A L S O_ T O D A Y

Camille on Campus
By Camille Paglia
Penned off in gilded ghettos, the scholars of sex miss the complex biological and cultural story of human sexual nature

T A B L E_ T A L K

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When faced with quasi-assault from a friend, a young student finds neither college counselors nor handbooks have an answer.

BY ALEXANDRA ROBBINS | When the guy I wasn't dating grabbed my breast, I had to think for a second before I whacked him on the head with my book, wriggled out of his grip and careened out of his room into the safety of a busy dorm hallway.

Stunned, I stood there for a moment as I tried to decide which was worse -- that a "friend" had tricked me into a compromising position that he knew wasn't consensual, or that I had hesitated in his arms because I wondered for a moment if maybe I had wanted it after all.

A Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology study found that 95 percent of rapes occurring on college campuses go unreported. John Foubert, president and founder of the National Organization of Men's Outreach for Rape Education, said that the figure would be similar for sexual assaults, although he was unaware of a study that focused on that broader category.

Everyone from feminist activists to "Felicity" writers decry these supposedly cowardly young women who are allegedly too weak to put themselves through a court or university administrative process and too selfish to stop the perpetrator from assaulting again.

But some of us never even had a case.

The basic rules are concise and clear-cut. No matter the circumstance, if she says, "No," she means "No." If she says, "Stop," you'd better stop or you could be facing jail time. For those of us who remained indecisively silent, however, there is little chance for retribution. Authorities are not going to punish an outside party for our own inner confusion.

If it had been rape, the issue of consent would have been easier to define. If I had struggled, screamed or tried to escape, yet he proceeded with penetration, I would have had a case. I would have pressed charges.

But I was never looking for a case. He didn't rape me -- he just put his hand on my breast. It could have been much worse. I was lucky. I suffered no long-standing emotional or physical damage; only extreme anger at his gall and at my passivity, and nostalgic sadness at the loss of a former friendship.

As soon as we met the first week of freshman year, we became fast friends. He liked my perverse sense of humor and I liked that he reminded me of my best friends from high school -- my posse of boys who would drag me with them to Hooters every now and again just to prove that I was one of the guys.

He and I were from the same city. We were both involved in committed long-distance romances. We talked football. We flirted. Harmlessly.

It doesn't take much to bond during the beginning of freshman year, when you have the free time to spend several hours doing nothing with the same person. Starved for friends and yearning to belong, students will cling tightly to superficial connections if only to widen their blossoming social circles. That's fine, that's normal, that's healthy. But that's also dangerous.

According to "Sex Without Consent: Peer Education Training for Colleges and Universities," a disproportionate number of sexual assaults on campus "affect first-year women in the first three months of the academic year."

N E X T_ P A G E .|. Harmless flirting