She asked if she could grab my crotch.

It was Tin Roof on a Saturday night during football season. Consequently, I’d been drinking. The smile playing on her lips suggested this question was some kind of joke, and I didn’t feel threatened by the strange brunette in front of me. Confused, I said no. She pressed on.

“Do you have a girlfriend?” she said.

I replied honestly (yes, yes I do), hoping that the perverse joke was over. A co-ed group of her friends stood beside us, chuckling and watching our discussion with interest.

“That’s sweet,” she said. “But can I grab your crotch?”

Without warning, she did just that, groping me in front of a crowded bar. A stranger had me by the balls, and in my shock, I froze – everyone around me was laughing, and a guy behind her joked that the last guy got a thumb up his butt-crack, making me the lucky one. It was over in a few seconds, and she made a kissy face at me before sashaying away.

A friend of mine saw the whole thing play out. I felt violated, but he looked at me and said, “Dude, that was awesome.”

His reaction reflects that of most of my friends: the story is just a funny, weird memory of the debauchery Tin Roof once promised. The brief groping was probably a dare or bet, and almost everyone immediately assumes I enjoyed it.

But what if she had been a he and I had been a her? What if a man walked up to a woman at a bar and asked to grope her vagina? Imagine my scenario in the reverse. She declined; he checked if she had a boyfriend; she declined again; he grabbed her vagina anyway, probing and groping, laughing and humiliating her before walking away.

Seem a little less awesome?

According to the Department of Justice, “Sexual assault is any type of sexual contact or behavior that occurs without the explicit consent of the recipient.” My experience was relatively minor compared to the violence committed against male and female victims across the country, but it would seem, by definition, that what happened to me was a sexual assault.

Except that sounds ridiculous. What guy would ever accuse a woman of sexually assaulting him? Pop culture would have us believe that only men – only dirty priests and prison inmates and abusive fathers – assault other men. We assume men are sexually insatiable, that they would never want to turn down sexual activity with a woman.

But in a study conducted by West Virginia University, 46 percent of male sexual assault victims reported a female perpetrator. Clearly, some men do say, “No.” It’s just hard for anyone to believe.

Our stereotypical gender role is to value having sex above everything else. The word “virgin” is an insult. Having lived in a fraternity house for a semester, I saw how sexual promiscuity becomes a status symbol. Getting laid garners respect; guys that can’t “close the deal” are losers. If you have a chance to have sex, regardless of whether you want to, you should. It’ll make you cooler.

But the cultural message is wrong, and it perpetuates a power structure that enables entitlement to another person’s body. Acting like consent is irrelevant – the sick joke about “no means yes and yes means anal” – is leading men to sexually assault and rape women while simultaneously leading other men to hide their stories of being sexually assaulted and raped. Consider this: A 2013 survey conducted by the Bureau of Justice Statistics found that 38 percent of rape and sexual assault incidents were against men.

The fact that this data seems shockingly high speaks to my point – men need to change the way we discuss sex. We need to talk about saying “No,” and even more importantly, we need to talk about hearing, “Yes.” We need to acknowledge our humanity, the innate reason that lifts us above the behavior of mere animals and gives us dignity.

As a recent Slate.com article points out, “the conversation about men doesn’t need to shut down the one about women.” In fact, the two are linked: more men discussing consent will lead to fewer sexual assaults against women.

Somehow, rape and sexual assault has become a women’s issue, one that most men don’t talk about. But on the night I was groped by a stranger at a bar, I realized it was never a women’s issue. It’s a people issue, and it’s on men to bring it to the forefront.

UT Sex Week announces this year’s schedule this weekend. There is no excuse not to participate.

R.J. Vogt is a senior in College Scholars. He can be reached at [email protected].