The United States Coast Guard Academy reports 10% of all female cadets experienced unwanted sexual contact, a 2% increase from the previous year. Forty percent of women and 10 percent of men said they had been sexually harassed.
Shannon Norenberg, the sexual assault response coordinator states that her solution to the increase of sexual violence at the Coast Guard Academy is to develop a training in which cadets can be trained on how to prevent being raped or assaulted.
Numerous rape prevention studies had shown that it does not matter how much a woman drinks or what she might be wearing. By teaching cadets how to “protect one self from rape” the Coast Guard Academy is placing the responsibility of preventing a rape on to a potential victim and putting the blame of a rape on to the survivor. The only one that can prevent rape is the one who causes it: the rapist. The Coast Guard Academy needs to step up and teach men to not rape instead of teaching “how not to be a victim.”
Rear Adm. Sandra L. Stosz the academy's superintendent calls sexual abuse as “somewhat natural”. She was quoted in a military.com article saying:
“If, one time, a guy or gal is clumsy or stupid and tries to touch someone and they're repulsed, they learn. Someone who goes around and keeps trying many times, that's a different kind of behavior than someone who is awkward and experimenting.”
Sexual assault is not being “clumsy” or “stupid” but a violent crime –a felony with lifelong consequences for the survivor. Sexual Assault is sexual assault regardless if it happened once or if it happened repetitively over a period of time. The Coast Guard Academy should not tolerate Sexual Assault and the superintendent should stop making excuses for sex predators.
The most effective way to reduce sexual assault and rape is to eradicate a culture in which sex crime is acceptable. Teaching cadets how not to get raped and calling those that commit act of sexual assault as being “clumsy” the rape culture at the Academy is only getting much worst.