ColumnAsk a person you know if they know someone who has been drugged with a “date rape drug.” Chances are, everyone knows somebody.

I’m not happy that statement is true, but them’s the breaks. Heck, I’ve been drugged twice in my life. Once by a date and once at a bar. And I would have loved—nay, been elated, thrilled, and full of joy—if someone would have seen these people doing their nefarious deeds. That’s why the story I’m about to tell you is so damn rad.

What happened

A group of gals were having a drink at Fig, a Santa Monica restaurant, when one of the women witnessed a man slip something into aa woman’s drink at another table after she went to the restroom.

Sonia Ulrich, one of the women in the group, recalled that one of her friends uttered, “that guy just put something in her drink.”

Ulrich recounted the entire event on her Facebook account the next day. No, it wasn’t for praise or notoriety—it was to make more people aware that anyone can drug anyone.

Now, back to the story….

Ulrich and her friends discussed what to do. Ulrich finally decided to go to the bathroom and tell the woman what her friend saw. Once the woman emerged from the stall, Ulrich approached her and said, “Hey! Um, this is kind of weird, but, uh, we saw the guy you were with put something in your drink.”

“Oh, my god,” the woman replied.

Ulrich replied, ”yeah, my girlfriend said she saw him put something in your drink and we had to say something. Woman to woman…you know. We had to say something. How well do you know that guy?” I was expecting to hear ‘We just met.'”

But the woman said, “he’s one of my best friends.”

Apparently, the woman and the man had known each other for a year and a half, and they worked together.

Luckily, the story ends well.

The two friends who remained at the table were able to tell a server who spoke to a manager.

The manager was able to tell the restaurant’s security team immediately and because of that, they reviewed the restaurant’s security tape and caught the man drugging the woman.

Although the woman had to sit through dinner with the man, the restaurant’s security was able to catch him and take him away from the woman, leaving her unharmed.

The moral of the story

This isn’t something that happens every-so-often. It happens All. The. Time.

At the end of her post, Ulrich shared that more than a handful of people at the restaurant told her that “it had happened to them,” and “it happened to my best friend.”

We all have to be aware of our surroundings and not be scared to speak up when we think we see something. Because if this story reminds us of anything, it’s that anyone can rape anyone… even good friends.

I’m not sure why that’s so hard for people to comprehend, but it’s true—according to the LA Times, the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network reports that “nearly half of sexual assaults are committed by a friends of acquaintance.”

And the problem is that the “this can’t happen” perception leads victims of assault to think no one will believe them, or that it’s their fault.

So, let’s end this with Ulrich’s wise words: “…yes, you SHOULD say something.”

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Image by Sonia Ulrich via Facebook

The post Yep, Even ‘Friends’ Use the Date Rape Drug: #NowWhat appeared first on EcoSalon.

Sexual violence, stalking, and intimate partner violence are a public health threat, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

A national survey using the most recent data on the subject found that 19.3 percent of women and 1.7 percent of men had been raped in their lifetimes. In all, 1.6 percent of women said they had been raped in the past year.

“Consistent with previous studies, the overall pattern of results suggest that women, in particular, are heavily impacted over their lifetime. However, the results also indicate that many men experience sexual violence, stalking, and, in particular, physical violence by an intimate partner,” CDC noted in their recent report. “Because of the broad range of short- and long-term consequences known to be associated with these forms of violence, the public health burden of sexual violence, stalking, and intimate partner violence is substantial.”

Additionally, CDC found that many women and men had experienced sexual violence at a young age. An estimated 78.7 percent of women who had reported being raped, experienced this sexual violence before age 25 and 40.4 percent were raped before age 18.

Women of all races and ethnicities experienced high levels of sexual violence and the sexual abuse was a two way street, meaning both men and women were impacted. Other forms of sexual violence were also prevalent in the study–an estimated 43.9 percent of women experienced some other form of sexual violence including sexual coercion, stalking, unwanted sexual contact, and non-contact unwanted sexual experiences.

It’s worth noting that Time.com found that the statistics were skewed because of the way the questions were asked:

“CDC survey respondents are not asked whether anyone has used physical force or threats to make them engage in a sexual activity, but ‘how many’ people have done this (in their lifetime and in the past year). This wording removes the extra hurdle of admitting that such a violation has happened, and thus encourages more reporting. But could it also create “false positives” by nudging people toward the assumption that the default answer is affirmative—especially when preceded by a battery of other questions and statements about sexually coercive behavior?”

However the questions were asked, the statistics are startling both for women and men. CDC points to a culture of sexual violence that starts young. Changing this culture is no easy task but the realization that so many young women and men are dealing with sexual violence is difficult to swallow.

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Date rape drug detecting nail polish sounds like it could be a good idea. Any tool that could potentially help protect a person from sexual predators is a positive thing. But it looks like this new product is all hype and has no substance.

Four students at North Carolina State University developed Undercover Colors, the “anti date rape” nail polish. The polish was intended to detect common date rape drugs (aka change color when dipped in a drink), but the polish turns out to be a dud. The nail polish can’t detect four of the common drugs used in many date rapes. And even worse, when tested, the nail polish failed to detect the drug it was created to “find.”

After all this information came out, women and men have, understandably, been up in arms about the product. Here are just a few more reasons why Undercover Colors is inevitably useless:

As many women and men have pointed out, the most common date rape drug is alcohol. If a woman or man has too much to drink, they can’t fight off their attacker. Also: Most women, in general, can’t fight off a male attacker even if they haven’t had anything to drink.

How many women would actually wear this polish? I’m betting not many. Even if a woman does wear nail polish regularly, will she actually stop and apply this nail lacquer before heading out for the evening? As this XOVain article points out, a drug detecting line of lip-glosses were released in 2009. That line, while well intentioned, went absolutely nowhere.

And most importantly: The majority of date rapes happen without drugs or alcohol.

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: The only way to stop date rape is to teach people not to rape.

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Image: James Lee

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