by Melodie Davis

Melodie Davis is the writer/producer for MennoMedia in Harrisonburg, Virginia, as well as an author who blogs here and writes the Another Way newspaper column appearing in ten newspapers and at the Third Way Cafe.

This is the third post in the Steubenville Reflection Series featured on Our Stories Untold the week of March 24-29.

Rape is rape is rape is rape. It is a violation of everything good, and it is bad no matter who commits it, on whom, or how. The victim is not to blame. Social media rape is a digital age extension of the original crime, as in Steubenville. That people saw and did not get involved to stop the crime is another violation of our moral responsibilities. That people passed on tweets and posts about the first rape is another rape.

But there is a larger culture even than the rape culture we talk about, and that is the alcohol culture that is messing up so many lives, relationships, and events. Two recent, close to home (for me) examples:

• The happy event of a small team finally making it to the NCAA tournament for the first time in 19 years  turns into an embarrassment for our small town when a player, at a too-big, celebratory (off campus) party gets too intoxicated to respond appropriately to the law enforcement officers who arrive. School officials are forced to suspend him for half a game in the tournament tonight (March 20). What kind of suspension is that, asked pundits on the national scene?
• The fun of a St. Patty’s Day parade and pub crawl in downtown Charlotte, N.C. last Saturday snowballs into drunken revelers pushing and shoving at a sandwich shop which my 29 and 30-year-old daughter and son-in-law had ducked into to try to grab a sandwich before going to a concert. They were actually frightened for what it would escalate to, and they are not prudes or strangers to parties where people have drunk to excess.

What is this, the Wild West?

This is the culture where winking at alcohol abuse—serving it in the “big donor” and booster club tents on college campuses before football or other games doesn’t seem a contradiction to campus policies about underage drinking. On many campuses, some students can choose substance-free housing, but often there is not enough housing with that designation. Why are freshmen and sophomores who are obviously under the drinking age of 21 allowed to live in anything but substance-free housing; it’s like the administration, even it is official policies, is saying, well, we know you’re going to drink.

This is the culture where statistically, anyone who drinks to excess is 21 times more likely to have unplanned, unprotected, or unwanted sex. They have a much higher possibility of experiencing acquaintance rape, which is as bad as any kind of rape. It is not hard to find statistics and studies online.

The alcohol culture, the hooking up culture, the anything-goes-in-the-sex department culture somehow hits us in the face in Steubenville.

Drinking is shown as the normal lifestyle of teenagers and young adults. Look at advertising. Look at your grocery stores, full of binge drinking displays and paraphernalia (ping-pong balls, and tiny plastic cups for beer bong).

Our country is swimming in an alcohol culture and Steubenville (or your backyard) is just one result. If we could manage to change the culture of college drinking, we would save a whole lot of women (and some men) from unwanted sexual advances and rape.