Oh look, another sexual assault email from VUPD
We’ve made a lot of progress towards a rape-free campus, but has it been enough?
On Monday Vanderbilt students received an email from VUPD notifying us about a sexual assault on campus. You know what I did? Sent the e-mail straight to my trash. Why?
Because I knew exactly what it would say: it happened in a dorm, the victim may have known the male who assaulted her, sexual assault is a crime.
What VUPD doesn’t publish is this – how an assault victim feels:
Degraded. Demoralized. Violated. Guilty. How could I let this happen to me? This is my fault. I hate myself for letting such a disgusting thing happen to me. I am just an object. I am nothing.
But we don’t hear this. We hear facts, statistics, and mundane tips on how to be safe. So I’ll give you a couple more facts.
Only 24 percent of Vanderbilt undergrads had responded to the recent campus climate survey on sexual assault. Less than a quarter of our undergraduate population knows or cares enough about sexual assault to take a survey online that offers a $100 Amazon gift card as a participation award.
20 percent of undergraduate respondents experienced some form of sexual misconduct, ranging from unwanted touching to forced penetration, although the latter was only about 3.4 percent of survey respondents.
Still, if you do the math and extrapolate it to those who didn’t answer the survey, around 200 undergraduates have experienced forced or unwanted penetration.
10 percent of undergraduate respondents said someone had sexual contact with them when they were unable to resist, such as when they were drunk, passed out, drugged, or otherwise incapacitated. “This question asks about events that you are certain happened.”
6.9 percent of respondents mentioned that their assaulter was not a student – but rather a member of the faculty, staff, or some other employee.
27 percent of respondents wanted to just forget the sexual assault happened and 58 percent weren’t sure the perpetrator intended harm.
All too often we abandon the human aspect of sexual assault. A human with feelings is a victim, and a human with feelings (hopefully) is the perpetrator, whether or not they realize what they are doing. It seems like too many sexual partners don’t realize they’re in an assault situation until it’s too late.
The truth is, sexual assault is becoming a problem on this campus whether we like it or not. Even the rest of Nashville is taking notice. Is this something that we want for Vanderbilt?
On a more positive note, 76.8 percent of respondents said that they were aware of campus resources and 87 percent respondents thought that campus administration would take the issue seriously.
94 percent of respondents said that they feel safe here.
Campus has resources: the Psychological Counseling Center, Project Safe, Green Dot, Party with Consent, and so many more.
Know your rights, know your resources, know yourself.