Follow-up to "Ivy League Girls Gone Wild”

I think women need to be smart about protecting themselves by not getting into dangerous situations, which I wrote about in my email of July 22, 2013 entitled Follow-up to "Ivy League Girls Gone Wild", which is posted at: http://edreform.blogspot.com/2013/07/follow-up-to-ivy-league-girls-gone-wild.html. It's one of my all-time favorite emails. Here's an excerpt:

 

I really didn't mean to create an international incident with my email a week ago, in which I made some partly-serious/partly-tongue-in-cheek comments on the NY Times article about widespread promiscuity among young female college students at Penn (no doubt the NY Post would have entitled it "Ivy League Girls Gone Wild"), but I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. In addition to the obviously enticing prurient angle, the article touched deeply emotional hot-button issues such as sex, relationships, mortality, physical safety/violence, women's rights/equality, and our society's double standards. In hindsight I should have spent more time thinking about these issues and written something more in depth before sending the article around with only brief comments.

 

It generated an enormous amount of feedback, some of it hilarious (one friend wrote, "I predict a wave of d*ck biting on campuses, hereafter known among young women as "giving good Tilson"!) and some of it very serious and personal. For example, three women who recently graduated from Ivy League schools wrote me that they were "shocked" by my "offensive" comments and called on me to apologize (their email and my response – as well as responses from a few other folks – are below). If you read one of my emails this year to the very end, make it this one – some folks sent me some very powerful stuff.

 

… A large percentage of men are horn dogs – which has been the case since the dawn of time. I don't know how large, but large enough that any woman would be well advised to assume that, until definitely proven otherwise, a man is a horn dog (meaning he will pull any trick to get a woman to engage in as much sexual activity with him as possible). Worse yet, some men are more than horn dogs – they will go beyond the standard tricks like getting a woman drunk, verbally wooing and/or pressuring her, etc. and, especially when drugs or alcohol are involved, use their size and strength to force (or intimidate) a woman into unwanted sexual activity. I'm not saying this is right – it's most certainly not – but I am saying that this is a universal truth, and it's not like it's some great secret.

 

The implications for a woman are clear: a) While you shouldn't live in fear of every man you encounter, be cognizant that men can be dangerous, especially when they're drunk; b) If you're not interested in hooking up, don't behave like you are; and c) While drinking socially is fine and even getting a little tipsy is usually harmless, binge drinking is extremely dangerous in countless ways so DON'T EVER DO IT!

 

I suspect you're going to have a strong negative reaction to the preceding paragraph since you wrote "suggesting that women have to play by a different set of rules in this situation or any other is offensive." My reply: oh please. When was the last time a man who got drunk was sexually assaulted by a woman? OF COURSE women have to play by a different set of rules! Why is it okay to say that if someone gets mugged walking through a known highly dangerous neighborhood, that they were massively stupid (while not excusing the behavior of the mugger), but it's not okay to say that a woman who (very willingly and happily) gets drunk to the point of almost unconsciousness and gets taken advantage of sexually is massively stupid (while not excusing the behavior of the man)?