Transitioning Times

Last week, there was a news report from Aljazeera on America Tonight about renaming sexual assault and rape as "non-consensual sexual contact" or "non-consensual sex" in policies regulating college campuses and in many people's vernacular. This is not right.  Words have power, and using a euphemism discounts the severity of what happened.  A crime occurred.  Someone's life was potentially turned into two periods: before and after.   Renaming sexual assault just reaffirms what many advocates know, that people are uncomfortable with the idea of sex and don't even want to think about rape.  It is much easier to think, especially on college campuses, that it is merely a miscommunication, instead of a premeditated attack on a vulnerable person.  If you aren't familiar with The Undetected Rapist, or David Lisak's research , please watch below. From a description of the video:  " What is also clear from this research is that so-called...

Summation of an article by: Dr Scott Hampton, Psy.D. Submitted by Adam H.   Alcohol and sexual assault often happen together . According to some research , 30 percent of all sexual assaults occur when the perpetrator is under the influence of alcohol. In some cases, the victim is also intoxicated. Drinking makes it easy for the perpetrator to ignore sexual boundaries, while the victim's intoxication makes it more difficult for her/him to guard against an attack.   A common misunderstanding is that if people commit sexual assaults only when drunk, then (a) the drinking must have caused the assault and (b) sobriety and alcohol counseling are adequate to prevent future assaults. These erroneous conclusions confuse correlation and causation. To illustrate, consider the correlation between consciousness and sexual assault. Perpetrators of sexual assault typically commit sexual assaults only when they are awake, but it would be ridiculous to suggest that being ...