Well, claim innocence no more, because, legally defined, date rape is the nonconsensual, forced intercourse with someone you know, often through means of drugs and alcohol abuse. For those of you who haven’t committed the act, I encourage you to see how we facilitate it.

I was introduced to this victimizing culture in my freshman year when I encountered the earnest pleas of a boy who said, “I can’t get into this party unless you girls will be my tickets.” Yes, this was quite a posh event with a prerequisite of three girls to a man, as opposed to the more commonplace two.

In the throes of refinement and polished celebration I have overheard one guy’s novel idea: “I just need to get one more drink in her.”

My neighbors chose to exalt sexual violence by posting a sign on their house that read, “One in seven men will be sexually assaulted in their lifetime.” Aggravated to the point of confrontation, I talked to someone who callously described the sign’s uproarious humor. MSU has taught me about our state of indifference.

Those of you who laugh, chalking assault off to the ever-so-debilitating proverb saying “boys will be boys,” I beg you to put things in perspective.

Reading the statistics that MSU’s Sexual Assault & Relationship Violence Prevention Program published, I realized that people have been numbed to the gravity of sexual assault, assuming it to be a distant crime. The truth is 25 percent of women and 10 percent of men have been assaulted, and since every person knows at least four women and 10 men, no one has been left unaffected.

Discussing America’s latest literary genius, Neil Strauss’ “The Game,” a friend and I rifled through pages, and sought to understand how the degradation of women to the point of sex would be considered an “art,” and furthermore, an acclaimed piece of nonfiction. I came across that friend later to find her thinking about her own personal experience, pained and crying, “How can I make anyone care?”

I felt and feel so helpless. We must care. We are immersed in a culture of victims. Right now, as you read, someone is remembering their terrifying night, someone is seething with pain, someone is paying for therapy, embellishing their secret, destroying their relationships, attempting suicide, popping Prozac, trying to love themselves — all while overhearing our culture laugh at rape “jokes,” while walking by a “humorous” sign.

Those quick to tune out and pass this off as an “I am woman, hear me roar” manifesto, hear this plea for humanity. A cultural transformation will help everyone. The people you love have been hurt, and the worst kind of pain is someone else’s. I ask for reformation, not because I’m a woman, but because I’m a human.

The unfortunate nature of progress is that it is difficult to attain the rights of the powerless without the voices of the powerful. I’m sure many have heard the beautiful words of the Rev. Martin Niemoller, yet we find ourselves in a hapless pattern of perpetual blindness, so I’ll summarize the words spoken with hope for a generation better than what we have become,

“They came first for the Communists, but I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, but I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for the Catholics, but I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left to speak up for me.”

Perhaps it is a childlike delusion that propels me and adheres my heart so tightly to human nature. I can’t let go of the belief that humanity is beautiful, and perhaps that’s why I ache to see what we’ve become for our victims.

We have the power to contribute to wrongdoing in this culture, but we also can pervade society with assertive defense. We can adhere to our beautiful, humane virtue or cling to falsehoods. In a sense, we have all been forced into submission, a submission to this culture. I can’t make you change. I can only ask you to consider truth, and the integrity I believe we were all born with.

Casey McCorry is a State News guest columnist and English senior. Reach her at mccorryc@msu.edu.