So my story goes like this: Lived in a coed dorm. One day most of the women in the house had gathered in the room of an upperclassman, who I will call Trish. As we were girl-talk hanging out together, the subject drifted to one of the men in the house who was remarkably immature. He had a habit of catching women in confined spaces and getting well “grabby”. While this conversation was happening, several women commented about these incidents, Vince, Trish’s boyfriend had come into the room and overheard the conversations. He quietly announced himself and asked some questions about what was being discussed. He then said “this will be dealt with.”

A few days later word got out that Mr. Immature had been “confronted” by several men in the house, some had girlfriends in the house, some didn’t, some didn’t have girlfriends. Mr. Immature made himself scarce. He also moved out at the end of the quarter (rather unusual). A story circulated that after being confronted by the men in his own dorm, Immature tried putting the moves on some of the women in the all womens’ dorm that was part of our complex (a concrete block modernist mess that has been demolished and replaced). Apparently some of the women at that house did the confronting.

One other story: a man bent on forced sexual conduct got into the dorm complex (easy enough, you could always wander in with a crowd). He quickly figured out that the coed dorm was not going to be easy pickins’ so he made his way over to the womens’ dorm which was on the other side of the complex. What would be rapist didn’t know was that many of the male students who lived in the mens’ dorm often studied in the womens’ dorm common rooms. When the woman who was confronted by the rapist in the bathroom started screaming, he did not expect to be confronted by three angry guys who chased him down three flights of stairs and out of the building.

So my college experience did not involve sexual assault. It did include several instances where the men stepped into the protect women they knew and lived with. Heroes are real. Pretty sure these guys have parented some pretty impressive sons and daughters.