Bullying or forcing another person to have sex against her/his will fundamentally violates what we in western civilization hold as a basic human right – individual autonomy. For that reason, rape or sexual assault must be treated as a serious crime.

But if we are to secure such individual freedoms, we must also be truthful. Truthfulness is foundational to our freedom. It is the bedrock of our freedoms. Even twisting the truth or betraying one another with lies can push humans to extremes. Indeed, we have shown that we can go on witch hunts and into unnecessary wars based on lies. Surely, we all know by now that a false claim ended us up in a protracted and costly war in Iraq. To get us there, a single false claim that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction was presented to the world, and that false claim started a long war that we are still paying for it now with veteran amputees, thousands of lost lives, trillions of wasted dollars, and rising post-war terrorism.

So let’s take the oft quoted 1 in 4 campus rape claim. How truthful is this claim? As we will see, it’s not very truthful at all. In fact, it’s an outlandish statistic used politically to demonize men. Many critics have made mincemeat of the 1 in 4 claim by looking at its “non-response bias” whereby few participated while many did not, or by examining its broad definitions of rape which could be easily dismissed in criminal court, or by pointing out its one-sided agenda. But I want to posit that you need only ask one question to bring down this mistaken statistical house of cards – a lie that has done more damage than good for helping women who have been raped or sexually assaulted.

The question is simply this: Where are the 1 in 4 college women?

Let’s assume that the 1 in 4 campus rape claim is in fact true – then where is the sexual assault epidemic on college campuses? I really do want to know where it is, because if it is true, we have a huge problem – and not just because it is rape, but also because we have a government that seems unable to protect females from rapists. Another problem is this: Wouldn’t we have heard about a sexual assault epidemic of this magnitude everyday in the news, from our students, in our homes? For if the 1 in 4 statistic were in fact correct, then my particular university campus alone would be reeling at the rampant rape happening on campus. How could we ever ignore 5,000 to 7,000 female students being raped per year on just my university campus? Add to that the 1 in 6 male students sexually assaulted, and we are up to 8,500 – 10,500 students being raped per year on our campus. Absurd as this sounds, wouldn’t we have heard about such a colossal calamity by now? Wouldn’t we have shut down our university? Wouldn’t we have issued a state of emergency? And if rape were occurring at such a high-risk rate here, what parent would ever send their daughter (or son) to our university?

But let’s extend this absurdity. As we consider all American college campuses together, we must immediately be struck by how little our national government is doing, except to send a few Title IX coordinators with a mission to find the 1 in 4. And yet even these emissaries struggle finding a few among millions. Just apply the 1 in 4 claim to all 11.7 million female college students across the nation, and we are left scratching our heads at why the federal government has not sent in military units to protect the more than 3 million females being raped on campuses each year.

As preposterous as these numbers sound (and they are insanely preposterous), let’s try to be fair and allow the 1 in 4 campus rape claim to fluctuate from year to year so that in any given year it could be 1 in 8 (1.5 million rapes per year) or 1 in 10 (1 million rapes per year). While those numbers are still incredibly alarming as well, the problem with a fluctuation of the statistical data is that the numbers could also shift the other way – i.e. to 1 in 3 (almost 4 million rapes per year) or 1 in 2 (almost 6 million rapes per year).

Sticking with the average given by feminists and Title IX activists (i.e. 3 million college females are raped annually), we are still terribly shocked that entire college campuses haven’t been shut down by our government. And should we not be dumbfounded to find that the 3 million plus female victims of rape on American college campuses continue to study, socialize, and play each day rather than report sexual assault and leave school?

Common sense demands that we be truthful. It demands truthfulness with any claim put in front of us. Without truthfulness, our individual rights are flimsy and easily torn apart. Of course, there are plenty of exceptions when the government itself denies autonomy to its citizens – such as conscripting soldiers in wartime or maintaining control of citizens under martial law. But that’s the paradox we live with (the state retains such sovereignty to achieve the security of our individual freedoms). But in the case of ceaseless arguments that campus rape and sexual assault are happening to 1 in 4, the claim too dramatically betrays all truthfulness and resists common sense. Instead, it projects absurd and outrageous outcomes, and it maliciously undermines our individual freedoms and undercuts the seriousness necessary for dealing with the terrible crime of rape and sexual assault.