Anger after Sydney students set up 'pro-rape' Facebook group

The Telegraph ^ | 09 Nov 2009 | By Bonnie Malkin in Sydney

[BlackVeil]

One of Australia's most prestigious university colleges has been urged to launch an investigation into student behaviour after it emerged that some had set up a "pro-rape" page on the social networking website Facebook.

The group, which was named "Define Statutory", described its members as "anti-consent" and was listed in the sports and recreation section of the site.

Created by male students from the St Paul's College at the University of Sydney, the page could be accessed from any of its members profiles.

It was shut down at the end of last month, but had been live on Facebook since August, according to an investigation by the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper. ...Linda Burney, the state's minister for women, said she was "sickened" to learn about the website.

..."The idea that a group of young men that are going to become leaders within our community, leaders in the law, leaders in medicine, leaders in business, studying at an elite college, at an elite university, think it's OK to post information like this encouraging rape on a website is absolutely abhorrent," she told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

The Sydney Morning Herald said the page was part of a broader culture at the residential colleges that "demeans women in a sexist and often sexually violent way".

The paper spoke to several women who had experienced sexual assault and attempted assaults on campus. They said the privileged atmosphere of colleges, combined with a culture of binge drinking, meant most rapes went unreported. ...

[BlackVeil]

This is not the first allegation of such behaviour around that college at Sydney Uni.

[dfwgator]

But it wasn’t ‘pro-rape rape.’ /Whoopi

[BlackVeil]

I suppose that Polanski might be annoyed if they did not send him an invite.

[naturalman1975]

Because the site has been taken down, nobody can check what its content actually was, but I've been told that it was primarily aimed at seeking clearer laws on what rape is and isn't, objecting to what the people who put it up feel are laws that put far more of the burden of proof on the male party and far less of the burden of proof on the female party, in the absence of any evidence but 'his word against hers'. Alleged rapists are named by the courts, while alleged victims have their identities protected - even in cases where the court eventually finds a man not guilty, or in some cases, even when the woman is found to have perjured herself, his life is still ruined.

It was supposedly not a 'pro-rape' site, rather it was a 'we need clearer, unambiguous definitions' on what the law says about consent.

(When a man can be found guilty of rape because both of them were drunk and the woman later claims that she only consented because she was drunk, I can understand where they are coming from - "No" means "No", but apparently "Yes" can also mean "No", now, as well.

[naturalman1975]

This article from the Daily Telegraph addresses the same issue.

Law 'turns boys into rapists'

Apparently, when it's discussed in the pages of the Daily Telegraph, it's journalism - when a group of young men raise the same issues on Facebook, the Telegraph joins the chorus condemning them.

[AUH2O Repub]

I don’t blame these guys for asking for a definition of rape and consent. Most of the so-called “rapes” of these girls are usually the drunk girl waking up and wondering what she did and who she did it with, then she starts looking for some guy to blame.

[christianhomeschoolmommaof3]

“It’s difficult to take the Bar Association seriously on this matter when, in their own submission, they concluded that just because a woman was asleep or unconscious (it) doesn’t negate consent.”

This quote from the article is telling. There needs to be some sort of balance between “I got drunk and had sex and because I feel guilty I was raped” and “She was drunk and unconcious and she didn’t say no”.

[AppyPappy]

All the more reason to keep your dick in your pants.