With consent as its only moderating principle, the sex-positivity movement invited a world of depravity.
With consent as its only moderating principle, the sex-positivity movement invited a world of depravity.
T he frat bros involved in the pending Cornell University sex abuse case are dirtbags — and many other epithets that I cannot use here. Let’s just get that out of the way. They are not necessarily criminals, however, even though the internet has condemned them as such in a knee-jerk reaction to the gross details that emerged this week.
On the night of October 19, 2024, and into the wee hours of the morning, seven male students engaged with one female student in an orgy, while all were evidently heavily inebriated and high on drugs. Two years after the woman signed off on an official statement, sent to the local New York district attorney, testifying that the debauchery that transpired was consensual, she has filed a complaint alleging rape.
Her original statement gave the prosecutor no reason to escalate, as she did not present evidence to him of criminal wrongdoing. But the mere fact that Jane Doe launched a new lawsuit, in which she significantly changed her story, sparked a firestorm. Much of social media, pivoting from the rabid defense of self-professed child-murderer Lindsay Clancy, is saying these men are felons. People on Instagram and X are lambasting the school for giving the men a slap on the wrist by allowing them to write an apology essay as disciplinary action when they really deserved life in prison. Case closed.
Unfortunately for the online mob, that’s not how due process works.
As my colleague Dan McLaughlin points out, for it to be first-degree rape under New York law, the victim had to have been physically forced into the sexual act or unconscious or unable to communicate as it was happening. Doe’s original statement does not say that.
For it to be second-degree rape, the victim had to be mentally incapacitated. For someone to be deemed mentally incapacitated, New York law says they had to be drugged without their consent. But Doe voluntarily consumed the ketamine, alcohol, and marijuana on the night of the incident, even snorting a substance off one of the guy’s sexual appendages, according to her own statement.
For it to be third-degree rape, the victim must state that they do not consent. According to the DA’s review of Jane Doe’s original statement, she said both yes and no to various sexual acts throughout the night. She verbally said yes to two group-sex overtures, no to another, and the men at each point obliged.
So, according to the legal standard of consent in New York State which we just outlined, Doe was capable of consent and both exercised and withdrew consent during the multi-hour stretch.
None of this morally excuses the men’s conduct, which is reprehensible. The screenshot of the fraternity’s group chat in which one of the defendants advertised “free p****” and another later asked, “shop still open?” makes one lose a lot of faith in how young men are being raised and behave. All the students there, both Doe and the men, were intoxicated and on substances, so it’s safe to say all their judgments were impaired.
They didn’t respect her dignity, and they didn’t respect their own, quite frankly. Still, no man in a drunken state should see a girl in her drunken state and think it’s a good idea to participate in a sex marathon alongside other drunken dudes that, let’s be real, is uniquely degrading to her.
The accused men, regardless of a verdict or settlement, will face the consequences of their decisions in the job market, in the dating pool, and beyond. If you lose your livelihood because proof that you are a scumbag was telegraphed to the public, that’s the price you pay. But prosecuting and convicting someone of rape means something entirely different — it means depriving them of their constitutional liberty. So, the court better be sure that rape is clearly what occurred.
We’re told that under modern feminism the sexes are totally equal, as are all the many sexual lifestyles. Anything goes in the sexual arena, with the one caveat being “consent.” Doe said in her original statement that she gave that consent at each step of the way. Yet, many on social media are still upset by what happened.
Perhaps that’s because, deep down, they know that just because it may have been consensual doesn’t mean it wasn’t messed up. Adult entertainment star Bonnie Blue had sex with over 1,000 men in twelve hours for some twisted challenge that ultimately earned her a ton of money, at the expense of her soul. It was consensual. Still, should so many guys have lined up to take her up on the offer? Should she have made this offer in the first place? No. Even the most fervent of feminists could not deny there was something sinister about it.
The drama at Cornell lays bare the perils and false promises of sexual liberation. It opened Pandora’s box, from which sprang hookup culture on college campuses, OnlyFans, and rampant pornography, which no doubt influenced the seven men’s behavior that October night. With consent as its only moderating principle, the sex-positivity movement invited a world of depravity with blurred lines and infinite regret.
While the Cornell case has not resulted in anything resembling criminality yet, one thing is for sure: This is radical feminism’s chickens coming home to roost.