Sex.
It’s all around us. It’s in our movies, shows, video games, music and books. Wherever there’s creative input, you can rest assured sex can be involved.
Whether its invasion into our culture is the root of many societal problems, it’s impossible to deny how open it has become.
For better or worse, sex is simply something we can’t avoid. It isn’t too surprising, though, considering it’s such a universal desire and is so basic to what we are.
Despite how important sex might be, some definite boundaries cannot be breached. Because of the act’s intimacy and its potential consequences, we have laws concerning rape and consent that attempt to protect all involved.
It’s these sex crimes on which Vice President Joe Biden has been pushing universities to crack down.
On April 4, Biden visited the University of New Hampshire to discuss new guidelines the Department of Education has created concerning sex crimes.
While Biden’s message encompassed all levels of education, it’s especially important at the college level, where rapes often occur.
You’ve probably heard the statistics: 13.7 percent of women will be raped during their time at college, 4.7 percent will be victims of forced sexual assault  — the list of findings made by researchers like Christopher Krebs goes on and on.
While most of these numbers date back to the 1990s, they cannot be ignored. Unfortunately, it’s a very real danger on college campuses, as a more recent federal study performed in 2000 found a college of about 10,000 women can expect to have around 350 rapes per year.
LSU is certainly not immune to such a large threat. If this study accurately applies to our school, we should expect somewhere around 500 rapes to occur by the time the school year ends.
What’s even scarier is —should this research be true — the ridiculous number of rapes that go unreported. Only five were reported to the LSU Police Department in 2010.
While this number seems to be large for something we don’t hear much about, people may remember some instances.
A perfect example is the case last October, when one LSU student was accused of raping another student who was heavily intoxicated at the time.
While his claim of simply “trying to revive her” may be laughable, the accusation is very serious.
What the proposed changes plan to do to help prevent sex crimes is fairly simple. It can be summed up as a goal of investigating, protecting and stopping any instances when the University “knows or reasonably should know of possible sexual violence.”
Part of this involves keeping tabs on people who can already be identified as a threat. Any sex offenders, whether they be faculty or students, would be required to register with campus police, making it easier to keep an eye on these people.
Despite the logistical problems that come with this proposed plan, it is a step in the right direction. Sex crimes are horribly devastating to the victim, and we must take every measure we can to help prevent it.
Even if we can simply make it easier for women to report rape, we can consider it a success. Let’s hope that with the help of Biden’s support, we can see these new changes in the near future.
Until then, we can only hope the cases of “reviving” stay at a minimum.
Zachary Davis is a 20-year-old history junior from Warsaw, Poland. Follow him on Twitter @TDR_zdavis.
 
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Contact Zachary Davis at [email protected]