The Case of The Cornell Seven

<p>Since the advent of the #MeToo movement about a decade ago, rape scandals have been a regular feature of the media landscape. The latest such, of which the reader is likely at least passingly aware, is the Cornell Seven case. I won’t rehearse the details of the allegations here beyond the bare essentials. What is alleged is that the accuser was, at a fraternity house party, intoxicated after consuming alcohol, marijuana and ketamine to the point where she was incapable of giving consent, and was subsequently gang raped. The counter-allegation is that such sexual contact as did occur was consensual, bar one young man who claims that <em>he </em>was inebriated beyond the point of being able to consent when the accuser performed a sex act on him.</p><div><figure><a href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/%24s_!_WjM!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F54f8bf7c-3c60-45be-a98b-56a4d83e8667_335x597.jpeg"></a><div><a href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/%24s_!_WjM!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F54f8bf7c-3c60-45be-a98b-56a4d83e8667_335x597.jpeg"></a><source type="image/webp"><a href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/%24s_!_WjM!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F54f8bf7c-3c60-45be-a98b-56a4d83e8667_335x597.jpeg"><img src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!_WjM!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F54f8bf7c-3c60-45be-a98b-56a4d83e8667_335x597.jpeg" width="1456" height="2595" alt=""></a></source><a href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/%24s_!_WjM!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F54f8bf7c-3c60-45be-a98b-56a4d83e8667_335x597.jpeg"></a><div><a href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/%24s_!_WjM!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F54f8bf7c-3c60-45be-a98b-56a4d83e8667_335x597.jpeg"></a><div><a href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/%24s_!_WjM!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F54f8bf7c-3c60-45be-a98b-56a4d83e8667_335x597.jpeg"></a></div><a href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/%24s_!_WjM!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F54f8bf7c-3c60-45be-a98b-56a4d83e8667_335x597.jpeg"></a></div><a href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/%24s_!_WjM!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F54f8bf7c-3c60-45be-a98b-56a4d83e8667_335x597.jpeg"></a></div><a href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/%24s_!_WjM!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F54f8bf7c-3c60-45be-a98b-56a4d83e8667_335x597.jpeg"></a></figure></div><p></p><p>Commentary on the ongoing case has followed the course which has become exasperatingly predictable in polarized American political socio-discourse. <em>A priori </em>of the facts of any given incident, what has to be evaluated is which side in an alleged transgression aligns with the observers’ political ‘side’. Does a claim, if true, reinforce one’s political narrative? If so, it must be true. Most politically engaged people are, as Jason Brennan has it, “hooligans” who lack the self-discipline to cleave to the truth – even when it is inconvenient or uninteresting.</p><p>This is an unhelpful way to approach issues of such gravity, to say the least. Let us ‘take a step back’ and set the political implications of this alleged gang rape aside. Is the scenario described by the accuser plausible? Yes, clearly so. Unlike, say, the claims of Jussie Smollet, the events described do not, on their face, seem highly improbable. Does the counter-claim, that she regretted the events the next day and – out of shame – fabricated this story, seem wildly unlikely? No, it too seems entirely plausible. Both gang rapes and false accusations are, dispiriting though it may be, not unheard of.</p><p>It is inherent to the nature of the crime of rape that it is very difficult to prove. This is not, as some feminists claim, necessarily because of a pro-male bias (although, when it does exist, such bias clearly does compound the problem) but rather it is integral to the kind of crime that it is. Even if a rape kit is applied immediately afterwards, and even with the presence of injuries, a lack of consent is frustratingly difficult to ascertain. There is, unlike with a murder, rarely definitive proof that a crime even took place. Rape cases often turn on circumstantial evidence. This is why so few rape accusations turn into arrests, and why so few arrests translate into convictions. As galling as it may be that these facts favor victimizers, they remain facts.</p><p>To make matters all the more vexing, lowering the standard of proof simply isn’t an option. Indeed, erring in either direction, that is favoring <em>prima facie </em>either accuser or accused, is impermissible – which distinguishes rape from other policy problems. Consider, for example, global warming. If global warming is false and policy is made as if it is true, the consequence is that money is wasted. If, however, it is true and policy is made as if it is false the consequences are catastrophic. The same is true for abortion – having an unwanted child is a lesser evil than potentially killing a child. Not so with rape. Getting the wrong outcome either way is disastrous.</p><p>What is more, an approach in favor of either party also opens the door to wanton abuse beyond the risk of injustice in the case at hand. Excessive skepticism discourages reporting, consequently allow rapists to escape justice and encouraging further rape. The opposite approach, the well-known injunction to “believe all women”, is probably a good rule of thumb in personal interactions but it cannot be a court’s standard of proof. As a legal policy, this would give any Zuleikah the liberty to ruin whatever Joseph’s life she pleased.</p><p>The foregoing may seem obvious when spelled out, but the enflamed passions around cases like that of Cornell leave one with the impression that the debate is between those who do not believe rape claims are ever mendacious, and those who believe gang rapes don’t happen (or else, that they are only committed by Muslims).</p><p>Whether or not this particular gang rape actually occurred – I do not know. None of us may ever know. Indeed, given all the intoxicants consumed, the people involved may themselves not know. The socially permissive environment fostered by liberal modernity is such that there is great ambiguity around acceptable sexual behavior, consent and what even qualifies as rape. The contention of this essay is that it is more ambiguity than most humans are equipped to deal with.</p><p>Marriage was, speaking generally, taken for granted as the context in which sex occurred in Traditional societies. This was the case even in the case of those societies founded on religions like Buddhism, which do not explicitly prohibit pre-marital sex. Marriage, monogamous or polygamous, has a number of spiritual and social benefits. For the present purposes let us focus on just one. Namely, that it radically reduces the ambiguities around sex. This is not to say that rape or indeed false accusations thereof did not occur in Traditional societies. I just had occasion to make reference to one such incident in the Torah. Nor indeed is it to deny the existence of marital rape. But it is to say that reducing the uncertainty around sex is beneficial to our well-being, and this goes beyond what can straightforwardly be described as rape.</p><p>Is it rape if two (or more, as the case may be) intoxicated strangers have sex, and one of them regrets it the next day? This might not be a fair description of what transpired in Cornell, but this kind of thing is a fairly frequent occurrence and matches at least one version of what happened. Let us say for the sake of argument that it is not rape. Alright. It certainly isn’t a good thing, for anyone involved. It is entirely understandable that people engaging in such activities may feel violated – even if, for the sake of argument, the other party cannot be characterized as a predator. At the best, such scenarios could be characterized as a kind of inversion of the “victimless crime” – there is a victim, but no victimizer.</p><p>The sexual free-for-all of liberal societies does, in fact, often make consent difficult to gauge. If it is permissible for complete strangers, sober or otherwise, to engage in sex with each other with no expectation of future commitment or other necessary limitations beyond consent, this strikes one as a ‘perfect storm’ for unintentionally transgressing boundaries and producing feelings of hurt and degradation. These, even when rape or sexual assault as such does not occur. These are no trivialities. Sex is not a handshake, and bad sexual experiences – even if they are consensual – can be deeply degrading to human dignity. That is, once more, no trifling matter. And this is without considering that such environments make ideal stalking grounds for actual, indisputable sexual predators. To return to the Cornell case, let us assume that a rape did occur. In a social environment where casual sex was not normalized – even glamourized – the men’s alternative scenario, that the victim voluntarily engaged in such activity, would seem far less plausible.</p><p>The solution offered by liberals and feminists of a certain type, that consent should be continually and enthusiastically expressed vocally, is simply detached from reality. This is not how human beings interact in an erotic mode. Much less is such a high degree of responsibility and communication to be expected when intoxicants are introduced into the equation. But wasn’t the problem already solved prior to liberalism? Safety in sex is a reasonable concern, but doesn’t restricting sexual activity to those persons to whom one has a long-term commitment, and therefore a high degree of intimacy and familiarity, solve this problem without reducing the sex act to something performed on a bed of eggshells?</p><p>Indeed, if sexual safety is the primary concern of these types – and not some alternative imperative like maximizing liberty or equality, in the sense of the affirmation that sex differences are a fiction – then why is the following solution never considered? (I should clarify before continuing that I offer this only as a provocation, not a genuine proposal). Why not make it illegal for men, but not women, to have premarital sex?</p><p><a href="https://politicalperennialism.substack.com/p/the-case-of-the-cornell-seven?utm_source=substack&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_content=share&amp;action=share"><span>Share</span></a></p><div><div><div><p>Political Perennialism is a reader-supported publication. 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