For a long time, I was confused by and unsympathetic toward women who carelessly slept around without precautions only to find a few weeks later that they were in for nine months of doctor’s visits or one trip to the abortion clinic.

I babysit, therefore I have an incredibly powerful fear of having children. Not everyone who babysits feels the same way, but there is something about changing the messy diapers of volatile infants and wrestling Nerf guns out of the hands of five boys while they paint trucks on your favorite jeans that I find extremely effective in inspiring caution.

I have also taken many classes and listened to many seminars about women in various cultures that discuss their freedoms or lack thereof.

I have learned to feel disgusted by the way our society treats women and to be fearful enough for my own body to avoid anything that could be perceived as sexual behavior (which in our society is anything from being at certain parties to wearing certain clothes).

The beauty industry, Hollywood and the media have desensitized our generation to sex and encouraged persecution of people, more often than not women, who disagree with their perception or go against their standard of normal relationships.

Women who are not comfortable with their view are looked down on as boring, prudish or undesirable and may instead put aside their own conviction to please a societal practice where they can no longer enjoy or feel secure in pursuing relationships.

Worse, there are some men who ignore the need to ask for a woman’s consent or ignore her requests to stop because they feel the way she dresses or even her silence is consent enough.

Out of fear, false obligation or lack of power to fight, these women lose the ability to control what is done to their bodies.

No woman should lose the ability to decide how her body will be used. Women are not objects that should be light-heartedly manipulated by the advertising industry to make money, especially at the expense of our free will.

It is the nature of the society we live in to put the responsibility of preventing rape on the victim rather than the attacker.

For some women, the threat of being raped doesn’t seem real and so they take no precautions to prevent that. But we know it is a real threat because there are 237,868 victims (age 12 or older) of rape and sexual assault each year,, according to the 2014 U.S. Department of Justice’s National Crime Victimization Survey.

We are losing the battle for freedom over our own bodies. Sympathy for our circumstances as women is not enough fuel to inspire change in our justice system or society. We shouldn’t be the ones held accountable for how high the rate of rape and sexual assault is—but we are.

The best thing we can do for ourselves in light of our circumstances is be afraid, become educated and liberate our bodies from the manipulated standards society has set for them.

Try babysitting and imagine the sacrifice of doing that every day in addition to school or work.

Go to a seminar about women in our society and listen to stories of being raped, abused, forced into prostitution and infected with incurable sexually transmitted diseases.

Take a lesson from those women: practice birth control and safe sex, watch your drinks and protect your body.

There are currently 747,408 registered sex offenders (not including offenders who were never charged or reported) who were changing minds long before you read this column and long before any of their victims realized they had something to be afraid of. Take steps now to prevent something so horrible from happening to you.

[email protected]