reading response

Jessica Valenti's "He's Drunk, She's a Victim" draws on several concepts that I along with, I assume, many other classmates, unfortunately, have personal experience with. It is quite uncommon nowadays for a party to last the whole night without some accusation of foul play whether that is unwanted groping, inappropriate verbal comments, or sexual advances. I think that Valenti hits the nail right on the nose by saying that "boys drink to bond and have fun" and girls are expected to show up all "loose" and ready to party with the already drunk men. When the girls do not show up already intoxicated, the main goal then is to push alcohol on them ensuring that they will let go and have a "fun time" in the surroundings of fellow drunk people. That is the stigma that has been placed between males and alcohol and the female role in their party scene. I do not think it is fair to say that "young women drink too much" as Valenti points out in her conclusion because we should not have to change our lifestyle simply in order to not get raped or be violated?? The problem with this issue is that people are expecting the women to change in order for there to be a solution and are not calling on the men to change. Like Valenti quotes, "it is more likely for a male rapist to have been drinking than his female victim" qualifying that in every sense of the matter, the male should be the one to stay in the proper boundaries. 

Similarly in "The Power of Myth", all conceived notions of rape involve accusations against the female saying that the rapist "didn't mean to" or "she liked it". There is no justification to believing you know what someone else is thinking, especially when it comes to matters like these. It is not ok to think that you inherently just know the girl wants it or that it is within your rights as a male to satisfy your desires at the cost of someone else. The social constructs of women being seen as the good girls who don't drink and are perfect angels (leading to accusations of lying about being raped because they don't want to be seen as slutty) have created a dichotomy between what is real and what is presumed, leading men to presume acting upon what they know best and leading women to feel bad about acting in certain ways that are within their rights as human beings.