A student at the College of William and Mary took to the opinion pages of the student newspaper to express his views about so-called rape culture.
The student, sophomore Thomas Briggs, insisted that America doesn’t have a “rape culture,” but it does have a “hookup culture” where students get drunk and engage in sexual activity. Briggs described what he sees as rape culture in the Middle East, and provided an example of a Saudi gang-rape victim who was sentenced to 200 lashes for being in a car with a man. She was punished for her suffering on the false pretext that she had caused her own rape.
“What aspects of our society lie within the realm of a rape culture?” Briggs wrote. “There is simply no systemic tolerance for rape, no prosecution of victims and the general disgust for rape and rapists may only be trumped by the general disgust for pedophilia or murder; indicating that it is not, contrary to what many say, an institutionalized part of our ‘culture.'”
Briggs wrote that by redefining hookups as rape, society has started to “overlook the true contributing factors in these instances: alcohol and the disregard for personal responsibility and safety that hookup culture so shamelessly advocates.”
The comments section on Briggs’ post is exactly what you would expect, with some vehemently denying his premise and insisting that rape culture exists and is prevalent, with others supporting his article.
Much of the dissent seems to focus on “victim-blaming,” the act of supposedly telling a victim they are at fault for the crime perpetrated against them. This is an abhorrent thing to do, as everyone can agree, but what gets labeled as victim-blaming these days includes a broad range of issues, including common-sense crime prevention techniques such as being aware of one’s surroundings. These prevention measures are still suggested for every other crime, but when suggested as techniques to prevent rape, they’re called victim-blaming.
Others suggested Briggs not be allowed to write his opinion because he is a white male, presuming he has never been at the receiving end of the numerous human interactions that are now considered rape — including an errant stare to a stolen kiss.
Briggs’ essay does not offer new information, just a different perspective for what due process advocates have been suggesting for years — that casual hookups are rampant on college campuses, not rapes. That is not to say that rapes never occur on college campuses, but what is being defined as rape these days is basically all sex anyone later regrets. Colleges and universities have found themselves pretending to be courts of law, adjudicating violent crimes while claiming they are mere disciplinary matters.
So far, the activists have had the loudest voices on campus. More students like Briggs need to speak out against the abuses of power the federal government is demanding of schools.
