Recently the news broke that a group of college students had developed a bit of portable technology which would allow women to test their drinks for date-rape drugs. And by portable, I mean it was nail polish, allowing the lady to dip a finger in the drink and find out if it was doped or not, rather than carrying around a chemistry kit. Pretty good idea, right? Well, apparently not everyone thought so.

Enter one woman with a bit more grasp on reality and who knows a thing or two about getting “roofied.” (And I should say specifically two since it happened to her twice.)

When I was in college I made the mistake of leaving my drink unattended at a bar when I went to dance. I was young and naïve. I hadn’t ever heard of a date rape drug. But somebody slipped one into my drink. Thankfully I was with friends who took care of me. I have always had a tendency to have more male friends than female friends. Maybe it’s because I’m a bit of a tomboy. Perhaps it’s because I grew up in a neighborhood that was dominated by boys. I don’t know the exact reason. I do remember my friends trying to figure out who did this with the intent of beating him to a pulp. My friends very well may have saved my life… I have been on the wrong side of these drugs twice now. It has never occurred to me to place the blame on any culture. Even with other obstacles I have encountered in life, I have never thought of myself as a victim. I learn from the situation and I work to avoid those situations in the future. Instead of cornering myself into the role of victim, I would rather empower myself by preventing these things from happening again.

The author is Rachel Mullen. I’ve had the pleasure of meeting Rachel out on the politico trail in DC and I can assure you that she is a charming and lovely person to talk to. And I don’t just mean “lovely” in the physical sense. (Though the Good Lord didn’t short change her in the genetic lottery for beauty, either.) The article linked above was her initial contribution to the launch of the new blog Guns and Curves, which you should probably start reading immediately.

I particularly enjoyed her default response of personal responsibility on such a sensitive subject. You can read the article to see the rather jaw dropping responses she got from some “feminists” who amazingly opposed this technological achievement. Their reasons were apparently drawn from far too deep in the well of feminist arcana for me to translate into English here, but they seemed to be saying that roofie detection equipment did nothing to stop the scourge of men assaulting women to begin with. This prompted another great response from Rachel.

This is the equivalent to refusing chemotherapy to treat cancer to make a statement that we need an overall cure to cancer. Your principled stand will only get you a trip to the morgue.

I would spend some time here trying to debate the “logic” of opposing something as simple as nail polish which can help prevent a felony, but as usual, at least some women remain an eternal mystery to me.