He takes two drinks, emblazoned with the name of a seemingly exotic though relatively cheap and banal cocktail, across the bar to the beautiful young woman. As her nervous eyes leave her beer they glance at the exciting liquor before resting on the protagonist. They both smile as he slides the drink in front of her.
The description above is an amalgamation of any one of a dozen liquor or beer commercials I have seen since I first found out the difference between beer and soda or mixed drinks and fruit juice. It was not until re-watching "Sex on a Saturday Night?" as a S.H.A.R.E peer adviser did I question the implicit intent of alcohol commercials like the one above.
Commercials similar to this one inform consumers that alcohol is a social lubricant that will aid you in pursuit of love, happiness or whatever you want to happen at the end of a Saturday night. The romanticized image of two young consenting adults enjoying exotic liquor in a posh bar doesn't resonate with Princeton's beer-drenched taprooms. Princeton's campus tolerates and participates in a drinking culture that links heavy drinking to hookups. I remember a friend once told me, "People like to drink; people like to have sex: They naturally go together!" But I question whether the two are as intrinsically linked as my friend and the commercials may suggest.
Every year the freshman class watches "Sex on a Saturday Night?" and is presented with a horrifying event in which sex and alcohol combine to make a singularly unforgettable and scarring night. In discussion groups, students talk about the dangers of alcohol and how it erodes one's ability to make healthy decisions.
The good advice that students leave discussion groups with is at odds with a typical scene on the Street where sexual activity and alcohol are comfortably placed together. When students expect alcohol to be involved in consensual sex, it can lead to an awkward and uncomfortable situation where any sexual encounter involving alcohol is assumed to be consensual despite evidence to the contrary.
This confusion and discomfort is epitomized in the use of the term "gray rape." The name of "gray rape" suggests less about the violence of the perpetrator's assault so much as the rupture between a culture that tolerates heavy drinking and sexual encounters with a state and university policy that condemn it.
When earnest students say in discussion groups, "What was she expecting? If you drink that much of course you could get sexually assaulted!" then we need to raise our cultural expectations. Should anyone "expect" to be assaulted, sexually or otherwise? Do we have to tolerate a culture that is at odds with our morals?
There is no simple solution to ending sexual assault, but a major component must be raising our expectations of one another and creating an environment that transforms bystanders into participants in a healthy campus culture.
I would like to see not only a handful of student groups engaging in discussion once a year, but also a sustained, University-wide dialogue on this important issue. One 45-minute discussion at the end of frosh week is simply not enough time to delve into the deep social, cultural and moral issues surrounding sexual assault. Open and continuous discourse can help foster an environment where men do not feel like defendants and women like helpless victims.
Stressing the importance of a cultural shift should not absolve the perpetrators of sexual assault from personal responsibility. We should, however, seriously consider the ways in which we encourage, discourage or tolerate an environment of sexual predation.
The need for change is a long time coming, and I would hope that students, faculty, staff and administrators challenge the assumption that sex and alcohol are intrinsically linked and create a new and healthier paradigm.
Michael Collins is a sophomore from Glastonbury, Conn. He can be reached at mjcollin@princeton.edu.
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