The Cornell 57...

eschaden

8 minutes ago

6 min read

I would like to begin a conversation about why 57 men were invited to have sex with an unconscious woman and not one of them called it what it was: rape, criminal, immoral. Not one of them thought, "Hey, I wonder if she's ok. I need to do something about this."

When did we decide that "bro code" trumps humanity code?

Oh wait. Let me read that sentence again. "Bro code" TRUMPS humanity. Ok, I get it. I know EXACTLY when that happened. But the truth is, this is the logical result of eons of men behaving badly and being protected and rewarded for it.

I've heard the justifications:

"Boys will be boys."

"Such promising young men."

"Their futures..."

Every one of those statements reinforces the same norm: women are fodder for men's pleasure, their indiscretions, and up for the taking.

If you haven't been on social media in the last few days, you may not know there is a swelling tide of outrage, and it is NOT all female, over how Jane Doe was dismissed.

People

Are

Outraged.

Not just women, men are too!

Jane Doe's life is upended. She will carry this for the rest of her life. She will doubt herself and what happened. She will ask herself every day whether it was her fault. She will wish she'd made different choices.

This isn't a "new" female behavior. It's what every woman and girl does in this world. We doubt our clothing, our state of being, our level of intoxication, our safety, our place, our words, our memories, our rights, ourselves. I do not know a woman who doesn't. Not a single fucking one.

Her road to recovery will be harder because of women who adopt the patriarchal narrative. Men can't keep us in check by themselves, so they enlist women: slut shaming, rumor mongering, social media commentary designed to make us doubt ourselves even more.

Some women do this to get closer to power, moving toward the danger in the hope that they'll be favored or safer. It has happened forever, and we all suffer for it.

I hope Jane Doe recovers. I hope she has a family that loves her, supports her, and believes her, because she won't make it without that. I hope she has EMDR and therapy and an amazing group of women around her. It would be nice if some men stood behind her too. To heal, she's going to need to see that NOT ALL MEN do this.

But doesn't the Cornell 57 show us that they do?

57 men received that snap. Fifty-seven. Fifty-seven possible different outcomes for everyone Involved...fifty-seven!

This is what fifty-seven looks like

And regardless of their upbringing, pedigree, politics, maturity, level of wokeness, empathy, pride, race, ethnicity, or beliefs, not one intervened. Not one tried to help. Not one called for help. Not one said, "THIS IS WRONG."

Not one of them.

So it would appear that bro code does trump human code. Keeping secrets and protecting men behaving badly mattered more than a woman's safety and wellbeing.

I'm glad we're outraged. Fucking finally!

And I pray this is the moment the rising tide of support for Jane Doe keeps beating down on the shores of bro code and men seeing women as objects and free pussy.

Let's talk about that phrase for a minute.

I was going to title this post "free pussy" and decided against it. Fifty-seven men doing NOTHING mattered more than the shock value of a headline. But let's open it up...

Free pussy

What exactly is free about it? The implication is that when we're conscious, it costs them something???? That if we can consent, there's a price attached??? WTF!

But isn't it all "free" between consenting adults?

Don't we offer it freely when we willingly engage?

So what is the cost men feel when we are conscious, consenting, and present?

What is the mother fucking cost of us being engaged?

It takes a mighty insecure man to feel powerful when the woman is blacked out. Good for you! You can do whatever you want with an incapacitated woman. You win! You're the pinnacle of masculinity.

Why those words?

WHY?

She was dehumanized. Offered up. Gifted as if they had the right to give her body away. Not her. Them. They decided her body was free.

They decided.

All fucking 57 of them.

We have been talking, yelling, and screaming that our bodies are not a masculine playground for how long now?

For how fucking long?

And incidents like this keep happening. By one estimate, there are roughly 17,000 to 21,000 rapes and sexual assaults a month in this country, [NCVS annual estimates, all genders age 12+, converted to monthly] and that number is unreliable because so many go unreported. Why? Because we know the man's behavior will become the backstory. What we wore, what we'd consented to before, how drunk we were, and a pile of other shit that doesn't matter will take center stage, and instead of justice, we will be abused all over again.

I do not know one woman who has not been sexually assaulted or doesn't know someone who has been.

NotOneSingleWoman.

So here's what's really going on: bro code trumps humanity. Free pussy outranks human rights, safety, and wellbeing. If you don't want to live in that world, do something about it.

Now.

Before it's your sister, daughter, aunt, mother, cousin who is Jane Doe.

And by the way, it's likely she already is.

Again, still...(I was going to write again, still 22,000 times but you get the fucking point...)

Next up: what the law could do about the silence of the 57.

The Cornell 57...

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