Keg-parties and assaults: Women from Catholic high schools in Washington area break ‘culture of...

Yeah I went through high school in the late 80s in the DC area. My girlfriend at the time was from another High School (a private Catholic High School). Both the boys and the girls from those schools all shared in the promotion and execution of alcohol based, sexually charged parties. They were also not much different then the public school's antics, except for maybe the more lavish locations. Never saw anyone cross the line of sexual assault (not to say this never happened), but no amount of alcohol would cloud my judgement enough to allow such a thing to happen if I witnessed it. The thing is, few people were stupid enough to not know whether their punch was spiked. If there was alcohol, everyone pretty much knew before even going.

Having been through high school overseas and within the US, I noted a key difference between the parties at each. Overseas there was less emphasis and focus on alcohol (mostly because by that age we had already been acclimated to having it with our family). We simply didn't really care. In the US it was all about having alcohol at the parties.

So some things need to said here. I was in a Catholic School until 8th grade then switched over to Public Schools because basically I personally felt the Catholic schools were strapped for cash, many of the civilian (yes civilian) teachers in the Catholic school I attended that were hired to suppliment clergy........I felt they sucked. At any rate the heavy drinking actually started in the 8th grade for some possibly even as early as 7th grade. Catholic schools had a problem with drinking but you know what....there wasn't any drugs. The public high schools had an issue with the drinking and the drugs both much more to a heavier degree than the Catholic schools. So can't really imply one was worse off in a Catholic school vs Public. One was safer from the street abuses of drugs and alcohol in the Catholic schools at the time vs Public. The gender specific prep schools added another dimension to the issue because they were supposed to be "off limits" to the gender that was not in attendance. However to teenagers that is just a challenge to be overcome. A lot of times you would have in the prep schools and later college panty raids over to the womens schools or sdie from the mens or male side. Similar to a blanket party in the long ago Army, these panty raids were largely consensual by a core of the women in the female prepatory school or dorm and they left the doors unlocked as well as know the approx time when it would happen as it was leaked in advance. A lot of this was driven by the films at the time as mentioned by recent testimony on Capitol Hill "Fast Times at Ridgemont High", "Animal House", etc, etc. I am sure as with blanket parties some abuses occured. However to characterize these as gang rape parties or gang rape events is someones imagination run wild. There was respect on the male side that some lines were not to be crossed. Also to imply this was strictly a Catholic School issue is pretty rich as well because the Catholic schools got it from the Public schools and Universities. Lets not forget that coed dorms were brand new concept on the public school side in the early 1980's and some Public Universities back then (as with University of Wisconsin) would have a coed DORM but each floor of the dorm was limited to male or female students only. This is how it was with the coed dorms when I attended UW in the late 1980's. They would never mix male and female in the same rooms or on the same floors, that would have been against social mores at the time in the Midwest.