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Combating Campus Sexual Assaults
Townhall.com ^ | September 30, 2014 | Cal Thomas

Posted on 09/30/2014 11:10:56 AM PDT by Kaslin

College freshmen are completing their first month on campus. According to the website The Other Freshman 15, "The first 15 weeks of college can be the riskiest for sexual assault. ... One out of five students experience rape or sexual assault while they are in college, and in the great majority of cases (75-80 percent), the victim knows the attacker."

The Washington Post recently carried a front-page story about campus sexual assaults. As the father of former college students, two of whom are daughters, I was stunned by the presumptions in the story. It was written in a way that assumed all female college students will have sex and get blind drunk at parties where they will be assaulted by young males.

In the news stories and in comments by President Obama and public officials, there are only scattered references to individual responsibility. In the Post story some parents advise their daughters to take self-defense classes and be careful. But this deals with effect, not cause. The conversation about sexual behavior should start with young women and men long before they step foot onto a college campus. Young women should be taught to respect themselves and to conduct themselves honorably. Young men should be taught to be gentlemen and respectful of women.

Unfortunately, culture has robbed women of what we used to call modesty and men of their obligation to respect, even protect, women. These were the values I was taught, but today the media drown us in sex and sexual violence.

When I picked up a girl for a date, I went inside her home and met her father, who made it clear that I had better bring his daughter home in the same condition in which I found her. This had a chilling effect on a young male libido, which proved mutually beneficial.

Many fathers aren't around these days, either because of divorce or because of work, or because there was never a father in the home to begin with.

The sexualization of girls at ever-younger ages has been well documented. In Britain, the media are full of stories about pedophiles, but it offers little perspective on the reason.

Playboy magazine's Hugh Hefner and the late Helen Gurley Brown's "Cosmo" encourage men and women to discard self-control and submit to their lower nature. That approach hasn't worked out so well. Anyone watching Dr. Phil or listening to Dr. Laura can see and hear the wounded women who had a right to expect something better from the men to whom they gave themselves.

Here are my guidelines for parents with children approaching college age:

First, keep them home for the first two years, 17 or 18 is too young to be put in the middle of temptations many are not mature enough to resist. Send them to a local community college to take required courses. You and they will save money while you help them make good judgments. Taking college classes online is cheaper still.

Second, fathers have a conversation -- in fact many conversations -- with your daughters. They need to know they are valuable and should not cheapen themselves by engaging in premarital sex and that they should marry a man who will be committed to them and any children they have together. Quaint, I know, but the benefits are many.

Third, before you send your daughter off to college, pick a good one, not a party school. Tell her if she is going someplace where there is likely to be drinking, don't drink much, if at all. Suggest a friend go along who will look after her and walk her back to the dorm. Tell her to associate with people of good character for mutual reinforcement.

Virginity, fidelity and self-control are virtues that have disappeared from modern culture, but their loss has brought unhappiness, STDs, abortion, broken or damaged relationships and a lack of self-worth. For young men, too, chivalry appears to be dead.

Culture mocks virgins and teetotalers, but what it offers instead is a societal train wreck that has contributed to sexual assaults and a litany of misery.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial
KEYWORDS:

1 posted on 09/30/2014 11:10:56 AM PDT by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin

This was well stated....

I am amazed at the way girls parents allow them to dress - both in and out of school....surprised the numbers aren’t greater....


2 posted on 09/30/2014 11:15:36 AM PDT by illiac (If we don't change directions soon, we'll get where we're going)
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To: Kaslin
"One out of five students experience rape or sexual assault while they are in college,"

This bogus statistic has been roundly debunked. It was the result of a bogus study.

3 posted on 09/30/2014 11:17:50 AM PDT by circlecity
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To: Kaslin

“Unfortunately, culture has robbed women of what we used to call modesty and men of their obligation to respect, even protect, women. These were the values I was taught, but today the media drown us in sex and sexual violence.”

Time WAS, if you were a woman, you could count on being safe BECAUSE of your gender... now it’s the opposite.

Truthfully though, young girls and young women are not at all careful or discerning about their personal safety. They even do things to jeopardize themselves.


4 posted on 09/30/2014 11:20:32 AM PDT by SMARTY ("When you blame others, you give up your power to change." Robert Anthony)
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To: circlecity; Kaslin
The vast majority of these so-called "assaults" are alleged date rapes. The tip off is the statement that in most of these cases the two know each other.

In my opinion this is really an epidemic of women waking up to regret what they did and attacking the guy as a way of regaining some self respect.

In any event, it is not something that should be addressed by colleges that are completely unequipped to afford anyone, accused or accuser, due process. It should be left to the courts.

5 posted on 09/30/2014 11:26:14 AM PDT by colorado tanker
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To: Kaslin
Combating Campus Sexual Assaults

While my daughter will be going to Liberty next year, she will also be carrying a LCR .22 magnum revolver.

6 posted on 09/30/2014 11:27:32 AM PDT by The_Republic_Of_Maine (In an Oligarchy, the serfs don't count.)
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To: Kaslin
When I picked up a girl for a date, I went inside her home and met her father, who made it clear that I had better bring his daughter home in the same condition in which I found her. This had a chilling effect on a young male libido, which proved mutually beneficial.

As country singer Rodney Adkins put it in his song "Cleaning this gun"...

Come on in boy sit on down
And tell me about yourself
So you like my daughter do you now?
Yeah we think she's something else
She's her daddy's girl
Her momma's world
She deserves respect
That’s what she'll get
Now ain't it son?
Y’all run along and have a little fun
I'll see you when you get back
Probably be up all night
Still cleanin' this gun.

I had the pretty much the same conversation with the lads who came into our home to date my daughter.

7 posted on 09/30/2014 11:34:09 AM PDT by cuz_it_aint_their_money
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To: cuz_it_aint_their_money

Several of my daughter’s suitors actually arrived to see me practicing beside the house.


8 posted on 09/30/2014 11:37:41 AM PDT by Resolute Conservative
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To: The_Republic_Of_Maine

Ahem, not a good idea since campuses tend to be gun free zones. If she’s caught, it’s a felony.


9 posted on 09/30/2014 11:37:57 AM PDT by DownInFlames
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To: Kaslin

Do your best to wipe out Christianity and the practice thereof, then wonder why you actually have a sexual assault problem. And these are educated people?


10 posted on 09/30/2014 11:52:23 AM PDT by all the best
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To: all the best
And these are educated people?

They are "indoctrinated" people.

11 posted on 09/30/2014 11:56:27 AM PDT by trubolotta
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To: Kaslin

How about locking up the guilty rapists for life without parole and in solitary.


12 posted on 09/30/2014 12:17:37 PM PDT by soycd
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To: DownInFlames
Ahem, not a good idea since campuses tend to be gun free zones. If she’s caught, it’s a felony.

Aint no one gonna know she has it unless she has to use it and then I would rather face a felony with her than bury her.

And we would prefer her to face a jury of her peers than a rapist unarmed, or worse a muslim looking for heads for it's belt.

13 posted on 09/30/2014 1:40:37 PM PDT by The_Republic_Of_Maine (In an Oligarchy, the serfs don't count.)
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