So fresh and so clean?

While in an undisclosed frat section one night during orientation week, I was asked at least a dozen times if I was a freshman. Upon giving the answer, "No, I'm actually a sophomore," each time, I was promptly left alone by the male in question for the rest of the night. According to an unofficial poll of approximately seven of my closest female friends, this is a common occurrence during the first few weeks of each new school year.

Don't get me wrong, the nights I spent catching up this week with friends I had made freshman year far surpassed any random pickup lines I could have received from frat guys had I been a freshman, but as a woman, it bothers me that freshman girls are viewed solely as pieces of meat.

As a freshman last year, I totally avoided the party scene the first few weeks of school, and in retrospect, that was probably one of the few intelligent choices I made during my first year. Not to sound preachy, but it's pretty scary that the majority of sexual assaults during college occur within the first six weeks of coming to campus as a freshman.

What's even scarier is that freshmen girls hear this statistic time and time again throughout orientation week yet still flock to frat parties in droves. At least when sophomore girls go out in packs, we either know the guys we're going to visit, or know which frats are sketchy. Though these groups of girls are quite comical to watch (and make excellent targets for a drunken frisbee toss), I can't help but wince when I realize how naive they actually are.

We all have been there--sitting in the Real Deal listening to tons of statistics and watching skits that we feel will never apply to us. But on the other hand, every female FAC has sat in that same presentation and come to the conclusion that the topics that we think will never pertain to us become very real over our first year here.

I personally thought I was going to either cry or be sick when one of the Healthy Devils stood up at the end of his skit and said that seated in the audience were a both a female friend of his that had been raped and her rapist.

What might have been even more appalling, however, was hearing a group of first years who were upset that the show had started out in such a funny tone but ended up so serious. Yeah, we joke about the fact that condoms are thrown at us here left and right and have all been very appreciative that they are, but do we really think about the realities of sexual assault?

I can hear everyone reading this now moaning, "Sarah, have you ever heard of a little thing called the Duke Lacrosse scandal?" I haven't been on anther planet for the past few months, but I'm also fairly sure that many a Duke student-myself included-dismissed the incident pretty quickly feeling assured that it was not as horrible of an ordeal as the press made it out to be. And the truth that can be gained from all this is that rape does happen. Period. Whether it happened that night or not, we don't know, but isn't it just as scandalous that it happens in the room next to us or down the hall or one quad over?