one hand, someone who is under the influence is incapable of giving consent, on the other hand, should a person take responsibility for their condition. Young people, particularly girls, are constantly being warned about the dangers of excessive drinking (at least in my experience). Yet they continue to binge and party, socially no less. A teacher told me a story about a girl who drank to the point of passing out cold. When she woke up she wasn't in the bar anymore. She was in a house in a dark neighborhood on someones bed, none of which she had ever seen before. She could've easily been raped and had no idea. All because she wanted to get smashed.

On a different note, parents are kidding themselves if they think a campus being designated "dry" means anything. I was in a dry dorm and the RAs knew damn well there was alcohol. Their attitude was, and I quote, "if we don't see it, it's not here."

Please Dr. Phil -- Help me convince the Chancellors across America that we need to start working on finding ways to alleviate the problem. Alaska is #3 across the U.S. -- fortunately I am able to give presentations on suicide prevention, but I need to have the permission to talk to more classrooms. The media needs to let me tell the survivor stories too.... HELP, open the door to the students who are crying for help....PLEASE!!!!

Barb F

Alaska's Field Liaison for the Suicide Prevention Action Network, USA

Watch the National Suicide Survivor's Day program www.afsp.org 11/22/08 for your own DVD or gathering... please, you are important to me. Thanks Dr. Phil for the work you do.

I worked as a volunteer on a Suicide Crisis Hot-line.....it could become so frustrating when someone's on the brink of taking the permanent solution to a temporary problem. When they are so young, and in an immediate crisis as was that poor girl whose mother was on the show today, they don't stop and think that this, too, shall pass.

I wish she had been able to get the kind of help that may have saved her life!

I wish you luck in getting the permission to talk to more classrooms....getting the message out there is surely needed. 

First of all, my heart goes out to the family of the girl who committed suicide after being allegedly gang-raped. 

Second, what did the girl mean when she told her friend, "I THINK I've been raped?"  This makes me think she was drinking at the time--NOT THAT THIS MAKES GETTING RAPED OK--but why wasn't drinking talked about as one safety precaution that students can take to prevent crimes.  Everything BUT drinking was mentioned and I think that was a mistake.