On April 5, The Diamondback published a cartoon — “Sketched Inn” by Joe Welkie — that began with a lame pick-up line and ended with rape.

The man asks, “Hey baby, got any Italian in you? … You want some?” The smiling woman replies, “Yea!” In response, the man pulls out a wooden cutout of the Italian peninsula that is longer and wider than the woman’s entire body. He lifts it over his head, yells “Here it comes!!!” and crams the heel of the boot up the woman’s skirt with such force that she is thrown spread-eagled off her feet, flying higher than the man’s head. She appears pained; the man looks excited.

This “humorous” depiction of rape was run in the same edition of The Diamondback that featured an above-the-fold, front-page article about University Senate and University Police efforts to encourage rape victims to report sexual assault, thereby sharing the details of their experiences in the form of a crime alert.

Hundreds of victims each year do not feel comfortable seeking help from the community. The presence of violent vaginal penetration in the funnies is just one manifestation of a rape-friendly university culture that belittles and minimizes victims. The fact that “rape jokes” are an entire comic genre reflects how rape is considered a trivial act that does not affect real people.

Our cultural definition of “real” rape is so restricted it is impossible for any woman to qualify for the nurturing support society purportedly bestows upon “deserving” rape victims.

Instead, we say she wasn’t “really” raped, she just regretted having sex, or she shouldn’t have been drinking. What did she expect after she made out with him and wore that skirt?

Drinking alcohol, consensual sexual activity and wearing skirts are all considered rape-worthy offenses, resulting in “justifiable rape” in the way St. Thomas Aquinas expounded the God-given right to wage a just war. This attitude betrays a distressing preoccupation with the things victims “shouldn’t” do instead of the things perpetrators shouldn’t do — namely, rape people.

“Real” rape victims worthy of sympathy are those who are raped by strangers, fight back, sustain massive physical trauma, report the crime promptly to the police and successfully prosecute their attacker in court. But when this actually happens, we still vilify the victim. In February 2009, a student was abducted by a man driving a car down Route 1. She attempted to escape, but he repeatedly punched her in the face. He brutally raped her, then drove more than 30 minutes away to an unfamiliar location and forced her to jump out of the moving vehicle. The police found her with her eye swollen shut, bruises all over her face, a bloody nose and severe road rash.

The single, baffling question many people at this university posed was, “Why did she get in a car with him?” The question we should ask is, “Why did this man rape an innocent young woman and leave her to die by the side of the road?”  

Rape is not a concept. Rape is not a slapstick vaudeville gag. Rape is a reality. Rape is on our campus, in our dorms and in our homes. Rape is, by definition, forced and is never asked for, justifiable or the fault of the victim. Rape is always the fault of the perpetrator or perpetrators.

Rape has happened to you or to your friends and family, whether you are acutely aware or utterly ignorant of this fact. If we want victims to feel safe coming forward, then we cannot meet their stories with disbelief, scorn, anger and judgment — particularly not mirth. If we want victims to report sexual assault, we need to change the behavior — not of victims themselves, but of our entire community.

Sarah Peitzmeier is a senior biology and music major. She can be reached at speitzme at umd dot edu.