This post is just a little coda to the great discussion over at Thought Mesh. I stand by my comment that most of the girls this article speaks to will do anything to be part of the "in" crowd, but there's another type of girl who will get themselves into these unfortunate situations too. She's angry she's a girl and wants to prove she's as good as any boy, so she'll act up and try to be like them by doing what they do.
A strong, supportive father and other male family members and friends who care about her, are a girl's best defense against the forces pulling her in a direction that's self-destructive.
Just one woman's opinion.
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This is plain nuts:
FTA : University of Virginia students, for example, have at least three different procedural channels open to them following carnal knowledge: they may demand a formal adjudication before the Sexual Assault Board; they can request a “Structured Meeting” with the Office of the Dean of Students by filing a formal complaint; or they can seek voluntary mediation. The Structured Meetings are presided over by the chair of the Sexual Assault Board, with assistance from another board member or senior staff of the Office of the Dean of Students. The Structured Meeting, according to the university, is an “opportunity for the complainant to confront the accused and communicate their feelings and perceptions regarding the incident, the impact of the incident and their wishes and expectations regarding protection in the future.” Mediation, on the other hand, “allows both you and the accused to discuss your respective understandings of the assault with the guidance of a trained professional,” says the school’s sexual-assault center.Enter sanity:
[Ed. note - Notice that Structured Meeting is capitalized, but the other two options are lower case?]
In a column this November in the University of Virginia’s student newspaper, third-year student Katelyn Kiley gave the real scoop on frat parties: They’re filled with boys hoping to have sex. She did not call these boys “rapists.” She did not demonize their sex drive. She merely offered some practical wisdom to the “scantily clad” freshman girls trooping off to Virginia’s fraternity row: “That frat boy really is just trying to get into your pants.” Most disturbingly, she advised the girls to exercise sexual control: “So dance with that good-looking guy. If he offers, you can even go up to his room to get a mixed drink. . . . Flirt. But it’s probably a good idea to keep your clothes on, and at the end of the night, to go home to your own bed. Interestingly enough, that’s how you get them to keep asking you back.”
[...]The sexual revolution is over, all that's left now is the revulsion.
Some student rebels are going one step further: organizing in favor of sexual restraint.
7 comments:
That point about fathers is staring us in the face and yet nobody--left or right-- seems to know how to read it into their philosophical mix today. Granted Monica Lewinsky was an unlikely heroine, but I remember reading an article about her father (divorced California psychologist) who wanted to assure everyone that he "supported Monica's choices". Talk about washing your hands of your child. I often wondered how that tale would have played out if he had picketed the White House with a sign saying "Mr. President, come out and we'll talk about this father to father". I suppose Monica would have been livid in the short term, but over the long?
Hey, erp, we're sitting here waiting for the snow from the season's worst storm (the last of many this year) to stop before starting out for Amelia Island. Do us a favour and fix the weather for mid-week, ok? Thanks.
Peter, my powers have waned dreadfully, so while I can assure you sunshine, I'm ashamed to say that the best I can do is temps in the high 60's and 70's. On the bright side, you've chosen a very beautiful area.
Savannah or Charleston or Canaveral are easy drives, but I'm guessing the kids want Disney. If that's the case, you'll appreciate the cooler temps.
Have a great time.
My point about supportive fathers wasn't so much about going out and doing battle with those who hurt them (although that's very welcome) or even providing a model for the qualities they should look for in a man, it's more about giving them a sure of sense of their own worth, the faux self-esteem PC folderol in the schools apparently isn't doing the trick.
Update: Well, after shovelling almost two feet of snow early in the morning, we set out on our vacation and promptly got stuck on our street, which didn't get plowed until late afternoon. It took three neighbours to get us back into our driveway. Marooned in the house all day with nothing to do, I told my wife to look at the bright side--we were a whole day into our holiday and already way under budget. Then I ducked.
Yes, I know what you mean and I wasn't suggesting fathers lock up their daughters. I remember a fascinating study out of California that tried to measure the key to happy families. They divided hundreds of families into: father very dominant, father slightly dominant, spouses equal, mother slightly dominant and mother very dominant. They concluded the happiest families were father slightly dominant and the unhappiest were father very dominant. Ain't life a subtle puzzle?
Frankly, I'm not sure what to do about these parties myself, but it is troubling to see our friends having such trouble figuring out whether there is anything wrong with them at all.
Peter, I hope you're off by now.
When we first moved to Vermont, we booked a flight to Madrid from Mirabel on May 1 -- everything went well after they de-iced the wings.
From then on no north country weather could surprise us, even a deep freeze on the 4th of July or a spell of 70 degree sunshine in early January.
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It's not that fathers need to be dominant (whatever that means), it's that fathers need to make sure their daughters know above all that they are valued and loved for what they are, so they don't need to prostitute themselves to get the attention they crave.
The girls and boys described in that article who behave self-destructively are not in the majority. Most college students would make any parent proud and I very much miss having kids, both boys and girls, that age around. It's the one thing I miss about retirement.
Mr. Burnet;
I don't think the difference between is the perception of the wrongness of this behavior, but the appropriate response. You seem to think that if one finds a behavior repulsive, wrong, or damaging, then it is axiomatic that one would strive to coercively prevent that behavior. You then deduce that if others aren't willing to engage in such enforcement, they must not see anything wrong. Every respondent in the original discussion saw the behavior in question as wrong.
Made it, erp. We're in Heaven-by-the-sea after a long drive with a day of outlet shopping in Virginia. Car keys locked away for the week and our translucent Canadian bodies are slathered in sunscreen.
"Slightly dominant" means the woman decides where the family is going but the man holds the wheel and chooses the route. His permitted margin of error is never as big as he imagines.
aog: Yes, but I did have to pry that out of you. But why do you assume that I would want to ban every behaviour I disapproved of, although I would probably sanction this one, which is skirting the edges of rape much more closely than most men think That's a libertarian bogeyman. Kids (and we are talking about sexual kids here regardless of age) will always test the libertine waters. I'm far more concerned that these kids' parents, teachers, mentors, etc. have lost any sense of why this stuff is wrong and destructive, or at least any ability to communicate why. I believe it's because they are locked into a rationalist miandset that can't accept and explain a largely irrational impulse.
Peter, glad to have you so close by. Rumor has it the temp will be high 80's by the weekend.
I must disagree about rape. Girls knows what goes on at "parties" that's why most don't attend. Those who do know what to expect and participate voluntarily.
That's not rape even if after they wise up and regret their actions, they'd like to claim it is.
If their parents, teachers, mentors, etc. cared two pins about them, neither the boys nor the girls would behave so self-destructively in the first place.
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