I’m going off-topic today to write about a very disturbing topic that I see splashed all over the bucolic southern university campus where I often go to write: rape.

It appears that this university  — this elite white-bred college that costs $52,000 a year where 80 percent of the student body is in a fraternity or a sorority that also boasts one of the lowest endowments in the country (i.e. no one here is on financial aid) — is in the midst of a rape crisis.

Is it? Otherwise, how to explain the recent rash of  fliers and placards and banners decrying sexual assault I see all over the place? In the past month alone, I’ve read two anonymous first-person accounts of horrifying date rapes taped to the inside of the womens bathroom stalls. This week there is a disturbing letter to the editor of the student newspaper from an anonymous 19-year old woman who explicitly details her recent assault by a friend of a friend.

To say it’s all very sad and creepy and depressing is to overstate the obvious. I couldn’t help but notice that the common thread in the three anonymous first person accounts was: “I drank so much I blacked out. The next thing I know I was naked and he was on top of me….” It makes me wonder how much date rape could be avoided if men and women didn’t feel the compulsion to drink themselves into a stupor, where faculties become so impaired that when she says “nnnnnooooo,” he hears “mmmmmm.”  Because I just can’t believe all men transform into sexual predators just because 14 Bud Lights may have passed their lips. Sure, some men do. Many do. But many are probably just as drunk and out of their minds and out of control as she is; he thinks he’s hearing things he’s not. He thinks he has her consent when he doesn’t. She’s in no condition to give it,  he’s in no condition to process her bodily cues. He interprets the silence, the inability to draw the line, as some twisted form of “yes.” And he’s really horny.  Enter the quagmire of date rape.

I’m reminded of a conversation I overheard between two sorority sisters a year or so ago. They were complaining about the five drink maximum — five drink maximum, five drinks is a lot!! — that had recently been implemented by the handful of drinking establishments in our small town.

“Yeah, it totally sucks,” said one, who looked like she couldn’t have weighed more than 103 pounds. “That’s why I order five shots of Jagermeister one after the other.”

She was on a mission to get completely blotto. Some dude somewhere on campus was on a quest to do the same.  Those two meet….who knows what happens?

UPDATE: Jake pointed out that the university probably isn’t in the midst of a sexual assault crisis. He said he thinks November is probably sexual assault awareness month, or some such, hence the glut of information and stories around campus. I hope he’s right. It sure got my attention.