For my researched argumentative essay, I chose to explore the ways that sexual assaults on college campuses most frequently occur. The reason I chose this topic is because it is important to be aware of your surroundings as a college student and as I conducted this research, I realized just how essential it really is to understand how to avoid these circumstances. Although there are arguments towards and against sexual assault being a result of alcohol consumption, either way it is evident that sexual assaults are prevalent and remains an overall problem in today’s society. There are many arguments towards the statement that sexual assaults on college campuses are going to happen regardless of the condition of the perpetrator and victim; but most of the statistics on this problematic occurrence show that sexual assaults are mostly attributed to the consumption of alcohol by either the perpetrator, the victim or both. The prominence of my researched argumentative essay is that alcohol-influenced sexual assaults are more prevalent than other contributions, but the several aspects that I will be arguing can only be done by comparing them to other forms of sexual assaults.  Overall: sexual assault on college campuses is more frequent in situations involving alcohol.

An argument regarding this topic is that sexual assault is going to occur with or without the influence of alcoholic beverages. According to Daniel Luzer in an article named Is Alcohol Really to Blame for the Prevalence of Sexual Assault on College Campuses, the rate of sexual assault on college campus has increased drastically, yet the rate of alcohol consumption is not increasing but instead remaining constant. Luzer states: “If there has been any change at all in sexual assault patterns at institutions of higher learning — and that the numbers are climbing is one fact that isn’t up for debate — it can’t be explained by alcohol consumption, which has remained pretty constant” and this simply means that since the rate of alcohol consumption is not rising on college campuses that there is no way to make a correlation between the rise of sexual assaults. He further attributes the rise in sexual assaults to the variation in the way that men and women have socialized throughout the years. He writes “while we’ve seen a vast increase in reporting of sexual assault on college campuses over the last 50 years, there’s been no noticeable change in alcohol consumption” (Luzer); but even if there is no change in alcohol consumption, maybe there is a change in the way that girls and guys present themselves while consuming alcohol. The authors of this article argue that you cannot ask men to stop drinking simply because women are being sexually assaulted. Instead of blaming men for raping women that are under the influence, they suggest that women should stop consuming alcohol and putting themselves at risk. The article follows that statement by suggesting that instead of asking women to stop drinking, why don’t we teach people how to not rape and how to prevent putting themselves in the risk of being raped. Of course, simply telling an individual with the intent to rape to refrain from his or her desires will not suffice. The author of this article was criticized by her spectators for her ‘advice’ and was accused of blaming women for their rape. What I concluded from this article was that the author was very straight forward concerning the fact that women should stop drinking in order to reduce the risk of being sexually assaulted, but she did not mean it in a way that most people interpreted it. This article is saying that society considers telling women to not get ‘wasted’ is in a way blaming previous victims of sexual assault that happened to be under the influence. In order to avoid making victims feel responsible for being sexually assaulted, people tend to ignore the fact that being under the influence is in fact a major issue that frequently leads to girls being inattentive to their surroundings and as a result, the possibilities of a sexual assault occurring increases  

In this magazine article named Alcohol Isn’t the Cause of Campus Sexual Assault. Men Are, the authors state that alcohol is not the main factor in sexual assault, instead men are. The article makes an audacious statement saying “Bystanders who intervene, not less booze, would help prevent it” (Raven, Taylor).  This is not as credible as the other articles I chose, but it gives a valid argument against my research question of alcohol being the main factor. It shows real life situations of where bystanders had to intervene against a sexual assault because the female was unconscious as a result of alcohol. They studied bar behaviors and made connections between people that have consumed alcohol and the result in sexual assault. In a way, this magazine article is trying to make a contrary argument against the correlation between alcohol and sexual assault, but the statistics that it gives is still related to alcohol briefly. Even though the main point of this article is saying that men are to blame for sexual assaults, they still relate the sexual assaults back to alcohol in some way. This supports my research question that alcohol is in fact a large factor in sexual assaults on college campuses but they are also making a counterargument that alcohol is not the only factor to blame. In previous arguments regarding to this topic, researchers have shown that if there is a perpetrator, there will be a victim. This means that even if alcohol is not an element in a sexual assault and even if there are no influences on a victim or perpetrator, that there is still a chance that a sexual assault may occur. Where there is a perpetrator, there is a victim; no matter the circumstances. 

In “An Exploration of Sexual Victimization and Academic Performance Among College Women”, the author tells about the main differences between college campuses and sexual assault and girls that attend high school. The article claims that there is a drastic change in behavior between men and women as they transition from high school to college and this change could possibly result in the rise in sexual assaults after this transition. This change raises the risk factor of being sexually assaulted for women in these environments. The article states: “In one study, nearly three-fourths (72%) of the women who reported being raped during their college years were raped while they were under the influence of alcohol” (Jordan, Combs, Smith 6). This article shows the alterations in behaviors that make the rate of sexual assault so prevalent. This article also mentions sexual assaults related to alcohol several times; supporting my research as alcohol is in fact the main factor in sexual assaults. Not only does it show statistics of the occurrence of sexual assaults, the prevalence of sexual assaults on college campuses with the influence of alcohol and the effects of age, race and other features on a predators’ target on women; this article also goes into detail about the long-term effects that a sexual assault leaves on the victim. The article states “In the area of rape, research has identified shock, confusion, fear, agitation, and social withdrawal in the immediate aftermath of sexual violence; and posttraumatic stress disorder, depression, acute fear and anxiety, generalized anxiety, and suicidality among the long-term effects” (Jordan, Combs, Smith 6) and even goes on to say; “Research has gone so far as to suggest that the impact of rape may be more severe than other crimes.” (Jordan, Combs, Smith 6). These statements emphasize the significance of how badly victims are mentally disturbed for the rest of their lives simply because of a poor decision made by a perpetrator and even in a way the victim herself. 

In this article named Sexual Assault and Rape on U.S. College Campuses: Research Roundup, the authors are giving very specific data about the statistics of sexual assault on college campuses in the United States. It gives reviews and risk factors for sexual assault on college campuses such as “One of the report’s authors, Sarah DeGue, … a systematic qualitative review of risk and protective factors for sexual violence perpetration — that finds a high correlation between sexual assault and alcohol use” (Mastropasqua). They explain in depth where each statistic comes from and analyzes the results based off of this. In this article, it is evident that there are several attempts to put a stop to sexual assaults on college campuses in ways such as trying to prevent parties from occurring, but officials will never be able to completely put these things to a stop because it is impossible to completely discontinue teenage adolescence to stop partying. For this article, I wanted to search for a source that does not specifically say ‘sexual assaults related to alcohol’ to see if they would mention a correspondence to one another. When reading this article, it does support the statement that sexual assaults on college campuses are more transpiring with the factor of alcohol involved. At the conclusion of this article, there are several relating articles named and within those, I found two supporting articles that relates to my research question: “Correlates of Rape while Intoxicated in a National Sample of College Women” and “A Randomized Controlled Trial Targeting Alcohol Use and Sexual Assault Risk among College Women at High Risk for Victimization.” In the first article, the author lists the purpose of his article was “to present prevalence data for rape under the condition of intoxication when the victim is unable to consent and to identify college and individual-level risk factors associated with that condition” (Mohler, Dowdall, Koss, Wechsler). They give statics from 119 schools and the results showed that “Roughly one in 20 (4.7%) women reported being raped” and “nearly three quarters (72%) of the victims experienced rape while intoxicated” (Mohler, Dowdall, Koss, Wechsler). In the second article, the author states that alcohol and sexual assaults typically go hand in hand and that “50-70% of sexual assaults involve alcohol use” (Gilmore, Lewis, George). This article gives ways that programs have started to decrease situations that alcohol has been a factor in sexual assaults; “Feedback in these interventions includes a personalized summary of drinking and related consequences, moderation education, alcohol expectancies, and other didactic information using the spirit of motivational interviewing (Gilmore, Lewis, George). They address that social norms are starting to influence the number of women that are reporting themselves as being sexually assaulted and that if women will stray away from these social norms, the risk factor will go down. 

In a YouTube video, called College Summit Tackles the Role of Alcohol In Sexual Assaults News Channel 5, the first speaker states “Experts say you can’t talk about drinking on college campuses without talking about sexual assaults” (Cline-Thomas). This statement is very bold and specific to my topic because it defends the assertion that drinking is the main factor in sexual assault. They say that the consumption of alcohol has not changed over the last few years but binge drinking has become very prevalent. This video states the difference between sexual assault and regretted casual sex with the influence of alcohol. This is a big argument that people make when referring to this topic because of the many ways people dispute sexual assaults being ‘casual’ and referring to the overall occurrence as a “misunderstanding”( Cline-Thomas). They consider the “party culture” as one that you have to go out with friends and drink alcohol in order to have fun in today’s society and get the full “college experience” (Cline-Thomas). The speaker says “across the state, alcohol and sexual assault intersect on college campuses” (Vicky) but not to get confused because there is a big difference in casual sexual intercourse with regret and sex with the influence of alcohol. The video also states “the lack of consent is what defines assault, or rape” and “consent can only be given when both individuals are enthusiastically agreeing to what is occurring” (Williams-Collins, 1:17). A bold statement that was made in this video was that “often the drunk victim was targeted as a victim before they ever took a sip of alcohol” (1:30). This statement is supported in the previously stated articles as I mentioned “sexual assault will in fact take place no matter what the circumstances are leading to the assault”. A counterargument that could be made to this statement is that rapists typically do not plan on forcing their victim to drink alcohol or any other substance in order to cause them to ‘black out’ but instead chooses an individual that has already done so. 

Another reliable article that I came across when researching my thesis statement was “Sexual Assault and Alcohol Consumption: What do We Need to Know About Their Relationship and What Types of Research Are Still Needed?”. This article is supporting my thesis in its argument by saying that “Approximately half of all sexual assaults are associated with either the perpetrator’s alcohol consumption, the victim’s alcohol consumption, or both” (Abbey, Zawacki, O’Buck, Clinton, McAuslan). Other analysis’ conclude that attitudes, past experiences, beliefs pertaining to alcohol and personality traits of the victim, perpetrator and situation are large factors relating to the occurrence of sexual assaults. This article argues that the factor that contributes the most to reported sexual assaults on college campuses is mainly the amount of alcohol consumed by the victim, the predator or both the predator and the victimx. The article gives very specific statistics such as “Himelein surveyed 100 women at freshmen orientation and again 32 months later… Eight percent of these women were raped on a date since being in college; 29% experienced some level of sexual assault on a date” (Abbey, Zawacki, O’Buck, Clinton, McAuslan). This is a good observation pertaining to my research question because the article explains in depth where each statistic comes from and analyzes the results based off of this, making this argument very credible. The research that the authors of this article conducted established that around half of all sexual assaults and 47% on-college campus assaults are committed by a perpetrator that had been drinking alcohol. A problem that a lot of offenders ran into when conducting the research for this article is that there is no way of knowing how intoxicated they were at the time of the sexual assault and they are not reliable enough to make a good argument as to what factors led to the assault. 

By comparing and contrasting statistics gathered related to sexual assaults on college campuses with the factor of alcohol and without the factor of alcohol, it is evident that sexual assaults with the involvement of alcohol are significantly greater than those without. After researching my topic for several weeks, it seemed that although I did not always specifically search for alcohol related sexual assaults, somehow alcohol was habitually mentioned when stating statistics, presenting real-life encounters and analyzing interviews. Each argument made by the authors of the articles, videos and interviews consistently mentioned the effects that alcohol has on the rates of sexual assaults on college campuses. This proves my thesis statement correct; sexual assault on college campuses is more frequent in situations involving alcohol. 
