A Submission from Everett Daily- daily_e@denison.edu

Hello all,

The past two weeks, I have found myself once again disgusted with Denison University. My disgust is not due to racism this time but to sexism. In the past two weeks, I found out that rape on Denison’s campus happens ALL THE TIME through my conversations with students. Prior to these conversations, I had no idea that it happened so frequently. I had these conversations with two women in sororities, a women’s studies class, a female athlete, a male athlete, and general students. EVERYTIME, I had these conversations, it seemed that I was the only one unaware of how often rape happens on this campus. I found it very interesting how nonchalant the conversations went. I would say, “Did you know that people get raped on this cam….” And before I could finish my sentence the other person always says “ALL THE TIME.” So, then my question turned into: If women are getting raped on this campus all the time, why is it that nobody is doing anything about it? I get these explanations: If a woman wants to get a test to see if someone put a “ruphie” in her drink, it cost nearly 500 dollars, meaning that if this woman does not have 500 dollars to see if someone slipped something into her drink, then she will never know. She would also have to come up with the 500 dollars within 3 days because it can only be proven up to 3 days after the incident. Why does it cost 500 dollars for a woman to relinquish a guilt that she may feel after being raped? Why does it cost 500 dollars for a woman to prove that someone sexually assaulted her? Why does it cost 500 dollars to get a coward persecuted for his crime? I also got: People are scared to come forward because they know the person who raped them and they all have the same friends. These friends, I found out, end up protecting the rapist and not the woman who is raped! WHAT KIND OF FRIENDS ARE THOSE? With friends like that, who needs enemies? If those people are your REAL friends they would stick up for you not matter what. People are scared because they don’t want to be excluded. If they come forward then they will be looked down upon because the rapist could be kicked out of school (which is not necessarily true, ask Huey, who finished his four years) and they would be “starting trouble.” How backwards is that shit? Why isn’t it that the woman is protected and the rapist excluded? OH WAIT, I HAVE THE ANSWER TO THAT ONE. YOU READY? It’s because there are so many rapists on this campus and it happens so often that it has become acceptable. It’s now cool and ordinary for a guy to slip something into a woman’s drink and force himself inside of her while she is passed out. It is perfectly okay for this guy to go and brag about it because he knows for a fact that nothing is going to happen to him. The system of Denison University tells gives him permission and so do his frat brothers and his sorority friends who protect him when he rapes another girl. And because a woman does drugs, drinks, or wears promiscuous clothing does not mean that she deserves to be raped, does not justify the rape, and does not make the rapist less of a monster or a coward. It does however; make him less human and less of a man. There is an honor that comes with a woman allowing a man to have sex with her. Who are you to steal it? How much of a man are you to, not only steal from a woman, but to attempt to steal her womanhood from her and to do it when she can not defend herself? And then you go and hide behind your friends and other woman for protection, and the brag about it later. Coward. Denison University is a university full of rapists who are not penalized and are allowed to continue their lives care-free, while the women that they rape are scarred for live. Just remember ALL YOU RAPISTS OUT THERE, YOU TOO MIGHT HAVE A DAUGHTER SOMEDAY.