The debate regarding sexual assault on Halloween was a long and bitter one. One side kept repeating “I should be able to wear whatever I want without having to worry about being molested,” the other: “If you want to be respected, dress like you respect yourself,” each finding various, progressively vitriolic ways to phrase their argument.

The Carolina Women’s Center contributed to the rancor with its letter to the DTH implying proponents of the latter viewpoint condone molesting women and see groping as something women “deserve” for dressing provocatively. (I found these repugnant attitudes articulated nowhere on the comment boards; even Roshni Bam qualified his sexism in his letter ... sort of.)

Of course, no one wants women to be molested. This debate was not one between conflicting ideals. If it were, it would have subsided long before it did; no one would have responded to “I think women who wear revealing clothing should be molested” for very long.

The reason it persisted for so long is that each side was approaching the problem from a different angle. The viewpoint of the Carolina Women’s Center approaches the problem from a theoretical, ideological standpoint; it is concerned with what the world ought to be like: one devoid of sexual assault under any circumstances. Men should do everything in our power to make it so.

The opposing viewpoint approaches the problem from a pragmatic, individualized standpoint phrased by someone on the comment boards as “don’t leave your stuff where it might get stolen.” It is concerned with what it holds is the best way for women to minimize the inherent dangers of our oversexualized world. The logic is that it is easier to avoid the radar of creeps, than rid the world of their ilk. Not that an extra layer of clothing will be an impermeable barrier to molestation, but the fact remains that men love short skirts; some men love them too much.

However, the clash between these two viewpoints came from the inherent tendency of the former to ignore pragmatism for the sake of the ideal (“men should never molest women, so it’s okay for women to put themselves in compromising positions”), coupled with the inherent tendency of the latter to subjugate the ideal for the sake of pragmatism (“if women did not put themselves in compromising positions, this would not be such a huge problem in the first place ... and much easier to ignore”).

Before we walk away from this, let’s find some middle ground. Let’s agree with the poster who wrote, “A woman should be able to walk down the street butt naked, drunk off her ass, screaming f*** me at the top of her lungs and not have to worry about being raped or groped.” Still, let’s concede that, in the world as it is today, to avoid the very real possibility of sexual assault, she would be prudent to suppress the urge to do so.

Perhaps the best way to internalize all this would be to go back in time, if that were only possible, and walk through the pit Wednesday around 8 p.m., during Speak Out Against Sexual Assault. We would hear a woman tearfully recounting her rape to a crowd of visibly upset women, several disturbed-looking men, and one woman crying on her boyfriend’s shoulder. We would wonder how many present could be counted among the 25 percent of college women who are victims of rape or attempted rape. We would scan faces to see if we saw anyone we knew.

I can attest: it’s nearly impossible to hear victim testimony and to see what looks like evidence of identification with it among one’s classmates, without realizing that spewing comment-board venom at someone for asserting her entitlement to her own body – or, for that matter at someone who does not want you to be sexually assaulted any more than you do, despite all his cyberspace self-importance – is ridiculous.

It also becomes hard not to forgive the Women’s Center for its heavy-handedness, in light of its aims.