I was asked in the Q&A to comment on the gang rape allegations at Cornell. Obviously, I have no idea what happened there. But I do have a story from my own university.
When this semester started, on the first day of class, everybody at the university received a beeping push notification about a rape that happened on campus. A detailed description of the alleged rapist was provided. Black, about 6 ft. tall, close-cropped hair, brown eyes. The rapist, the message said, was not apprehended and was currently on the loose. Everybody was asked to exercise great caution. It’s the first day of class, so imagine the happy text message that every female student immediately sent her mom. Black male students on campus also did not have a wonderful day, I am certain.
At 5 pm, we receive another push notification. False alarm. There was no rape. Everything is good. No further explanations were provided, but I think it’s clear what happened. I don’t blame the university police for alerting everybody because, if there really was a rapist on the loose, they would be remiss in not warning everybody. But yes, false accusations definitely happen.
As to the situation at Cornell, I want to reiterate that we all make a gigantic mistake when we discuss such events only from the point of view of consent. Young people getting massively drunk, using ketamine, and having group sex is sad, immoral, and pathetic. We drill it into these young people’s heads that any sort of immorality is fine as long as it is consensual, and then they have great trouble figuring out what was consensual and what wasn’t when their mind was clouded by vast amounts of alcohol and drugs. Now the whole country has to sit here parsing who consented to what instead of talking about how the whole situation is completely wrong. The alleged victim showed up at the frat house after consuming 10 alcoholic drinks in different locations. This is not only bad because it made her incapable of consenting to sex, but because it’s simply bad. It would still be bad if no sex acts happened as a result of it at all.
I have no compassion for the young men in question either. They treated this young woman as a toilet, so it is fitting that now excrement is flooding their lives. They clearly also never heard the word “immoral” in their lives. The parents of these young people, both male and female, did a piss-poor job raising them.
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