Saying that information travels quickly on this campus is an understatement—and after BC Confession No. 7122 was posted on the Facebook page, the entire campus was buzzing. The post itself was nothing short of horrifying, and regardless of whether it was a “hoax” or not, it sheds light on a subject that needs to be taken much more seriously here at Boston College.
Now, when I say it needs to be taken more seriously, I am not pointing to the Administration, BCPD, SANet, or University Counseling Services. Each of these divisions are dedicated to handling cases of sexual assault, violence and rape in an appropriate manner, and are very successful in doing so. Instead, I am speaking to us, the student body.
First, the legitimacy of the post on the BC Confessions page is irrelevant to the discussion of sexual assault on our campus. Although it is comforting to believe that this individual is not in fact a perpetrator of three sexual assaults, it does not change the fact that the events described most certainly occur on our campus.
The “hook-up culture,” and its seemingly inextricable link to alcohol, is in many ways used to justify sexual assault. The idolization of both the hook-up and drinking culture here at BC lends itself to an extremely slippery slope with regards to how the student body defines sexual assault. That’s not to say, though, that there is an absence of free will when making choices about drinking and to participate in the hook-up culture. However, it would be naïve to deny the influence of peer pressure when individuals on this campus are faced with those choices, and the overwhelmingly popular notion that the hook-up and drinking culture are the only ways to participate in the nighttime social life at BC.
Occurrences of sexual assault have become somewhat normalized on this campus because the student body often refuses to define it as such. By justifying sexual assault as being a casual drunken hook-up, students are discounting the fact that being severely intoxicated in fact prevents an individual from giving consent. Obviously, not every drunken sexual encounter on this campus is “rape,” but by diminishing the importance of consent we create the perception that sexual assault means being attacked in a dark alley way, rather than being taken home from a party unwillingly. There is obviously a difference between a person being taken advantage of, and mutually consensual sexual activity while intoxicated, and I don’t want to belittle that distinction. However, we have put individuals on this campus in a place where they feel as though they need to participate in these two cultures, and then force them to believe that they have no reason to feel at all violated because that’s “just what happens.”
Although I mentioned that the divisions at BC dedicated to helping the victims of sexual assault and interpersonal violence are very successful, they can only be successful when individuals feel comfortable enough to step forward. How do we expect a victim of sexual assault on this campus to call BCPD when the perception is that their actions were a part of the normalized hook-up culture? These experiences are traumatic, and our student body is severely suffering from these events being disguised by the hook-up culture. The assaults described by the BC Confession are extreme in that the person was not only taking responsibility for their actions, but also acknowledging that eventually a level of intent existed. This is not necessarily the every day hook-up scene, but there is no denying that one person’s casual hook-up can turn into something like that.
Sexual assault is silent, but its effects are pervasive on this campus and deserve to be recognized. I’m not saying that the entire nighttime culture at BC is wrong, or that we can even change it. I do, however, think its time to recognize how our perceived celebration of the hook-up culture negatively affects the students on our campus. There is no denying that BC Confession No. 7122 opened the discussion, but it’s our job to continue it.
Photo Sources:
Her Campus Photo Library