"It was a guy I knew a little bit about, and I didn’t like his reputation... I just kind of interposed myself..."

"... and started talking to her about something. The guy got the message and he took off," said Adam Erickson, a Yale sophomore, describing something he did at a party where a female seemed to be drunk and a male seemed to be sexually interested in her. Erickson is quoted in an article at Bloomberg titled "Hook-Up Culture at Harvard, Stanford Wanes Amid Assault Alarm."

I think Erickson sets a good example of the way we should be looking out for one another. I suspect it will be hard for most people to break couples up like this. It takes some judgment and skill, and you incur some risks. Are you your friends' chaperone? People tend to feel safer doing nothing than doing something and err on the side of inaction. But just as we should stop a drunk person from getting behind the wheel of a car, we can keep a drunk person from getting isolated by someone who could take advantage of the mental impairment. It's better not to get drunk at all, of course, but students obviously do, and it's right that the standard is becoming: Don't have sex when you or the other person is drunk. Instead of worrying so much about the consequences of after-the-fact characterizations of sexual intercourse, improve the social dynamic at parties. Let everyone in the group be pro-active like Adam Erickson and just kind of interpose yourself.