Gang rape at Cornell Uni + If car theft was treated like rape...

[Toffeefudgecaramel]

In the US they have university police who investigate crimes. In the case of this gang rape in a fraternity house, very serious allegations were only investigated internally, and punishments handed down included "writing essays".
It seems that the actual police only became involved much later.
In the UK, universities are under pressure to deal with incidents of sexual assault "in-house", but arguably they should only be handled by experts within the criminal justice system.

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Details emerge in case of former Cornell student alleging gang rape by fraternity members - CBS News

Hang on.

Didn't Jane Doe consent to threesomes with two sets of men? Voluntarily take drugs and alcohol? Then in the following days exchange chummy emails with a couple of the men?

They all behaved in a way I find morally repugnant but was she actually raped?

I pity Jane Doe with all my heart, but from what I've read it seems that she is at least partially suing people for not protecting her against herself, while it was not the responsibility of these people (maybe setting aside the alcohol seller).

Sometimes people are in a horrifyingly pitiful situation, but it doesn't mean responsibilities and guilt should be made up to compensate. Maybe if we as a society didn't celebrate alcohol and drugs even while legally prohibiting them (disgusting hypocrisy) we'd see less such horrible cases.

This being said, in France we have a crime of "not helping someone in danger". I would think this applies here to a very wide extent.

They were able to post coherently on WhatsApp. Several of them were also able to read about the "free pussy" , ask if was still availabl, travel there and tape the woman and then leave. That's not something most people understand the influence of drugs are capable of and not something that the effectively paralysed young woman was capable of. Strange how drugs affect men and women so differently...
Presumably the other men in the group who read all of the posts did not think to themselves "our friends must be totally out of their minds on drugs and alcohol to be advertising a young woman as "free pussy" let's intervene". Because none of them did.

Thank you for clarifying. It sounds like they weren't significantly impaired, then (not that it would make a difference to their culpability).

I do find the different reactions to this interesting. There was a similar case in Germany where a drunk girl was repeatedly attacked in a park by men (and boys) who shared the information about her condition and location on their phones. Meaning the perpetrators didn't even all know each other but it still generated into this pack like behaviour. And lots and lots of men saw those messages and didn't do anything to intervene.

That case was worse if anything because the girl was underage. The older offenders got custodial sentences but there was (rightly) outrage that the under 18 year olds didn't. It sparked a lot of anger on here and also in right wing circles because a lot of the offenders, in that case we're migrants. I think it was cited as the inspiration for the film Musk was pushing**. What is ironic is some of the same people who argued that the Germany case was an example of European softness on rape and an example that men from migrant backgrounds have very different cultures towards us re their treatment of women are now arguing that actually those poor young men (at Cornell) were probably confused, they can't be expected to have known the rules around consent etc. Both cases are awful. But the amount of condemnation seems to depend very much on whether the men committing crimes are in the in group or not... The behaviour of the men in both cases was strikingly similar.

If culture does play a part then clearly there is something very wrong with American men as with Afghanistani men.

**Where an American goes to bring real American justice to the perpetrators. Presumably by making them write essays?

There is something wrong with all cultures of men, yes. Although I do sometimes think culture has a role in these things on an individual basis, and elements of it may enable sexual assault to take place, these are things that men everywhere do.

Agree. I think culture has a big part to play but the problem is a "culture" can be something that covers a whole country or it could be something that develops in a small group- a workplace, a fraternity, an army base. It's very dependent on leadership and on the complicity of the people in the group. In smaller groups it usually takes about 2 ingroup people saying "this is wrong" to have the bulk agreeing. In the Cornell case or the German case just one man in the WhatsApp/telegram group could have stopped it but none of them did. So there is a huge individual responsibility failure as well for all the people who could have stopped it. "The culture" isn't an excuse since cultures are created by individuals

It's not as simple as something wrong with men in the terms of men just being a bit rapey. Clearly some men are, and their desire to have sex overrides their concern for other human beings. But also there is a problem there with group think, not wanting to go against the group (and maybe be seen as uncool) and this horrible pack mentality. And more broadly the people willing to handwave it away if the men are more sympathetic than the victim to them. While also pointing at horrible men outside their group as an example of how bad those other groups are as part of a strategy to undermine any possibility of self reflection or change. The rapey problem is mostly a man thing. The cover-up/excusing is something men and women do.

"They were able to post coherently on WhatsApp. Several of them were also able to read about the "free pussy" , ask if was still availabl, travel there and tape the woman and then leave. That's not something most people understand the influence of drugs are capable of and not something that the effectively paralysed young woman was capable of. Strange how drugs affect men and women so differently.."

On the other hand, many of the men were drunk and taking ketamin themselves. The first guy she had a threesome with ended up losing his erection and falling asleep which ended that threesome.

She apparently consented to the men snorting ketamin off her body. Of the 7 men, only 4? had intercourse with her. She told some of the other 3 she didn't want them involved and this was respected. She also turned down a foursome which was also respected. At

As I've previously posted, under new York state law she consented to the drugs and alcohol so her consent is valid despite the copious drugs and alcohol she consumed.

Some of the behaviour was debauched and appalling but it is far from clear that anything illegal happened ( although would have been under UK law)

The version you are describing is the version put out by the defenders if the young men in question. It's the best possible case- in the best possible case what happened was "debauched and appalling" but not necessarily illegal under NY law though it would be here. In the worst case it was gang rape over several hours under NY law.

The problem is because the campus was unwilling to do more that make the boys write essays(!) and the police did not want to properly investigate at all seemingly there was no trial. I can accept innocent until proven guilty (even when all the facts seem to point to guilty) as an important concept but that breaks down when there is no proper investigation and no trial. As a result in the (unlikely IMO) case the boys were completely innocent they never had a chance to prove this or put their case forward in court. People complain about witch hunts and "trials by social media" but 1. Witches don't exist, rapists do. 2. The conviction rate for rape is so low and even the chances of it going to trial or being investigated are so low that trial by social media is the only trial to take place. If the people complaining about this really cared they would be pushing to change the law and culture on how rape cases are investigated. That would benefit non-rapist men as well as women. But instead you have people mobbing any discussion about the case with "regret after sex isn't the same as rape" and trying to "expose" the victim online.

Since the thread title referenced car theft, I would draw an (crude) analogy to the used car market. It's a known economic problem that in a society where there is no trust or regulation of used car sales and no way of knowing which used car is a "lemon" prices drop. Even trustworthy honest people selling decent second hand cars can't get a good price for them because the buyers have no way of knowing which car is good or bad. So they suffer as a result of the bad car sellers. It is in the interests of honest used car sellers to ensure that the second hand car market is regulated and those selling lemons are punished. Swap "selling a dodgy car" with "participating in a gang rape" and you end up with a situation where trust in other people, especially men, goes down. Rather than complaining about the male loneliness problem or how all men come under suspicion because of feminism I would think it more productive for the "good men" to advocate for better laws and better enforcement of those laws. Instead every time something awful happens you get a concerted effort to shut down discussion. It makes everything worse.

Agree.

It would be better to compare how many at Cornell versus how many trans have raped women in prison when they are allowed to "share".

Hint: It's more than Cornell

I believe the comparison to car theft is based off of this TikTok.
https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1DJLMzT5cS/

"and the police did not want to properly investigate at all seemingly there was no trial"

Wasn't this largely due to a statement she gave that indicated she consented to the drinks and drug taking (snorted off an erect penis ) and subsequent sexual acts going from about "6/10 inebriated to 8/10" ?

Regardless as the case has been reopened it may be that charges will now brought if appropriate

The Freiburg case isn't a good comparison because there was never even the question of consent. The victim had gone to a disco party with friends and iirc was given ecstasy pills and then taken outside by the same person already in an incapacitated state.

It is in the lawsuit. One of them forced her to do ketamine off of his penis.

And also underage.
But for the men/boys who heard that there was an apparently sexually available female in X location, they clearly didn't bother to find out her age and had no way of knowing whether she had consented to take the drugs and alcohol that rendered her vulnerable or whether she consented to the sex. This is clearly disgusting. There was one (also under 18) boy who argued that it was what every boy would want to do. Stomach churning
Meanwhile, in Cornell, a large number of adult men heard there was a sexually available female available in X location. They had no way of knowing whether she had contented to take the drugs and alcohol that rendered her vulnerable and whether she consented to the sex. (She told the Campus police in her statement she was saying no and tried to hide under the covers and described being hit etc and being outnumbered by a large number of men. They denied this but it appears none of them asked and since they were capable of going to and from the location it's surprising they were so incapacitated they couldn't check.)

Regardless of the legalities the amount that was known by the convicted German rapists and the alleged Cornell rapists was about the same. But there is on the one hand much talk of how alien and unlike Western culture the actions of the boys in Germany was. Meanwhile some men acting with the same amount of information, motivated by the same impulses, treating a woman the same way (like a blow up doll) can't have possibly known that she didn't consent, are victims too, innocent boys blah blah.

There is a clear double standard. Including from some of the "feminist" posters on FWR.

In her initial statement to the campus police she told them it was non-consensual. This was left out in the version they gave to the local police. But it is a bit much to use that fact and her drug taking as proof the boys did nothing wrong/she was lying.

Also "the question of consent" being apparently muddied by the fact that in one case the victim did not consent to swx at all, and in another consented to sex with 1/2 men is an iffy one. It implies that the men that came after were off the hook because the victim had already consented to sex with someone. But, in the light of the issues with men apparently drugging their girlfriends/wives and offering them for sex to other men kind of dangerous. It implies that men can't be blamed for taking another man's words that a woman is consenting to sex (in the Cornell case the WhatsApp messages don't even mention consent. Just that there is free pussy. But even if you are generous and assume the men reading it would have assumed free pussy means consent they were being told this by other men. Not the woman). It also implies that if a woman consents to swx or drug taking with a man then he is allowed to then offer her to other men. The implications of that are incredibly grim and regardless of the Cornell case and it's outcomes really really should be pushed back against by anyone who cares about women's safety.

Even if you wouldn't consent to a threesome, I am sure you may have consented to sex with your boyfriend/a male. That doesn't mean he can tell other men they can come and have sex with you if you are drunk one day.

There’s a good analysis of it by Emily Maitliss and John Sopel.

podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-news-agents/id1640878689?i=1000793472206

The idea that somebody can give consent to anything on another's behalf is creepy and dangerous, whether it was Mandy Smith's mother all those years ago, or women saying blithely that they don't mind men using the women's facilities, or these young men offering sex with a woman.

The consent message is getting garbled.

The whole consent thing is confusing.

NY law states that self-inflicted intoxication means that you can consent.

Jane Doe got herself drunk and anpoarently initially consented to the “friend” (friend, my arse). But says that she did not consent to the second guy, ie, the threesome guy.

The guys give her ketamine, putting her into what is called a K-Hole, announce the free pussy on WhatsApp, and the other guys become involved.

Most of us would believe that per 2024 standards, a drunk woman cannot consent, however taking NY law into account, she only drunkenly consented to the first guy—the “friend”.

The two guys who were permanently kicked out of Cornell were guys 1 and 2. But if guy 1 obtained legal NY consent, wouldn’t his wealthy parents have fought it? He must have done something bad enough that his rich parents didn’t fight the expulsion, and accepted the Cornell punishment over what he might face with the police. I can’t picture Ivy League parents accepting an expulsion of their Special Boy if he was squeaky clean, no?

I agree, discussion is extremely important on this matter.

I was horrified by the idea of this case and if I'm honest with myself, my initial reaction is always to think that the way it's reported must be the way it happened. I think it's a natural emotional reaction for a woman to have. The fear, the disgust, the outrage all come to the fore. However, in this case there seems to be a lot of different evidence coming to light. The men in question haven't been found guilty but their names and faces have been plastered all over the internet and it seems their guilt is assumed by many. What if when all the facts come to light, it turns out they are innocent? I'm wary of this mob mentality and I think it's important to be able to look at these cases objectively.

I hope the woman gets the justice she deserves but equally I hope the men do if they are not guilty.

Yes, I'm still reading about the case and trying to understand fully so I don't want to comment more yet.

But I really don't like pps emphasising the NY law that if she had chosen to take the drink & ketamine herself, she cannot allege rape.

Surely FWR posters know that something being law doesn't mean it's right? The NY law seems clearly wrong to me.

From what I've read about ketamine, taking it would severely impair someone's ability to consent. She'd also had a huge amount to drink, too.

Contrary to my expectations, lots of pps instead keep emphasising that if she chose to take all that ketamine & alcohol, by NY law at least, she consented. Maybe they don't agree with that law, but it's a bit unclear.