As the school year kicks off, sexual assault reports are already starting to be filed. Sadly, what should be one of the most exciting times in many peoples’ lives, the first few weeks of freshman year, is also one of the most dangerous for women. Many schools deal with this through a tired set of sexual assault awareness activities that blame women for not being careful enough. In their honor, I thought I’d reprise a post from several months ago (slightly modified), giving some Real Campus Safety Tips that I’d like to see colleges start offering at Orientation.

Awful, random things happen. They are almost impossible to prevent, and living your life in fear of leaving your house doesn’t necessarily make you safer, although it will make you more miserable. (I’m not advocating courting danger here – if there is a known threat on campus, do everything you can to keep yourself safe.)

The vast majority of sexual assaults are committed by someone known to the victim. Not walking alone late at night isn’t going to do a damn thing about those cases; in fact in several cases I have read about, the perpetrator used the woman’s fear of walking home alone at night as a way to get her into his car or himself invited into her apartment. Similarly, only accepting drinks from people you know isn’t going to help you if the person you know is the person who is a danger to you. So here are some tips for how we can make campuses safer, focused on stopping the perpetrators, not scaring women.

* Intervene if you see a situation that looks like sexual assault or looks like it could be heading in that direction. How you do this depends on the situation. If you see someone half carrying a woman who looks too drunk to consent to anything, ask what’s up. Offer to help get the woman safely home. In the case of an assault in process, follow the lead of the De Anza soccer players – get a couple of friends and help the victim get out of the situation. If you think doing so might put yourself in danger, call the police or campus security. Too many people decide “this isn’t my business” or “I don’t want to get involved” and in doing so you help make rape possible.

* As a corollary to the above, a lot of people don’t know how to do this because, surprise, all the talk about sexual assault we’ve ever heard focuses on what women should and shouldn’t do. So demand that your school provide bystander training at orientation – it’s more effective at reducing sexual assault because it creates community accountability and teaches everyone how to intervene.

* If someone tells you about a sexual encounter that sounds like sexual assault to you, call them on it. Ask him/her whether he/she thinks the woman/man wanted whatever happened. Challenge his/her claims that her/his clothes/behavior/intoxication was asking for it. Your willingness to ignore or condone his/her behavior makes rape possible.

* Similarly, if someone makes general comments that seem to condone rape, call them on it. Jokes and misogynistic comments are often only ways of trying to be one of the boys, but they perpetuate the idea that to be a real man is to be a rapist. We all know that’s not true, but that idea is one that allows many rapists to justify their behavior to themselves.

* If you find yourself thinking about raping someone, get help. Often your campus health services offers confidential counseling that can help you explore what is at the root of these impulses (not usually sex, btw, a large percentage of repeat rapists are involved in consensual sexual relationships while they are committing rapes) and how to keep yourself from acting on them. If your college does not have such services, call your community’s mental health services for a referral.

* Support survivors. Believe them. Stand up for them when people attack them for bringing the truth forward. Don’t blame them for what happened. Don’t lecture them on what they should have done. Blame, shame, and shun their attackers. Too many survivors are afraid to come forward with their stories because they see other survivors ridiculed, disbelieved, and criticized for “ruining” some “upstanding” young man. Attacking survivors for coming forward makes rape possible.

* Don’t drink until your judgment is impaired. And I mean this for the potential assailants, not the potential victims. The majority of rapists, especially on college campuses, were drunk when they committed the assault. We have inhibitions against certain behaviors for a reason, and if you find that alcohol lowers yours dangerously, cut yourself off the sauce. Think about sex like driving – if you’re too drunk to drive, you’re too drunk to have sex. If she/he actually wants to sleep with you, she/he’ll be happy to give you her/his number and you can hook up another night.

* Learn to defend yourself, verbally and physically. There’s a lot of debate about this as a long-term solution to sexual assault, but for yourself, knowing how to yell loudly and punch or kick the person assaulting you can be a life-saver. Don’t be afraid of making a fuss – too many women are so conditioned to handle everything without upsetting anyone that they try to handle their rapes quietly, without upsetting anyone. Rapists, especially rapists attacking women they know socially, take advantage of our cultural conditioning, and it is time we screamed NO! at the top of our lungs. Demand that your college provide free or very low cost full body/full impact/multi-day/acquaintance rape oriented self-defense classes for women (some schools offer them as a PE class, for instance).

The hardest two:

* Self-assess. Have you ever used your body weight to keep someone from pushing you off and ending sex with them? Have you ever kept going after your partner said “No” or “Stop” ? Have you ever tricked or threatened someone into having sex with you? Have you ever had sex with someone you knew was very drunk (slurring words, having trouble standing, not awake)? Have you ever had someone cry or scream upon waking up in bed with you? Have you ever been contacted the next day by someone wanting to know what happened the night before? If you answered yes to any of the first four questions you have crossed the line into the legal definition of rape in most states. If you answered yes to the last two, you’ve either crossed over or tread awfully close. Stop. Seek help. You are the problem, and only you can change your behavior.

* Self-assess. Have any of the above things ever happened to you? Have you sought help for yourself? If not, please, please do so. Some campuses offer special sexual assault survivor services or check with your health services to find out about confidential counseling or look for a local rape crisis hotline or center.

Did you report it to your school or the police? If not, did you invoke some other kind of community sanction that you think brought home the weight of his crime to the perpetrator? If not, do you worry that your perpetrator may do the same thing to another woman? While fully acknowledging the right of the survivor not to report and understanding the myriad reasons why survivors do not report, every report that is not filed is a missed opportunity for an intervention that may prevent more assaults in the future. Many schools now offer anonymous reporting or confidential reporting if you do not want to go through the process of a hearing or criminal case (and if your school doesn’t, that’s an important policy change to ask for ASAP). Taking that step is important – it can allow administrators to spot patterns or can help corroborate the story of someone else who comes forward. It also allows the administration to get a better idea of the extent of the problem on their campuses – and that can lead to better prevention programs and survivor services. Reporting or speaking out, even very retroactively, can be an important part of the healing process.

Above all, please take care of yourself. Untreated trauma can affect you in a numerous ways and can put you at risk for further violence in the future.