The Cornell case is a fabulous reminder of why I do not trust one syllable written by the mainstream press about sex-crime accusations. Very little about how this case was originally presented seems to hold up to scrutiny -- except maybe the original decisions of the university and the police.
I've waited a few days to comment on this tinderbox of a story because I wanted enough facts came out to form a coherent judgment. It's inevitable that any attempt to have a rational discussion about this topic -- ie, any discussion that does anything other than take the accuser totally at face-value -- will attract a swarm of moralizing crusaders chanting 'rape apology'. It's exactly like when one wants to argue with an evangelical crank who only knows how to call pro-choicers 'baby-killers' or trans people 'groomers': a total atrophy of logical thinking -- a terminal addiction to sloganeering. It's just how mobs function: thinking is displaced by incantation and indignation. They think the intensity of their convictions is proof they are right.
Trauma feminists are the religious right of the Democratic Party: totally impervious to evidence-based arguments, addicted to berserk moralizing, incomprehensibly dogmatic -- and always reliable for a good old-fashioned electoral self-harm mission, like when they led us on a wild goose chase against Brett Kavanaugh and ended up creating a situation where Republicans actually gained in the Senate during Trump's first term. Just as the religious right won't stop until they've recreated the Republican Party in the image of huckster televangelism, the trauma feminists won't stop until they've recreated the Democratic Party in the image of an all-female group therapy session. Their latest mission: affirming our God-given right to regret-free drug-fueled orgies.
The story as originally presented was this: a woman casually looks to spend a fun night hanging out with her friends, who happen to be members of a fraternity. But those so-called 'friends' have set her up. Once this Sandra Dee-style naïf was in the clutches of these predators, she was forced to consume illegal drugs, then subjected to a brutal gang rape at the hands of at least seven men, one of whom texted the rest of the frat, summoning them with their code word for an active rape. After this attack, she reported being gang-raped by these men to the university. But despite her abject terror of these woman-hunting men, only two were expelled from campus, with the others who gang-raped her only made to write essays, and no criminal charges were filed owing to a police culture that protects rapists and has contempt for women and their bodies. Once again, the reality of rape culture on university campuses -- and among men -- has been exposed. This would all be quite horrific, if it were to have happened exactly as reported.
Whatever happened that night, it's pretty clear by now that little about it aligns with this version of events -- and that there is not an unambiguous need for criminal charges.
This woman actually reports in her 2024 account that she went to the frat house specifically to participate in a drug-fueled orgy. She was not forced to use ketamine: everyone in the room was using drugs and drinking alcohol, including all of the men. She reports having consented to sex with multiple men, and taking the drugs of her own accord. (Why does being intoxicated render her incapable of consent but not the men?) As the night goes on, three other men enter the room, and when she tells them to go away...they listen to her. 'Free pussy' seems to be understood to be about a woman who has volunteered for anonymous group sex because she enjoys it -- and the men who came to the room appear, by her own testimony, to have honored her No when they found out she wasn't enjoying herself anymore. The other men continue their activity, and she starts becoming very uncomfortable as she's increasingly overwhelmed, but everyone is too intoxicated to process anyone else's intentions by this point. She reports at this point feeling certain she was being raped, and says that her thought at the time was that the best course of action would be to snort more ketamine off of one of the men's genitals, reasoning that if she did more drugs, maybe she'd pass out, and then if they continued to violate her when she was unconscious, she could charge them with rape. (Huh?) She actually, astonishingly, adds that she would be up for doing it all over again, except without so much drug use. (What!?) She texts one of the men later that the situation got out of hand and that she felt very uncomfortable, which leads the frat to disinvite her from the next house party, which she was eager to attend. (Huh?) Meanwhile, she wrestles with moral guilt about having volunteered to be the sexual plaything for an orgy in the first place, lamenting to a sorority sister that the awful rumors about her are true; that she is indeed a słüť.
It sure looks to me that what happened is something more like one of the natural risks of volunteering to participate in drug-fueled orgies. It reminds me of one of the times I went to the house of a guy I met on Grindr. He and his friend were both already drunk when I got there. It didn't take him long to start smacking me in the face, which I'd never consented to; my flavor of submission doesn't entail an enjoyment of pain, but his flavor of dominance apparently entailed inflicting it. I told him to stop. He didn't listen. I tell him to stop again. Still doesn't listen. Finally, I have to yell at him. After a few minutes, it sinks in that this guy is in fact a total stranger, he's too drunk to process what I'm saying, and he's already been violent toward me without my consent: I really don't know what's going to happen if I stick around. So: I left! (Imagine that!) I *did feel uncomfortable -- both in the middle of the incident, and afterward. But I told myself: that's part of the risk you take when you go to a drunk stranger's house, take off your clothes, and invite sexual activity! It would be profoundly ridiculous of me to do anything other than brush it off of my shoulder. If I can't handle a situation like that, then drug-fueled hook-ups might not be for me! These trauma feminists wouldn't cut it as gay men, I can tell you that.
But this woman seems to have instead felt ashamed of herself afterward. A quote from Nietzsche comes to mind: 'Memory says 'I have done that.' Pride says 'I could not have done that.' Eventually, memory yields." The only one sļúț-shaming this woman was she herself: she seems to have been disgusted with herself for being the kind of person who found pleasure in snorting drugs off of a guy's genitals while other men watched, and for getting herself sloshed enough that she couldn't coherently communicate her desires to other people sloshed out of their minds. Over time, encouraged by ideologues online -- she reports this internet activity herself; it is not my speculation -- she found it easier to accept that she was a victim of other people rather than her own poor judgment.
Hence the incoherence: I consented multiple times -- no, I am 100% sure I was raped. I am terrified of these men -- no, I want to go back to party naked with them again. They should be prosecuted -- no, nothing they did was illegal. I am certain of this -- no, I actually was so intoxicated that everything is blurry. I was coerced to use drugs -- no, I went there already knowing I'd be using drugs and actively wanted to keep using even as I felt violated. I was drugged by predatory men -- no, all of us were using the same drugs and they were as intoxicated as I was.
What jury would possibly convict based on such an ambiguous collection of statements? You can't run a steamroller over people's lives with such absurdly contradictory evidence. It is simply impossible to determine what really happened that night, through multiple layers of heavy intoxication and rapid-cycling apparent affirmations of and apparent withdrawal of consent. The whole episode was about as hedonistic and 'immoral' as it gets, with extremely poor judgment shown by everyone involved: hence the two expulsions and the closing of the frat chapter by Cornell in response to the incident -- a response that looks vastly more reasonable now that we have more context. The university clearly felt that the young men behaved recklessly by allowing drug-fueled orgies to begin with, and reasoned that closing the frat down and expelling two of the main participants was sufficient. That's not exactly a light punishment for reckless and illegal conduct, actually.
It sounds like the woman *was extremely uncomfortable by the end of the night -- and that the men didn't realize it at the time, and agreed with her after listening to her that the way it unfolded was regrettable. One apologized. That's why they refused to let her come to the next party, even though she *wanted to get drunk and naked with her apparent rapists again, the next week.
Her regret points us to the reality that serious discomfort is a major risk when you place yourself in a situation like that -- where communication becomes extremely compromised. As I discovered myself, there's no foolproof way to know things will go exactly as-planned when you're naked and intoxicated with horny strangers. There is no God-given right to comfortable, risk-free drug-fueled orgies. If you're too fragile to process that sort of discomfort, an easy way to avoid it is to not snort illegal drugs after taking all of your clothes off and instructing a group of men to use your body for their pleasure. Again: the idea of a gay man acting traumatized by this belongs in comedy.
The woman and her male lawyer certainly know how the mainstream media works when it comes to sex crimes. From the Duke Lacrosse case to the Michael Jackson trial, from the Rolling Stone UVa episode to the Jay-Z accuser, from Graham Platner to Al Franken: the press reports one-sided sensational accusations at face value, no regard is given to any potential defense, nobody cares what the accused have to say for themselves, anyone asking for evidence is tagged as an apologist for whatever the accused is said to have done, and no accountability ever takes place among those who ended up exposed as having been willing to destroy the lives of innocent men in the name of a moral crusade: again, very much like the religious right in its manic quest for sexual purity. The holiness of their motives is supposed to serve as a substitute for evidence. But we still don't know who 'Jackie' from UVa is. The woman who falsely accused the Duke Lacrosse players, Crystal Mangum, was never charged. Accountability is only for men, apparently. Where else in life do we allow such asymmetry of information?
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul has decided to do a complete circumvention of the ordinary legal process by presupposing the guilt of the accused, appointing as a special prosecutor Attorney General Letitia James, who referred to the accuser as a victim and a survivor, indicating that she's already made up her mind about what happened and has already concluded Cornell in the 2020s is a hotbed of misogyny and sexual predation. In what other legal context would this be considered appropriate?
Alright, bring it on: let's see if anyone cares to argue against me using evidence rather than by calling me a rape apologist. As a gay guy who knows what these situations are like, I am immune to the slings of 'incel' and accusations of trying to justify my way with women, so good luck trying that one. Can't wait to see how many people try it, anyway. Here's a tip for debating with me: I am receptive to evidence-based arguments, but not to moralizing and shaming. If you didn't learn that about me when I was standing nearly alone in defense of Graham Platner, you'll never learn. Sex crimes are the defining moral panic of our time, and if I am the only person in the Democratic Party willing to say so without fear, so be it: one person with the truth has the edge over a million members of an angry mob armed with nothing with taunts to intimidate and shame. 
