Responding to statistics that show that 95 percent of sexual assaults are committed by men, a group of male Georgetown students and faculty decided last Wednesday that the burden is on them to respond to the recurring problem of sexual assault on campus.
Ben Cody (CAS ‘05), the meeting’s organizer, said that he hoped an environment without women would allow Georgetown men to comfortably share their views on an often difficult and painful subject. “I would like to see a multi-generational and continued effort to address the problem of sexual assault on campus,” he said.
The twenty men, who included student leaders and members of the administration, met for approximately 90 minutes on Wednesday evening. Nearly half of the students said they knew Georgetown students who were victims of sexual assault.
All the members of the discussion agreed that alcohol, modern relationship trends and a stressful environment at Georgetown were all partially responsible for incidents of sexual abuse. “It is related to Georgetown culture in the fact that it’s a high-pressure environment where it’s very hard not to be egocentric, and where, in the social environment, people don’t pay attention to others’ concerns, they just take what they want,” said Michael Nelson (CAS ‘04).
Pravin Rajan (SFS ‘07) attributed the rise of incidents of sexual assault in part to a general shift in dating patterns and relationships. “I think that the relationships that happen today are much more free-flowing and spontaneous, but there is also a greater possibility for horrific results,” he said.
While the members of the discussion agreed on the general factors involved in college campus sexual assault, there were sharp disagreements over the current University sexual assault policy, which requires students to have oral consent before they engage in sexual relations. Rajan said that he could never imagine people abiding by the socially awkward specifications of the current policy. Dan Eyeler (CAS ‘05), however, said that oral consent is an important step in any relationship that encourages communication.
“It can be done in a way that works socially,” he said.
Everyone agreed that greater communication between both partners and friends is the answer. “Part of it is having a dialogue with each other, to acknowledge that sometimes we can be jerks as men,” said Mike Smith, the University’s assistant director of affirmative action programs.
