Free Republic

As colleges across the country struggle to develop procedures for dealing with sexual misconduct and sexual-misconduct complaints, it’s time to take a second look at the effort that was made to deal with campus sexual offenses two decades ago by Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio. A tiny college, founded before the Civil War by Horace Mann, the legendary educational reformer, Antioch has always been innovative, and its ’90s effort to come up with sexual-conduct guidelines reflected this tradition. The Antioch rules—officially, the Sexual Offense Prevention Policy—centered on the idea that “consent must be obtained each and every time there...

".....Any woman who is raped, on campus or off, deserves a fair and thorough investigation of her claim, and those found guilty should be punished. But the new rules—rules often put in place hastily and in response to the idea of a rape epidemic on campus—have left some young men saying they are the ones who have been victimized. They are starting to push back. In the past three years, men found responsible for sexual assault on campus have filed more than three dozen cases against schools. They argue that their due process rights have been violated and say they...

I am in the process of writing a book which argues that the Sexual Revolution has been a rich person’s hobby horse from the beginning. The rich and powerful like the idea of separating sex from child-bearing. While this idea is sometimes wrapped up in a disguise of helping woman and the poor, the fact remains that the rich and powerful pioneered and implemented these ideas, quite often at the expense of women and the poor. So I wondered, when I picked up a book, The Birth of the Pill: How Four Crusaders Reinvented Sex and Launched a Revolution, celebrating...

While most Americans put on a few pounds for Thanksgiving, the federal government has been spending hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars researching why obese girls don’t have sex.The National Institute for Health grant allocated $466,642 to the Magee-Women’s Research Institute to study the sexual habits of obese girls, including how often they have sex and why they are less likely to use protection when they do.“Obese girls consistently report having fewer dating and sexual experiences, but more sexual risk behaviors [i.e., condom nonuse] once they are sexually active,” the study abstract states.Money from the 2014 study will also be...

Fr. Richard John Neuhaus used to call it “the parish paper,” a gentle barb at the pretensions of the self-described “paper of record,” but also, I think, a subtle pastoral hand extended to those who think they get all the advice they need when they look in the mirror.Yes, I’m talking about the New York Times, which just ran a discussion group on dropping the celibacy requirement for Catholic clergy. It was a “usual suspects” sort of panel, with the balance one would expect. Of 7 panelists 4 were in favor of married priests, one argued both for and...

Parents of students attending Chicago’s Andrew Jackson Language Academy were shocked to discover that 5th graders are slated to study “the pleasures of anal sex.” Chicago Public Schools spokesman Bill McCaffrey characterized the parents’ reactions as “excessively dramatic” and “not well thought out. It’s our job to help prepare our students for life in the real world. Teaching them the skills needed for safe sex is at least as critical a part of our job as teaching them how to read.” “Sex is a topic of universal interest to students,” McCaffrey asserted. “What we teach them about this topic will...

The American right was at once mocked and feared by liberals for the scrutiny they devoted to the sex lives of average Americans. This impulse among conservatives culminated in George W. BushÂ’s administrationÂ’s unsuccessful attempt to enshrine heterosexual marriage into the U.S. Constitution. The critiques of social conservatism in the last decade as prudish and meddling were well-founded, but that seems like a generation ago. As American conservatism continues to embrace a more libertarian view on those policies which relate to the policing of consensual relationships, the left has become consumed with supervising sexual activity and defining more and...

The following women have alleged as a matter of public record that Bill Cosby sexually assaulted or raped them. They are listed in the order their allegations became public. [17entries]

When TIME magazine recently banned the word Feminism because of its overuse, a deluge of libfems pounded the editor so roundly that he/she took down the word from the no go list. This is the topic of the great blog piece by Kevin Jackson, an astute observer-writer of the American cultural scene. (1) “A lot of us just don’t want to be associated with a supposed movement that has no unifying theme except being ANTI-MAN!” says one commenter. The libfems may finally be getting the notion that being anti-man represents the basic discomfort rabid feminists have with their own personhood....

Is the UNFPA Run by Sex Addicts?A book titled “Sun King” about South-West Native American life, told of a traditional belief that witches live in secret chambers in hillsides, where they hold their convocations, doing terrible things to people walking alone whom they have waylaid.Might these hillside lairs of witches be the skycrapers inhabited by leaders of the Ford Foundation or the Rockefeller-funded Population Foundation?Does an elite, international movement that seeks to initiate millions of people into lives of sexually obsessive behavior run the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA)? I had a chance encounter with a sex addict that causes...

If Aesop were here he might rewrite his famous fable, replacing the boy who cried “wolf!” with the girl who cried “rape!” The cry of “rape” is used so carelessly that it’s often impossible to get to the truth of an accusation. When rape was a capital offense it was a rare and vicious crime which required a court of law to apply justice. It was underreported, since the rapist usually took advantage of those who felt too vulnerable even to say anything about it. Contemporary accusations of rape are frequent, often made by women at prestigious colleges whose accusations...

There are more important things in life than politics. One of those things is happening as I write. Most of the world is oblivious to it. The press corps has completely ignored it. But it may be one of the most consequential events in the early twenty-first century. It is called Humanum. In Rome, at the Vatican, an interfaith gathering is occurring to discus marriage. Leading voices in the Buddhist, Jewish, Hindu, Mormon, Muslim, and Christian communities have gathered to support and strengthen each other in the struggle against growing anti-faith norms toward marriage and family. Pope Francis opened the...

For the first seventy or so years of Christianity's existence, the Greco-Roman world paid it relatively little attention. There were persecutions here and there (like the one that claimed the lives of Peter and Paul). But, for the most part, it wasn’t until the second century that their pagan neighbors began to focus their attention on just how different Christians were. As Michael J. Kruger of Reformed Theological Seminary wrote at The Gospel Coalition, one major difference was that “Christians would not pay homage to the other ‘gods’ ” of the Roman world. Since paying homage to these “gods” was...

SEATTLE -- Try as we might, we simply just can't outdo Seattle Police spokesman Jonah Spangenthal-Lee's apt description of what happened Wednesday in Leschi Park, when officer Vanessa Flick, "was forced to put herself between a crowd of bystanders and the razor-sharp talons of two erotically-entwined eagles... after the birds crash-landed in a park." (snip) A witness told Flick the birds "appeared to spiral in mid air" together before falling to the ground. Flick said the birds weren't fighting and didn't have any signs of trauma. The plot thickened. Police say a second man, who told Flick he was knowledgeable...

Editor's Note: This column was co-authored by Tim Graham.While Obama's Federal Communications Commission obsesses over liberal concerns like the under-regulation of the Internet and whether "Redskins" is a profanity, broadcast television is sleazier than ever. As The Hollywood Reporter recently noted, "Nearly two months into the fall, it's clear that explicit jokes and boundary-pushing storylines are changing the definition of what sexual content is acceptable in primetime." For example, the Sept. 16 season premiere of the Fox sitcom "New Girl" featured star Zooey Deschanel repeatedly muttering "sex fist" as a motto for five friends all succeeding at casual sex after...

A new, sharply toned public service announcement produced for the White House’s ongoing anti-campus sexual assault campaign is aimed at men, who research shows often don’t intervene when they witness sexual violence in their midst. President Obama has tried to make fighting campus sexual crime a component of his second-term legacy. Where previous efforts have focused on empowering women to turn in perpetrators and speak up about campus violence problems, the new effort aims to teach young men to break continuing taboos about getting involved when they see other men in the process of victimizing women, according to top Obama...

The inappropriate sexual relationship between Molly Shattuck, the 47-year-old former Baltimore Ravens cheerleader, and a 15-year-old boy which has lead to the mother-of-three being charged with third-degree rape was instigated by her own son, police have revealed. According to Delaware State Police, it was one of Shattuck’s own children who urged the unnamed victim to text his mom because ‘she is obsessed with you’ after spotting photos of the teen on Instagram.

Lena Dunham is now threatening to sue the right-wing website which last week published an article claiming she sexually abused her little sister when they were children. The claim is based on an excerpt from the Girls star and creator's new book, Not That Kind of Girl, and details how she once looked at her sister Grace's vagina when her sibling was a year old and she was seven. Lena defended the action as innocent childhood exploration based on curiosity, but the website Truth Revolt called the memory 'unsettling' and disturbing'. Since then, she has been in a war of...

One of the workshops being offered during Harvard University’s annual Sex Week observance is called “What What in the Butt: Anal Sex 101.″ The object of this workshop, led by "sex experts" from a local adult store, is to teach students how to properly have anal sex. "Dispel myths about anal sex and give you insight into why people do it and how to do it well. “They will cover a wide variety of topics, including: anal anatomy and the potential for pleasure for all genders; how to talk about it with a partner; basic preparation and hygiene; lubes, anal...

HOUSTON, Texas -- A teen's mysterious disappearance helped prompt the deciphering of an alleged sex ring, involving numerous family members in the back woods of Alabama. 19-year-old Brittney Wood is thought to have been with Donnie Holland -- her uncle, who was being investigated for disturbing sex crimes -- in May 2012, the night Holland died from a gunshot in his car. Wood has not been seen since, and many questions remain surrounding rampant incest in her family, which is being described by investigators as "the largest sex ring ever uncovered in Alabama." Eleven individuals -- eight of whom are...