The gym is overcrowded, and all the bros are doing bicep curls, bench and crunches. If you have ever gone to the gym, you know what this means.

Spring break is coming. The people flooding the gym for the first time since exactly a year ago realize it’s the perfect time to sexy up your important body for all the hot babes you’ll strut past on the beaches ‘- as if it only takes two weeks to get huge arms and a sizzling six pack.

You shall be the envy of all the other males.

So, considering spring break’s dawn is upon us, it’s time to pack up and head down South, where there is no shortage of places to go.

If you want to hang out with your old Jewish grandmother, Florida is great. If you want to live out your dream of seeing naked girls dancing and kissing on boats and beaches, Cancun is wonderful. And if you want to try to help people, go to New Orleans and rebuild some houses.

But the cool place this year is not St. Thomas, Sicily or my house ‘- it is Mexico.

Recently, the U.S. Department of State issued a travel warning for those who are planning on going to Mexico for their spring break or for other travel. They stated that ‘violence in the country has increased recently’ and ‘in recent years, dozens of U.S. citizens have been kidnapped across Mexico. Many of these cases remained unresolved.’

Well, talk about a damper on those people’s spring break.‘ ‘

According to former FBI hostage negotiator and now crime analyst Clint van Zandt on Newsvine.com, estimates are that around 500 people are kidnapped in Mexico every month, with over 1,000 people being killed in the first two months of this year alone.

‘Many of the murder victims were tortured with their limbs cut off and their bodies dissolved in vats of acid. Other less violent crimes see locals and tourists alike as victims of ‘express kidnappings,’ ones where the victim is carjacked and immediately driven to a bank ATM where they are forced to withdraw cash after which, hopefully, they are released.’

I like to be a damper too, but I’d say that the most valuable item here is clearly your body and life.

When it comes down to it, getting kidnapped and murdered in Mexico is most likely not going to happen. This belief is evidently held by many, considering that pretty much no person is cancelling the trip to Mexico.

But the saying that has transferred from Vegas to the March vacation, ‘What happens during spring break stays during spring break,’ speaks a lot more of the dangers than any travel alert could.

In case you don’t know what that means, it means that on spring break, drinking is bountiful and sex is just as commonplace. Being on spring break allows you, like Halloween does, to do anything you want without giving anyone the right to criticize you.

The real worries of spring break aren’t being kidnapped in Mexico, but what you could do to yourself by having ‘too much fun.’

It is obvious what some of these dangers are. If you don’t protect yourself, you run the chance of getting a sexually transmitted disease with your newly-met Fabio or even having a little Fabio of your own, a gift which will surely remind you of that amazing night during spring break for the rest of your life.

But there is something even worse than that, and it’s something which no one thinks will happen to them.

Over one in five college-aged women are said to have been forced to have intercourse, but the percentage that report it is so low that it is hardly spoken of or thought to be an issue.

A victim from the University of Madison-Wisconsin recently spoke with the school’s paper, The Badger Herald, about the issue after being raped. She stated that after getting a roofie tester, her drinks have been found positive on occasion and said that, ‘maybe girls think they got blackout drunk. No, you got roofied, and I think people don’t really realize that.’

That is not to say that every time yo
u black out, you got roofied. But, it is to say that it is very possible for it to happen, especially during spring break where you will never see the guy again and you know he doesn’t care about what happens to you afterwards.

So during spring break, make sure you keep your eye on your cup, you have friends who won’t leave you with some pervert, and you are safe and smart.

Oh, and have fun too.

Ben Moriarty is a Collegian columnist. He can be reached at [email protected].