So here's an exciting op-ed in the Princetonian! I can't decide which of these sentences I like more. Is it: "She knew what would happen if she started drinking." Could be! Or is it: "We live in times when sexual discrimination has, more or less, disappeared from our society." CAN YOU GUESS THE TOPIC YET? Oh, dear freshman-who, because you are so young, we will not use your name so as not to further destroy your now-horrific Google record-we were so close to taking back the night and now look at the night, now no one has it. (via)
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
39
"Since the beginning of time, society has taught us that whenever a situation like this arises, the fault belongs almost entirely to the male participant." This is unconditionally true.
Except CeauÅŸescu. He was railroaded.
The beginning of time being 8000 years ago, right?
I wanna party with Iulia Neagu.
ah, the wise women of Princeton.
Sign this one up for The Local: East Village!
Did we really need recapitulated Roiphe? Isn't she still around making the same superannuated arguments superannuatedly?
But this a much younger *Romanian* Roiphe! It's like a whole different thing!
I'm guessing feminism won't be making it to Translyvania for another 20 years...
"Showing this play to freshmen might at first seem pointless, since it just reiterates for the nth time well-known 'rules' for college students: Don't have sex when drunk ..."
I didn't realize there was another time for having sex, especially in college.
So, we're now post-race, post-partisan AND post-sexual discrimination? Yays!
Yes, little Iuila, when you do your internship, you can come sit with me while my former investment banking MD boss looks me in the eye and says that he doesn't like to promote women because we are "hypersensitive" and "just want to have social lives and get pregnant". (Actually, her op-ed is a pretty good support for the latter.)
Is she one of Borat's sisters?
I have a big stack of freshman essays to grade. They're all exactly like this. I also now need some antidepressants.
Unfortunately, a hostile husband won't help.
Perhaps if he accompanied you to class...
Well, girls, that's how we roll at Bucharest U. Care for another glass of lichior de nuci verzi?
I think she's trying to argue that when people have sex while drunk, both participants should be charged with rape. That way there's no discrimination.
I need to know what they were wearing. Otherwise how can I decide which one was asking for it.
Personal responsibility is so deeply communist, and therefore UNAMERICAN.
I am most struck by the incredibly poor writing. Will Princeton take just any Romanian who pays full freight?
It really was quite unbelievably bad, even by undergraduate paper standards, even by ESL student standards. It didn't seem like it had been edited or proofread in any whatsoever but maybe they had to edit it all to hell just to get to this point?
I'm also struck by her feeling that the worst thing a woman can get from being raped is pregnant. You can't abort HIV, honey ...
This might just be happening where I teach, but our internationals are seen as a big source of profit, so yes, they are welcomed with open arms despite not being able to listen to a professor talk and have the faintest idea what she's saying, much less write a coherent standard American English sentence.
"One thing is incontestable, however: It would have been better if this situation had not come up in the first place."
She lost me there at the end.
See, I think EVERY editorial should end that way. Everywhere.
Agreed. It's always better when things don't come up in the first place.
::facepalm::
I stopped reading the comments over there after the broom handle anal penetration 'simple analogy.'
"Since the dawn of time, sexual discrimination has disappeared from our society." (I know it's an old joke; I just wish these kids would stop giving me reasons to use it.)
"Since the beginning of time, man has yearned to destroy the sun."
In consistency with our established laws, it is rape if you have sex with someone who is intoxicated at all. Even your legal partner. And if you're both intoxicated, you're both rapists, technically. So you are putting yourself at risk of a felony conviction - and sex offender status - if you engage in intercourse with a drunk person.
The shit that occurs because of this - for both the willing and unwilling participants - is absolutely awful. Because, really, you go to college and then suddenly find that everyone is intoxicated all the time. Not just consuming alcohol, but gulping it quickly until you are as light-headed and good-timey as you can get. It is socially acceptable. But not if you accidentally rape, murder, fight, crash a car, throw up in the backseat of a cab, etc. Then it is not socially acceptable. You're supposed to be able to tell when you've crossed that line, except alcohol, ironically, impairs that ability of perception as it is making you feel great. And the current solution to that problem is jail.
It's not a better solution to have society become an alcohol-soaked free-for-all, allowing "she was drunk" as a perfect all-purpose excuse for date rape.
Also: I'd like to change that from "she was asking for it" to "She can't prove that she didn't ask for it." This is a problem with rapes that don't involve alcohol as well. And this is also a problem with cases of non-rape where it was actually consensual sex and someone is lying. We have screwed ourselves up so much on this topic that no one knows exactly what to do anymore.
Iulia, though a terrible writer, is very perceptive of these facts! 99% of the rest of us... are not.
I'm with you.
To me it seems, badly written though it may be, her argument is merely that drunk people are responsible for the shit they COLLABORATIVELY get into. There's no indication she totally thinks all women who get drunk deserve rape. The situation she describes is clearly very specific: both parties are drunk, and have done so deliberately through their own power of decision-makery. Nobody roofied anyone...the woman is CONSCIOUS, and so is the dude. Maybe he's not even. Doesn't even matter. If BOTH parties can be proven to have been shitfaced, then how can the man be deigned as the only party making a conscious deliberate decision under the influence? If one was raped, the other was also totally raped. Everyone got raped or nobody got raped. One drunkard...one rapist. Two drunkards...two rapist. One drunkard one roofieard...one rapist. Two Roofiards...well, it was meant to be then, wasn't it?
I don't know ... I agree with you to some extent (primarily about the fact that we're fucked), but the sentence "This, in my opinion, is equivalent to agreeing to anything that might happen to her while in this state" has fairly massive implications. Please don't send me to Jezebel, but there's a big difference between "women should be equally responsible for their actions as men, even when drunk" and "if women are dumb enough to get drunk, they tacitly consent to whatever happens to them."
Totally hear that. The article had some HORRIBLY misguided sentences.
However, some people be getting rightfully upset over those sentences, while wrongfully assuming those as the gist of her argument.
Oh sweet jesus they've posted this on Jezebel.
The Jezzies are most certainly jizzing theyselves over this. Good for at least 500 comments.
Put your safety goggles on.
Every time one of them types "This is making me stabby," take a drink.
Each time one of them types "Head --> Desk," take two drinks.
Each time one of them threatens to delete her commenter account because her feelings are hurt and her co-commenters must talk her back from the ledge, finish the bottle.
We're at over 500 comments! Though three of them are mine ......
Uninformed sweeping generalizations FTW.