It happens more than you think, and it's not OK.
It is the one in six women who have been victims of rape or attempted rape, according to the Center for Family Justice, or the 60 percent of sexual assaults not reported to the police.
It's how I can look at one of my own college classrooms and know, if those statistics are correct, the other women in that room and myself are four times more likely to be date raped than any other age group in the country.
It's how I can sit around with my female friends and recall countless times where we felt harassed, threatened or afraid, and it's how some of those stories turned into something much worse than being scared.
It's how I can't tell you what I wore on my thirteenth birthday, but I can remember with perfect clarity how the construction workers in my neighborhood would wolf-whistle and cat-call every time I walked the family dog that same year.
A group of young men at North Carolina State University invented a nail polish with the ability to test a drink for date rape drugs with the quick dip of a finger.
I don't intend to belittle their idea, because it's awesome and I wish them nothing but the best, but do we -- not just girls, not just women, but everyone -- deserve a society where date rape drug nail polish needs to exist at all? If I buy this nail polish and it saves me from an assault, what about the girl who decided to spend her money on a meal or school supplies instead?
A Columbia student named Emma Sulkowicz has carried a mattress around campus in protest of the school's refusal to expel her rapist. Now a senior, she was assaulted two years ago in her own dorm room by a classmate.
Two other students have come forward to claim the same man raped them, but by some gross judgment, the case has been dismissed. Sulkowicz said she would carry around the mattress until her rapist is no longer at the school.
On Sept. 11, a group of Columbia students, male and female, gathered to help her carry the mattress from place to place.
In the end, Sulkowicz's protest is still just a protest. Her rapist is still at her school, and while I can't speak to how she feels, I can only imagine seeing him expelled won't do much to clear out the memories.
But if we want to see a change in this world, and if you want to see your daughter, or sister or yourself be able to walk around without a rape whistle or scientific nail polish, maybe helping Emma Sulkowicz lighten her load is a good place to start.
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