“Majority of Sexual Assaults Attributed to Alcohol”

The title of this post is a headline from the student-run newspaper at my school–Western Washington University–called The Western Front. The article begins on the front page under the main headline “Majority of binge drinkers ages 18-34,” and then continues inside the paper with the blog title text (Alcohol=Assault) as a header.

If I could I would upload an image of the print version of the article, since the online version of the article does not contain the two most flagrant instances of victim-blaming and rape culture apologism. Those being this header text and a text box within the article which presents the following information: “Consequences of Binge Drinking”: Domestic Violence, Sexual Assault, Sexually Transmitted Infections, Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, Liver Disease, Heart Attacks, Car Accidents” (Western Front, January 13, 2012, page 7). The author cites the Center for Disease Control and Prevention as the source of this information.

This little “info box,” presented as journalistic fact in my on-campus newspaper, imposes so much shame on female sexuality that it literally includes an instance of victim-blaming and slut-shaming for every stage of a woman’s life. First the woman makes the mistake of drinking, thus inviting rape since sexual violence is a consequence of binge drinking, and then she harms the fetus which the rapist implants in her uterus, then her husband beats her (again because she drinks), and then she dies in a car crash. After getting liver disease. I know I imposed a heteronormative narrative on these successive “life events,” but within the actual article it only cites the percentage of female victims of sexual assault who had been drinking at the time the assault occurred. Because, you know, that’s important.

I have been trying to incite a public call-out of the bullshit that appears in this article, at least among my campus community. To me the article (even if just these two small pieces) is an emblematic microaggression. I do not want it to go unnoticed. And I want to call bullshit.