About a year ago, an acquaintance of mine, Hannah*, was at a party with some friends. As typical college students, Hannah and her friends commonly drank alcohol on the weekends at parties. This night and this party were no different in that respect.
When a guy at the party came up to Hannah and offered her a drink, she was smart enough to say no. She hadn’t seen the drink being made and didn’t know if there might be anything more than alcohol in it. Her friend though, we’ll call him Luke*, was not quite as smart as her. He took the drink from the guy.
Luke’s night ends there.
When Luke woke up the next morning he had no recollection of the night after drinking the drink that was originally intended for Hannah. The friends thought back on what Luke had drunk that night, to see if he did indeed black out from the strange drink, or just from drinking too much alcohol.
All the friends agreed that Luke had maybe 3 drinks before the one intended for Hannah – a record low for him – and came to the conclusion that therefore his blackout could not have come from just alcohol alone.
Luke soon learned that he had been roofied on that drink for Hannah. The guy at the party who tried to give it to her clearly had other intentions for her that night. Intentions that she would not have reciprocated if sober. She soon realized, that had she not been smart enough to say no to that drink, she would likely have been raped.
What makes this okay though? Why do guys today think actions like this are okay?
The answer lies in the society we live in and pop culture.
Everywhere we turn we see drugs, alcohol, and sex. It’s in the movies we watch and the music we listen to. The Weeknd is a popular artist who, in his 2012 song, “High for This,” tells an unknown female, “Open your hand / Take a glass / Don’t be scared / I’m right here / Even though / You don’t roll / Trust me girl / You wanna be high for this / Take it off.” Throughout the remainder of the song, The Weeknd continues to talk about the sex occurring, while high, with this unknown female.
College-age people today grew up watching movies like “The Hangover,” where the characters hilariously try to recount their adventures of the previous night after they were roofied. Viewers laugh at their shenanigans and behavior towards women, forgetting just how dangerous a situation the characters are in.
Young adolescents listening to The Weeknd’s song at first may not know what the artist really means. But, as they get older, they soon understand his true meaning. These young children then think actions like this are perfectly okay and normal. Young boys grow up hearing about behavior like this in everything they listen to, and seeing examples in everything they watch, and sadly begin to think that actions like this – giving a girl drugs and/or alcohol before having sex with her – are perfectly acceptable.
College students have forgotten how dangerous drugs can be. Slipping a drug into someone else’s drink has become a problem on every college campus not only across the country, but also throughout the world. Change is needed in the society we live in and the pop culture that surrounds us, so that actions like this are no longer okay.
*Name has been changed
