This guest viewpoint from a UO student convicted of sexual assault was submitted to the Emerald as a stipulation of the perpetrator’s punishment through the Eugene Police Department. For the survivor’s privacy, the author of this piece will remain anonymous. According to the detective who submitted the piece, the survivor reviewed this essay prior to publishing. It was left unedited with the exception of the deletion of the word “partner” in paragraph six. According to the detective, there was no “partnership” between the perpetrator and the woman assaulted. 

As I sit down in the passenger seat of the grey detective van, the latest publication of this very news source on the floor in front of me, it all came crashing down. I had made a mistake. Not only that, but I had made a mistake that was going to change the rest of my life. It was a mistake that has probably made lots of nights in a college town like Eugene, a simple example of the classic college experience taken too far: I had a nonconsensual sexual encounter with someone who was incapable of giving consent because of the influence of drugs and alcohol. Ironically, this publication’s front page was casting a glare at me from the floor of the van. It was titled “All Too Common” in regards to sexual assault on the campus of the University of Oregon. I turned to the detective with a pained sigh and a lump in my throat, “Yep sounds about right,” I said to him, “All too common indeed.”

I am writing this article from home, several months removed from the incident that occurred and the long and stressful legal process that resulted from the incident. I’m not solely writing this article for my own purposes, not because I was asked to by several people (although both of those things are true as well). I am writing this article mainly for you as students at this university because of a growing problem that this campus and many others across the country have with sexual assault and abuse.

It may seem to some of you that committing sexual assault is a far removed possibility. Maybe you think that you could never possibly get yourself into that situation because you believe your morals are strong enough. Or maybe you think that since you’re in a fraternity that you won’t get caught for something like this because somehow it is less frowned upon because of the reputation of Greek Life. Or maybe for that matter, as we have seen very recently, you are a part of one of this university’s outstanding athletic programs and are seen as a celebrity on campus so nothing bad could happen to you. Whatever the case may be, let me tell you something that may shock you: It is not as far removed of a possibility as you think and it doesn’t matter who you are because it can happen to anyone. No one is invincible.

This is a hard truth to come as someone who thought they were invincible regarding this sort of thing. Personally, I thought that I wasn’t capable of doing something like that even if I was under the influence of intoxicants. I thought my morals and mindset would never make it possible for a situation like that to unfold. Unfortunately, I was wrong.

I know, as well as the next college-aged person, that there is a notion among some people that there is some gray area between consent and non-consent. Let me clear that up once and for all from someone who has gone through it first hand: If no words such as “yes” or “sure” are said beforehand, it is nonconsensual. It’s as simple as that. There are a lot of “what ifs?” that you can probably think of and I can think of — and I can think of plenty as well. But as a guy who has had sexual relationships before, we all know that there is a fine line that we are either on one side of or the other. No gray area whatsoever.

Take my word for it: You never want to end up on the wrong side of that line. The consequences and punishments for someone who commits a crime of this nature are not feeble. There is a laundry list of implications for my actions starting with as soon as I was arrested. Right off the bat, I spent several days in jail because of the seriousness of the crime. The only reason I got out was because of the generous and gracious acts of my parents in bailing me out. As I stated before, I am writing this article from home, meaning that I am no longer attending UO at this time because of the crime I committed. In addition, I am now required to register as a sex offender and am on probation for three years.

Financially, I put my family in a very hard situation because of the numerous expenses of going through the legal system. I had to keep my situation a secret from even my closest friends because of the embarrassment that would have caused. The list goes on and on. I do not tell you these things to scare you or to make you feel sorry for me. The case is over and I am moving on with my life. But I do tell you these things as a strict warning of what can happen if you are not careful. Being a student at a great university like this one is a privilege and not a right. Do not take anything in your life for granted because you never know when everything can come crashing down on you, like it did in my life.

Sexual assault and abuse is far too frequent, especially on college campuses. For whatever reason, guys think that we are part of some sort of free-for-all in college where any woman who will talk to you will also have sexual relations with you. This is most certainly not true and is part of an overwhelmingly toxic culture of this sort of behavior. Guys and girls become overconfident and think things are happening that really are not. It is part of the culture that we live in to think that reckless sexual behavior is just part of the “college experience” and that no harm can be done by it. This is entirely false and should be reconsidered as a common notion for all college students. What should not be reconsidered as a common notion, is the fact that this situation is happening too often for anyone’s liking and needs to be addressed more and more as it worsens. Just because it has become an “all too common” theme in the present, does not mean that the phrase cannot be changed to “a thing of the past” in the not-too-distant future.