Air Date: 10-13-2026

Today we look at rape culture as a system that contains far more than the crimes. This topic was prompted by the Cornell 7 story but it starts with little boys annoying girls and having it excused as affection, runs through the “nice guy” who treats kindness as a down payment, and ends with the false claim that men can’t be expected to control their sexual urges. We're organizing the episode a little differently than normal, with the material everyone should hear in the first hour and the deeper dives being reserved for that which men particularly need to face but that assault victims may want to skip.

Full Show Notes

Welcome to this episode of the award-winning Best of the Left podcast.

Today we look at rape culture as a system that contains far more than the crimes. This topic was prompted by the Cornell 7 story but it starts with little boys annoying girls and having it excused as affection, runs through the trope of the “nice guy" who's actually toxic, all the way to the false claim that men can’t be expected to control their sexual urges. We're organizing the episode a little differently than normal, with the material everyone should hear in the first hour and the deeper dives being reserved for that which men particularly need to face but that women and any assault victims may want to skip.

Let me set the stage a little bit more with a quick story. I saw a post on social media recently from a person who was sharing a thread of historical photos depicting the extreme mistreatment of people of color, most notably the famous Emmett Till casket photo.

In the first post of this thread, they explained that they were sharing these photos because they were things that White people needed to see, but that people of color should just scroll on past, saying that this is not what you need in your life right now.

When this episode initially came together, we had a similar thought about it: that this is an episode full of information that men need to hear, but that women, particularly any victims of sexual violence, may prefer to skip.

But I got thinking about responses I heard during and after the #MeToo Movement 10 years ago, where women expressed that the conversation around #MeToo, the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation, and the discussions about men's actions towards women helped reframe and clarify some things for these women that they thought they already understood but actually didn't.

I thought about the material in this episode and how some of it in particular may be genuinely beneficial for all women and even victims of sexual violence to hear. For instance, you may be an expert in knowing what it's like to receive unwanted attention from men and think, "yeah, I don't feel like I need a lesson on that." Absolutely, and that's not the sort of thing I'm talking about. It's more like, are you an expert in knowing the results of research about the psychological patterns of how assault is processed and how long it often takes which helps contextualize any story of how a victim responds after an assault? That may be less likely.

For that reason, I didn't want to just announce at the top of the show that this was an episode targeted at the men in our audience. Instead, I reorganized the episode so that it can come in two phases.

The first hour, which is usually our Top Takes, is the discussions that I think and hope will be beneficial for everyone. I made sure to not include any graphic descriptions of violence against women and to keep references to the kinds of verbal abuse women often suffer in our society to a minimum. Then the show will transition into the deeper dives, and I'll include another content warning then, where everything that follows is the stuff that really is more important for men to hear and anyone who feels they may be strongly affected by more explicit discussions about sexual violence should proceed with more caution from that point forward.

So, with that established, our opening section aimed at everyone is about 60 minutes today and includes discussions from

Therese

The Bitchuation Room featuring a video of AOC

Huey Li and the news

Indisputable

Marina McBain

Jessie Gender

and Kat Blaque

Then, in the additional, Deeper Dives half of the show, there'll be more in 4 sections;

Section A, What Boys Are Taught About Being Men

Section B, How Rape Culture Is Built and Who It Protects

Section C, The Cornell and LSU Records and the Apologists

And Section D, Enablers, Excuses, and What Men Owe

And now, on to the show.

Let's talk about rape culture, specifically how rape culture manifests when nobody's being raped, when there's no sex involved whatsoever. Most people hear rape culture and immediately think about sexual assault, and they say, "Well, I've never raped anyone, so this has nothing to do with me, right?"

But rape culture is embedded in our everyday interactions. It's so normalized that it's practically invisible.

A man demanding that a woman smile, rape culture. Men and boys loudly burping or farting at the dinner table, rape culture.

Forcing a child to hug a relative, rape culture. Rage-baiting and trolling online, rape culture. Annoying women and girls to get their attention, rape culture. Publicly humiliating your wife or girlfriend, survey says rape culture. Romantic movies like The Notebook, Beauty and the Beast, Twilight, and Love Actually, where persistence, possessiveness, and boundary violations become expressions of love.

Say it with me, rape culture. It's expecting women to manage men's anger, treating controlling behavior as though it's romantic, and calling women with boundaries difficult, aggressive bitches. Now, obviously burping at a dinner table isn't sexual violence. Being an obnoxious little boy doesn't mean you will grow up to become a sexual predator.

But think about what we are teaching boys when these behaviors are excused. We're teaching them that other people's discomfort is entertaining, that their boundaries are negotiable, that your amusement, little boy, matters more than their discomfort. A boy pulls a little girl's hair, and the adults tell her, "Oh, it's because he likes you."

She learns that unwanted attention and love are the same thing. He learns that bothering girls gets him the attention that he wants. He deliberately annoys someone, and when they complain, everybody laughs. By adolescence, he's humiliating girls to impress his friends, treating rejection as a challenge, and making degrading jokes.

And by adulthood, men learn that women's boundaries are obstacles to overcome. This behavior starts so early. 

Because that's exactly the fucking point. They are kids. They are children. And it is your job as that little boy's mother to teach him to respect other living creatures' boundaries. 

This woman's duck story is the perfect illustration of rape culture in little boys 

It is that deep. It starts that early. What she witnessed was a group of very young boys chasing and harassing a clearly distressed duck on the beach for 20 minutes while their parents laughed. When someone finally said something, one of the mothers said, "They're just kids." And she's right, that's exactly the fucking point.

In our culture, we raise little girls to be attuned, to read the room, to ask how others are feeling, to shrink when their presence causes discomfort. And by the time she's a teenager, most little girls have internalized that other people's comfort are their responsibility. We raise little boys the opposite, into entitlement and assertion.

The duck story illustrates this perfectly because little boys learn that resistance is part of the game. No means try harder. Retreat means chase. And that creature's distress and discomfort, it's not just part of the game, it's actually the fun part. And nobody stops them. Nobody says when something is trying to get away from you, you let it go.

When something is setting a boundary and telling you to stop, you stop. This doesn't start with sex. It starts with ducks, and little sisters, and playground dynamics. The message comes early, and it is consistent. What you want to do is more important than what another creature or another person wants to stop.

And then we act completely shocked when 95% of men admit they have SA'd a woman. These men were once boys. 

And I wanna make something absolutely clear. Men are not inherently predators. Nothing about testosterone makes sexual violence just inevitable. These attitudes are learned, rewarded, reinforced, and excused.

And being a man doesn't require you to dominate, intimidate, or control women. Traditional masculinity is just misogyny in a fedora. We raise boys in a culture that punishes vulnerability, discourages empathy, and rewards dominance, and then we tell women that men are naturally aggressive and incapable of controlling themselves.

Well, which is it? Are men rational human beings capable of running governments, corporations, and militaries, or are they just helpless creatures being dragged around by their ___? Men are capable of empathy, self-control, and respecting boundaries, and treating predatory behavior as natural and inevitable gives men who behave badly a ready-made excuse.

You don't have to be a rapist to participate in rape culture. You don't even have to be a man. Every time you excuse a man's misconduct because he's a good guy, every time you laugh at a rape joke or suggest that women are responsible for preventing men's sexual aggression, you are helping maintain the attitudes that make sexual violence easier to excuse.

So what is rape culture? Rape culture is a term that emerged from feminist activism during the 1970s. Feminists challenged the idea that rape was simply the behavior of individual criminals. They argued that sexual violence existed within a broader system of gender inequality, a system that historically treated women as men's property, expected wives to provide constant sexual access, and measured women's moral worth through their chastity.

Rape culture is a system where sexual violence is normalized, minimized, excused, or enabled through cultural attitudes and institutions. Most people will tell you that rape is wrong, unless they're Andrew Wilson. But introduce an actual allegation, particularly against a man they know, and suddenly everybody has questions.

What was she wearing? What was she drinking? Why did she go to his house? Why didn't she fight back? And my personal favorite: Why did she wait so long to report? 

If you were violently gang r- repeatedly over the course of an evening, do you think it would take you three weeks to call the campus police? 

Why would someone wait three weeks to come forward?

I don't know, Megyn. Let's ask you. In 2005, Megyn Kelly was a new hire at Fox News. She was a potential star, but her career was in the hands of then Fox News chairman Roger Ailes. In 2016, more than a decade later and after many other Fox News women had come forward about Roger Ailes being a sex pest, so too did Megyn Kelly, who finally revealed that more than a decade earlier...

He tried to kiss me three times so I rejected that, and when I rejected that, he asked me when my contract was up. 

So forget three weeks. Why did you wait 11 years to come forward, Megyn? I think I know why you waited, but more importantly, I think you do, too. 

Did any part of you think, looking back, you should have come out earlier publicly?

Realistically, that would have been a suicide permission for me and my career because I'd been at the company for 12 months when he was doing this to me. I wasn't Megyn Kelly of today. I had no power. 

You know as intimately as anybody, Megyn Kelly, the consequences of coming forward against men with allegations of abuse.

Megyn Kelly, that it comes with punishments more often than it does rewards. You know that it can damage your relationships and career prospects. You know that it can get you branded as difficult or hard to work with or attention-seeking, and you knew that it would be safer to come forward only once you had stardom and capital by your side.

But you're a right-wing minority, Megyn Kelly, and so you think that being a torchbearer for the belief systems and policies that oppress you will inoculate you from the consequences of those beliefs, that denying the realities of patriarchal abuse will protect you from it. But then it didn't. You were the right kind of woman, but then the abuse happened to you anyway.

It's not that you don't know why people don't come forward. You know exactly why people don't come forward because it's why you didn't come forward. But you have to pretend to not know, and that's gotta be crazy because your cash flow depends on an audience of mostly white men who are hungry to be told by a woman that they are not the problem.

And how lucky are they to have you to tell them that? 

Notice how quickly the conversation becomes an examination of the woman's behavior. Researchers call these beliefs rape myths, misconceptions that blame victims, minimize sexual violence, or excuse perpetrators, and they're connected to centuries-old beliefs about women, about sexuality, and male authority.

I wanna play this because, AOC was actually in Ithaca right after this news broke, not because of it, but she was doing an event with More Perfect Union, called More Perfect University, which is just very painful, to have that over her. But I found this statement incredibly, personal and moving, when it comes to what happened here at Cornell.

I was a freshman. My first week of college. I attended Boston University. Boston has so many schools in such a small radius. My first week there, I came... I kinda grew up in a more sheltered household, and I first went to a party within, within maybe 10 seconds of me walking into a party at a gym, at, at a school facility, someone had touched me inappropriately within 30 seconds of the, my first social outing going in.

I turn around, I leave. Then I remember that weekend, some friends and I, some friends said, "We heard there's a, a party at this place at MIT. Let's go." Right? And this is, the first week, everyone's socializing. So we go, and I was horrified at what I saw. I was 17 years old. I had been, really kept from a lot of, of things like that when I was in high school, and I walked in and I saw just, incapacitated women, men taking advantage of them, people making decisions, and, it...

I, it was just horrible. And what I felt that I was in at that point was a factory of sexual assault. Yeah. It was a sexual assault factory. When I read about what happened at Cornell, those men posted in a group chat That means it was normal to them. That means it was acceptable to them. This is a culture, this is norms, these are practices.

And what we must do is understand that we cannot protect those spaces anymore. We cannot

The fact that Jane Doe, that survivor, lost her education because you can't stay in school when something like that happens to you. Rape is often used as an act of war. It is one of the most horrifying violations that can, that a human being can endure. It's a form of torture. You can't stay in school. The fact that she had to lose her education and those men were protected by an institution and granted an Ivy League degree as a reward, never again.

Whenever there's a discussion about sexual assaults, there are always men who are eager to blame the victims, and their running assumption is that men can't control themselves physically when facing temptations. that is a blatant lie. Men can easily control themselves if there are consequences. Let me ask you this: how often do you see a man sexually assault his boss or a family member of his boss?

If the Cornell victim were a kid of the principal or a kid of the police chief, do you think the seven guys would have behaved the same way? They wouldn't have dared to get her drunk in the first place. All these young boys making stupid mistakes will cease to be stupid the moment they catch the slightest wind of accountability.

Think about it. How often do you see a man whipping out his thing in public, no matter how much he wants to? In any busy downtown area, I'm sure there are a lot of attractive women walking about. Why do you never see a man just lose control and start, Well, obviously, they fear the consequences. A potential assailant would stay put because he doesn't want to be arrested or beaten up or filmed and shamed online.

There's no difficulty at all for them to physically restrain themselves. All they need is the expectation of a little consequences. Even in a highly sexual setting, let's say a shady nightclub filled with drugs, there are definitely potential rapists lurking around. But how often do you see them carry out their attacks right on the floor?

Humans have brains. They're very sensitive to consequences. The only reason there are so many sexual assaults behind closed doors is because society fails to enforce the consequences. 

Consent is not a blank check you hand somebody at the beginning of a sexual encounter. You talk about what you want, who is participating, what your boundaries are, and you keep communicating as things progress. Sex positive education isn't about telling young women not to experiment. It's about teaching everyone that experimentation should happen with knowledge, communication, and genuine choice, and that nobody gets to unilaterally change the terms after someone has said yes.

And by the way, she did keep communicating as the sexual act progressed. She pushed the guy away. She made physical... She did physical things that clearly showed that she was not consenting to all that other stuff So I don't know. They need to change those, rape laws in New York because that's ridiculous, and I'm really tired of people sex shaming this poor young girl.

Just if, if you're doing that, if you're calling her immoral or whatever, you can right off. Almost two years after the alleged assault, Jane Doe files a civil lawsuit. She names the seven men. She also sues Cornell and several other institutional and organizational defendants, and details that had remained largely hidden begin becoming public.

The Snapchat messages, the allegations about ketamine, the Title IX proceedings, the differences between what Cornell investigated and what prosecutors apparently received. The criminal case gets reopened. Initially, Van Houten says he plans to present the case to a grand jury. Then the story changes again.

New York Governor Kathy Hochul removes the Tompkins County District Attorney from control of the criminal case. She appoints New York Attorney General Letitia James as special prosecutor. The Attorney General's office now controls the criminal investigation. There is one meaningful evidentiary development.

New Title IX material reports an alleged effort to suppress discussion after the night at Chi Phi. CBS News New York obtained additional material from Cornell's Title IX investigative record, which includes interviews with Jane Doe, six of the seven men named in her civil lawsuit, and about twenty witnesses.

According to that record, a sorority member told investigators that one of the accused men called her the day after the alleged assault and asked her to make sure a friend did not say anything that she thinks might have happened last night. The friend and her roommate later reported the conversation to Cornell University Police.

Even more significant, the Title IX record reportedly contains an interview with the accused man himself. He initially denied making the request, but approximately a month later submitted corrections acknowledging that he had spoken to the woman about not spreading any rumors. When an investigator asked how fraternity members were handling rumors about what had happened, he reportedly answered, "We were just in the idea of just deny."

That is potentially important evidence because it adds another contemporaneous thread to the period immediately following October nineteenth to twentieth. It does not establish that a sexual assault occurred or prove a conspiracy to conceal one. But the reported statement could become relevant to investigators examining what fraternity members knew, what they were saying privately, and whether anyone attempted to discourage witnesses from discussing the events.

Which brings us back to those nineteen days. There is something deeply uncomfortable about the way people expect sexual assault victims to behave. We expect trauma to produce a clean narrative. Something happens. The victim immediately understands exactly what happened. She labels it correctly. She immediately stops speaking to everyone involved.

She immediately calls the police. She remembers everything, and every statement she makes afterward perfectly matches every statement she will make for the rest of her life. Look at this timeline. October 20th, she tells her roommates she took ketamine and had sex with multiple men. October 21st, she tells Newell she does not think the sexual activity was illegal.

October 22nd, she tells a doctor something happened to her in a traumatic way. October 23rd, she's sleeping and crying all day. She tells her roommate to deny that anything happened. Then she sees other people describing what happened as an assault. She starts asking questions. How could you let this happen?

October 30th, 2024, in another text message, Jane Doe writes that she was uninvited to the Chi Phi Halloween party. "I knew this was going to happen. The woman will always get the short end of the stick," she wrote. "Y'all aren't my friends. Y'all are just covering your asses." November 3rd, 2024, Doe sent Newell a much more explicit message about what she believed had happened.

She told him that ninety percent of what happened that night was not consensual. She said she had been given more ketamine than she remembered, described being uncomfortable with men coming into the room. This is a particularly important date because it is five days before her November 8th police report.

In other words, the documentary record shows her explicitly describing most of the encounter as non-consensual before she went to law enforcement. November 7th, 2024, Doe went to the emergency department and requested a rape kit. This was approximately eighteen days after the alleged assault, so its usefulness would have been limited by that point.

The following day, November 8th, her communication with him changed sharply. She told him, "I think I'm done talking to you. I know you lied." She then reported the alleged assault to Cornell University Police. November 14th and 15th, "I can say with one hundred percent confidence I was raped." What looks to critics like the most suspicious part of Doe's account is the part for which we have an unusually rich body of psychological research, the gap between experiencing an event and understanding what happened to you.

There is an entire field of research on trauma and memory. There is even a term for something that looks remarkably like what critics find so suspicious about Jane Doe's behavior, unacknowledged rape. Researchers use that term when someone's reported experience meets the behavioral definition of rape, but the person herself does not identify it as rape.

A meta-analysis involving nearly six thousand female rape survivors found that about sixty percent fell into that category. A 2026 study of college students found almost exactly the same thing, fifty-nine percent. So when people say, "If she had really been raped, she would have known immediately," that isn't a scientific fact about trauma.

It's an expectation about how we think rape victims are supposed to behave. Back to the timeline. That chronology does not tell us what a criminal jury would conclude. That determination belongs to the legal process. But it tells us something important about the evidence. Jane Doe's account did not suddenly materialize in September 2026 when she filed a lawsuit.

There are contemporaneous texts. There are witnesses. There are medical visits. There are conversations with the accused men. There are fraternity communications. There are police interviews. There are Title IX records. And there are university disciplinary proceedings that ultimately resulted in expulsions and suspensions for some of the accused students.

The New York Times obtained the largest amount of information. They have more than one thousand pages of Cornell's internal Title IX records investigative material, including interview transcripts, interviews with six of the seven accused men, approximately 20 witnesses, texts of contemporaneous communications with friends, roommates, and fraternity members, photographs, and social media evidence.

I have updated my Google Source document that was linked in my original video on September 30th, adding links to all of these sources. It's linked in the description of this video. This chart gives you a side-by-side comparison of the discrepancies between the police interview transcript and the signed statement.

I researched what the rape apologists have been saying in response to this case, and it is as you might expect. Awful. But let's focus on this one from Matt Walsh. You can perfectly understand the case of the Cornell Seven and the reaction to it once you understand that feminists fundamentally reject the idea that women can ever be truly responsible for any wrongdoing of any kind.

Which is why when there's a disgusting drug and alcohol fueled orgy where everyone involved is inebriated, the woman is somehow automatically the victim, and the men are somehow automatically responsible. On normal logic, that makes no sense. If alcohol removes consent, then the drunk men have just as valid a claim to being raped as the drunk woman.

But feminists aren't using normal logic, they're using feminist logic, which again, starts with the presupposition that women, by definition, cannot truly be at fault at all for anything ever. That is simply a brute fact of the universe in their view. They don't have to defend it, and don't, and can't. No, Matt, the feminist logic is that women are not responsible for their own rape.

Blaming women for their own rape, blaming their choices, feminism or hookup culture, this propaganda is easily debunked by the What Were You Wearing exhibit, an international art installation that challenges the harmful and pervasive myth that a survivor's clothing causes or invites sexual assault. Its purpose is to address victim blaming.

The installation directly confronts the common damaging question survivors face, "What were you wearing?" By proving that assaults happen regardless of what a person has on. The project displays physical outfits and clothing items matched with anonymous written narratives from survivors describing what they wore during their assaults.

The displayed clothing ranges widely from casual jeans, T-shirts, and children's wear to professional uniforms, pajamas, and formal dresses, demonstrating that no specific outfit invites violence. No outfit and no specific behavior for that matter, because riddle me this, Matt Walsh, what could an eight-year-old in footie pajamas possibly have done to invite her sexual assault?

How about the soldier who was raped while serving in Iraq? What about this baby in diapers? We are always looking for the perfect victim. If Jane Doe doesn't perform victimhood correctly, they don't believe she was assaulted. There is no such thing as the perfect victim. Now, the New York Attorney General gets to examine that entire record, and we may finally learn the answer to the question hanging over this case.

What happened inside that fraternity house, and what happened after Jane Doe asked the institutions around her to do something about it? 

LSU fails to report to police when student is sexually assaulted. Here's more information on the incident from the survivor. 

Hello, everyone. My name is Kendall, and I'm here to speak on my story of what happened to me at LSU. So I was raped by a football player at LSU last year in October, October 18th to be exact, at around 4:30 in the morning, and that day basically changed my life.

I developed pretty severe anxiety after that, which I was diagnosed with, and I have to take anxiety medicine for it. After I was sexually assaulted, I was taken to the hospital where I was there for about seven hours, and I got a rape kit done and everything like that, and they asked me if I wanted to press charges.

His mom had texted me that morning asking me to not press charges on him so that it didn't ruin his career and everything like that, and then, yeah. And then he sent me $1,000 as hush money, so that I wouldn't press charges on him. However, I did go through the Title IX process here with LSU, which took a really, really long time.

The process was really elongated due to, one, him, and two, LSU. It was never elongated due to me. I was always on time with everything that I needed to turn in and everything that I needed to do. Then LSU said that he was accountable for rape and then proceeded to suspend him for a year, even though for rape, the suspension is two to three years.

Even with him admitting on the record that he did rape me, they still just gave him a lesser sentence and which he then appealed. After the appeal process, LSU decided to send me the email of the appeal process during my class, so I ended up reading the appeal in my class, and during the letter, it said that he was still responsible for rape, but he's able to play football, join orgs, and everything like that.

And so that made my anxiety really, really bad because I don't want to face this person. So this caused me to go online full now I'm just trying to speak on my story because LSU does really protect their athletes, especially their football players.

Can somebody tell me where Louisiana State University is? Is it in Moscow? Is it? I think it is. According to WAFB 9 News, an LSU student says she feels the university failed her after she reported being sexually assaulted by an LSU football player in October 2025. Kendall Francis, who is a first generation college student, said she went to an LSU dorm in October 2025 to visit a football player she had met through social media.

Francis alleges she was sexually assaulted.

You're brave. "Just went over there, then I was sexually assaulted," Francis said. Francis said she returned to her apartment afterward, was in shock. She said LSU police came to her apartment, took her to the hospital. She spent about seven hours there. The name of the football player accused in the incident has not been publicly released.

"The fact my entire freshman year was taken away from me because of this experience is why I spoke out about it," Francis said. January 2026, Francis filed a formal Title IX complaint with LSU. During the university's investigation, Francis and the student athlete gave conflicting accounts about what happened that night, including whether Francis consented.

According to a Title IX report obtained by the WAFB I-Team, LSU found the student athlete responsible for sexual assault and forcible rape. Student athlete appealed the finding, but the Title IX office upheld the decision. The Title IX finding is part of LSU's administrative process and is separate from a criminal investigation.

It's the okey-doke if you ask me. That's what Title IX is. It's the okey-doke. Why do you even need Title IX? It's the okie doke. Here's more. Months after the Title IX decision, Francis posted a series of videos on TikTok describing her allegations. The posts went viral. The East Baton Rouge Parish DA's office has since opened a criminal investigation into the allegations.

We understand that the matter was previously addressed through a campus level investigatory and review process, and that the LSU Police Department and the Baton Rouge Police Department have information concerning the matter. Oh, you bet they do, DA Hillar Moore. Title IX reporting process. You wanna know more about it, don't you?

LSU said in a statement that it properly followed its Title IX procedures. Who cares? University also said the student athlete was the person who initially reported the incident

"LSU and its current administration take very seriously any allegations of misconduct involving students on our campuses. Safety and security must be our number one priority," said President Rouse. "Let me assure everyone that this incident has been handled professionally and that LSU has strictly followed our policies, procedures, and best practices, including the Title IX process, to guide our actions to date."

So in Sharon's world, the president's out. President's out. This is stupid, too. We know you followed your policies that benefit you, and the students there aren't safe. If it's a football player, and maybe even if it's a walk-on for all I know The Title IX report also contains allegations from the student athlete that Francis accepted $1,000 from a family member in return for not pursuing criminal charges.

Because the case is now under criminal investigation, Francis declined to comment on those allegations. However, Francis did explain why she waited nearly a year before making the allegations public. I don't care about none of that If somebody tried to bribe a victim, a survivor with $1,000, I don't believe it does make her look bad.

I think it makes her look like a traumatized survivor of a sexual assault who is barely 19 G- keep trying to smear the victims, 'cause that's the one thing somebody should get a, a d- valedictorian in smearing victims

She said she misunderstood how the Title IX process worked and believed that after LSU found the student athlete responsible, the university would pursue criminal charges. "I was under the impression that because they found him responsible, still, that LSU would do their part, or that criminal charges were supposed to be pursued, and that never happened.

And when I figured that nothing was happening, I decided to make that video," Francis said. Very smart, and that's why I told you that Title IX is the okie-doke. Let's slow this thing down. Let's cross every T, dot every I

Life lesson. Disgusting one.

Ross Geller is one of the most beloved TV characters ever made. We rooted for him for 10 years. We wanted him to get the girl, and we never once questioned if he actually deserved her. The character Bear from the 2026 horror film Obsession wanted the same thing. He was shy and sweet and had been in love with his best friend for years, but couldn't work up the courage to tell her, so he found another way to make her love him.

And suddenly, it's not romantic anymore. It's one of the most disturbing things that you'll watch this year. Ross and Bear are the same guy, just with different lighting and in a different genre, which is exactly the problem because both of them are the self-titled nice guys. the kind, patient, devoted, sensitive men that think their feelings entitle them to the woman they want.

This is the man that Hollywood has been making us root for since the dawn of cinema, and obsession is what happens when you finally tell that story honestly. So today, we're gonna go over all the times Hollywood didn't, because the nice guy never really was that nice. We just never saw him without the filter before.

The way I'm gonna do this video is by going through the different stages of the nice guy so I can really prepare you for the final boss, because trust me, it is so terrifying that we cannot just go straight into it, okay? We have to build up first. Also, quickly before I lose half of my audience, I just wanna make it clear that when I'm talking about the nice guy, I'm obviously not talking about men who are actually nice.

Please, keep being nice. I'm a huge fan of basic kindness. I'm talking about the self-titled nice guy trope, the man who thinks that being kind means that he's now owed something, the man who treats friendship like a waiting room, the man who acts like rejection is a hate crime, because there is a big difference between being a good person and using good person as your romantic sales pitch, and that's the guy we're talking about today.

So the first nice guy trope I wanna talk about is the entitled nice guy. He's patient, he's supportive, he's always there, and on paper, that sounds lovely. The problem is he's not just being nice because he's nice. He's doing it because he thinks that the universe is gonna turn all that kindness into a girlfriend.

Ross from Friends is one of the most beloved sitcom characters ever made. Throughout 10 seasons, the show presents him as the man we're supposed to root for, the man we wanna see win. But when you actually stop and look at his behavior, Ross is the blueprint for the entitled nice guy. When Ross reunites with Rachel at the beginning of season one, we find out that he's had a crush on her since high school, but instead of just telling her how he feels, Ross decides to take the nice guy approach.

He's always there to help. He's always there to listen. He is always there to save the day. He basically becomes her emotional support boyfriend, minus the boyfriend part. There's this scene when the group of them are having a poker night, and Ross and Rachel become extremely competitive with each other, but then Rachel gets the news that she's been rejected from her dream job, and Ross, seeing how upset she is, lets her win the game.

And on the surface you think, "Oh, my gosh. That is adorable. He put his pride aside because he cares about her." But with Ross, these mo- moments never feel completely innocent, because the entire show is built around this idea that if he's nice for long enough, eventually Rachel will realize he's the perfect guy all along.

This is the thing about the nice guy that makes him so hard to spot in real life, because he doesn't seem entitled. He seems lovely. He seems like the kind of man we should want women to end up with, except the entitlement part is invisible until something doesn't go his way. You can really see this when Rachel starts dating a man named Paolo, which sends Ross absolutely spiraling.

He's constantly sulking in the corner, acting like Rachel dating someone else is a hate crime specifically against him, and yet the show frames Ross as the victim. Instead of seeing Rachel as a single woman who is allowed to make her own choices, we're pushed to feel bad for Ross because he loved her first, and apparently in nice guy logic, wanting someone first means you've basically called dibs.

Of course, Rachel eventually falls for the nice guy approach and decides to give the relationship a shot. Little does she know that once the nice guy gets the girl, the mask starts to slip. Remember that poker scene? Remember when Ross was so devastated that Rachel didn't get her dream job that he let her win?

Well, now that they're actually in a relationship, what do you think his reaction is gonna be when Rachel does get her dream job a few seasons later? You would assume he would be over the moon for his girlfriend, right? Or at the very least congratulate her. But no, instead he immediately starts questioning how she got it.

He becomes convinced that her new boss Mark only hired her because he wants to sleep with her, and do you wanna know what his reasoning is for thinking that? 

Why else would he just, swoop in out of nowhere for no reason? 

To be nice? 

are men ever nice to strange women for no reason? 

No, only for sex.

Thank you. 

And there it is. Ross genuinely cannot imagine a man wanting to help a woman without wanting something from her in return. Why? Because that's what he did with Rachel. The kindness, the comforting, the letting her win in poker, none of that was because he cared. He was hoping that if he was nice for long enough, Rachel would eventually pay him back by choosing him.

But this relationship is where his insecure behavior really starts to show. You know how when dogs wanna mark their territory, they pee on things? Yeah, well, Ross's version is harassing her at her office to let everyone know that she's taken. He sends her flowers, stuffed animals, a singing barbershop quartet.

The show plays it off as Ross being Ross. He just loves her so much, he can't contain it. But imagine being Rachel. You just got your dream job, you're trying to impress your boss, and meanwhile, your boyfriend is turning your workplace into a Build-A-Bear. Ross's behavior is so concerning sometimes that people have made compilations of Ross without the laugh track, and it is absolutely terrifying.

You attacked your ex-wife? 

Oh, no. No, no. I tried 

Keep that in mind when we get to the movie Obsession because that film basically takes this nice guy mindset and removes the laugh track. But it just keeps getting worse from here because Ross no longer thinks Mark just likes Rachel, he starts thinking that Rachel is somehow doing something wrong, too.

He constantly questions her, gets suspicious when she works late, acts like her being busy means that she's in the middle of a make-out session with Mark. That is entitlement. Ross's insecurity becomes Rachel's responsibility, and it doesn't matter how much reassurance Rachel gives him, he just doesn't listen.

At a certain point, his controlling behavior becomes too much to handle and the two of them decide to put their relationship on pause. And you think, "Okay, this is the moment. This is when the show makes him reckon with his behavior, where Ross has to sit with the fact that his own insecurity destroyed something real."

But instead, Friends does something absolutely wild. It reveals that Mark actually did like Rachel. I'm sorry, what? You're telling me that Ross was right all along? The man who spent this entire storyline being so suffocating and paranoid that it destroyed his relationship, the writers make him right?

It's honestly one of the most insane decisions in the show because it takes his behavior and justifies it. And guess what? Mark also reveals that Rachel didn't do anything. She didn't cheat, she didn't betray Ross, she didn't do anything that he was accusing her of doing, yet the show doesn't care to touch on that.

It completely brushes that to the side because apparently Ross being right about the reason Mark hired Rachel is- Is enough to make him justified to act the way that he did. And that is such a bizarre message to hide in a sitcom, because yes, I know it's a comedy, I know Ross completely losing his mind over this is meant to be funny, and it is funny, I'll give them that.

But I can't help but notice this reoccurring pattern among these nice guy characters. They are always the victim, always. No matter what they do, no matter how badly they behave, the story always bends over backwards to make the audience feel sorry for them. And do you wanna know what also always happens to them?

They always win. Flash forward to the finale of Friends when Rachel gets offered this massive job opportunity in Paris, we're talking a dream, life-changing job. And lucky for her, she's not with Ross, so for the first time in years she actually gets to make a decision about her future without his feelings coming and ruining it for her.

Or so she thinks, because when Ross finds out, his first instinct isn't to support her, it's to try everything he can to stop her from going. He literally goes behind her back to persuade her old boss into hiring her again so that she has a reason to stay. And when that doesn't work, he waits till literally seconds before she boards her flight, shows up to the airport, and makes his feelings an emergency.

He does this massive speech where he's basically begging her to stay and to get back together with him. Suddenly, Rachel's future is no longer the point. They were pretty much never the point. Ross's feelings were. And guess what Rachel does after his big speech? She gets off the plane to be with him. And look, I get it, it's iconic, it's emotional, it's one of those TV moments that have been cemented in pop culture history.

But also, can we be honest for, two seconds? Rachel gives up her dream job in Paris for this bum who has spent the last 10 seasons undermining her career, her independence, and her choices, which is absolutely insane. The show doesn't end with Ross learning to love Rachel without needing to control her.

It doesn't end with Ross letting her live out her dream, even if it breaks his heart. It ends with Rachel walking away from an opportunity and choosing him instead, and that is the whole fantasy of the entitled nice guy. If he waits long enough, if he suffers loud enough, if he loves her enough, then eventually the story gives him what he always thought he deserved Ha.

There is a story about a man trying to get home to Ithaca. After years of war and death, his hubris costs him his men, years of his life, even for a time, the memory of his home itself lost in the eating of lotus. But after ten years, he returns to Ithaca, drives the suitors from his house, and in the poem at least, lies again in his marriage bed and resumes the life he had.

It takes ten years, but he is granted the fantasy that what time takes can be restored

10 years ago, I lived in Ithaca. Not the Ithaca of the poem, though the city seemed to borrow a lot from it, but I lived in Ithaca, New York, for six years starting in 2010. I went to Ithaca College, one of two well-regarded universities in that town, though mine was certainly the less well-known. I walked many of Ithaca's steep streets.

I got drunken late night pizza on the commons with friends. I stood over those gorgeous gorges. I scraped ice from my car on winter mornings. After graduation, I worked at Starbucks while stumbling through the first years of my transition in that city. And oftentimes, I looked out across the hill many mornings at that other college on the other hill, Cornell

Ithaca was my home, and I remember it well. I can walk its streets in my memory, and part of me yearns for that me when my life was focused on education and the future that was stretched out before me A time for what would come

When I read about the 20-year-old Cornell woman accusing seven men of drugging and then raping her at the Chi Phi fraternity house in September 2024, I cannot help but think about who gets to come home Several of the men accused of raping Jane Doe were issued temporary suspensions in November 2024.

Two were expelled. No criminal charges were brought forth, and many of them, quote, "Were afforded the opportunity to mitigate their conduct by submitting essays." Mitigate their conduct. Conduct seems like such an insufficient word, but mitigate is the one that strikes me more right now. According to the dictionary, mitigate means, quote, "To make the consequences of one's actions less severe."

And so I have to ask, less severe for who? And how in the world do essays, no matter how brilliant their words may be, do that for something like rape? Well, the answer is they do that because we as a culture want essays to have that power, to be able to have words erase a moment in time that has left a person and the world permanently changed.

Our society endlessly tells us that we can't have this conduct stain men's futures, the potential they could still give to society. We are so very tender with the future tense when we speak of men who rape. We peer 10 years ahead and see the job that he might lose, the children he might someday have, the career that might never flower.

We grieve for hypothetical books, hypothetical promotions, hypothetical successes, all those beautiful unopened doors. We must preserve his potential, his future, so we mitigate the consequences to it Though, to be clear, we do know how to destroy someone's future when we believe they deserve it. We simply do not believe that rape is sufficient.

In 2024, the same year that these students raped Jane Doe, Cornell arrested, expelled, and suspended tens of students protesting the genocide in Gaza. There was far less anguish over who those students might become in 10 years, and even less to the children killed in Gaza whom these students were protesting for.

We, as a culture, are not actually unwilling to destroy young people's, even young men's futures. We simply are selective about whose futures we consider sacred

Sexual violence does strange things to time like that. Not just for the men who commit it, but to the people, often women, who experience that violence. But it does something different to their time People who have not experienced trauma like that sometimes imagine it as an event that is safely contained in the past.

A terrible thing that happened for sure, but it is something that happened, past tense. It ended, and we must focus on the future. But for those who experience sexual violence, time is constantly folding in on itself. The body does not always understand was. Your brain's pathways literally change. Your body becomes something new against your will.

And so the violence is still happening, endlessly unfolding in new ways that you don't even realize until maybe months, years, decades later. The then and there is still here and now, and will be. I know this because I myself am a survivor of sexual assault, and when it happened to me, I left my body. I literally fled the city while it was being sacked, so I could survive its desecration.

And eventually, after ten years that were ten minutes, I came back to what once was home. When Odysseus returns to Ithaca, he finds strangers in his house that he can simply defeat so as to return to what was. But imagine instead that he opened the doors and discovered the strangers have altered the dimensions of every single room, that the stairs lead somewhere different, that the windows no longer open, that someone has moved the very walls.

You cannot return home restored. 

As a survivor, I've not been able to do the thing that a lot of you do, where you pretend that it's a thing you don't understand. I literally can't. I cannot act as if this is something I don't understand as part of the world that we live in.

I can't. It is such a strong part of the world we live in, which is why my mentality, even through my sex positivity, is let's not forget the nature of men. I don't want To act as if men are all one way. I don't believe in gender essentialism, so I'm not gonna act like men are inherently bad. I think, however, men who exist in a misogynistic culture that caters to them at every moment are not likely to ever be allies to women.

When I first moved to LA, I met several male feminists. I even dated one for a short period of time. That guy, years later, despite the fact that he was constantly posting on Facebook about consent and all these other things, sexually assaulted someone, and he's not the only one. I've known so many good men, male feminists, who ended up assaulting a woman or a non-binary person.

It's like people learn the script to figure out what to say so that they can bullshit you long enough to do the thing that they are pretending that they're standing up against. It is so strange, and it has made me paranoid. It is one of the many reasons why I am thankful that I'm not really in a phase of life right now where I'm dating or trying to find dates or fixated on that.

I go out, and yes, men do talk to me, and I am polyamorous, and I probably could date new people, but men scare me. They really do. There have been so many times in my life where a man has pretended to be a good person and then used the trust that I've given him to assault me. I wish that wasn't something I experienced more than once.

As I say that, I know there are people that'll be like, "How did you experience it more than once? You must be doing something." All these narratives. The good guys will come on here and say, "Well, you were sexually assaulted several times. You must be doing something wrong." And then they'll act shocked and insulted when you insinuate that they might be a sexual abuser.

This is rape culture. That's what I'm trying to spell out. When we talk about rape culture, this is part of it. There is an entire situation created over and over again, a cycle where men, let's be frank, assault each other, sometimes sexually. They have this trauma within the context of a fraternity. Then from there, they traumatize other people, and then from there, the legacy of those traumatized within those fraternities is protecting the legacy of that fraternity and the future of these men, which means that there's always going to be an underclass of women, people who are assaulted by these men, who never see justice, who are never heard, never understood, right?

She had to go to college with those boys after they assaulted her. The punishment that you often experience, the reality of what you actually experience when you come out about sexual violence, is you are socially punished.

People think you talk about this shit and you're getting Netflix deals, you're getting money, you're getting phone calls, or you're getting features and all this other shit. Meanwhile, all you're getting is a bunch of people calling you a slut. All you're getting is a bunch of people telling you that you fucking deserved it All you're getting is re-traumatized.

It is a thing that a lot of us deal with by ourselves, and then we end up becoming animated around it, so we create whisper networks. We do community organizing. We try to do something to bridge the gap, because we know that there's never going to be justice, and we understand that we exist in a culture that does not want to punish these men, that does not at all want for these men to receive any sort of comeuppance.

They've always wanted to destroy women who come out about sexual violence, and there, there's really only one reason why you wanna do that, and it's not because you're afraid of false accusations. It's because you know that these men did it, and you wanna make sure they keep getting away with it. If all of the good men in the world stood up against all of the rapists in the world, we would not have these problems, but we do.

So the reality of it is the good men make excuses for the rapists, which, in my opinion, make them not much better, You can argue with yourself about that. I don't care. I'm not gonna let my fear of sexual violence keep me inside, but I'm not gonna be ignorant, I'm not gonna be naive. I know who men are.

I know what this is about. A lot of times, the good men, if you're my age especially, several instances of shit like this, the pretending to be so shocked by this, you guys, it's giving you away. You can't be shocked by sexual abuse on college campuses. You can't say shit like, "This isn't who we are." It's who we've always been.

I find our endless anxiety about the futures of men who commit sexual violence so exhausting, because I know what it costs to manufacture those futures.

It quite often costs a woman's past, present, and her future, too. We trade the loss of her time for the future of men whose horizons must remain stretched out endlessly before them with unbridled potential, and we congratulate ourselves for remembering that the men who harmed her are still human beings, all while she ceases to be one.

In the poem, a cyclops traps Odysseus in a cave and asks his name. "Nobody," he says. "Nobody." It is a trick that saves him from other cyclopses coming to help. For survivors, we are often thrown into a cave and told we are nobody. Nobody will believe you. Nobody wants to ruin his life over this. Nobody will come to help.

Nobody wants to hear about this 10 years on

We find so many ways to dismiss a victim. In the case of Jane Doe at Cornell, many have used her text messages against her, where she downplayed what happened to the very man who did it to her, as if that was proof that she wasn't raped, as if she wasn't trying to return to normal Even pundits on TV shows try to find excuses under the law that say she wasn't legally raped 

As if the law itself was an arbiter of what rape is, rather than a reflection of the institutions that are built to protect white cis male potential over women's and all types of bodies first and foremost.

And if we survivors finally crawl out of the cave into the light and say, "I am somebody," we are called vindictive. You are taking from his future, as if the future was a material thing that can be taken from. How much easier it is to decide a woman's future has already been ruined, if she was to have one in the first place, so it is okay to find ways to hate her so we don't have to reckon with the rapists whose futures we are taught endlessly to protect After the Jane Doe and the Cornell 57 case, and I say 57 because there were also 50 men who were complicit in the text chain where they invited people to come and fuck her, filed a lawsuit and it became a national story in 2026, numerous people flooded online attempting to identify Jane Doe, trying to use details and snippets of information to discover who she was, all to find someone to dissect and ultimately to hate.

In response, many women went online to say, "I am Jane Doe," both to confuse those investigating the victim and also to point out that her story is not unique. So many of us have experienced some version of this event. More than likely, a woman in your life has experienced this. Numerous women have likely experienced this same story in some form or another.

But then, Threads' AI moderator mistakenly picked one woman and incorrectly declared her an alumni of Cornell and the person behind the lawsuit, an LLM hallucination that led to her being targeted with harassment and death threats. But the LLM simply produced the story the way generative AI always does, by regurgitating the normative story our culture has already taught us to endlessly repeat.

It made the story of a woman that we can drag through the public square and sacrifice on the altar of the gods of consumption and domination for interrupting the future of men whose destined glory will exalt these deities that we constantly create. We must always think of their potential, never the potential of those whom we consume as fuels for their muse.

We've just heard clips starting with

Therese showing how framing and excusing everyday behaviors, from childhood up through the school years and into adulthood, teach boys that other people's boundaries are obstacles to overcome.

In an excerpt, The Bitchuation Room aired AOC's account of walking into an MIT party at 17 and seeing what she called a "factory of sexual assault," connecting it to the Cornell group-chat case.

In an excerpt, Huey Li rejected the claim that men can't control themselves around temptation, noting that potential assailants restrain themselves all the time when they fear consequences.

Therese also walked through how trauma research on "unacknowledged rape," which a meta-analysis found applies to sixty percent of survivors, explains Jane Doe's nineteen-day delay before reporting.

Indisputable detailed how LSU found a football player responsible for raping a student, then let him keep playing while no criminal charges followed for nearly a year.

Marina McBain traced how Hollywood's 'nice guy' trope, epitomized by Ross on Friends, dresses up male entitlement as romance we're told to root for.

Jessie Gender contrasted the tender concern for rapists’ hypothetical future careers with Cornell’s treatment of students protesting the genocide in Gaza, revealing whose futures our culture treats as sacred.

In an excerpt, Kat Blaque spoke as a survivor about why men scare her, how trusted men have assaulted her repeatedly, and how survivors face social punishment when they speak out.

And in an excerpt, Jessie Gender also described how victims get dismissed as nobody worth believing, pointing to the online hunt to identify and vilify Cornell's Jane Doe.

And those were just the top takes, there's lots more in the deeper dives sections,

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I sometimes ask a discussion question to spark responses, either by voice message or email. It's been a struggle to get responses in recent years, which is sad because I would frequently hear from people that the voice messages we used to receive were their favorite part of the show. So don't be shy!

Here's today's question with a lot of set up.

Feminists have said for decades that rape isn’t about sex, it’s about power. And to be honest, I've always struggled to have the meaning of that fully click into place. Then a commentator today asked the simple question: how often do you see a man sexually assault his boss?

What changed is that I started to see the crime of sexual violence in three dimensions, including motive, means, and opportunity whereas the usual discussion just focuses on the motive. The power dynamic really kicks in most strongly in the elements of means and opportunity, though a person can also be motivated by a desire to have power over another. But none of that happens when there's no means or opportunity and those things aren't just about physical power, they're structural, as evidenced by the question about men assaulting their bosses.

That was a bit of a lightbulb moment for me. I didn't start out entirely in the dark, but I needed just a little bit more to get to the next level of clarity. And that wasn't the first time I've had that sort of experience. So my question for you is, if you've ever struggled to understand something regarding rape culture but then had it clarified for you: what was the confusion and what changed your thinking?

I feel like this topic is absolutely ripe for moments of clarity that come out like, "Oh, that's what you meant!" "Oh, that's what that feeling was!" "Oh, that's the word that was missing to describe the dynamic/feeling/event!" So, if you've ever had one of those moments, share it and help others get some clarity too.

Or, feel free to comment on anything you've heard that sparks a thought you want to share.

You can record a voice message or email us, links are in the show notes.

Now, for more of my thoughts,

I just wanted to share an example of a communication strategy that I really appreciated because it attempts to inject a bit of humor into the otherwise very serious topic of sexual violence. But first, a little bit of context: I feel like the very gendered debate over rape and sexual assault frequently runs itself into a few dead ends because the upholders of rape culture, whether intentional or not, lean so heavily on an argument that is self-sealing and largely impervious to puncture.

Assault apologists generally start from the premise that assaults are so expected and inevitable that the only thing to do is prepare to defend against it rather than ever try to stop it at the source. It's like the weather, bad weather's going to come so all you can do is be ready for when it arrives.

Those trying to break the cycle and stop assaults before they happen try to argue that we can't continue to think of assaults as expected and inevitable, and also point out that holding that expectation itself helps perpetuate the culture of normalized assault in a self-fulfilling prophecy because saying that it's normal is the best way to ensure that it remains normalized in our culture.

So, these debates remain at an impasse unless we're able to break through the self-sealing logic of normalization. I think the argument about power dynamics is a great step in the right direction. Highlighting that potential perpetrators manage to restrain themselves all the time whenever the threat of accountability looms almost perfectly pierces the fantasy that perpetrators can't be stopped and turns the debate from whether it's possible to a structural question of how.

How do we create cultural accountability that shifts the power dynamic? How do we make potential attackers fear accountability enough to change their behavior?

I think the struggle comes from this basic dynamic: when something is bad, it's easier to point it out as being bad than to come up with a better alternative. That's just the nature of bad things across the board. It's easier to point out that rape culture is bad than to be able to describe in detail exactly what culture should look like instead. So, that's where the conversation tends to go.

A lot of energy is put into pushing against rape culture, correctly calling it bad, and the predictable response is that it might be bad, but it's unavoidable, so don't waste your breath complaining.

The harder strategy is showing the alternative rather than only condemning the status quo.

If the major problem with rape culture is the normalization of the crossing of boundaries, from childhood hair-pulling up to adult sexual violence, then the answer isn't just to condemn that normalization. It's to normalize the opposite: boundary setting and cultural accountability for crossing boundaries.

I'm not saying this is going to be easy. Cultural norms aren't easy to overturn. That's why they're norms. What I am saying is that pushing back directly is a lot less effective than showing a new path and doing so in a way that pierces the existing bubble.

I think the really incisive question about why men are far less likely to assault their boss is one of those things. It precisely pierces the lie that men can't control their urges and highlights the power dynamic involved.

I think that another strategy that helps pierce cultural bubbles is humor. In this case, the idea that sexual assault and rape should be excused as inevitable because it should be expected that men can't control themselves isn't just wrong and dangerous, but is genuinely worthy of mockery. If you find yourself needing to make that point, I recommend mockery and humor, which finally brings me to the piece of communication strategy I saw floating around on social media.

This little infographic I'll describe comes from the Sexual Violence Center of Cork, which I assume means it's from Ireland, but I didn't actually check on that. it includes six points, and it's titled "How to Avoid Sexual Assault: A Quick and Easy Guide."

Here's the advise,

Number 1. "Don't put drugs in people's drinks."

Number 2. "Use the buddy system. If you can't stop yourself from sexually assaulting someone, ask a trusted friend to accompany you at all times to stop you."

Number 3. "When you come across someone who is drunk or asleep, the best thing to do is not rape them."

Number 4. "When you see a woman walking by herself, leave her alone."

Number 5. "If you are in an elevator and someone steps in, remember not to sexually assault them."

Number 6. "Carry a whistle. If you think you might rape someone, blow the whistle until someone comes to stop you."

To reiterate, the idea that sexual assault and rape are inevitable and unavoidable is not just wrong, but also stupid. Anyone making that case shouldn't just be countered, but should be mocked. The idea that men have no self-control is incredibly infantilizing of men. Toddlers don't have self-control, teens and adults do. Claiming otherwise is an affront to logic and does a disservice to everyone. And yet, the argument perpetuates itself like a zombie that refuses to die.

So, if you find yourself having to make this point, these are the two methods I recommend. Point out the element of the power dynamic with the question about men and their bosses and mock anyone who insists on claiming that men's impulse control should be put on par with toddlers. That argument is on par with what you could expect from toddlers.

As I mentioned at the top of the show, the first hour was designed to be accessible and informative for everyone. From this point forward, the conversations get harder and the descriptions of sexual violence get more explicit. This is the part that we feel men are the primary target we'd like to reach so if that's you, we hope you'll keep going and if it's not then do what's best for yourself.

And now, we'll continue to dive deeper on 4 topics today.

First up;

Section A, What Boys Are Taught About Being Men

Followed by Section B, How Rape Culture Is Built and Who It Protects

Section C, The Cornell and LSU Records and the Apologists

And Section D, Enablers, Excuses, and What Men Owe

what I think is one of the root causes of the, this conflict that we're having between men and women. Obviously, this doesn't apply to all men, but most, and that is I don't know how to convince them that they are supposed to care about other people. 

If you haven't already seen Hope's video by this point, go back and watch it.

She's talking about a topic that comes up time and time again. Why is it that men seem to struggle so much with empathy? And Hope hits on what the problem is, that even when she tries to explain empathy to men, they still approach it in a very transactional way. "Oh, so if I display empathy, then it'll benefit me in this way."

And the reason that men struggle with empathy is that men are not taught love, not real love. We're taught a transactional exchange as love. A man's desire to understand love through a transactional lens cannot be understated Almost all of men's relationships and all of our relationships with men are approached this way.

In The Will to Change, bell hooks talks about how a mother's love is unconditional, but a father's love is often transactional, dependent on our behavior. Mother love is aplenty and apparent. We complain because we have too much of it. The love of a father is an uncommon gem to be hunted, burnished, hoarded.

The value goes up because of its scarcity. As a child, I hungered for the love of my dad. I wanted him to notice me, to give me his attention and his affections. When I could not get him to notice me by being good and dutiful, I was willing to risk punishment by being bad enough to catch his gaze, to hold it, and to bear the weight of his heavy hand.

Typically, our mothers love us no matter what with an abundance that is seen as smothering, too much. But a father only turns his attention to a child to offer praise and pride for our achievements or heavy-handed punishment. And this hunger for scraps of attention from our male parent instills in us and normalizes a constant pursuit of seeking to be validated by male peers, doing everything we can to be good enough to get their attention through our obedience, through sharing the same interests, through our behavior and our actions.

We strive to be noticed and find the reward of their acceptance and possibly their praise. And women are indoctrinated to this, too, to seek the love and approval of men. A friend of mine shared this video by Madeline that I'll tag in the caption where she talks about how when a heterosexual woman descenter men, there is often a large void in their lives left behind now that they're not seeking male validation.

And for most men, this is their model. This is their roadmap for how men love. Not a true or real love, but an exchange. My pride and benefaction for your compliance, for your obedience. And this stains how we approach all of our relationships. Take men's hurt and anger at the results of this 2015 study by Michael Rosenfeld.

I'm sure you're aware of it. It's the one that found that almost 70% of divorces are filed by women. That this rises to 90% of college-educated women is not true. That bit's made up. And men use this statistic over and over to show how unfair marriage is, that women are overwhelmingly the ones who want to walk away and have no loyalty.

Men's outrage at women filing the majority of divorces is because, as we see it, men upheld their side of the transaction.

We did the thing. So if that marriage is a loving one, as men understand love, then there should be no issues. That their wife wants to leave is her not upholding her end of the transaction, rejecting love. In making this video, I came across a male creator on this app complaining that women will, quote, "Leave a healthy relationship- Because she is unhappy.

And it was said in complete seriousness. The complete contradiction of a unhappy relationship being a healthy one is held because love is transactional, not compassionate. Or how about child support? We built an entire masculine identity around being a good provider, providing for your family, building a legacy, and yet there is such enmity when men are asked to do exactly that.

Because it's giving of resources entirely to benefit a household other than your own, with seemingly nothing in return. There's no transaction. And Hope's video already touched on how men's protection is transactional, coming with a list of caveats, exclusions, and disclaimers. Not stepping in for fear of harm, only stepping in to protect those we personally know, those we benefit from.

And yet even knowing that this is a problem, men still find it incredibly hard to escape transactional thinking because it's all we know. Red Pill podcaster Myron Gaines, in his grotesquely titled book, Why Women Deserve Less, describes how the emotionless, transactional view of relationships is gone, dead.

While men could carve their existence out of the real world through their actions, women could not, making women wholly dependent on men. Consequently, women had to find a man and keep him happy. They had to dote on men, cook for men, have sex with men even if they didn't want to. They had to take care of men.

All of this lest they cared to die. He calls this the old contract and says it's been replaced by a new contract where women can choose who and if they want to be with someone, rather than being forced or coerced into relationships, and says this should lead to happier relationships between the sexes as desire forms a stronger bond than force.

Which all feels surprisingly lucid and rational from Myron. However, he then goes on to argue that in reality this has created a dystopian nightmare where men are struggling to find women who want to be with them. And his solution? That men just need to hustle harder to earn more money, to be a top 5% man that women do want to be with, and to not cry about it.

Which, yeah, that, that, that feels more on brand. He tells us the transactional model of relationships is dead, but his only advice to men is to transaction harder. And having spent eight chapters laying all of this out, he then admits his approach is completely flawed, pointing out that Tom Brady, who he says nothing else this man could do to make himself more attractive, yet Gisele still divorced him because she wasn't happy.

Entirely absent from the book, from the whole discussion, is why your partner might be unhappy and how to fix that. Which would be far more useful relationship advice than telling men, "Oh, just go earn a quarter of a million dollars. Just, just, just do that" And a lot of men are stuck in this loop because what men lack, the way out of this rut, is more men modeling and educating what real love looks like.

Not just romantic love, but platonic love as well. Encouraging them to give compassionately, to love from their hearts, and develop a deep concern for the wellbeing of others and their own wellbeing. I was fortunate. I had a man like that in my life who demonstrated what that kind of love looks like, and whom I never felt I had to prove myself to him in order to earn his love.

He was my father. 

In practically every episode over 10 seasons, the other characters on the show make fun of Raj for acting too much like a woman. 

It wasn't a pajama party.

It was just a couple of bros hanging out, giggling, eating cookie dough, and watching Princess Bride. Please stop talking 

As you might expect, the jokes targeting Raj for not being manly enough are steeped in a thick layer of homophobia. 

Wow. And that's not even the best part. See? I have one, too.

Wait, check it out. You can wear yours, and we can have little sword fights whenever we want 

The humor consistently codes Raj's more effeminate behaviors and interests as gay, and that's always the punchline 

may I have a grasshopper with a little umbrella, please? No, he may not. Why? I'm not sitting here with a guy drinking a grasshopper with a little umbrella.

Fine. I'll have a chocolate martini. Wrong again. 

Raj is the only one of the four guys who after 230 episodes still doesn't have a steady girlfriend 

Do you have any idea what it's like to be the only one without a girlfriend? Even if I get one someday, I'll still be the guy who got a girl after Sheldon Cooper.

All the others have had their long-term partners join the main cast. I don't think it's a coincidence that the character most ridiculed for being the most unmanly in a group of men specifically coded to be unmanly is also the only man of color on the show. And as such, Raj fits neatly into Hollywood's long-running tradition of mocking and diminishing the sexuality of Asian men.

At times, Raj seems comfortable with his softer, more effeminate version of manhood 

Bridget Jones' Diary. Oh my God, I'm crying already. 

But the show and the other male characters are not, and they let Raj, and us as the audience, know that there's something wrong with him for not being manly enough every chance they get 

What's up?

Not his testosterone levels. Excuse me. I happen to be very comfortable with my masculinity. How is that possible?

In her 1995 book Masculinities, R.W. Connell lays out the theory that there's not just one form of masculinity, but rather many different forms of manhood that all exist within a hierarchy. The white heterosexual hyper-masculine ideal is at the top of that hierarchy, and then all other forms of masculinity are made subordinate to it.

Forms of manhood that are in any way associated with homosexuality or femininity are pushed further down on the hierarchy. 

When you're slapped, you'll take it and like it. 

This hierarchical structure then creates a social system wherein men are encouraged to compete with other men for status and dominance, even within their own peer groups and subcultures.

Take that. Oh, 

oh, ow! You want some more? 

Ow! This is why even men who are bullied for not meeting the hyper-masculine ideal often feel the only way they can be seen as real men- 

Oh, come on, get up! Stay down, bitch ... 

is by diminishing someone else. 

I am Shiva the Destroyer. I will have the woman. 

I'm warning you, I was judo champion at math camp.

The relationship dynamics between Leonard, Sheldon, Howard, and Raj provides us with a microcosm of how this hierarchy of masculinities works. 

Dude, I'm glad you finally got a girlfriend, but do you have to do all that lovey-dovey stuff in front of those of us who don't? Actually, he might have to. There's an economic concept known as a positional good in which an object is only valued by the possessor because it's not possessed by others.

That's not true. My happiness is not dependent on my best friend being miserable and alone. 

Thank you. 

Although I'd be lying if I said it wasn't a little bit of a perk. 

Practically every aspect of their friendship, from the personal to the professional, revolves around competition.

Why'd you do that? To send a message. She is not for you. 

Back off, Sheldon. What? If you do not stop hitting on my lady, you will feel the full extent of my wrath. 

Howard, relax. I'm not interested in your girlfriend. 

I hope 

not, because you don't wanna mess with me.

I'm crazy. 

Do it. 

In fact, their entire lives are defined by a never-ending game of one-upmanship. 

Don't just stand there, take your breasts out. 

On The Big Bang Theory, just like in the real world, women are often leveraged as symbols of status within groups of male friends 

What was that for? 

To show people when they don't believe me.

The show consistently frames manhood as something that's either reaffirmed or diminished by the ability of the guys to score with women. 

Oh, wow, sex at work. Leave it alone, that's my girlfriend. Sorry. 

Who just had sex with me at work. Damn, how'd you swing that? 

Two women at the same time? Nice job, player.

Whenever any one of the four nerds doesn't have a girlfriend, the others will ridicule him for it. 

Knock, knock. Who's there? I have a girlfriend and you don't. I have a functioning and satisfying relationship with a female. You have none. 

Under the narrow constraints of hyper-masculinity, the only thing worse than being unable to acquire a woman is being controlled by one.

I downloaded an app that might be helpful in this situation. 

Now, the women on the show do occasionally join in with the ridicule. 

All right, who's ready for another beer? 

I'm good. No, thank you. Girls? 

But the vast majority of the put downs of nerdy men don't come from women, they come from other men. 

Amy, please, I am trying to figure out a way to intellectually emasculate a dear friend of mine.

Hey, while you decide, who was better in bed, big old Zack or weezy little Leonard? 

There's an unfortunate tendency in our culture to try to pin the blame for men's emasculation on women, but most of the time the perpetrators are men who are participating in this competition for dominance. And in so doing, they become complicit in the very structures that harm and exclude them.

for a group of guys who claim they spent most of their lives being bullied, you can be real jerks. Shame on all of you.

All this competitive and anti-feminine behavior is framed by the show as harmless, as good-natured fun, as normal and natural and inevitable for men. But the reality is that the social pressures that society places on men to engage in this hyper-masculine competition is anything but harmless. It can be dangerous for men and for those around them, both in terms of physical health and emotional wellbeing.

It makes it difficult, if not impossible, for straight men to be vulnerable and caring with others, which in turn makes it very hard to build close, supportive friendships with women and with other men. 

It's quite a gesture on your part. You've shown yourself to be the bigger man. Thank you. Which I find totally unacceptable.

I must be the bigger man. 

But unlike Leonard, Sheldon, Howard, and Raj, who are locked into a perpetual competition by their writers, men in the real world have a choice. We can choose to reject the battle for dominance and instead embrace empathetic and supportive forms of manhood 

Bear is struggling to find the confidence and the right words to express his crush for his longtime friend Nikki.

After failing to admit his feelings at a perfectly opportune time, he instead makes a wish that she would love him more than anyone in the world. This causes Nikki to become obsessed with Bear and exhibit increasingly disturbing behavior. For a while, Bear tries to rationalize this behavior away and maintain his dream relationship, even after it becomes clear that the real Nikki has been completely subjugated and is trapped inside a horrific nightmare without bodily autonomy.

His friends Ian and Sarah become wrapped up in the fallout of this toxic relationship and ultimately die at the hands of obsessed Nikki as a result of Bear's actions. When Bear finally tries to do the right thing and take himself out of the equation so Nikki can be saved, he instead chickens out and attempts to throw up the pills.

Before he can, obsessed Nikki makes her own wish, causing him to reflect back to her this mutual obsession. Bear overdoses on Nikki's lap, breaking the spell, and the real Nikki is back in her body, surrounded by all of her dead friends. Ian is Bear's best friend and the main person Bear turns to for advice throughout the film.

Whilst Bear is awkward, hesitant, and deeply self-conscious, Ian is the complete opposite. He's charismatic, confident, and socially dominant. And because of this, Bear instinctively treats him like someone who understands women better than he does. But what Bear fails to recognize is how casually dismissive Ian is towards women from the very beginning.

We see this clearly in the opening diner scene. Bear is rehearsing a speech he wants to give Nikki to confess his feelings. He's vulnerable, sincere, and the waitress, who acts as his test subject, actually seems genuinely touched by what he's saying. She begins to offer her thoughts, but Ian immediately interrupts, talks over the woman, and ridicules the entire thing.

He frames Bear's honesty as embarrassing and overly emotional, pushing him away from vulnerability and towards performance instead, adding to his confusion on the best path forward. I found the way Ian dismisses the waitress particularly interesting. Rather than directly asking her to leave, he simply says, "Thank you," in a pointed way that forces her to interpret his passive-aggressive intention.

She awkwardly asks, "You want me to leave?" And Ian replies, "If you want to." This reframes Ian's own will as though it were her choice. It's notable that Bear doesn't call out this rudeness. Instead, he internalizes the embarrassment and apologizes for making her listen to the speech in the first place. To me, this feels reflective of how women are often excluded from conversations that directly affect women, or briefly consulted before being talked over so the boys can get down to the real discussion On that point, there's a very interesting visual detail that I noticed.

After the waitress leaves and Ian sits opposite Bear, there's a group of men visible in the background, and the way they are sat makes it look very similar to a podcast setup. I can't say for sure that it was intentional, but it immediately made me think of the endless ecosystem of podcast bro relationship advice online.

Ian's worldview feels pulled from that space, the confidence, the performative detachment, the insistence that women respond to games rather than honesty or vulnerability. What makes this even more manipulative is that Ian is withholding crucial information from Bear the entire time. He's secretly been sleeping with Nikki for years, something that would completely change the way Bear interprets both her behavior and Ian's advice.

Yet Ian still positions himself as the authority figure, dispensing wisdom whilst hiding his own personal stake in the situation. Even his repeated advice that Bear has nothing but time feels less like genuine guidance and more like self-preservation of his casual fling with Nikki. He wants his cake, and he wants to eat it, too.

And whilst you might think Ian has somehow won these games by successfully sleeping with Nikki, I don't think the film presents it that way. Their relationship appears relatively casual, and certainly not the kind of deep emotional connection Bear believes he's pursuing. And we also see how Ian's advice doesn't really work for Bear.

He even calls Nikki a nickname which Ian suggested, which is Freaky Nikki, but this is a sensitive topic for Nikki, and it only pushes her away. When the whole group of friends are at their trivia night, Bear repeatedly tries to find a moment alone with Nikki, only for Ian to derail or redirect the interaction Regardless of whether Ian's motivation is to try and spare Bear embarrassment or only acting out of self-interest, he definitely derailed opportunities for Bear to be genuine and honest.

One can't help but wonder if Ian hadn't gotten in his friend's head or kept interrupting him, maybe Bear would've been able to avoid the horrific wish scenario. Even if he were likely to be rejected by Nikki, at least he could have moved on and maybe ultimately ended up starting something more genuine with Sarah, but we'll get into Sarah next.

After the wish, Ian does at least seem more willing than Bear to acknowledge that something is seriously wrong with Nikki. He questions Bear's motivations several times, and even asks whether he's taking advantage of her. But despite recognizing the situation as disturbing, he still never fully intervenes.

Nikki's suffering continues to be framed primarily through how uncomfortable or inconvenient it is for the people around her. Even when Ian questions Bear, he ultimately still sides with him socially, inviting Bear to the party whilst excluding Nikki as though she is the problem. Later, towards the climax of the film, when Bear arrives at Ian's house covered in blood and ranting about the one-wish willow, Ian initially asks if Nikki is okay, correctly worrying that his friend, who is covered in blood, might have harmed her.

But he abandons that concern almost immediately. Whilst he finally agrees to make a wish, rather than even attempting to assuage Bear's distress by going along with what he wants, Ian immediately wishes for a billion dollars. That moment reveals where Ian's priorities ultimately lie. Faced with the possibility to help someone suffering, his first instinct is self-interest, and afterwards he becomes completely consumed by the fantasy of wealth.

He then shows up at Bear's house, not to check in on his clearly distressed friends, but to excitedly discuss how they should spend the money. It mirrors the way many misogynistic influences online profit from harmful rhetoric whilst remaining emotionally detached from the real-world consequences of the ideas they spread.

And I think the film gives Ian a really fitting end. Early on, he dismisses and talks over a woman, but in his final moments, he becomes the one who is abruptly silenced, his voice literally cut off mid-sentence by Nikki. Even more fittingly, the only reason Nikki has access to the gun in the first place is because Ian himself told her about it earlier in the film.

In a sense, his own words created the conditions for his downfall.

A few weeks ago, a man I know told me a story about something that happened when he was 12 years old. A neighbor boy had opened a secret box and shown his group of friends a Playboy magazine. He unfolded a picture of a naked woman, and the boys all went wild wanting to see more. But the man telling the story said, very proudly, "I didn't like it.

I was repulsed. I thought of my mother and my grandmother, and I looked at that naked girl and I thought, 'What kind of woman would do something so disgusting?'" As I listened to this man's story, I appreciated part of what he was saying. He was trying to regard women with dignity. He was invoking images of his mother and his grandmother, women he loved and respected.

But I was also troubled, because the man had framed the woman as the problem, a woman whose sexuality was disgusting. He didn't talk about the imbalance of power. He didn't mention the problem of the sexist and exploitative structure that went into producing, selling, buying, and showing that image. He didn't talk about the problem of a culture that had taught this 12-year-old boy that if he felt a sexual response to seeing a naked woman, that would make him bad.

And so, without even realizing it, he needed to put the shame somewhere, and he foisted his shame onto her. What a mess. What an absolute psychological, theological, patriarchal quagmire of a mess. Flash forward to today, and messes like these have gotten a whole lot messier. Today, pornography is everywhere.

Anyone can see almost anything at any time, anywhere on their own phone. Internet pornography has become one of the loudest sex educators in the room, which is not ideal, because the internet is many things, but it isn't exactly famous for its wise and emotionally healthy content. So today I want to ask, is porn just a harmless private habit?

Or can it be a healthy part of a sex life? Is it a moral cesspool that makes people impure? Or is it one more way that patriarchal beliefs get pumped into people's brains and into our relationships? Here's my thesis right up front. The problem with porn isn't that sex is dirty or that desire is shameful or that bodies are sinful.

The problem is that mainstream pornography isn't actually about pleasure at all. It's an industry that takes an existing imbalance of power between men and women and monetizes it. Today, I'm going to walk you through three topics: what typical porn content actually looks like, what it does to our brains and our relationships, and who's getting rich while the rest of us pay the emotional cost.

Let's start with the facts. What is pornography? I'm guessing that many people who follow this channel aren't spending tons of time on porn sites. That's just a hunch. So if you don't know what mainstream online porn use actually looks like, here's a quick survey of the landscape. Porn sites look like YouTube crossed with a search engine.

There are endless thumbnails, trending videos, search bars, category tags, and suggested videos. But instead of video essays or cute animal content, all those thumbnails are full of naked bodies, often performing exaggerated sexual acts, and it's all surrounded by some deeply troubling language. The categories often feature phrases like barely legal, used, punished, destroyed, rough, humiliated, and much worse.

They're framed around denigration of women, non-consent, domination, age differences, and power differentials like boss-employee, teacher-student, and I hate to even say this one, but stepfamily. This is not about two adults having joyful, connected pleasure. A huge percentage of pornography explicitly eroticizes humiliation, coercion, and violence toward women.

And far too often, women's mistreatment is not incidental to the fantasy. It is the fantasy. It's the product. A study of 4,000 heterosexual scenes from Pornhub and Xvideos found physical aggression in 45% of Pornhub scenes. Women were the target in 97% of scenes where aggression appeared, and women's responses were usually neutral or positive rather than negative.

Also, this isn't just about gendered categories. Among the most searched terms on major porn sites are racial and ethnic labels like Latina, Asian, and Ebony, which are used not as simple descriptors, but as their own sexual categories, and each one is loaded with specific demeaning scripts. This intersecting racism and sexism goes way back.

I remember in my master's program learning about a South African woman in the 1800s named Saartjie Baartman, who was captured by white colonizers and put on display for European audiences who gawked at her body as proof that Black women were hypersexual and almost subhuman. That same ugly script has continued for centuries, what scholars call controlling images, the Jezebel, the eroticized Asian temptress, the submissive stereotype Now, of course, there is a spectrum.

Some porn is almost certainly worse for viewers than other porn. But when we look at the dominant popular ecosystem, the free sites, the trending videos, the search terms, and the thumbnails, they are blatantly patriarchal, objectifying, and abusive. So what does repeated exposure to this kind of material do to our brains?

To answer that question, let's hear from an expert on this topic, Jeremy Lipkowitz. 

So what does repeated porn use actually do to somebody's brain? The more often you use certain neural pathways, the stronger those pathways become. So if a guy is repeatedly thinking thoughts of lust, objectification, craving, he is quite literally strengthening those pathways in his mind.

He's making it more likely that those types of thoughts are going to fire again in the future, until eventually it's not a choice anymore, it's just the default patterning that his mind runs. 

This industry isn't healthy for anyone, and there are real consequences for all people, regardless of gender, especially when it comes to our relationships.

Porn can shape what people expect sex to look like. It can shape what bodies are expected to look like. It can shape how partners are expected to behave, and that shapes people's most intimate relationships. A meta-analysis of 50 studies with more than 50,000 participants found that pornography consumption was associated with lower interpersonal satisfaction outcomes, especially among men.

And of course it does. First, there's the comparison. Researchers studying men's body image found that pornography trains viewers toward social body comparison, the same mental habit that makes Instagram so damaging for teenage girls, except here it's aimed at men comparing their own bodies and their partners' bodies to professional actors.

How can a person be present and joyful if they're consumed with thoughts of not measuring up? Then there's the disconnection. Clinicians who treat compulsive porn use say that men tend to disconnect from their real partners because of the Madonna-whore split. This is where men view the women they see in porn as the whore.

And their sexual desire starts getting attached to that fictional archetype that they see on the screen, which includes zero vulnerability, zero risk of being truly seen, truly known, or potentially rejected. Meanwhile, they start to see their real-life partner, maybe their wife and the mother of their children, as the Madonna, and they can lose sexual attraction for her because they find it hard to desire a partner that they deeply respect.

And just imagine what that does to real-life women. I've talked to women, and you probably know some too, who describe a very specific, very lonely feeling of lying next to a partner and feeling like they're competing with an endless scrollable feed of bodies. Infinite women, each one younger, each one more into it than any real person could or should perform on demand.

Porn, by design, sets an impossible bar for women to live up to. Pornography models a fantasy where bodies never age, never get tired, never say no. Real intimacy requires the opposite: a body that ages, a person who sometimes isn't in the mood, a partner whose 'no' you have to actually hear and respect

I did a booking where it was it was seven days in just the state of Massachusetts, just bouncing around doing schools. And so that's what I was doing before I booked the show, was performing for these little motherfuckers.

There's moments where I miss those grinds. We've all had them. You 

miss, you miss struggling? No, Did you have fun doing it? 

What? 

Sometimes. What do you... No, what do you mean? What, what are you, why 

would you say struggling? 

She nearly died. 

Yeah. 

No. Yeah, but I- But 

that was because of the snow. 

Oh. 

Yeah, that's different.

Why are you making it like it's a comedy thing? 

I almost, almost die every day. I'm

a woman in America. I'm almost dead 90% of the 

time. Damn, Dulce took it there. 

Yeah. That, we- just, just death for death. 

we- Yeah, but his death was a joke. 

Yeah, but he, he caught me. Yours 

was real. 

Yeah. Well, sometimes you gotta get out of an apartment.

what This is- So me and my friend were talking about this, men do not realize how much danger women are in on a regular basis. 'Cause one of my friends asked me the other day, he's like, "You think you could kill somebody?" I was like, "Yeah." He was like, "That was fast." And I was like, "You've never been a per- you've never been a woman."

One of the greatest jokes I ever heard was, it was just, a small throwaway thing. It was Dave Chappelle on stage, and he was talking about one of the first gigs he ever did in New York that he was getting paid for, and he performed for some, I don't know if they were gangsters or not gangsters. Long story short, they paid him in cash.

Mm. 

And they gave him $10,000 in cash, and he was, in one of the boroughs long before New York was, easy in most places. 

Yeah. 

And he tells a story of having the cash, and he puts it, in his pants. 

Mm. 

And then he gets on the train, and he's riding the train, and he- Why 

would you get on the train with $10,000?

No. Get a cab. 

Yeah, but this is- 

Get a cab ... 

don't victim blame. The- And then Dave Chappelle's And then, no, but he says, and that, that was the punchline of the joke. Obviously, I'm, I'm truncating it, but basically he says he, everyone was looking at him. He felt like he was in danger. And he's he's never felt more like a woman in his life.

Absolutely. 

That's, what 

Absolutely. Every day, so it's just so, you start carrying a knife. 

Wait, wait, wait. So wait, let me ask you a question. Mm. So, 'cause I saw that thing online, and I didn't ask anyone about it when it was happening. 

Mm. 

W- who would you rather be in a forest with, a man or a bear?

You can throw food at a bear. You gotta throw pussy at a man 

Well, 

you didn't answer the question Food 

or a bear. 

A bear? 

Yeah. 

Huh. 

Because I know what a ... 'Cause the thing is, it's a bear is not inherently dangerous- 

Ah, maracas ... 

unless it's hungry. 

Okay, so let me, let me ask you a question here. I'm glad you're here, Dulce.

You're the only person I'll probably ask this to. Yeah. 'Cause you'll, 'cause you'll be honest. could it be that men struggle with hearing that answer? 

Mm. 

Because as men, we don't see ourselves as a monolith. 

No. Men struggle with seeing that answer because men don't wanna think they're the bad guy. So every- Mm

so here's the thing. Women are told to take self-defense classes. 

Yes. 

Don't dress provocatively. 

Yes. 

Don't be a whore. 

Okay. 

Carry a knife, carry pepper spray, carry all of these things. Mm-hmm. So you're telling me to do all of these things to make sure that I'm not assaulted or attacked. 

Right. 

But then if I get assaulted or attacked, you don't believe me, but you told me to do all of these things.

And so if I'm being attacked, somebody's doing it. Mm-hmm. But we're never talking about who ... We're not telling the attackers not to attack, we're telling the victim, "Don't get attacked." So every man that heard that was just like, "Well, I would never," but every woman you know has either been sexually harassed or sexually assaulted.

So some- we're not doing it to each other. So how is it that no man has done it, but it has happened to every woman? So when men hear that, it's, "Well, I wouldn't do that." 'Cause I was talking to Kabuka about this one time. Right. And Kabuka was like, he's like, "It's crazy." He said, "You don't think that your friend," he's like, he said, "Your friend that's talking to all the women, come to find out he's raping everybody.

Nobody knew." 

That was a good impression of 

Kimika Thank you. He's like, "He's doing the thing," so you see what I'm saying? 

Yeah, the thing. 

He's doing the thing. 

The thing. Doing the thing. 

And you don't know he's doing the thing. He's at the bar, he's talking to the ladies. You don't know, he's raping everybody.

you see what I'm saying? 

Right. 

So it's no man wants to think their friend is like that. No man who's... There's men that have assaulted people, it's like, "Well, I didn't do anything wrong." So if you as a man think that a woman would rather be with a wild animal in the forest than you... 'Cause here's my thing, I think all the men that got upset by that, there's always a saying that I h- would hear growing up, "A kicked dog will holler."

If I didn't kick you, you're fine, but if you felt like you got kicked, then you are somebody who has been harassing and terrorizing women, point-blank. 

Hmm. 

Because if I wasn't talking to you, you wouldn't have gotten upset. And the same reason is why people go, "Well, I'm not racist." And I was like, "I wasn't even talking to you."

But any time somebody pops up, "I can't believe that women would feel this way," yes, I said I would rather be in the forest with a wild animal. Because here's the thing, bears aren't inherently go- they don't want to be bothered by humans in the first fucking place. 

Right, yeah, yeah, right. 

That's the thing. A, bears- That's their 

default

yes, the default is, "Ah, ugh, person, blah." Then, but if they need something, it's just "Well, I'm kinda hungry. I wonder if this human got snacks. This human smell like snacks." Which is why I don't wear any food-scented fragrances. I don't wanna trick nobody. I'm a floral bitch, right? I, 

that's- So that's the thing

I hear, I hear your logic, but- 

But you see what I'm saying? Is, 

but- No, I hear, I hear, I hear what you're saying, but the kicked dog hollering thing, I, the reason I don't think it necessarily applies is because you, we are speaking to everyone. 

But that's what I'm saying. 

No, so this, so this is what I mean. So let's, let's, let's, let's, let's move it to another category, right?

All right. Let's for instance, let's say somebody says, "I don't like white people 'cause white people are racist." 

Yes. 

Right? There's a lot of white people who would respond to that going, "What are you ta- why would you say that? I'm not racist." 

Right. 

Because they're not racist. The w- Right ... and some who are racist would respond as well.

I'm not saying they wouldn't respond. 

Right. 

But if you res- if you speak to a collective- Hmm ... you shouldn't be shocked when some from the collective respond to you. 

I'm not shocked, but what I'm saying, there's a, there's a level of going, "Oh, why would you say that? I'm not racist." But what that sentence is also acknowledging is that, yes, I'm talking to white people, but if you're not racist, I wasn't talking to you.

So you see what I'm saying? So it's well, white people are racist. I get what you're 

saying. 

Yes, you, you wanna defend yourself. I get what you're saying. Right. So it's the same reason as like, "Well, they're, they all, they're used to, Black people are criminals." I don't crime. 

I'm- So you don't, so you wouldn't respond to that?

No, 'cause you're not talking to me, 'cause I'm not a criminal. Also, no, I know this is a blanket... Yes, it is a blanket statement. 

Yeah. 

But you also have to remember, this is pure hyperbole. Somebody said, "Would a woman rather be in the forest- That's, yeah, 

yeah, yeah. I'm with you ... 

with a person- 

Yes ... 

or a bear?" And you- Started a TED Talk about why-

If you saw that and you went, first of all, stop typing. 

Right. Right. 

Stop typing. This is already goofy. That's saying, "Would you rather be in the ocean with an octopus or a shark?" I'm at the beach, it doesn't matter.

Next, Section B, How Rape Culture Is Built and Who It Protects

What is rape culture? Thanks for asking. Society generally agrees that rape is one of the most heinous crimes that exists. But the sociological theory of rape culture suggests that sexual assault continues to be so common precisely because of certain attitudes on gender and sexuality. Certain myths and misconceptions are handed down from generation to generation, ending up embedded in cultural norms.

The consequences are drastic: victim shaming, impunity for perpetrators, and encouraging women to sacrifice freedoms to avoid being raped. 

Are you talking about the idea of the patriarchy? 

That's exactly what's behind rape culture. It perpetuates the idea that men are naturally dominant with greater sexual needs than women.

The concept of rape culture first appeared in the United States during the 1970s as questions started being asked about sexual violence. If society accepts that there will always be rapists and provides mitigating circumstances for their actions, sexual assault will continue to be prevalent. A common myth is that women who dress provocatively or are intoxicated are asking for it and should change their behavior or clothing to avoid being assaulted.

Conviction rates for rape are often low. Recent Crown Prosecution Service figures show that 1,439 suspects were convicted in 2019, 2020, which is the lowest number since records began. A government-led rape review found that only 3% of rape cases end up with the suspect being charged, while in 57% of cases, the victim withdrew their allegation.

How has the situation evolved in recent years? 

2013 was seen as a turning point in the United States. The term rape culture was no longer being used exclusively by militant feminists and students. It started being picked up and used in the media, as well as by the wider public. Meanwhile, the SlutWalks phenomenon first emerged in 2011 in Canada after a Toronto policeman suggested women should, I quote, "Avoid dressing like sluts so they wouldn't get raped."

Thousands of women took to the streets to get the message across that a woman's choice of clothing is no justification for men to commit rape. The Me Too movement brought further impetus in subsequent years. 

How can we combat rape culture? 

These movements seek to do so on an ongoing basis, underlining that a zero tolerance approach is required towards any form of harassment in order to stamp out rape culture.

It's also important to redefine masculinity and think about how boys are educated from a young age. An understanding of consent is important throughout life, whether it be in the school playground when little boys lift up girls' skirts or in the context of a marriage. That's right. Even a married person has the right to say no to sex if they aren't in the mood.

Yet the phenomena of maintenance sex and marital rape are all too common and often played down. 

what I found in reading through the book as a whole was that what you're also doing that I thought was really interesting, and this may be also what happened when you started to look at critiquing this concept of rape culture, is that you essentially really interrogate it and take it apart, and so that we come to understand what this concept is in so many different ways that I don't think most people think about when they hear terms like rape or rape culture.

Can you talk a little bit about, these definitional understandings that you lay out so beautifully, particularly in the introduction? 

Yeah. I think I started with these popular accounts of rape culture that really were talking about the normalization of sexual violence by men against women.

and reading that against a long, archive of a, a Black feminist in particular, Black feminist, explorations of sexual violence that made pushier demands, I think, on, on w- they weren't necessarily using the phrase rape culture, but made pushier demands on the idea that we now call rape culture with respect to what that narrative work is doing and who it's protecting.

and so, and so I thought- started to think, okay, so if it's not just the normalization of violence, by men against women, what do I wanna say it is? And one thing that I wanted to say is that actually, the victim, who can be the victim or who can be the subject of that violence, changes. It can change all the time depending on, what the existing political structure, in our case, white supremacist, patriarchal, settler capitalist structure needs to protect, which means that sometimes those victims of sexual violence can be men, certainly can be trans and non-bin- binary people, are, are, recorded in different rates among different kinds of racialized and other marginalized populations for all of these systematic things that show us that, sexual violence isn't accidental.

and so that gave me a way into thinking about politically, I guess, what rape culture is doing. And what I say in the book is that rape culture doesn't tell us what rape is, it tells us what rape means. And what I mean by that is that, the interpretive lens that we have collectively for deciding who's a victim and who's a perpetrator, who is counted, for example, when we say, #believeallwomen.

There are plenty of women that aren't believed, and there are plenty of women who at times, have weaponized that idea that they will be believed, in troubling ways, which I talk about in the book. So, so I got There's a long way answering this question. I, so I started thinking really, trying to think really politically about what it means to call something a rape culture and what rape is doing politically.

and then that pushed me back into then trying to define it both in terms of the political work it does and then how it does it. And I say, there are myths and there are discourses and there are practices that c- collectively make up a rape culture. And then the book tries to unpack those things, often by looking at places where sexual violence is happening or where the threat of sexual violence is invoked.

but that might not necessarily be the places you think are the most obvious places to look to understand rape culture. In other words, I, I don't talk that much about specific instances of rape. 

No, y- your sexual violence is a political act. That seems to be one of the key insights that motivates the book.

You open with this incredible description of a video game in which there isn't rape, and the people playing it immediately add the ra- the rape to Grand Theft, Theft Auto and, and what comes out of that. and I, and I think that this idea that this is not inevitable and natural, this is constructed and political, and then your definition of rape culture, which is terrific, s- and I'm gonna read it 'cause it's really good.

"A set of myths, discourses, and practices that normalizes rape and other forms of sexual violence as techniques of political domination that can be used against anyone who threatens existing structures of political domination. In a rape culture, rape and other forms of sexual violence are employed to reinforce these structures and preserve relations of subordination."

And I found that to be clear, helpful, and, the book then uses these example chapters to demonstrate different elements of that. And, and I guess one question I just wanted you to answer so that the listeners would be on the same page that Lily and I are having read the book is, okay, I, I think this idea that this is inevitable and natural, there's always been rape, you know, pick up any, look at any culture, no matter how old and in any place, there is rape.

So this is just something that happens, and, and you talk about in the book about the people who, who capitalize on this notion of it being natural. But you wanna say it's absolutely not that. So, if you could just pull at that thread a little bit for everybody listening, I think that would be really useful.

Well, the reason that I argue, that rape is political is, that I g- there's two, there's two reasons. One I would say is at the level of the personal, and one is systemic. The personal reason is that the rapist or the potential rapist has to already know that they will be the dominator and not the dominated, and something is telling them in any given situation that that is true, or likely.

How about I put it that way? and that is what I'm trying to get at when I talk about rape culture. What are the things that infuse into someone the sensibility that they are the like- likely dominator or that they have an entitlement to dominate in a certain circumstance? And I'm not saying that that's a thought that people always explicitly have.

I'm saying that the culture is doing work on how people think about their relationship in that dyad and who they are in that dyad, and that people rarely set themselves up for the circumstance in which they initiate some form of sexual violence and the tables get turned or they become the victim themselves.

So that's the kind of personal political calculation that I think is, is happening. The second, reason that I think it makes sense to say rape is political is because it is, too systematic across groups, and particularly across marginalized groups in our culture to be accidental. And because it's systematic and because it targets the least powerful, it strikes me as good support for the idea that it is doing political work to sustain the existing culture, and so that's, that's how I get to that conclusion.

Whenever there's a discussion about sexual assaults, there are always men who are eager to blame the victims, and their running assumption is that men can't control themselves physically when facing temptations. that is a blatant lie. Men can easily control themselves if there are consequences. Let me ask you this: how often do you see a man sexually assault his boss or a family member of his boss?

If the Cornell victim were a kid of the principal or a kid of the police chief, do you think the seven guys would have behaved the same way? They wouldn't have dared to get her drunk in the first place. All these young boys making stupid mistakes will cease to be stupid the moment they catch the slightest wind of accountability.

Think about it. How often do you see a man whipping out his thing in public, no matter how much he wants to? In any busy downtown area, I'm sure there are a lot of attractive women walking about. Why do you never see a man just lose control and start, Well, obviously, they fear the consequences. A potential assailant would stay put because he doesn't want to be arrested or beaten up or filmed and shamed online.

There's no difficulty at all for them to physically restrain themselves. All they need is the expectation of a little consequences. Even in a highly sexual setting, let's say a shady nightclub filled with drugs, there are definitely potential rapists lurking around. But how often do you see them carry out their attacks right on the floor?

Humans have brains. They're very sensitive to consequences. The only reason there are so many sexual assaults behind closed doors is because society fails to enforce the consequences. Writing an essay is not a consequence, by the way. If Cornell had the decency of releasing those essays, I'm pretty sure they would turn out to be AI slops.

So why do sex offenders get away with their crimes so easily? Well, there are many reasons. I can't list all of them, but what I blame most is slut-shaming. Ironically, the Puritanic aspect of American culture is helping sex crimes because it makes it more costly for women to report and testify against their assailants.

Look at these clowns. Richard Hanania is some a right-wing political commentator, and Michael Tracey is like a Twitter edgelord who keeps telling people he never voted for a major party for twenty years, but everyone knows who he voted for. They're not even hiding their despicable thoughts. for many years, I didn't understand why conservative men would complain about not getting laid and then in the same breath complain about women's body counts.

Isn't that contradictory? mathematically, if you're a horny straight man who wants more sex, shouldn't you prefer that women also want more sex? It's like third-grade math, right? Why are you killing your own chance? But later, I realized that, oh, I was so naive. It turned out that they weren't contradictory because a Puritanic culture can help them get away with non-consensual sex.

Such a culture makes consensual sex a little harder, sure, but that's not what they want anyway. Consensual sex is too much work. They'd have to better themselves to earn it. So what they want is non-consensual sex without the danger of jail time. That's what motivates them. And what's the best strategy?

Well, shaming women who dare to report them. Basically, the more sus and creepy a man is, the more often you hear him slut-shaming women because that's how he avoids accountability. And their strategy has been pretty effective. Most researchers believe that in the United States, only a quarter of sexual assaults were reported to the police and less than one percent resulted in criminal conviction.

So a sex offender has a ninety-nine percent chance of getting away with it and a seventy-five percent chance of not even facing an investigation Of course these privileged Cornell frat boys would give it a try. Why the fuck not? It was definitely not their first time or their last time. They made an informed assessment and decided that it was a low-risk crime.

So it's not about temptation by women. It's all about the lack of consequences. And if you're a man and you consider yourself an ally of women, you not only should defend them when crimes happen, but you should also defend them from casual slut-shaming, whether on social media or IRL. Because that is the biggest cover for potential rapists.

Hit those people back if you have time, but if not, block them and minimize their reach. Men that are not rapists should help create an environment where women can unapologetically report rapists and warn each other about them. Truth is a weapon. So of course rapists and their allies shame people for telling the truth.

Don't let them.

you are and aren't writing a book about rape. You are writing a book about the understanding of domination that rape is often a demonstration of, and that was what I found to be really enlightening in terms of the work.

And then you have these really interesting punctuations of how we can think about that. so I wanted to toss it over to Susan 'cause she had some questions about, chapter two, which is where we get into the trans bathroom bills. 

no, and I wanna underline what Lily said. This book is really helpful.

I think I know about much of this, and I'm s- familiar in s- the Second Amendment literature on this notion of citizen protectors, but you talk about another form of citizen protectors here and how these power... H- how what we think on first hearing is not actually how we should understand it, and that there are these conditions that normalize sexual violence, and they're not inevitable, they're not natural, they're built.

And one of the assets of the book is the use of these, example chapters so that this is a book about political theory. And I also wanna say that one of the things that's so brilliant about the book is the way that you develop your definitions and your insights in the context of other literatures.

You're, you're pulling from multiple literatures at any one time. There's no dry, lit review. But what there is is an understanding of- how these kids ... this is where I got this term from. I like this part of Brownmiller, and I do not accept this, or this works, but you have to add intersectionality, and I think actually that's something that we need more of in political science and political theory.

And, and so I-- So when you say, you took it from somebody, it's yeah, great, you took it from somebody, and you credited them, and you made it, made it better. So I, I guess the-- what I'd like to push on from chapter two is the way that you tell this story is focused on the fact that those who push the bathroom bills are selling a danger, a story about danger, that is that, bathrooms will become unsafe for children Because people will sneak into the wrong bathroom in order to perpetuate some of violence or some other, conditions that would create a lack of safety.

And, what you ultimately show is that this is not about trans people, it's about the people who are claiming to protect them. And so I was wondering if you could just tell a little bit of that story of how it is this gets framed. As you said, this is very cynical, or it's a cynical discourse of protection, but I was just wondering if you could expand on the details a little bit more so the listeners can understand this incredibly rich story you tell.

Yeah, I think, I, I got drawn into this, topic. and then I was, I was really- as when I was writing this, there's been a couple of wes- waves of, anti-trans legislation carried out largely at the state level, largely backed by the Alliance Defending Freedom, which ghostwrote much of the early legislation on bathroom use that I was writing about there.

There was a 2015, '16 wave of bills that weren't successful. There was another attempt in '21 or so, and now, of course, the, the anti-trans legislation is focusing on, care and, and on, sports and things like that. But the, the thing that drew me in was this, this language around sexual violence, and this seems like the kind of moment where you would say, "Ah, here are people who are finally prioritizing sexual violence."

what's to be upset about? this is not-- The people who are introducing these bills tend to be conservative, tend to be Republican, are often male, and, and sometimes female, and that's interesting, too. I think often white. I don't know that for sure, but I would guess. and, oh, wow, they're finally prioritizing sexual violence as a concern.

But then you think, you back up, as I said, and you think about the refractions. Well, what's happening here in terms of who's being targeted as, the, the, the, the, the evil perpetrator, right? And one of the myths is a myth of a deviant or a bad apple, which again, drawing on Boettcher's work, aligns with the way that trans, ness is constructed as somehow a deviation of a natural order of, binary sex.

And so I started thinking about that, and I started thinking about, and there's pretty good evidence, pretty good evidence around, what happens to people who are forced to use bathrooms that don't align with their gender identity and, how likely they are to be subjected to violence, sometimes sexual violence, but lots of other kinds of violence, too, physical violence.

and that didn't seem to be a concern. Nobody cared about that, likely outcome because those aren't the victims that matter. And you said, Susan, like the, the way that that story is constructed is often about the protection of children in particular, which, if I can put it in these terms, are good victims In a rape culture because they're innocent until they're not innocent, right?

Until they start acting too fast or dressing up too provocatively or acting more like an adult, and then we can, then we can blame them as well. But, but that all started to emerge, and then at some point I started, I will admit this publicly, that I, I am fascinated by, cult documentaries. I watched a lot of them.

and I was, I was, I was doing all of this sort of... I was watching these cult documentaries, and I was thinking about the construction of gender in some of these religious communities, and I was thinking about, the, the perpetration of violence against children and who is most likely to do it.

And of course, the answer to that is, usually a father, a stepfather, a male figure inside the household is the largest, most likely threat. And I'm at the-- So I'm thinking that. I'm thinking about these cults, and I'm thinking about certain kinds of extreme, Christian patriarchalism. I was reading Kristin Du Mez's great book, Jesus and John Wayne, about the construction of a strong man Christian protector.

And you can f- the reason all these literatures, right, as you say, Susan, are landing is 'cause all those things are capturing my attention. I'm trying to make sense of this thing at the same time. And I'm like, "Okay, so we're concealing over here the likely site of sexual violence against children, which is the household, to protect it, because that's a sanctuary and a site of, male headship and authority, and that needs to be left alone."

and then going over here and saying, "Actually, this is the great threat that we're gonna protect against." The other thing I say in that chapter that, that was a useful insight to me is to talk about... And, and here I'm drawing on, Iris Young's essay on the logic of mas-masculinist protection, although she's talking about state, secur- security state there.

But she talks about, what it means to figure yourself as the, chivalrous protector. And the way I think about that and the way I put it in the book is what happens is that structurally it's impossible to distinguish between the wielder of good righteous violence and the wielder of bad violence, because in a rape culture, they're both the men who are in charge.

And so that becomes a problem, and the example I use here is this weird exchange between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, where Donald Trump has of course said that, he's gonna grab women by the pussy. And then Joe Biden, while he's still vice president, at an It's On Us event... And I don't know if you r- remember It's On Us, but it was an Obama administration effort to, m-motivate bystander intervention in sexual violence cases on college campuses.

So he's at a rally talking to college students about bystander intervention, and he says, this is Biden, that if he had heard as a younger man Trump say this line about grabbing them by the pussy, he would have taken him out back and beaten him up And then Trump says, oh, Biden would've gone down, hit the ground first, or something like that.

I can't remember what he says. And I- this just blows my mind. This is, this is that, that, that the person who is trying to talk about bystander intervention with college students at a rally is invoking righteous violence as a solution, and himself as the righteous protector as a solution against a form of violence that someone who is in many ways structurally exactly like him is perpetuating.

And so that's why I think it's a cynical discourse. It's not that I don't think we shouldn't care mightily about victims of sexual violence, and I wouldn't welcome sincere legislation that tried to deal with that. it's that I think we should also be wary of the moments when that discourse is being used to call a group of people dangerous to justify a politics that's not really about sexual violence.

and also in this case, maybe to also conceal who is a likely perpetrator of sexual violence as a good wielder of violence, a protective wielder of violence. So if that person continues to wield that violence in their home, it's fine, because that's good violence, and he has the right to use it or the authority to use it in the household.

My recent posts about men's pathetic sexual pursuit angered a lot of people, more than I did when I talked about politics. Some people are like, "Shouldn't women share the blame? Are they all innocent? Do you know women these days?" Oh, yes, women definitely should share some of the blame, but not in the way men think they should.

I don't blame the victims whatsoever. They're not obligated to be careful. Men aren't careful. Why should women? They're not obligated to be sexually modest either. Just because a woman consented to 100 men in the past doesn't mean you will automatically become the 101st, okay? For example, if a person gave money to 100 different people, doesn't mean you can just reach into their pocket and take some for you, does it?

And by the same token, even if a woman consented to you yesterday, doesn't mean she has to consent today. It's not an AT&T contract. In no scenario should non-consensual sex be blamed on the victim's behavior. That being said, there are women who contribute to the toxic sexual culture. Guess who I'm talking about I'm talking about these ones.

These are the numbers that will haunt me to the end of my life. Forty-five percent of the female voters voted for Trump. what? Of course, they did better than men, 10 points better. I appreciate those 10 points, but still. That election happened one year after a jury found Trump liable for sexually assaulting E.

Jean Carroll and defaming her by saying that he hadn't. The only reason it didn't result in a criminal trial was because the statute of limitations, but it was beyond reasonable doubt that the motherfucker did it. One thing that struck me most was that E. Jean Carroll said that since the attack, she hadn't had any romantic relationship.

She couldn't even stand the slightest flirtation for 30 years. That's how sexual assaults can alter a woman's life. But still, 45% of the female voters brushed it aside. I know a lot of y'all would say, "We're not voting for Trump's personality. We're voting for his policy." what policy? I can't find any.

Sorry, I was kidding. I know what policy you're talking about. You need someone to help you punish the immigrants, the transgenders, the non-believers, the Canadians, or whoever you have an imaginary beef with, right? For some people, that revenge is just too exciting. I saw a tweet by Benny Johnson, one of the hotshot conservative influencers.

He listed a bunch of Trump's achievements, and obviously, every item is about revenge. CNN sold, Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert's show canceled, Dylan Mulvaney and Elliot Page can't find work, Lizzo can't sell an album. Not a single word about people's quality of life. Not a single number in this whole passage.

So yeah, I understand. Some of you, including women, have such an intense psychological need for revenge that you vote for whoever can deliver it, regardless of their personality. This lady is a typical example. She's literally divorcing Ken Paxton because she can't stand him, but she keeps urging Texans to vote for him so he can rubber-stamp Trump's agenda in the Senate.

Whoa, that's a good way to get rid of your shitty husband. Just send him to Washington Crazy. Of course, a side effect of women voting this way is that they're sending a signal to men that women are cool with rapists. Maybe it's not the signal they want to send, but it's a signal a lot of men choose to see.

Remember what Nick Fuentes said after the last election? 

Men win again. And yes, we control your bodies. It's your body, my choice. 

Maybe the Republican women voted that way for other reasons, but there's no way to prove their intention. So abusive men out there are happy to read the result the way they prefer, which is that being a rapist could increase a man's popularity.

If, say, Trump only got 10% of women's votes, men would be like, "Geez, looks like I have to change my behavior if I want to find a wife." But now they're like, "Nah, it's okay. I can still try my luck with 45% of the women." You see what I mean? This number affects the math for men. It measures the reputational cost of carrying out sexual assaults.

A long red bar means that that cost is pretty low. So yes, although men should take the most blame for the rape culture, I do blame some women as well. Not for what they do in their sex lives, but for what they do in the elections.

Now, Section C, The Cornell and LSU Records and the Apologists

Usually the reason we know about it is because the victim, decides to, despite all of the trauma, to go very public with it.

Emma Sulkowicz in Columbia University carrying around a mattress with her for months and months after she was assaulted, and the, the university did not take it seriously,

She, she graduated with the mattress 

Amazing. Like 

amazing She wal- she walked across the graduation stage with the mattress at Columbia 

That was after Brock Turner had assaulted a s- fellow student on Stanford University campus.

He was a swimmer. The judge famously said sentencing him properly would destroy his life. He gave him six months. Brock Turner only served three months. That judge was later, actually recalled. It was pretty historic, but whatever. Brock Turner didn't actually face any music. And now in 2024, a young woman, Jane Doe, was, at a, basically at a frat house after having gone out drinking, went to a frat house because her friend was in the fraternity, a man.

and they proceeded to, ply her with drugs and alcohol and, propositioned her as to do... and this is gonna... it's gonna be a thing. They were like, do you wanna, do a threesome or whatever?" She said yes, and then for seven hours she was, she was, like, assaulted by mult- seven men.

and, there was text messages sent in a group chat in the, in, in the fraternity's group chat "Hey, there's free pussy. come over." And so that, I think, is obviously one of the most egregious details of all of it. and now New York is reopening this case that was actually closed had it not been for the victim, Jane Doe, suing, Cor- these seven, the people she's accusing, Cornell, the fraternity itself, which is a national fraternity.

It no longer operates in Cornell, but it is a national fraternity, Chi Phi or whatever. and, and yeah, so that is, that is where everything is at. And the reason I say it's sorta like every... The reason I take it within a, within a broader context, NATO, is because, maybe around 2016, 2015, before Trump got in, elected the first time, in fact, I would argue that a lot of the reaction to the campus rape, awareness, was part of what gave Donald Trump's first term its fuel.

A lot of the, the, the campaign, that dripping misogyny, the don't believe all women, all that, and then of course you had the Me Too movement. But this discussion about campus rape had been happening. There was a very s- chilling documentary called The Hunting Ground about, rape on campus and how little accountability there ever is for it, and that got...

Fox News glommed onto that. Everyone just sorta tanked that. and to the point of Emma Sulkowicz graduating with her mattress, the person she accused was venerated and, a, a la K- Kyle Rittenhouse, but on a campus rape level 

Yeah. I, I, I think w-, one of the things that's notable is that the, the three examples that you gave, Columbia, Stanford, and Cornell are all some of the most elite universities in the country.

And so there's, a class dimension to it of, men, wealthy men at the richest, most privileged schools in the country seeing, the, the freedom to rape without consequence as one of the perks of their wealth and power. I am certain that, there are similar levels of assault that go on at state schools that we don't hear as much about- Sure

because the schools aren't as prestigious and the, and the, victim, the, the perpetrators aren't w- rich, and the victims don't have the resources to bring the kind of claim. but, this is This practice is part of, baked i- it's like there's a straight line from what we're talking about right now and to, the Epstein files.

and it's all, one system of American domination and control. 

Absolutely. and, and, just... I just have to bring this up because this week, almost the same day, and I don't even think it was... It wasn't in reaction to the Cornell story. They're just this dumb, and they don't care, because, the, the base that supports Trump won't ever leave.

But, like they did under DeVos, under Linda McMahon, the s- as Secretary of Education, the Department of Ed is basically once again amending Title IX specifically to say it's okay to discriminate against LGBTQ+ students, number one, and number two, to ch- change, campus, processes for, sexual assault and, and having fewer protections and a higher bar for proving that this actually happened to you.

What's funny about that is that the Cornell story was happening under ostensibly a rubric of Title IX where, the... was more robust or stronger, right? And protected victims. But what does that mean? I'm not an expert on this issue, but I... What I am learning and what Title IX basically allows, it just says, "Look, campuses have to have a process for dealing with this."

And so Cornell did, okay? They had, a, a, a panel of faculty to talk about... 12 hearings to talk about this incident. They're now defending themselves. they said that the chapter of the, fraternity was closed, and, and they say any suggestion the university didn't impose consequential pugen- punishments for those involved is false.

they're... But they say they cannot release, what fully happened because they have to protect the privacy of the people involved, specifically the perpetrators. T- we know two were expuld, expelled, expul- expelled, and maybe the others were asked to write a, in part write an essay on, like, why rape bad, 

but, a strong thesis, whatever it wa- they're... We don't know because a little bit, there is no oversight. There's just It's, it's like qualified immunity, right? It's like military sexual assault. It's like all sexual assault. it's like the fucking criminal justice system anyway.

It's like you, you investigate your own, and certainly these Ivy League institutions are not gonna wanna fucking bring criminal charges or recommend them to their local police department because what would that do to their reputation? 

Yeah, it's, it, the, the, the investigatory procedure seems to be primarily about containing liability, not about pr- preventing harm.

and, the, the, the... And so part of what's interesting is, is that the victim had to find the right forum. Do you know what I mean? So, the school's investigatory procedure failed, the county's criminal investigatory procedure failed, and so it was only when she figured out how to file a civil lawsuit that it resurfaced, the whole thing.

Yeah, absolutely. I wanna play this because, AOC was actually in Ithaca right after this news broke, not because of it, but she was doing an event with More Perfect Union, called More Perfect University, which is just very painful, to have that over her. But I found this statement incredibly, personal and moving, when it comes to what happened here at Cornell.

I was a freshman. My first week of college. I attended Boston University. Boston has so many schools in such a small radius. My first week there, I came... I kinda grew up in a more sheltered household, and I first went to a party within, within maybe 10 seconds of me walking into a party at a gym, at, at a school facility, someone had touched me inappropriately within 30 seconds of the, my first social outing going in.

I turn around, I leave. Then I remember that weekend, some friends and I, some friends said, "We heard there's a, a party at this place at MIT. Let's go." Right? And this is, the first week, everyone's socializing. So we go, and I was horrified at what I saw. I was 17 years old. I had been, really kept from a lot of, of things like that when I was in high school, and I walked in and I saw just, incapacitated women, men taking advantage of them, people making decisions, and, it...

I, it was just horrible. And what I felt that I was in at that point was a factory of sexual assault. Yeah. It was a sexual assault factory. When I read about what happened at Cornell, those men posted in a group chat That means it was normal to them. That means it was acceptable to them. This is a culture, this is norms, these are practices.

And what we must do is understand that we cannot protect those spaces anymore. We cannot

The fact that Jane Doe, that survivor, lost her education because you can't stay in school when something like that happens to you. Rape is often used as an act of war. It is one of the most horrifying violations that can, that a human being can endure. It's a form of torture. You can't stay in school. The fact that she had to lose her education and those men were protected by an institution and granted an Ivy League degree as a reward, never again.

there's also a weird New York law that says if you voluntarily took a substance, like you can't use that as a reason to say, like that doesn't count as sexual assault if, so if she voluntarily took ketamine or whatever.

Like beyond that, if some 50 or 60 boys are on a text thread and somebody offers "free pussy," like where is the moral clarity for one of those guys to say, "What is going on?" And like this is the conversation, I'm a mom of boys, like a lot of the moms in my group are having right now is like how are we having conversations not just about consent, but about once you see something happening, that like it is your responsibility, and it's gonna be hard.

you will be ostracized potentially. Like you are going to have social consequences. But standing up in that situation and calling it out, to me, like this is the part that is just Like that, that's black and white to me. Mm-hmm. I just, I don't, I don't think there's any questions about the law or the details of what happened.

there is a screenshot of this text- Mm-hmm ... to a large group of people, which were not just the people who ended up in that room. Well, it's not a screenshot. 

Somebody took a photo of the phone. 

Well, right, a photo because it's Snapchat. Yeah. 'Cause if it was a screenshot, everybody would've known that it got taken.

The second part about the lawsuit that really like just hit me in my gut was she talks about she says, "I woke up at..." Or the lawyer says, "She woke up at the frat house, returned to her resident, was in a state of shock. Later that day, plaintiff became aware that what happened to her at the house the previous night was becoming public knowledge on Cornell's campus."

So that is a second piece of evidence indicating that this was an open secret. And again, I wanna go back to the institutions here. we've all been, at universities, in social groups. wh- when that kind of thing happens, people do know about it. Mm-hmm. And so to me, that is a, just another mark against everything, like the DA's saying about not investigating, the, the police seemingly limiting, their questions after this one statement.

where are the adults here? 

Mm-hmm. 

And, and, and, and within these fraternities and sororities as well. 

Yeah. There's supposed to be adults that are involved in sororities and fraternities to prevent something exactly like this from happening. 

Well, they say the house mother took her to the parties- 

Yeah

to begin with- 

Yeah ... at the 

original. 

Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. And then in the lawsuit she's saying that the house mother was not trained and, enough to handle mitigating the risk of being, like 18, 19. I think people lose sight of that. I'm a girl from a small town who got into a school that was hard to get into, and it's like a...

You're dazzled when you get to campus. you are just completely, overwhelmed by these people that you're suddenly surrounded with, and by these opportunities you're suddenly surrounded with. And, the thing that, that got me, going back to your point, Marisa, about the other guys that were on the text chain and how nobody stood up, I, I really think we need to put not all men to bed, because if you are not the man who is telling other men that this is fucked up, you are part of it.

You are part of it. You are complicit. You are allowing it to happen, and you're also benefiting from the fact that there are guys worse than you. "I'm not like those guys. I'm a good guy." No, you're not. You're not a good guy. If you, if something like this is about to happen, and you see it or you hear it, and you don't say, "That's fucked up," I...

You know what? Actually practice in front of a mirror. Guys, men, between the ages of, I, I don't know, 15 and whenever your frontal lobe finishes developing- And dead ... 30. Yeah. No. 15 and dead. Forever. Men between the ages of 15 and dead, go into- look in a mirror and practice saying, "That's really fucked up, man.

That's really fucked up, man. Man, that's really fucked up." Try it in a bunch of different ways, because y- you have to say it. You have to say 

it. Take sex out of it. Think about what we expect our kids to do if somebody is being bullied or hurt on the schoolyard. this, this is a continuum a- and it's just, and it's so hard because, these things come up, and as a parent, you wanna talk to your kids, but also you don't wanna, I, I don't know. your kids are a little younger, but it's like, what, have they heard something? I think there's sometimes this feeling of, I'm introducing the bad thing. 

Mm-hmm. 

But, they're going to come across it no matter what, and so yeah, just, the, the, the re- the moral responsibility o- of so many layers here- Mm-hmm

is what just I can't get over. And 

there's- And it's 

really 

upsetting ... there's just something so fucked up about h- how endemic the abuse of women is in the bonding of young men. we did a story last week, where we talked about a woman who was, she was in a similar situation at a fraternity engaging in sex acts, incapacitated.

and this was at- Oh, the 

one in Florida ... 

yep, at the University of Florida. That woman's a 

hero. 

Yeah, she's an absolute hero, but she's gone through hell. Oh, yeah. And the reason that she's had to go through hell is because these men bond by humiliating her and participating in her humiliation. And this was- Even 

though she was doing something consextual- consensual that was probably, before they, weaponized it against her, really empowering.

if you w- do you sexually, right? Yeah, right. that, that, I, I, I will say, though, like- The one good thing that's come out of it b- besides the conversations here is, I think the, the student university deserves such props here. Oh, the public- Or, or paper The student paper The paper, the newspaper.

Yeah. Excuse me. The Cornell paper. I think it's called The Cornell Sun. Mm-hmm. they broke the story of the lawsuit. They've written some very savage and very, up front op-eds. they chose to name the men named in the suit. and I just think it's, such an example of why student journalism matters.

why journalism matters more broadly, but, the, th- they are a part of this community, and so to me, their reporting on the ground is so important. and then it has been fascinating to see, I think how the national media's responded, and how, someone like Jake Tapper, who's just, speaking of savage, the DA in that first- Oh my gosh

interview he did, where he said, "I have a daughter. if, if she had this experience and was treated this way, I would be livid." Mm-hmm. And I think, it, you, again, we- we've said this a million times as women, you shouldn't have to have a daughter to have that feeling. Mm-hmm. Right? But I also- Yeah, but to be fair, 

I've heard that Jake Tapper also has a very groovy wife.

his wife is really rad. 

So, yeah. I'm sure. And I'm, I appreciate that he's standing up for, what he sees, because I do think, to your point, this isn't just about how women respond. 

An administrative law judge who handles appeals per LSU policy actually upheld the finding that he was responsible for, quote, "forcible rape." But then listen to this. The administrative law judge, after Shanklin appealed, reduced his punishment to only four semesters of probation with zero restrictions, meaning Shanklin could b- remain enrolled in classes, he could be on campus, and he could participate in activities as long as he, quote, "stays out of trouble."

What does that mean? Well, he can play football for LSU's storied football program. This administrative law judge, a woman by the name of Janet Wogspack, wrote in an August 25, 2026 decision that his initial punishment, that one year that we just talked about of suspension, full ban from campus and activities, she said it was, quote, "exceedingly harsh," and it did not take into account several factors.

For example, that he had no prior disciplinary history at the school and that the incident, quote, "occurred only on one occasion and the time was brief," end quote. Other factors that she considered to reduce his punishment, there was, quote, "Both consensual and non-consensual activity. There was no malice or force, and Shanklin attempted to console the woman and express concern about her mental health."

Quote, "Respondent's behavior, although non-consensual, did not exhibit a deliberate disregard for the dignity and autonomy of the complainant, but was instead an error in judgment." Okay. Now, Kendall Francis, the victim, has now retained an attorney, former NAACP Baton Rouge branch president Eugene Collins, who is representing her as an advocate.

Collins said the university never gave Francis any advance notice that the suspension was being lifted, and her only option to avoid seeing Shanklin on campus was to actually resort to online classes. Now, here are the facts of what happened back in October of 2025 in Shanklin's residence room, residence hall room, okay?

And this is what has been gleaned from the Title IX investigation. Both Shanklin and Kendall Francis agree that their initial sexual contact on October 18th was consensual. Francis says, though, Shanklin proceeded to have penetrative sex with her without her consent for about 20 seconds, even though she told him no, and she told him to stop Shanklin, on the other hand, said he did intentionally penetrate Kendall Francis, and when asked, when he asked her, "Do you want me to stop?"

Shanklin claims she said nothing. He admits that he continued for about 20 seconds before she told him to stop. So that, that is what was put into the Title IX investigation, what Kendall Francis, the victim, says, and what Damian Shanklin, the accused, says. According to these records, Francis told Shanklin in texts after she left that morning she wanted to go to the hospital for a rape kit.

She also made comments about wanting to end her life. Shanklin's mother contacted Kendall Francis and asked her, quote, "Not to do anything to jeopardize Shanklin's career." Shanklin provided text messages during the Title IX investigation showing that after he asked her not to report the incident to police, she responded by asking how much money would she get if she took that offer.

Shanklin sent her $1,000 via a cash app according to the Title IX documents. The same day, October 18th, campus police officers came to the football operations center to talk to Shanklin, who affirmatively reported the incident due to concerns about potential accusations and her mental health. Officers then went to Kendall's apartment and determined that her mental state was unstable, took her to the hospital, and she underwent a rape kit at the hospital.

A few days earlier, officers had responded to a welfare check that had been requested by her mother, but determined there was no danger, to Kendall Francis. Francis said that Damian Shanklin indicated he had been suspended from the team, but then she saw him play in a game that fall, the fall of 2025, and said it was a, quote, "Slap in the face."

On December 9th, 2025, the Title IX office received the police report and reached out to Kendall Francis, who then decided to file her formal complaint via Title IX. This football season, Damian Shanklin has not been playing football. They asked LSU coach Lane Kiffin why, and he said, quote, "He's not practicing with the team right now, and that's all I can comment on that."

The advocate, Mr. Collins, on behalf of Kendall Francis, says the university offered Francis counseling through a local nonprofit, but no one offered her academic support, any dispensation on her classwork, her grades, or anything else to help manage her classes. She failed many of her classes last year and is now having switched to online school because of the incident, and now she faces delayed graduation and financial hardship.

LSU claiming it properly followed all Title IX policy and processes to its conclusion. And here's an interesting note in this ESPN reporting. Back in 2020, LSU hired an outside law firm to conduct an investigation into how it handles sexual assault complaints after a series of high-profile incidents involving athletes at that school.

Reporting from back in even November of 2020 reveals that this outside law firm, the Husch Blackwell firm, conducted its own independent investigation, and this was coming on the heels of a huge exposé from USA Today conducting its own investigation earlier in the month of November of 2020 revealing that LSU had consistently mishandled sexual assault and sexual misconduct allegations against not only male students in fraternities but also top athletes.

At least nine football players who played for Coach Ed Orgeron, including running back Darius, I don't know, Guice, Guice, G-U-I-C-E, and wide receiver Drake Davis were named in the report, the USA Today report. Now, here's the thing. Davis, Drake Davis, eventually was punished by LSU and expelled in 2019 after he pleaded guilty to domestic abuse.

He was accused of abusing his ex-girlfriend, former LSU tennis player Jade Lewis, for... And he had abused her for six times over a year, leaving her bruised and bleeding. LSU officials appar- reportedly knew of the abuse but did not report it or help stop it. One other football player, Peter Parrish, was accused of raping a woman in a car, was punished by the school.

LSU was reportedly hiding police reports, failing to contact or follow up with accusers, or ignoring their claims completely. Now remember, Kendall Francis in her TikTok said that she's received no support from LSU when it came to helping her with her, police rep- her, her report number, et cetera.

Remember, she went to the Baton Rouge PD and they said, "We have no jurisdiction. You have to go to, back to LSU," and LSU was doing nothing to help her. Sounds familiar, right? Now, ultimately, that independent law firm created a 148-page report issued in March of 2021 finding multiple failures with how LSU responded to sexual assault and misconduct complaints.

It understaffed its Title IX office and improperly handled complaints involving athletics. So now you know why LSU is so defensive about the way that it's been handling the allegations against Damien Shanklin. Listen to this A major lawsuit was brought and settled in April of 2024. 10 former students sued LSU over alleged mishandling of domestic violence and sexual assault complaints against football players and others at the university.

Four of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, this was brought in 2021, accused former star running back, Darius Guice, Guice, I don't know, G-U-I-C-E, member of sexual misconduct. Another plaintiff, the tennis player I mentioned to you, said LSU failed to properly respond to reports that she was being beaten by her former Tigers receiver boyfriend, Drake Davis, while they were in a relationship.

Former LSU football coach Les Miles and the ex university president F. King Alexander were run out jo- run out of their jobs elsewhere, it says. Now, here's the thing. The football coach Les Miles made improper sexual advances toward female students while working as the football coach at LSU. Those reports were kept private by the university and the law firm back in 2013, despite a recommendation by then athletic director Joe Alleva that Miles be fired.

Jeez. The 148-page report by that outside law firm that was issued back in 2021 said that there were also complaints against fraternity members, but the higher profile complaints involved football players at LSU. Look, this is not an isolated incident at just LSU. This is not just limited to places with athletic programs, right?

this is a serious problem. At least LSU finally did something about it. I don't know, have they really learned? We'll see, but this is one of those things that I thought was incredibly important to share with you to make sure that you understood that there were updates in Kendall Francis's complaint, about, how LSU has been handling what a Title IX investigation found to be, quote, "forcible rape."

I am so stuck on the administrative law judge's reversal of his suspension, and that she found... the, the language I find to be so offensive from this administrative law judge, that it was... What did she say?

That it was not a deliberate disregard for the dignity and autonomy of Kendall Francis, but an error in judgment? He was found to have committed forcible rape. She said no, she did not give consent, but he gets a pass? Look, criminal investigation now commencing. Glad to report it to you. Be mad, be outraged, demand accountability.

Accountability at a minimum, people, is an investigation. 

let's take a look at something Jake Tapper reported yesterday. 

So I obtained through a source, that Snapchat text chain from dozens of brothers at Chi Phi Fraternity at Cornell the night of the alleged gang rape. And s- most significantly perhaps, in addition to confirming all the disgusting language, is the fact that there is a photograph of Jane Doe apparently from that night in the room at the fraternity, on that Snapchat conversation, which suggests to at least one source close to the case that had there been a thorough investigation at the time, that perhaps there was other photograph and video evidence that could have been helpful in determining exactly what happened in any thorough investigation.

We know obviously that the district attorney for the county did not, do any sort of investigation. He just read the Cornell University police report and, and figured that there was nothing criminal that had been done. in addition, obviously, to that Snapchat conversation are the disgusting things that the various, brothers of the fraternity said about free pussy, about is the shop still open?

one other guy talks about, you could just come into the room and, whip it out is the term it used. So it is, interesting in that sense, but m- most importantly is the fact that there, the question of whether or not there is additional photograph, or video evidence that remains today, because as Snapchat deletes, all of the messages.

So somebody would have had to no- do a screenshot of it or, or download it or save it. and that would have been helpful to know back in 2024 when this alleged incident, this alleged gang rape happened. 

All right, Barrett, what's your reaction to that information that Tapper is reporting? Who, by the way, has a real bee in his bonnet, rightfully so, about this case, and has been doing an incredible job of covering it.

So props to Jake Tapper. what is your reaction to this piece of reporting? 

Yes. Well, I saw the additional Snapchat, Snapchat screenshots, or I think they were actually photos taken of the chat log from somebody else's device. it's abhorrent, and I think the thing that stands out to me is it shows a pattern of behavior.

in those chat logs, they're talking about other women that they've seemingly had group sex with. Obviously, we don't know if it was consensual or not, but we have a pretty solid guess from their track record about the answer to that. there's really dehumanizing language. and it strikes me that a lot of the conversation they're having is the sort of thing that has historically been used to discredit women who are accusing a man of rape.

If they've had a history of promiscuous behavior, if they are used to having consensual casual sex, it's assumed that they would be open to any sexual encounter, even a non-consensual one. and it's really... It, it's striking to me because it's such a clear misogynistic outlook that they have on life.

They are treating women's bodies like props, routinely. and they were specifically talking about Jane Doe in this incredibly horrifying way, using a lot of racial slurs even, and sharing picture- pictures of her that, I have not seen the unblurred versions, thank God, but you know, have been described to me as incredibly vulgar, graphic, and disgusting.

And I would also like to note that sharing those photos in that way is a crime in, in and of itself, separate- Mm-hmm ... from the sexual assault. so it's just It's not... It, it's very shocking and, violent, but at the same time, it's hardest just to see those messages, and be confronted with evidence of something that I'm already very aware happens all the time in this country.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, sometimes I see stories like this. I've been in the media for 15 years, right? And seeing stories like this, it, it just is, is... It gets very demoralizing to be reminded over and over again, "Oh, yeah, they hate us." 

I'm not going to read the entire timeline to you because you don't need to know every single detail of every little moment that happened that night. but what you do need to know is that this timeline comes from the, the statement that the DA read. So this is the one that the apologists are pulling from in an attempt to discredit her, and I'm going to point out a couple of examples of things, that they think are exonerating for these men.

She describes an initial sexual encounter as being as close as possible to consent as she could have given at that time, having wanted at least to be engaged in something with, the first two men here. So once we get past that point, something that of course people are attempting to use, as evidence that she consented to everything, we get to male number three entering the room.

She reaches out to shake his hand. He pulls her in and starts kissing her. This is ... There's no conversation beforehand. This is just something that he has decided to do. at this point, if nobody does anything to stop the thing that this guy is doing, I would argue everything that follows is done without her consent because she has been, she has been in a situation that has established that it's okay for these men to violate her consent, to touch her without asking, and nobody does anything about it.

But don't worry, this happens more than once. Later during the night, males four, five, six, and seven enter the room. she hides under the covers. She gets introduced to them. She m- mentions that she has memory gaps of what's going on here. and then, number seven says something extremely, rude to her, something that we don't know exactly what he said.

he then apologizes and grabs her and forcibly kisses her, something that she recoils from, and again, nobody does anything to stop him. Nobody does anything about the fact that he's in the room at all. This is the version of events that people are using to discredit the entirety of the allegations.

Everything that happened after either of those two things, provided that nobody removed that person from the room or did anything to stop them, is, by its very nature, done without consent because it has been established in this situation that these men are comfortable with somebody sexually abusing a woman, sexually assaulting a woman, and doing nothing about it.

So th- there, like I ... This is the shit that Shoe0nHead and a variety of other people think is exonerating for these people, that they sat there and watched as their frat brothers sexually assaulted a woman, did nothing, and then continued to engage in sexual activity with her. It's like, it's It's fucking baffling to me until you remember that so many of these people, th- really, the, the people, the audience are just people that want to discredit a woman's story or, make, make men out to be the victims in this scenario, because that's such a serious issue in our time.

and then Shoe0nHead is just catering to those people and being contrarian for the sake of being contrarian. It just so happens that in this very-- in this particular instance, the normally relatively harmless contrarianism is discounting a very clear, real case of sexual abuse. it's fucking sickening, and the people that are doing th- like I've just wandered around saying, "Go fuck yourself," like several times in the last few minutes.

y- like there, this, this should be on their permanent record. This should remain, by the way, on their permanent record on what, people should be saying these things or, reminding them of these things for the rest of their online careers, regardless of how this case turns out. Even if in this hypothetical, magical, out there scenario where it turned out that all of these allegations, th- this event didn't happen, which I think is extremely unlikely to be the case, extremely, extremely unlikely.

But even if that, in that event, these people saw the evidence in front of them and chose to lie about it. Shoe0nHead claims at the beginning of her tweet, I'm back on the image here. she claims, "What's crazy is if you actually read the case, she verbally consented to everything that occurred." That is a lie, as evidenced by the images that she posted below.

There is, like I struggle to find a scenario in which that is forgivable. this is not going to be an organized video, but like fuck these people. similarly, we are going to follow up with, perhaps an even more insidious example of, rape apologia, that coming from, alleged, similar alleged left-winger, Michael Tracy, who has already had like his own interesting commentary on these subjects prior to this case.

Anyhow, Michael Tracy has been on a bit of a arc, of, of an arc recently where he is trying to find the identity of Jane Doe so that he can release it to the public. This is not me reading into his statements. This is explicitly what he has said. He's quoted as saying, "If you happen to know who this Cornell Jane Doe is, get in touch and I would be happy to publish her name and identifying information.

And yes, this is 100% permitted under the First Amendment, whatever threats or emotional blackmail people might want to deploy." Now, let's be clear. If you're an investigative journalist, it is within reason for you to want to find the identities, the anonymous identities of people, involved in any sort of criminal case in an effort to validate the veracity of their claims, regardless of what we in the court of public opinion, which is what we are right now, believe it is the job of an investigative journalist to find out that kind of information.

This is not what's happening here. This is very clearly a scare tactic on the part of Michael Tracy to silence other people from speaking up about their abuse. Firstly, he of course makes it unambiguously clear he intends to publish her identifiable information regardless of the veracity of her claims.

He is not saying, "I want to validate whether or not the things she's saying are true," and then publish the results of that. He is saying, "I want her identifiable information out there," which is of course batshit insane if someone is making a true rape allegation, because a lot of people don't want their personal lives to be invaded by weird freaks on the internet who want to harass them for daring to speak out against a man who assaulted them.

I thought that this was obvious, but apparently it isn't, that victims of crimes, of violent crimes, of abuse, oftentimes don't want random fucking dudes to know that that happened, to be able to contact them and harass them and make their life miserable as a result of doing the bare minimum of coming out to try and get justice for the crime that occurred.

Tracy has followed up with tweets such as, "Good morning, everybody. Time to talk about rape." which he acknowledges is entirely intended as a joke. asking to debate people, saying, "Who disagrees with me on matters pertaining to rape? Who would like to do a stream today? DM." And perhaps the cherry on top, admitting that he is fully aware that what he's doing is a scare tactic with, TMZ tweeting, "Cornell gang rape accuser seeks to keep her identity secret, fears retaliation," followed by Michael Tracy's, "Tick-tock."

He's not attempting to get to the truth. He is not trying to be a journalist. He is trying to threaten this person into silence and threaten all other potential accusers. Lots and lots and lots of right-wing lunatics attempting to discredit this woman's story, attempting to threaten her, attempting to make up complete fucking nonsense about her in an effort to Make the case that this is not a thing that happens quite regularly.

and it's, it's fucking sickening to me. but these are allegedly left-wing people doing the exact same shit. Obviously, I don't necessarily think that they should be considered under that umbrella. but regardless, even if you do, fuck these people. this is not making a shitty argument on a, on, some political topic.

This isn't even making, an incidentally bigoted argument that could theoretically be just apologized for and moved on. This is an attempt directly to discredit an alleged victim of a crime and threaten them into silence, as well as by proxy threatening other victims into silence. these peoples beyond, their commentary is worthless.

their entire online presence is worthless. They are fucking terrible people. and that will remain true regardless of the outcome of this case. a- and so that's the end of that commentary, I suppose. I would like to address, another kind of side subject that I've noticed, people doing here, which is a lot of, I think left-wing people, broadly co-opting the, not all men phrase.

and I understand why it's done. Basically, people will say something to the effect of "Not all men, but definitely these seven, or definitely these fifty-seven," or, variations upon that. and to that I just say, don't, don't play that game, is, is, is what I would encourage. don't even use that phrase.

If a man needs you to validate his fragile feelings by telling him, "Oh, don't worry, I don't mean all men," don't give him the time of day, okay, sucks to suck. nobody said that all men are rapists. You just invented that claim in your mind and now are demanding that other people cater to this delusion that you have created.

I don't know. I just don't like-- I don't give a shit about the feelings of people who desperately need to be validated that they're not the problem here. people will see that by your actions. and as it stands, your actions are very much not that of someone who is not a part of the problem. 

We find so many ways to dismiss a victim. In the case of Jane Doe at Cornell, many have used her text messages against her, where she downplayed what happened to the very man who did it to her, as if that was proof that she wasn't raped, as if she wasn't trying to return to normal Even pundits on TV shows try to find excuses under the law that say she wasn't legally raped 

I actually have the statement, that, Jane Doe wrote at that time.

And, 

Just give it to us in a sentence. We don't have a lot of time. 

it's, it's, it's several pages long. I 

know, but- 

It's nine pages long. And I will say that under current New York state law, voluntary intoxication or drug use, and she voluntarily drank a lot, she voluntarily took, snorted ketamine off of an, one of the boys' body parts.

she also- 

Even though she was highly intoxicated- Yes ... when she arrived- Yes ... at the frat house. 

She was highly intoxicated, but had made plans to meet one of the boy- young men. she al- she allowed other boys and consented to other boys, snorting ketamine off of her body. and under New York law, voluntary intoxication or drug use that merely impairs judgment does not legally constitute an inability to consent to sexual activity, right?

So that means if you voluntarily ingest drugs, you voluntarily take alcohol, you can agree to have threesomes, which, in her statement, she agreed to have two separate threesomes. One boy did walk in. One young man did walk in and say, "Everybody out." So there was one person- Good. Mm-hmm ... that did that. And according to her statement, three of the young men did not touch her.

And so I say all, 

I s- The thing I wonder, the thing I wonder, Sunny, is- But 

I, but I say all that- Yeah ... to say the pictures of these young men, who have not been charged- Mm-hmm ... not been adjudicated, are being plastered all over the internet. I think people are reporting this story inaccurately. I think they're, reporting it unfairly.

And while this is something that we have to take very seriously, there is no way, according to her statement in 2024, that any prosecutor would have brought forth a case. Yeah, but 

she was intoxicated. 

As if the law itself was an arbiter of what rape is, rather than a reflection of the institutions that are built to protect white cis male potential over women's and all types of bodies first and foremost.

And if we survivors finally crawl out of the cave into the light and say, "I am somebody," we are called vindictive. You are taking from his future, as if the future was a material thing that can be taken from. How much easier it is to decide a woman's future has already been ruined, if she was to have one in the first place, so it is okay to find ways to hate her so we don't have to reckon with the rapists whose futures we are taught endlessly to protect 

what are some barriers to justice here? 

I was just talking to a friend about this yesterday. I don't, in a macro sense, have a ton of hope for our legal system to be able to bring justice to abusers. I think if you look at the most famous or notable cases in the past several years where a rapist has been brought to justice in some way, shape, or form, it did require there to be witnesses or actual recordings of audio.

the burden of proof is so, so high and, and that is, how our justice system treats pretty much any crime, if I'm being like, painting with a really broad brush here. so I feel like punishment in the court is going to be incredibly tricky. I do appreciate that we have some of those chat logs, and we can see that history of behavior.

I can appreciate that, her roommate at the time has now spoken up and said that they were having discussions in the days immediately following, as she went through that typical pr- thought process that a victim has of Denying it, and uncertainty, and confusion, and anger, and then finally acceptance about what happened.

so there is, a little more evidence than what we maybe typically have in these situations. She did, visit a medical professional and for a urinary tract infection that she contracted, and told that doctor that she contracted it in what she described as a traumatic way. So there is a little bit of something here, that makes me a tiny bit hopeful.

I, generally speaking, am not... I, I don't put a ton of faith and a ton of confidence in our justice system. That being said, Letitia James does change things, doesn't it? I would say that, if I trust anybody to take this on, it would be her, certainly. 

Mm-hmm. Yeah, another thing, that we talk about when it comes to justice is, there's other ways for punishment to be doled out that aren't necessarily through the justice system, like extrajudicial means.

And I'm not saying, people go to their house with, pitchforks and whatever, and torches. But their, the men's names are in the lawsuit, and their faces are plastered all over the internet. some people on the right, Megyn Kelly being one of them, is, very pissed about this. she doesn't understand that the law says that if a name is in a lawsuit, it can be reported on.

It's, public information. But whatever, Megyn likes to pretend to be dumb. do you think that the fact that these men's faces are everywhere, and their names have now been tarnished is another form of punishment? Do you think it's fair that they're out there without all the facts of the case being out there?

Yes. I feel actually Not just neutral, but good about what's happening to them. I think that in lieu of having real legal consequences for these people, we are talking about social consequences being the only thing we have. I think this is something I experienced when I was in college.

I went to like a, a even more than average, crunchier liberal school, as other people saw it. We had Greek life on campus, but it wasn't, a super massive part of the social culture there. and they did participate in a lot of, sexual violence and a lot of violence in general. and their reputations were tarnished incredibly quickly on an application called Yik Yak that I'm told has been- Oh

defunct in the years since. 

I remember Yik- oh, wow. Yes. That is a blast from the past. 

So, we, that administration did dole out suspensions to them, but there was... they continued to operate underground and try to host the same parties at their off-campus apartments and stuff like that, but their reputations were tarnished.

People genuinely did not want to go there. They know them as people who drugged you, sexually abused you, and would violently beat you up and, leave you in the park on campus. I think that is probably the most real tangible fear that we can instill in people. And I think a big, proof point to that is that we often talk about the role of men who don't rape in rape culture, because they uphold it because they c- keep their friends' secrets, or they deny altogether that, that something like that could have happened.

They turn a blind eye. I, in talking to a male friend of mine who was really, really curious about what I viewed as the role men can play as allies in this conversation I was like, "I think you guys need to drop the act a little bit." but that comes from a good place of, they hear about something like this, and it's like, "If I ever found out one of my buddies did this to a woman, I would beat his ass."

And I'm like, "I don't think you would- Mm-hmm. ... first of all." And I also think that the reason you wouldn't is because you're fearful of losing that friendship. And really, I think we need to turn the logic on its head. I think men need to stop raping people or sexually abusing people or making misogynistic jokes because they're afraid of the social consequences of doing that sort of thing.

Mm. So it's, it's all we have, or at least all we can depend on, that if this happened to me and I'm brave enough, 'cause even doing this is very tough, come out, say their names publicly, maybe file a lawsuit so you have your legal team, you have your protection built in, and publicly accuse them for what they've done, and the world will be the ones to help you hold them accountable.

that might be the closest thing to justice that they ever actually get. 

Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's, it's really frustrating because, I was re- I was reporting on this and working for a, a feminist leading website in, 2010 to 2015. I remember all this stuff again. This is just like a familiar song to me, right?

Yeah. It was, it was so at the top of mind. It was the top of pe- top of headlines. And after that whole, groundswell against campus sexual violence, here we are again, and it feels like we're not getting any better. It feels like it's actually getting worse. And I just... there's another story that was matriculating up into the headlines before this lawsuit was filed, and now it's getting renewed attention.

That was a, a case out of LSU, where a woman named Kendall Francis asked police to... I'm reading from ESPN. "A woman named Kendall Francis asked police to pursue a criminal case in September against defensive end for LSU, whom the LSU Office of Civil Rights and Title IX found responsible for forcible rape."

So he was found responsible, and this- Yeah ... Kendall Francis, asked the police to pursue criminal charges, and she first made her allegations public in a TikTok video posted on September 14th. his suspension from the team had been overturned. it is, it is a real, It, it reminds... I don't remember if you...

I don't know if you remember that when Jameis Winston was at Florida State, where he was credibly accu- Jameis Winston's now an NFL quarterback. He turned out fine. But he was credibly accused of sexual assault when he was at Florida State, and the university and, different entities involved in the athletic department, c- basically conspired to cover it up and to suppress it.

And this story out of LSU reminds me of what happened then. is this another watershed moment, or is this just another, another turn of the screw, and in 10 years we're gonna be back here? 

I, it's funny that you bring up Jameis Winston, who was just, he was just named the starting, quarterback for the New York Giants, because- After 

Jaxson Dart got Trump cursed.

It is a real, 

real cast of characters. I was revisiting, yeah, I was revisiting that story, and his victim came out and said, I went and reported this to the police, and they told me I should not pursue it because Tallahassee is a football town"- Mm-hmm ... and that her life would be ruined. which is just, horrifying.

and this does feel a lot like that. I think that, my God, especially when you get, someone who poses some benefit to that university for their big, high dollar sports team that they're so proud of, it gets even more complicated. And it feels like the barrier of proof goes beyond proving it.

It's, trying to actually devalue that person's role on this sports team, which feels like this incredible undertaking that the victim alone can't, be tasked with. Mm-hmm. I, to answer your question, I'm curious to see what happens. It's extremely notable to me that both of these stories have made headlines.

I'm sure you probably feel similarly, but I think we had a real moment in time during the Me Too movement that feels like it fizzled out completely, in the wake of other news cycles and other things that were taking up people's brain space. and I have not seen a sexual assault story get this much attention in, we're looking at nearly 10 years now.

Mm-hmm. 

So I'm I'm glad that th- those women are getting support in some way, shape, or form. If they can't get them from their campuses, that they're getting them from other survivors, from women who see them and hear them, from male allies, from their governments to some extent. and I'm hopeful that this can be a turning point.

I do think that this is going to require men speaking up- Mm-hmm ... in the more effective way. 

And Finally, Section D, Enablers, Excuses, and What Men Owe

, I just wanna, read, a, a little passage from your Cesar Chavez essay where you say towards the end, "The prevalence of misogyny and sexual abuse has an effect on activism. When a leftist organization will not confront either, it makes itself vulnerable on at least two fronts.

It reduces its organizing capacity and strength by disempowering and humiliating its own members, and it makes itself vulnerable to the right by sweeping matters under the rug and silencing victims and their advocates. people often wonder where the women of the left might be as if this is some great mystery.

The truth is awfully mundane. We really hate working alongside men who keep leering at us and wondering when we might sleep with them, or who treat us as mere minions- ... only there to create the PowerPoint presentations and clear the chairs and dishes once the menfolk are done with their grand speeches.

When s- women who speak up are silenced, and they often are, they're told it's because their revelations will only harm the movement." That is precisely what happened to the United Farm Workers, of course. Yes. And the United Farm Workers famously collapsed, right? And so what you're pointing out is that it's first and foremost a moral issue of the fact that, abuse is inherently wrong, but you're not going to build a successful left if you don't scrutinize the gender dynamics within your organization- and root out the kind of abusive practice. the- we really need to study the Cesar Chavez example because- Yes ... this is a guy who was a child sexual predator who became a revered icon of the left. Even though the, all of this was known, 

how- 

All of it. All of it ... how can that be suppressed? 

All of it was known.

One of the issues, and I hesitate to bring it up without a lot of context because I don't want to be seen as blaming women, but one of the issues is that women on the left choose to remain silent as well. And part of that is because they are truly disempowered, right? If you are... And then if you're kicked out of your leftist organization, this was w- I think what Dolores Huerta feared the most.

Yeah. She had a political agenda, and she feared not being able to put it into place because if she raised the issue, she would literally be thrown out, and this is what many of his victims have said. if you say anything about this, I will see that you're kicked out of the organization-" Yeah

et cetera, et cetera. So yes, there is that problem, but there's also the problem that I have encountered even personally among women, which is that women will turn around and say, "No, we can't talk about this because that's... We need to excuse the..." There is an undercurrent of- sexuality on the left where there is, and I know this is going to sound weird, but my God, it's true.

There is really a sense on the left that left men need to be allowed to expand their masculinity in order to do their work. I remember once- ... and this was admittedly an online conversation, but I've also had similar conversations offline where I said to some- where I talked about this tendency on the left, of men abusing women and using us basically as minions or sexual objects.

And a woman actually rose up and said, "You don't understand. It's so complicated. We have to w- we have to excuse them because it's so complicated." And I was like, "Complicat- what's complicated? He needs to put-" ... "his dick into someone every now and then to get his- ... to get his blood boiling?" Yeah. Because I think, what we need is a culture on the left where we look

where someone, a woman feels free to look at a man and say, "Take your hand off my ass or I will cut it off along with that other appendage." 

Yeah. 

we need that kind of culture. Yeah. And yet, as in this article about Dolores- about Cesar Chavez, I also point to the DSA and es- especially the New York DSA's habit of sexualizing itself, right?

Creating- ... for instance, Valentine's days, events. And first of all, let me just say, I'm not a prude. Far from it. And I think if you're not going to look for sexual partners on the left, where else are you going to look- Yeah ... for them? So I think it's perfectly fine that left organizing also allows some people to find sexual partners, hookups, whatever, blow jobs in the alley, whatever, right?

That's fine. All of that is fine and wonderful. The problem for me arises when an organization deliberately paints itself as a hypersexual place as well. Because then what happens to people who, for any reason, whether they are 250 years old like I am, or whether th- they're simply not interested in sex or both or whatever, if those people enter a hypersexualized political sphere- and are not comfortable interacting because everyone assumes that they're looking- Yeah ... for sexual partners while they also look for a fantastic political affiliation, you're losing people on the left, right? Yeah. And you're making people really vulnerable. And the example, if I may, very quickly, years and years ago, about, 100 years ago, I had a female student, white, very pretty, wore shorts, very intelligent.

Came to me for advice because one of her, instructors was sexualizing her. He would keep coming onto her. and she came to me and she said, "I just don't like it. What do I do?" And I said, "Okay, I will talk to his supervisor." His supervisor happened to be a woman Who came to me and said, "Oh, p- yeah, he's just like that.

It's fine. He doesn't really mean it." And my student just ended up leaving the class, right? And that is a microcosm of what's happening, I think, a lot more on the left than we care to- 

Y- ... 

imagine or admit. 

Y- I, just remembering as you were talking about the pressures that women feel to stay silent for the sake of the movement, which of course the most extreme example is Dolores Huerta, where she said, in her 90s she finally came out and said this publicly.

And she- 90s ... she was relentlessly, verbally a- abused in f- in front of other people, and Cesar Chavez had, had, assaulted her repeatedly, and she just felt like the movement was too important, that she couldn't say anything- Yes ... about this. And I remember that I had, a, a female friend who worked on a leftist campaign, in a fairly prominent position, and was shut out of all the important discussions, which were done by a small group of white men, and she felt that she couldn't s- complain about it because the campaign was important, because she believed in it.

And that, the strange thing was that it was harder to speak up about something wrong in- ... a leftist organization- ... than it would've been in a corporate organization. Yes. Because in a corporate organization, you don't care about what... You don't actually unde- und- care about the underlying product the company's producing, so you can go public, and hurting them doesn't matter.

But with the left- Yeah ... you feel like, hurting them would matter. Yeah. And so that has to factor in to whether I'm gonna be able to speak up about this. 

And in a corporate, environment you will at least have the possibility of a settlement where, you can at least walk away with money or, And 

there's HR, you 

know.

There's- And there's HR. And now, I know a lot of people listening to this will say, let me tell you about the many instances- Yeah ... where this..." But the point is that structurally the corporate world functions differently than, say, the left. The other issue with the left, of course, is that so much of it depends upon volunteerism, right?

It is entirely, almost entirely based on volunteer energy. So there is that problem as well. Now, with Graham Platner, I do think also that it's important to point out that it wasn't just the left, this amorphous left, being problematic about him, but it was very specific parts of the left mediasphere that then kept insisting that we shut up, and then made things even worse, even when the accusations of rape came out.

And here we must point, because I have an entire article on the man, we must point to Ryan Grim and I'm sorry, but- ... Ryan Grim coming out and s- going on about how the glute massage text was an important detail that sh- and just to give, listeners and readers some context, what essentially happened is that, Ryan Grim made a big deal about the fact that apparently, Platner's accuser had texted him prior to his arriving unbidden at her door saying, ha, I need a glutes massage."

And then he said, "I'll come over." And she said very clearly and emphatically, "No, I do not want you to come over." 

And then he did anyway, and then everything ensued after that. And Ryan Grim's whole point was, the glutes massage, that was an important detail to be inserted. People should know about it.

And what he was basically saying is a version of what the right often says, right? Which is, she asked for it. 

How do we know that she didn't ask for it? Again- This, and this is the kind of discourse that we are embedded in on the left, and we tend to avoid all of that. We tend to ... I, my biggest issues with sexism and misogyny, even on a personal level, forget about the institutional organizing level, on a personal level have been with asshole leftist men.

Yeah. 

Every ... There is not, I guarantee you, there is not a single woman on the left who has been an organizer on any level who will not tell you that, "Yes, I have had to fight off or deal- ... with sexism and sexist man on the left." There isn't- ... I seriously doubt that there's a single woman. We have all had to plow on regardless of the misogyny and sexism that we face.

So if that's happening on an everyday physical level, if that's happening on the level of a prominent media man- 

... 

making comments about a woman perhaps having deserved it, then what are we to expect on a larger ideological level, right? So these are, I think, the que- the questions that we ha- and I say this as someone who is extremely appreciative of a lot of the work that people like Ryan Grim do.

Sure. And this is, I think, the other problem is that we are, on the left, are constantly in a hostage situation. We're constantly told, "If you don't let Graham Platner through, the left will collapse, and we'll get, ... Susan Collins all over again." the woman is a damn barnacle. The bigger question for me has always been in terms of Maine, for, okay, so for me, for instance, the question that no one has asked about Maine so far is, if you are telling me that Graham Platner is the only choice we have, my question for you is, given that this woman has been stuck like a barnacle to a rotting ship for so many decades now- What is it about Maine's political structure- Yeah

that you somehow do not have an organic way of- Yeah ... finding an excellent candidate? You cannot- Yeah ... tell me that a veteran- It's 

this guy or nothing, 

It's this guy or... A constant hostage situation.

A lot of men have a really hard time understanding women as independent figures. They can't help but think of these things in terms of competition, stronger, weaker, dominant, submissive. It's a nonstop thing for many of them, and it does take a lot of work for them to get out of it. But all the good men, if they actually did believe in the things that they're virtue signaling, we would not be having this conversation.

Those rapists would be dealt with, and we wouldn't be debating with them. But we do. We end up spending far too much time having debates about this thing that we all know and understand. Girls at college campuses where fraternities exist know not to go to a frat party. Sure, some people still do, right?

But they understand that there's a culture of sexual violence at fraternities, right? We all understand that. What's bizarre to me about the experience I have is you're in this experience where you are isolated. You're being assaulted by people who are rich and popular and famous or whatever, and nothing's ever gonna be done to them because of that, right?

And everyone just acts as if they don't understand that's a thing. Meanwhile, all they're doing at every step of the way is creating excuses for it. When I came out about Ron Jeremy sexually assaulting me many years ago several different times, there were people who believed that I could only be so lucky to have interacted with Ron Jeremy's penis.

I'm not kidding. There are people that thought it was a complimentary thing for me. Mind you, I only told the story because many other women have been sexually assaulted by him, and when I told my story, several other of my friends told me about their experience with Ron Jeremy, right? I got email after email about how it didn't happen.

He would never f- assault a tranny like me and all this other shit, As a survivor, I've not been able to do the thing that a lot of you do, where you pretend that it's a thing you don't understand. I literally can't. I cannot act as if this is something I don't understand as part of the world that we live in.

I can't. It is such a strong part of the world we live in, which is why my mentality, even through my sex positivity, is let's not forget the nature of men. I don't want To act as if men are all one way. I don't believe in gender essentialism, so I'm not gonna act like men are inherently bad. I think, however, men who exist in a misogynistic culture that caters to them at every moment are not likely to ever be allies to women.

When I first moved to LA, I met several male feminists. I even dated one for a short period of time. That guy, years later, despite the fact that he was constantly posting on Facebook about consent and all these other things, sexually assaulted someone, and he's not the only one. I've known so many good men, male feminists, who ended up assaulting a woman or a non-binary person.

It's like people learn the script to figure out what to say so that they can bullshit you long enough to do the thing that they are pretending that they're standing up against. It is so strange, and it has made me paranoid. It is one of the many reasons why I am thankful that I'm not really in a phase of life right now where I'm dating or trying to find dates or fixated on that.

I go out, and yes, men do talk to me, and I am polyamorous, and I probably could date new people, but men scare me. They really do. There have been so many times in my life where a man has pretended to be a good person and then used the trust that I've given him to assault me. I wish that wasn't something I experienced more than once.

As I say that, I know there are people that'll be like, "How did you experience it more than once? You must be doing something." All these narratives. The good guys will come on here and say, you were sexually assaulted several times. You must be doing something wrong." And then they'll act shocked and insulted when you insinuate that they might be a sexual abuser.

This is rape culture. That's what I'm trying to spell out. When we talk about rape culture, this is part of it. There is an entire situation created over and over again, a cycle where men, let's be frank, assault each other, sometimes sexually. They have this trauma within the context of a fraternity. Then from there, they traumatize other people, and then from there, the legacy of those traumatized within those fraternities is protecting the legacy of that fraternity and the future of these men, which means that there's always going to be an underclass of women, people who are assaulted by these men, who never see justice, who are never heard, never understood, right?

She had to go to college with those boys after they assaulted her. The punishment that you often experience, the reality of what you actually experience when you come out about sexual violence, is you are socially punished.

People think you talk about this shit and you're getting Netflix deals, you're getting money, you're getting phone calls, or you're getting features and all this other shit. Meanwhile, all you're getting is a bunch of people calling you a slut. All you're getting is a bunch of people telling you that you fucking deserved it All you're getting is re-traumatized.

It is a thing that a lot of us deal with by ourselves, and then we end up becoming animated around it, so we create whisper networks. We do community organizing. We try to do something to bridge the gap, because we know that there's never going to be justice, and we understand that we exist in a culture that does not want to punish these men, that does not at all want for these men to receive any sort of comeuppance.

Because ultimately, it's a culture that relies on this, right? Keep in mind, when these guys join the military and go to other countries, they abuse the women there, and they get away with it, right? People throw their hands up and say, they were just guys at war. Boys will be boys." They repeat that over and over again, and we all accept it, so that when your son, I'm looking at you, Kim Zolciak, assaults a little girl, you're like, "But he wouldn't do it.

Oh, think about his future." Because his future is apparently so much more important than any woman's autonomy over her fucking body. I'm just really sick of it. I've tried not to be bitter over the years. I've really tried. I live in continual denial of men and the reality of them. I am constantly in situations where I think that I'm trying...

I feel like I'm doing what I should do. I got assaulted last year in an Uber, right? Not the first time I was assaulted in an Uber. I thought, "Oh, I'm gonna go out and have a good time. I should be able to go out by myself wearing whatever the fuck I want," right? And my Uber driver took my outfit and used that as the motivation to assault me, right?

And that's why sometimes when you guys see videos of me in a car, I'm not driving. I'm in a Waymo, even though I don't like Waymos, because I have trauma around this shit and I don't drive, right? I don't want to live a life where I am immobilized by the reality of men's violence, and the fucked up part for me as a trans woman is that a lot of people don't want to acknowledge that these things happen, and that our assaulters are the same men.

A lot of people do not want to acknowledge the reality of that. So a lot of times I can't even talk about this with cis women. Cis women, even though I transitioned 21 years ago, will say shit to me like, "Welcome to womanhood." And it's Anyway These stories come into my feed a certain way to make me feel the way that I'm feeling right now.

I think it's been really rough to be a survivor the past year. We just exist in this openly, deeply misogynistic culture, and it's crazy. It really is. But the thing is, I've only had 13, 14 years of my life where I was allowed to not understand this. The time in my life where I was able to look at rich men and feel positively about them and not think that they're probably hiding some little girl in their basement, it's, I haven't felt like that for most of my life.

It's all connected. A lot of people are gonna see that. This Epstein shit that came out years ago, that's just a great example of it. These rich motherfuckers trying to create a situation where they get to freely assault little girls, And just purely as a person who's been interacting with these conversations for a really long time, this has always been a subtext, subtext of it.

They've always wanted to destroy women who come out about sexual violence, and there, there's really only one reason why you wanna do that, and it's not because you're afraid of false accusations. It's because you know that these men did it, and you wanna make sure they keep getting away with it. If all of the good men in the world stood up against all of the rapists in the world, we would not have these problems, but we do.

So the reality of it is the good men make excuses for the rapists, which, in my opinion, make them not much better, You can argue with yourself about that. I don't care. I'm not gonna let my fear of sexual violence keep me inside, but I'm not gonna be ignorant, I'm not gonna be naive. I know who men are.

I know what this is about. A lot of times, the good men, if you're my age especially, several instances of shit like this, the pretending to be so shocked by this, you guys, it's giving you away. You can't be shocked by sexual abuse on college campuses. You can't say shit like, "This isn't who we are." It's who we've always been.

The colonizers who came to this country, one of the very first things they did is took a child bride. They would write to white men back home about how they could come over here and just have a pick of the women, because they could get away with it. Because they were rich men who wanted to create a situation where they could abuse little girls with no repercussion, and many dirty-ass white men came to this country and did just that.

John Adams' reported last words were, "Thomas Jefferson survives." And the Cornell Seven show us that he does. Jefferson survives in every American man who believes his promise is worth more than someone else's present, and that his wants matter more than anyone else's humanity. Jefferson doesn't live by magic.

We keep Jefferson alive, not simply as a historical figure whose actions require examination, but as an authority whose example is supposed to influence our lives. And we do it for all the founders, the great men who exploited and abused, and for all the men in the rooms with them who accepted their conduct and helped protect them.

We explain what those founders did, acknowledge the people they harmed, and then tell our audiences as a lesson in civics that they still deserve our reverence. I've been thinking about that every day while reading about what happened at Cornell. Last month, a former student, Jane Doe in the complaint, filed suit against Cornell University and seven members of a fraternity there.

She said that in October 2024, they drugged her and raped her over several hours in their house, and that the university protected them. According to her lawyer, Cornell expelled two of them. The rest got suspensions, workshops, and essays to write. Essays to write. No one has yet been charged with a crime.

There were 57 men in the fraternity's group chat where one of them encouraged the others to join in. So there were the seven in the room, the men in the chat, and all those throughout the university administration and law enforcement who had to decide what to do about it. People are asking all across social media, pull it up in your feeds right now, how can this happen?

It's part of all men, yes, absolutely. But all American men have an additional problem because we inherit our country's account of what privileged men are entitled to do and what everyone else is expected to allow them to do. Jefferson was a man of his time, but we have spent generations extending his time into ours by teaching what his claims to superiority allow us to excuse.

The problem with the Cornell Seven isn't just with all men. It's with all America. We are a country that worships men who exploited and abused, who raped and brutalized, and then wrote protection of that power into law. We acknowledge what they did openly, even with excruciating specificity, and then inevitably come our civics instructions about how a reasonable, informed, mature person should understand all of that.

Regret the abuse? Of course. But don't allow any of that to disturb your appreciation of the men too much. They were complicated. After all, those men wrote great essays. And the maneuver has a shape, and it hasn't changed in 250 years. The great man's contributions outweigh his crimes. His public promise outweighed his personal conduct.

It's a ledger maintained by our history storytellers, and the ledger always finds something to set against the abuse so the abuse is never allowed to become the whole of the account. Look at his times, his promise, his genius, his words. They're timeless. The rest of his life and the way extend into and shape ours.

The person he harmed is entered as the cost of the great thing or the promising thing. somewhere historians have learned how to write permission slips in addition to articles and books and monographs. It became their job to excuse those men, to go beyond explaining them in their moment, to actually turn their destruction of others into marks of achievement.

The very worst that you're allowed to say about them is that they were hypocrites. But even do that and you might be attacked as unsophisticated, even too mired in the present to see the greatness of those men in their time. As if Ona Judge needed 200 years of hindsight to know that George Washington had no right to command her.

All of that talk about hypocrisy leaves the problem just where those storytellers want it to be, in the language as an abstraction. The enslavers said one thing and did another. The people they damaged then become nothing more than categories of evidence in an argument about the great men, and we spend our time parsing the hidden meaning of their words instead of looking at the obvious course of their deeds.

But enslavement did not become exploitation because an enslaver wrote a declaration about his own liberty. The harm was not that the founders disappointed the principles of the people they enslaved. It was what enslavers did with the power they exercised over their lives, over their bodies. That became a habit and a tradition, and we now bake it into our lessons about what it means to be a good American.

You've heard it of all of them, Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Madison. They all made the choice to exploit other people for their own benefit. They bought, sold, and abused men and women at scale. Franklin chose to become an enslaver as a symbol of his own independence as a gentleman. And then there are the others in the rooms with him who chose not only to write that exploitation into law, but to make it a source of political power so entrenched that it took more than 360,000 lives to rip it out.

They wrote their own worldview of superiority into the Constitution, counting themselves as whole people and enslaved people as three-fifths of one. And where was the difference measured? Thomas Jefferson had some thoughts. According to him, Black people were capable of passion, but not of creative thought.

"Their love is ardent," he considered, "but it kindles the senses only, not the imagination." He wrote that about Phillis Wheatley at the time Sally Hemings was sent with his daughter to him in France. Ken Burns said that if you want to inspire young people to care about this country, to be involved, then showing that our heroes are flawed just like us makes them inspirational.

Flawed just like us? if Cornell is any indicator, clearly just like some of us, too many of us. And the problem is not confined to historians and storytellers. Ten years ago, a Stanford swimmer was convicted of sexually assaulting an unconscious woman behind a dumpster. The judge gave him six months in jail and three years probation, citing character references and a clean criminal record, and said prison would have a severe impact on him.

His father told the court that six months was a steep price to pay for just twenty minutes out of twenty-plus years of life, and that his son had so much to contribute to society. There you go. Twenty minutes against twenty years. Put the harm on one side and his promise on the other. Look at all the good he did or might still do for the country, even for the world, and then dare to run those numbers against the cost to a single woman's life.

Nobody needs to mention Jefferson for the calculation to make sense. We already know how it turns out. After all, they're all men of their time. So it turns out that the Cornell Seven are men of Jefferson's time too, because in that time, it is always the men who matter most. You can ignore the women. And we can see exactly what the women accounted for in their time.

We can see it through Washington. Ona Judge decided that she wasn't going to be exploited anymore. She refused to be property, so she left. Washington couldn't accept that. He chased her, and then he had other people chase her. He sent federal officers after her to kidnap her against not only the law, but so clearly against morality that he ordered everyone to keep it quiet lest it upset people and turn them out to riot.

And when she, for all kinds of reasons, agreed to return, she did so only if Washington would recognize her freedom. And he said no, of course he could not do that. He would never do that. Other enslaved people might get the idea that their bodies weren't his to use too. His position mattered more than her humanity, which he thought he should be able to command in all cases whatsoever.

And what does that get turned into today? Mount Vernon says that his will, which kept one hundred and twenty-three people enslaved well beyond his death, he freed one, that secured a legacy defined by leadership, civic duty, and an evolving vision of liberty. Words after he was long gone meant more than his actions when he was alive, and when he was alive, he pursued Ona into the last months of his life.

And look at Jefferson. Now, his name is the one we use most often, but he was not unusual in exercising the privileges of exploitation. We'll get to that in a second. Let's think about Sally Hemings. She was 14 when she arrived in Paris. He was 44. She was pregnant a year later. Consent was not a question, not when it comes to power, and it is always about power.

The power to understand that what you are doing is wrong, and the power to suffer no consequences for it in this world, to take what you want without regard to the cost to anyone else. That worldview kept traveling through time to reach us.

Kobe Bryant was charged with felony sexual assault after having sex with a woman in her hotel room in Edwards, Colorado in 2003. The details of the case make it obvious that Kobe did not receive consent, and physically harmed the woman on top of that lack of consent.

First off, he lied about having sex with her at all initially, which is a flaming red flag, then changed his story to having consensual sex. He claimed consent came from her body language, but when asked about bruises on her neck, he admitted to strangling her since that was his thing. He claimed it was also something he did with another partner, not his wife, Vanessa, by the way.

So did the woman in Colorado consent to being strangled with her body language too? When asked how hard he was applying pressure when he choked her, he said, quote, "I don't know. I have strong hands," end quote. She claims she told him to stop, and that he didn't until he asked to finish on her face. Her blood was found on his shirt, and it was very unlikely to be menstrual blood since her period was two weeks earlier.

Evidence of vaginal trauma was discovered during her examination, during which she wore underwear containing a different man's DNA. One man, by the way. Chappelle's joke went way too far. And Caucasian pubic hair. The victim claimed she brought the wrong pair of underwear to the exam by mistake. He ended up settling with the accuser for around $2.5 million, according to experts, but no one will ever know for sure.

Likewise, we'll never know why the victim decided not to testify at trial. Whether it was the public pressure or the threats she was receiving, your guess is as good as mine. There are more details to this case, and I invite you to read 'em in the sources I've provided in the description. Kobe lost sponsorships and regained deals with Nike, Spalding, and Coca-Cola after the civil case was settled.

He died in a helicopter crash alongside his daughter and many others three months prior. He was unanimously selected to join the NBA Hall of Fame posthumously on April 4th 2020. I was sitting in the airport when the world found out about his death. Everyone was looking at their phones, then each other, then the screens in the waiting areas, as if this couldn't possibly be real It was easily one of the most devastating celebrity deaths of my life up to that point.

Kobe was someone I looked up to. I performed a poem dedicated to him the week after he died at a headlining concert I had been planning for months. We had the purple and gold lights on and everything. I changed my setlist for him. I was a teen when the assault case was happening and didn't know enough to fully process what he had done.

Since I've taken another look as an adult, I can no longer claim that I'm a Kobe Bryant fan. I regret that it took me so long to do it. In the same way I've let go of my fraternity membership due to the deaths they've caused, and in the same way that I've let go of Michael Jackson after weighing the evidence of his behavior with children, I've let go of my biggest personal childhood idol

I've never been a boxing fan, but I've seen every single highlight of the greats, Mayweather, Leonard, Lewis, Ali, Frazier, Holmes, Jones Jr., et cetera. I find it fascinating. Mike Tyson was far and away the most electrifying heavyweight ever. The combo of his compact build and illogical speed makes his highlight reels something like a horror film.

You're basically watching concussion after concussion as his opponents lose their sense of self in real time. There's something animalistic in our fascination with combat sports, and I've distanced myself from that fandom for quite some time now, way before the popularization of MMA brought feet, knees, and elbows into the mix.

Mike Tyson was convicted of the rape of Desiree Washington in 1992 after being arrested in 1991. Washington testified that Tyson called her around 1:45 AM to tour Indianapolis, picked her up in a limo, brought her back to the Canterbury Hotel, and propositioned her for sex after some small talk. She says she refused, then went to the bathroom and discarded her panty liner.

She claimed that when she came out, Tyson pinned her to the bed and assaulted her. She reported it three days later, and Tyson's chauffeur confirmed Desiree's shocked state when she went home. That same chauffeur, Virginia Foster, also said she experienced an assault attempt herself by Tyson before that.

So he'd allegedly attempted to assault his driver and Desiree. Who knows how many more women? Desiree was examined by a physician who confirmed her condition was consistent with rape, and identified vaginal abrasions to a degree that was exceedingly rare for consensual sex. Tyson was convicted of rape after the jury deliberated for 10 hours.

He had to register as a tier two sex offender, and serve three years of his six-year sentence. It's worth noting here that Tyson also admitted to hitting his ex-wife Robin Givens during their marriage. Since his case, he lost his high-profile sponsorships with Pepsi, Nintendo, and Kodak, just to name a few.

Doesn't mean he hasn't picked up more opportunities, though. He famously starred in The Hangover, had exhibition fights sponsored by Celsius, DraftKings, and Meta Quest, and advertised all kinds of products by obscure brands. And case in point, Netflix made a documentary about Tyson. The trailer dropped two weeks ago.

I can't make this shit up. Tyson was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 2011, as well as the World Boxing Hall of Fame and South Nevada Sports Hall of Fame since he made so much money for them throughout his career. I'll always admire the skill and toughness of professional boxers from afar, although I see the sport as unbelievably brutal, and one of the most high-profile examples of human beings normalizing brain damage for entertainment.

That being said, there's no way I can join y'all in laughing at Tyson's kind demeanor and jokes about the violence of his previous life, because I haven't forgotten what he did to Desiree and Robin.

A lot of y'all know this by now, but I'm a retired rapper. I achieved some things I'm very proud of, and it gave me the skills that led to my current career on YouTube, which is going pretty well. Music video director, graphic designer, et cetera. I grew up in the 90s and Tupac Shakur was one of my favorite rappers, period.

He was an art school student turned rapper, then turned gangster rapper, whose 1996 murder finally got somebody locked up earlier this year, actually. As a poet and spoken word artist myself before rap happened, I saw myself in him, and he was an inspiration. His work displays a deep knowledge of history and socioeconomic issues, which isn't surprising if you know who his mother, Afeni, is.

I found his legacy to be extremely compelling when I was growing up Three years before his death, Tupac was charged with three counts of sodomy and gun charges, since there were guns present in the room where the assault occurred. He was charged along with his road manager, Charles Fuller, and record exec, Jacques Agnan.

But there was a fourth unidentified man present as well. According to the victim, Ayanna Jackson, she performed consensual oral sex with Tupac in a Manhattan nightclub, and then on a later date, went to his hotel, where she was apprehended by the men and forced to perform non-consensual oral sex on all of them, which is what sodomy refers to in this case.

Two years before his death, he was convicted of two counts of first-degree sexual abuse for, quote, "forcible touching of her buttocks," end quote. He was sentenced to 18 months to four and a half years, vague length of sentence, of which he served eight months. Besides the numerous men who came to Pac's rescue or wrote him letters while he was incarcerated, including Al Sharpton, who got him out of isolation, Jim Carrey, who wrote him letters, and Tony Danza, who did the same, he went on to sign a three-album deal with Suge Knight's Death Row Records in exchange for the posting of his one point four million dollar bond while he was appealing his sentence in 1995.

He modeled for Versace in July of 1996 after getting out and acted in the films Bullet, Gridlocked, and Gang Related. His death at 25 obviously prevented other companies and movie studios from working with him in the years to come, so we'll never really know what would have happened. Tupac was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2017, which was his first year of eligibility.

He was inducted into the Hip Hop Hall of Fame five years earlier. Rap is one of the world's most popular genres of music and easily the most influential on the global stage. It has been instrumental in exporting Black American culture across continents, and Tupac Shakur is one of rap's many pillars in its relatively short timeline of existence.

I can't remove him from the annals of history or negate his impact on my life. I can make sure my audience knows what he did, though.

Men, taken as a whole, don't really care about sexual assault. It's an uncomfortable topic for most of us, and none of us wants to see it happen to those we know and love. However, when people we admire or vicariously live through are the perpetrators, a running clock starts. After a timeout from corporate sponsorships and public activity, once the court cases conclude and settlements get locked in, we want more entertainment from our favorites.

More dunking, more punching, more rapping. These women, on the other hand, they got to live with what happened to them forever. They'll have to live with the death threats from these entertainers' fans, the doubt from those who refuse to believe that these stars would hurt a woman, and the damage to their careers.

Our society is built around enabling the abuse of women and protecting men, full stop. We do not value women's lives as much as a man's career. We do not take corrective action to prevent these men from gaining access, exposure, etc. that gives them the ability to abuse more vulnerable women. I'm no longer a fan of these three men or a long list of others, and I know I don't have the power to influence your opinion. But you can't say nobody told you. 

That's going to be it for today.

Be sure to check out our link in bio right in the show notes for all the ways to follow us on social platforms, contact us, and support everything Best of the Left, including membership and one-time donations.

The additional sections of the show included clips from;

Expatriarch

Pop Culture Detective

Kimbaland

Breaking Down Patriarchy

What Now? with Trevor Noah

Do you really know?

New Books in Political Science

Huey Li and the news

The Bitchuation Room

Hysteria

Katie Phang

Edgier Than Thou

Jessie Gender

Current Affairs

Kat Blaque

Resistance History with Tad Stoermer

and Cam James

Further details are in the show notes.

Thanks to everyone for listening. Thanks to Deon and Erin for their production work for the show. Thanks to Ben, our Swiss Army Knife fixer behind the scenes. And thanks to those of you who already support the show by becoming a member, purchasing gift memberships, or making one-time donations.

You'll find the link to support us in the show notes along with links to join our Patreon and Discord communities for free where you can also continue the discussion. And don't forget to follow us on all the social media platforms as I relaunch our social media strategy!

So coming to you from far outside the conventional wisdom of Washington, DC, my name is Jay! And this has been the Best of the Left podcast, coming to you twice weekly, thanks entirely to the members and donors to the show, from bestoftheleft.com.