Rape On Campus

I’m a full-grown woman, and I just spent two years at colleges and universities studying sexual assault. Boy, do I have some takeaways.

- Vanessa Grigoriadis

When I was 40 years old, I went back to college. I’m a journalist, and I was transfixed by the case of Columbia University student Emma Sulkowicz, who carried a 50-pound mattress for nine months to protest the handling of her alleged rape, and shocked by the Vanderbilt University football players who raped a woman while she lay unconscious on a dorm room floor.

To figure out what was going on, I decided to travel to American campuses: to sit cross-legged on the floor, eat microwaved quesadillas, talk to sorority sisters, and bang my head to EDM. Wearing a backpack and sneakers, I haunted campus food courts, libraries, and parties. I was incredibly ancient to be doing this—and I had a husband, a toddler, and a mortgage. But I discovered that it’s fairly easy to get into a frat party when you’re 40-plus. (I’d sneak in behind four or five girls, giving my best “I’m down for Jell-O shots” face to the guy at the door.) That is, until you’re pregnant, as I was by the time I started compiling my research into my book Blurred Lines: Rethinking Sex, Power & Consent on Campus. Turns out, there is one type of woman frat guys don’t want around: a pregnant one.