Alcohol Consumption Is Directly Related to Sexual Assault, Study Shows

A new study is debunking the myth that binge drinking alone is an indicator of likelihood to commit sexual assault, and it's instead providing a more nuanced look at how and where assaults on college campuses occur. The research, published in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, surveyedover 1,000 male college students before they started school and during their first five semesters on campus. The results were alarming: Around 18%of respondents admitted to committing at least one sexual assault during that period of time in college, and the scholars conducting the study discovered an important pattern in their behavior. The group found that binge drinking alone didn't necessarily increase a man's likelihood to commit an assault. Instead, men who were consistently binge drinking at parties and bars were more likely to show aggressive, forced and unwanted behavior towards women. Why is this finding so important? Alcohol has been at the center of the rhetoric about sexual assault on campus. When there are substances like alcohol involved, people (in many cases, women) are unable to give consent to sexual activity. This fits alcohol into the date rape drug category, which is "any drug that is an incapacitating agent which, when administered to another person, incapacitates the person and renders them vulnerable to a sexual assault, including rape." Alcohol is the most common date rape drug, however, many perpetrators have also been using this same reasoning ("I was too drunk!") to excuse their actions, claiming that alcohol is to blame for their behavior. In fact, it's the exact justification that Stanford rapist Brock Turner used during his sentencing last summer. Instead, this study shows that blaming alcohol itself misses the larger point; it's the settings where binge drinking takes place that significantly raise the likelihood of someone committing a sexual assault. The research also has many implications for how colleges should be handling rape culture. Contrary to common practice, trying to keep certain types of alcohol off campus, much like Stanford is now attempting, isn't an adequate measure to stop assault. The spaces where binge drinking occurs and the attitudes of people in those spaces need to be significantly altered, not just the types or amount of alcohol available. Translation: Everyone needs to rewire how they think about hooking upand consent. In addition, bystander intervention training needs to become the utmost priority for campuses. If people in these spaces are able to sense when someone is becoming aggressive and know how to handle the situation, they'll be better able to help a person dealing with unwanted and forced advances. But at the end of the day, the message is simple: Alcohol can't continue to be a scapegoat. People commit sexual assaults, but people also have the power to stop them.