Letter to the editor

September 2, 2009

Dear Editor-

The AU Threesome’s new sex column, “Sex-perimentation,” is cause for concern. First, it vividly describes a scene in which a female student is engaged in painful intercourse in a “drunken haze.” However, if she is too drunk to remember the events of a party, she is probably unable to consent to sex. This is called rape. The Office of Campus Life has sexual assault resources available at http://www.american.edu/sexualassault, and the DC Rape Crisis center can be reached 24/7 at (202) 333-7273.

Not only does the column normalize sexual assault as a drunken hook-up that happens to everyone, but it places the responsibility of stopping sexual assault on women by telling them to “slow the guy down.” Better advice would be that students are responsible for their own conduct, and must respect their partner’s boundaries and wishes. Finally, the column condemns sexually active heterosexual women and, although reminding readers they can get condoms (and, I’ll add, dental dams) from the GLBTA Resource center, it completely ignores the LGBT community at AU.

I look forward to reading future columns, and I have faith that they will not make light of issues of sexual assault and will be truly sex positive.

Sarah Brown
Director of Women’s Initiative, AU Student Government

5 Comments

  • N
    Sep 3 at 10:28 AM

    Wait. You have completely taken several of their points out of context. While I am not going to argue with you about what constitutes as rape, what you have done here is called libel.

    First you state that “if she is too drunk to remember the events of a party, she is probably unable to consent to sex.” Not once in the article in question is this scenario raised, that the girl in question does not remember the events of the party.

    Later you posit that the article places responsibility on women to stop sexual assault on their own by “slowing the guy down.” This is another textbook example to taking something out of context and twisting it to meet your needs. That line from the article refers to what happens in a relationship in some cases, not a drunken hook up.

    I know you probably feel like you have to find some issue with any article that in any way goes against your view of the world, but when you do try not to sound like such an idiot and resort to pathetic tactics to twist someone’s words into that libelous piece of crap you just wrote.

  • Andrew
    Sep 3 at 11:25 PM

    And this, my friend, is a “textbook example” of someone using words they don’t really understand in their writing and embarrassing themselves in a public forum.

    “... what you have done here is called libel.”

    For those playing along at home: libel constitutes malicious, false and defamatory written statements.

    So, if Ms. Brown had actually accused the Eagle columnists of rape and it was published in another paper, this may constitute libel, assuming they were not in fact rapists (since it is no longer considered libel if it is true). However, since the Eagle itself published the comments, and thus had clearly consented to their publication, the comments cannot be libelous.

    Other commonly upheld defenses against charges of libel include:
    - Opinion: If the defamatory assertion is an expression of opinion rather than a statement of fact, claims cannot be brought because opinions are inherently not falsifiable. (Note: a letter to the editor is published in the OPINION section of the paper)
    - Comment on a matter of public interest: arguments made with an honest belief in their soundness on a matter of public interest (such as regarding official acts… or sexual assault)
    - The person being defamed is incapable of further defamation: for example, the claimant’s position in the community is so poor that defamation could not do further damage to the plaintiff. (This would be applicable if Ms. Brown had said the Eagle was a terrible paper… or that you were rather dumb)

    Then, you conclude with an ad hominem attack on Ms. Brown, rather than and rational attempt on her argument.

    Someone clearly has yet to take any ConLaw.

    So the next time you post on the Eagle boards, please take your own advice and “try not to sound like such an idiot and resort to pathetic tactics to twist someone’s words into that… piece of crap you just wrote.”

  • Alex Knepper
    Sep 4 at 12:32 AM

    Oh, God! “It completely ignores the LGBT community at AU!”

    Jesus Christ, lady, get a life! 97% of people are straight according to the vast majority of modern academic studies! Not every article needs to talk about gay sex!

    Stop making we gay people look like whiny victims every time we’re “slighted” in some way.

  • Melissa
    Sep 4 at 1:31 AM

    I’m sorry Alex…. do you even go to AU? Have you even met anyone here? If you did, you’d know that much, much more than 3% of this campus is part of the GLBT community. So yes, an article that completely ignores that community while professing to give advice to all students is a very big deal indeed.

  • Alex Knepper
    Sep 4 at 2:38 AM

    Of course I go to AU. I write a column for this paper; you may read it at your pleasure.

    Obviously, more than 3% of the AU campus is gay, but who cares? At the most, perhaps 8% of the campus is gay. Over 90% of this campus is still straight, and I’m not going to whine if an article fails to talk about gay sex. We have an incredibly gay-friendly school—sometimes nauseatingly so—so it seems rather ill-fitted to whine about every little slight.

    Honestly, gay people are whiny sometimes. Although I’m not as irritated at whiny gays as I am at their self-professed allies, who usually amount to little more than patronizing lovers of caricatures.

    I’m gay, by the way. Not that it matters.

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