# Presentation to educate incoming college students on rape and secual assault



## Elfan (Aug 25, 2003)

My college recently gave a presentation on rape and related topics to incoming freshman. The goal obviously was to reduce incidents of sexual assault on campus. I felt that the way it was presented encouraged a victim mentality for the woman ("bad men are targeting me as prey") and I almost felt like the message to the men was almost "guys, don't do that."  Needless to say I was not pleased with this presentation.  If I was in charge there were there are two things that I would like people to come away with; danger exists, and there is something I can do about it.  

I felt that the presentation (which relied to some extent on what you could call scare tactics) probably achieved the first goal.  However, it  failed in the second and because of the time spent discussing how some serial rapists operate (they use words such as prey, target etc.) it probably detrimental.

Assuming that you agree that my premise is sound, how would you go about giving this presentation?  For now I would like to limit what we can do to the students staying in there seats.  Not something where we have a guy some out in one of those giant red suits and the girls beat on him.


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## MartialArtsGuy (Aug 26, 2003)

I'm not very knowlegable in rape prevention training, but what you said sounds good. I'm not sure I would use scare tactics. I think if the college has a history or perhaps a recent incident, that should be enough for the students to take it seriously.

I'd try to state the problem, explain what is being done, explain what they can do to protect themselves, and leave it open to questions. I think questions are important.

In addition I would stress that women not allow themselves to be taken to a secondary location. From what I understand, if that happens, it's pretty much over for her. Even if it means suffering some injury, yell, scream, fight. Because, from what little I know, rapists use secondary locations because they are safe. No one to hear screams, little chance of escape.


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## lvwhitebir (Aug 27, 2003)

Let's see, a recent survey found that a woman has between a 20% and 25% chance of being raped in her college life.  About 9 in 10 are committed by someone the woman knows, usually a boyfriend, ex-boyfriend, classmate, friend, acquaintance, or co-worker.

With regard to date rape, 12.8% of completed rapes, 35% of attempted rapes, and 22.9% of threatened rapes took place on a date.

Almost 60% of campus rapes took place in the victim's residence.  31 percent occurred in other living quarters on campus, and 10.3% took place at a fraternity.

In this particular study, less than 5% of completed or attempted rapes were reported to law enforcement officials.

In the six months of the study, a full 13.1% of the students had been stalked since the school year began.



So, it really is a BIG problem that college women should be aware of.  I'm glad the school is educating the students on it.  With the statistics alone, people are made aware that there is a problem.  The presentation must be made to make them listen (scare tactics are one method), otherwise they won't.  They need to know what the school is doing to combat the problem (self-defense classes, locked dorms, security escorts, etc) and what they themselves should look out for and what to do if an incident occurs to either themselves or someone they know.

Since guys are causing the problems, the "guys don't do it" works good.  Some guys just don't understand what their behavior is doing.  A good definition of consent should be presented.  Which at the nuts and bolts means if the woman doesn't specifically say "yes", she has not given consent and it can be considered rape.  Silence is not consent.  Just because you were previously intimate or have a current relationship is not consent.

WhiteBirch


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