I recently spoke to an OU student who described an experience she had one night with a guy she had been “hooking up” with but hadn’t had sex with. On the night of her 21st birthday, she went out drinking with him.

She could remember very little from the night, and when she went to his house, she blacked out. When she’s drunk, she said she often blacks out at places where she feels safe. She said that she woke up at 6 a.m., still a little drunk, to find him having sex with her.

When she woke up the next morning, she asked him about what happened the night before, and he said they had sex several times. She only recalled one time they had sex, and she gave no consent to have sex with him any of the times.

She didn’t know this was wrong until a friend told her so.

As she was telling me this story, she still expressed confusion in trying to label the situation. She had drunkenly hooked up with the guy before, and she was unsure how drunk he was. Because of these reasons, she didn’t label the situation as what it was.

This is the college face of rape. It happens in situations where people are under the influence of some substance, and both parties are incapable of making clear, responsible decisions. Lines often are blurred in both the perpetrator and victims’ minds when alcohol comes into the picture.

Sadly, college students often do not label this type of situation as rape because they may have been under the influence or may have expressed interest in the perpetrator. But if someone is not cognitively able to give consent, it is rape.

Recently, the Senate revised the FBI’s definition of rape to line up with the reality of how it often occurs. Since 1929, the definition of rape recognized by the U.S. was “the carnal knowledge of a woman, forcibly and against her will.” This definition excluded men and made resistance from the victim an important part of determining if it was rape.

The new definition includes men and women as both victim and perpetrator, includes anal and oral penetration and doesn’t include victim resistance as a prerequisite to defining the situation as rape. This definition includes drunken college trysts in which the victim cannot remember giving consent to the perpetrator.

This definition change is important for men and women in all walks of life. Using a broader definition, one in five women and one in 71 men have been raped in their lifetime, according to a 2010 survey by the National Center for Injury Prevention.

But this is particularly pertinent to college students. According to a 2008 report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 20 to 25 percent of college-aged women reported experiencing a rape attempt. And this statistic only takes into account the women that actually reported an incident. Like the student discussed above, many women feel hesitant to report instances of sexual violence.

College students need to understand that there is no “fine line” when it comes to rape. It doesn’t matter if the victim put themselves in a vulnerable situation; rape is inexcusable.

The revision of the old definition of rape is an important step for victims of rape to receive justice, but it also is an important step for both men and women to have a greater understanding of what rape looks like.

Hopefully, more awareness can be brought to this very important campus issue. If you are a victim of rape who was unsure if what happened to you “counted” as rape, I urge you to seek help from the many services offered for you at OU. What happened to you is not OK, and there are people ready and willing to help you.

Janna Gentry is a English education senior.