<p>“I think Northwestern University, where @pizzagirl went, has the most positive Greek system I have encountered. That is, it seemed largely absent of the semi-cultish vibe I sense in some, hazing issues, distinct separation of identity and isolation from other segments of campus, and excessive concern about status. It is more of a friendship group. There may be hazing, but at least less of the sense that “you must sacrifice your dignity to show you are worthy” type of thing. I don’t know about the drinking, but I suspect it is more of drinking for fun rather than drinking to the extreme to show off or for some bonding ritual.”</p>
<p>Thank you, but I don’t have any point of comparison to say whether this is true or not. There are certainly frats that engage in bad / stupid behavior, who engage in some forms of hazing under the table, who drink excessively, who do dumb things and get put on probation or kicked off campus. Phi Delt put some guy in the hospital a few years ago. Kappa Sigs acted like a bunch of idiots at an outing to the Shedd Aquarium and put vodka in the whale tank. Sigma Nus trashed their house when they left campus. And really, my son’s fraternity house IS a pit So I don’t mean for anyone to take away that it’s Pollyanna. There’s bad stuff there too. </p>
<p>Trying to convince a young stranger to drink to the point where they’re willing to have sex with you, when you believe they would not do it sober, is trying to hurt the young stranger in my book. It’s not rape unless s/he actually becomes incapacitated, but I believe it becomes a horrible thing to do several drinks before it becomes rape. Nor is it possible to do one without risking the other; you can’t tell with confidence how drunk someone is, especially when you don’t know them well.</p>
<p>If you think it’s morally OK, or somehow similar to having a lot of fully consensual encounters under your belt, then we’re just on different pages when it comes to sexual ethics.</p>
<p>Back in the mid-80s, when members of the football team’s fraternity gang-raped an underage girl, one guy was arrested - my roommate for “contributing to the delinquency of a a minor.” To be brief, he was not at the party, had no specific knowledge of what had happened, but was driving by after the rapes when she asked him for a ride home.</p>
<p>First, nobody inside the fraternity was punished, and second, nobody outside was surprised. They still had their “No Fat Chicks” themed party and kept the lines of women out the door. 30 years later they are still the football fraternity and still have the same reputation.</p>
<p>I think you are right we will never agree on this, because you look at the situation through a patriarchal lens: If a woman drinks alcohol and then has sex, it is because the man forced it on her and tried to make her have sex afterwards.</p>
<p>For me, adults drinking alcohol as a prelude to sex is normal behavior. I drink a glass of wine just about every evening, so I’ve probably rarely had sex without drinking alcohol beforehand, and both are always my choice.</p>
<p>“If a woman drinks alcohol and then has sex, it is because the man forced it on her and tried to make her have sex afterwards.”</p>
<p>Wow, you’re totally misstating my position. I was responding to this sentence of yours:</p>
<p>“Bill is in DKE, ugh, he’s one of those rapey guys who serves women alcohol to get in their pants”</p>
<p>Is this what’s going on in your relationships? It really doesn’t sound like it. Adults choosing to drink and then to have sex with people they are in relationships with is very different from Bill deliberately serving alcohol to (plural) college-age targets in the hopes that they will have sex with him when they otherwise wouldn’t have. I really have a hard time believing that you’d be proud of a son or daughter for doing that.</p>
<p>Yeah, plus, it’s not like these kids haven’t gotten education about consent. At this point, if a 21 year old is serving alcohol to a first year, he is already breaking several laws outside the consent laws. However, these guys know about consent and alcohol, and the fact that it is the first years primarily experiencing rape in these places, it can hardly be chalked up to two equals. The phrase, “pick on someone your own size,” comes to mind. Older girls don’t get in these situations. The difference between consensual sex after a glass or two of wine and drunken sex after the moonshine punch is not only one of degree but quite possibly one of legality.</p>
<p>It’s not easy to enforce the alcohol laws off campus, but they could do more than they are now. I don’t understand why people drink to get smashed in the first place, so I’m not good at coming up with ideas about how to convince people that two beers is way more fun than twelve. I just know that at a lot of schools, and subcultures within schools, older kids teach younger kids that that’s the way to drink.</p>
<p>I think if a few tippy top schools expelled a few underage drinkers to make a point, those campuses would become dry almost overnight, since the typical type A sort of students at those schools wouldn’t take the chance any more.</p>
<p>I tend to think changing attitudes would be a very good thing. When it is no longer considered acceptable to get someone drunk to get in their pants - the campus is just a nicer place to live, for everyone.</p>
<p>No, it isn’t different at all, unless you are viewing it through a paternalistic lens. If a college woman wants to have sex with a man she just met, then that is her relationship with him, and who are you to judge that her cursory knowledge of him defines her as a “target” rather than an adult woman who wants to have sex?</p>
<p>Also, age 21 for drinking age is a legal construct and nothing more. You are judging a womans’ ability to make her own decisions based on an arbitrary number established by some legislators (probably male), and not by herself. Not only that, but you have ignored the fact that a man offering the drinks could be 18 years old and younger than her, too.</p>
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<p>Yep, cuz everyone knows an 18 year old female can’t make a decision to drink by herself. </p>
<p>nah. I’m judging a young woman’s ability to handle her alcohol based on her level of experience with alcohol. And, many, many college freshman are having their first experiences with alcohol, male and female. </p>
<p>It doesn’t matter. you seem to think this is all okay. The law, interestingly enough, does not agree with you. Whatever you may think about 21 or 23 year olds serving alcohol to freshman? It’s against the law. Whatever you might think about the sex that engenders? I really don’t care at this point. A lot of this is also against the law, whether you like it or not, and guys had better be aware of the consent laws, in terms of intoxicated girls. Because, actually, a lot of your posts are pretty cavalier about what the law considers to be nonconsensual sex, or… rape.</p>
<p>I actually think I am hyperaware of those laws, which is why I advise my son to beware of sexually aggressive women and underage girls on campuses.</p>
<p>“who are you to judge that her cursory knowledge of him defines her as a “target” rather than an adult woman who wants to have sex?”</p>
<p>In your hypothetical, YOU said that Bill (at least in the opinion of the person describing him) was deliberately serving multiple people in hope of getting in their pants. The only reason Bill would do this is if he thinks they won’t have sex with him otherwise. So in the hypothetical, BILL thinks they don’t especially want to have sex with him, but maybe he can convince them if he can get them drunk enough.</p>
<p>You told us about Bill. What <em>I</em> said is that intent matters, and BILL is intending to be a jackass, at best. That’s true even if his intended sleaziness is unnecessary because all the women want his hot bod, drunk or sober.</p>
<p>The reputation of a specific fraternity as being “rapey” does not necessarily extend to all of its members or imply that all of its members are sexual predators (although it implies that some sexual predators lurk there). The better analogy is something like “Bill lives in a high crime area, so you may want to have him meet you in a low crime area instead of going to his place.” This does not imply that Bill is himself a criminal, but this is the type of risk mitigation that most people practice (with respect to risks of crime, traffic collisions, etc.).</p>
<p>Of course, if Bill is pushing drinks on naive frosh to get them more drunk than they intended to be with the intention of having sex that they otherwise would not have consented to, then that is a very different story that reflects on Bill personally, as opposed to whether this is done in a particular fraternity house.</p>
<p>Well, it’s a one-sentence hypo. We don’t know if the speaker has an individual basis for tarring Bill with this brush or not. I’m just taking her word for it, because it’s all we have. But it sounds like you agree that this kind of plan reflects very poorly on the character of the actor, regardless of how much sex the women turn out to want.</p>
<p>You can never get inside Bill’s mind or know his intent, so whatever you conclude about him is your own idea and not his, unless you ask him. Fabricating a man’s intent based on a fraternity he is member of is … generalizing, to put it kindly. </p>
<p>155 The idea of serving alcohol in hopes of encouraging physicality is as old as history. I have a hard time getting worked up about that, or calling men “rapey” because they think about it or even try it. The idea is simply not offensive to me, I guess.</p>
<p>295
*Is showing contempt for one’s classmates about anything bad news, or are only certain things off-limits?</p>
<p>In other words, if saying something like, “Julie has slept with 25 guys. Ugh, what a slut,” is bad news, is saying something like, “Bill is in DKE, ugh, he’s one of those rapey guys who serves women alcohol to get in their pants,” also bad news? *</p>
<p>I have been assuming that “Bill is in DKE, ugh, he’s one of those rapey guys who serves women alcohol to get in their pants,” was an elaboration of the ideas you expressed in post 155 and that you don’t find serving women alcohol to get in their pants offensive. Is that incorrect? Do you find serving someone alcohol with the intention of getting in their pants offensive?</p>
<p>I also thought we were supposed to see two statements of fact in post 295: 1) Julie has slept with 25 guys. 2) Bill … serves women alcohol to get in their pants. I thought then you were giving two slurs that you thought went with the two behaviors. And objecting to both slurs. What am I missing here?</p>
<p>That I am not offended by someone serving alcohol in hopes of having sex, is correct. </p>
<p>How I feel about that is irrelevant to my examples. According to Hanna, showing contempt for your classmates is bad and is determined by intent, not necessarily content. I was attempting to understand that concept by providing examples. I think it is pretty clear that it is the intent of the speaker in both examples to express contempt for his classmates. </p>
So I don’t mean for anyone to take away that it’s Pollyanna. There’s bad stuff there too. </p>