Chad Felix Greene says he was raped a decade ago after he agreed to meet a man at a hotel room expecting to then go to dinner and a movie. He says the man overpowered him and raped him, and that the rape was calculated.
Greene, as a survivor of rape, disagrees with the current culture that equates drunken hookups to what happened to him. He further disagrees with current feminist doctrine that drunken women cannot consent to sex, but drunken men can.
"Furthermore, asserting women alone cannot consent while intoxicated greatly undermines the concept of female sexual independence," Greene wrote. "We treat women like children when we demand they can choose to intoxicate themselves but cannot choose any action afterwards when it comes to sexuality. Men cannot be expected to hold both authority roles while equally intoxicated."
Greene insists that no one is pro-rape, but that feminists now label as an "apologist" for rape anyone who suggests a regretted drunken hookup is anything but rape.
He also echoes what many due-process advocates have been saying, that broadening the definition of rape and suggesting that women who have been drinking cannot consent actually hurts female sexual liberation. Many schools have policies now that an accuser (who is usually a woman) can be too drunk to consent to sex but the accused (almost always a man) is responsible for his actions even if drunk.
The analogy of drunk driving is often used, but only against the accused. A person who gets behind the wheel of a car while drunk is not excused of their actions.
This means that responsibility is retroactively placed on the accused by default. Under a fairer, stricter reading of the definitions of sexual assault used by many colleges and universities, both students would be responsible for sexually assaulting each other.
This line of thinking — that a man is responsible for obtaining consent — was acknowledged by Duke University dean Sue Wasiolek, who testified that when both parties are drunk. "assuming it is a male and female, it is the responsibility in the case of the male to gain consent before proceeding with sex." Is this what resistance to "patriarchy" looks like?
One can understand that the accuser becomes the aggrieved party because they are the one who feels hurt enough to report. But this leaves out the fact that women now have a support structure designed to make them feel like victims and to force them to report.
If a woman tells a friend or resident adviser that she had drunken sex and regrets it, the friend might tell her she was actually sexually assaulted. The RA is required to report the incident as sexual assault. Now the woman, who at first merely regretted an encounter and might have just learned to be more careful with her drinking in the future, is being told she is the victim of a heinous crime.
Now she's "traumatized" and unable to concentrate and feels she must report.
If a man tells a friend that he got too drunk the night before and had sex he now regretted, it is extremely unlikely that the man's friend would tell him he must have been sexually assaulted and that he should report. There is certainly no political agitation or societal pressure encouraging him to feel like a victim.
"No one supports rape," Greene wrote. "But we, as a society, must learn to appreciate what it means and stop appropriating it for social or political agendas, forever traumatizing young women with irrational fears and utterly destroying young men's lives."
Ashe Schow is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.