You may have heard about this by now. The original article is gone, but fragments of it remain on the internet.
Mostly I wouldn’t go anywhere near a bun fight like that, but today I’m more curious than careful: what do you think of the original article, and what do you think of the reaction?
So, to be fair, I’ll expose my own opinion: “Murder is the gravest threat to potential murderers” is not an insult to murder victims, is not an abdication of responsibility by murderers, and is not evil. It’s a bit of legitimate advice to people who need to get a bit of legitimate advice.
Well fuck it, I’m going to give my opinions so far.
Overall, the original article seems kind of dumb, but not horribly offensive. Not noteworthy. Unless I’ve missed something in my skimming of it?
I think some of the criticism is a little unreasonable. The article has certainly left itself open to criticism, but it’s not an evil that must be stopped, and I really dislike the culture of picking apart every article like this, especially when it’s done by people who have a vested interest in finding faults (because then they’ve generated news to report).
These criticisms jumped out at me:
(Bolding mine).
The only implication that I can see here is that fraternities should somehow be policing how and why women get drunk. I would expect even more criticism if a fraternity member were to suggest women weren’t capable of controlling their own levels of intoxication.
Another criticism:
As far as I can tell, the original article hasn’t mentioned “actual rape”. False accusations of rape are, indeed, a big deal, and are not so eclipsed by “actual rape” that the very mention of the problem is redundant.
(I heard a factoid this morning: Black women attending mixed-race colleges are less likely to abuse alcohol than their white peers, or their Black counterparts at predominantly Black colleges.)
Thirty+ years ago, I recall the early AIDS crisis being misunderstood by mainstream America as a call to marshal the nation’s pubic health resources so as to preserve the God-given rights of horny young gay guys to wag weenie in bathhouse culture. It didn’t help that a few gay activists vocally insisted on that very thing.
Gripped with deja-vu, I don’t believe the need to eradicate rape on campus is primarily to enable middle-class white girls (see above) the right to get drunk until their hair has permanent highlights from the acid in their puke.
But the point that Bill Freeza, Erin Gloria Ryan, every professional bartender on Earth, and myself can agree on it that yes, you are responsible for the alcohol intake of your guests.
Maybe things have changed, but as I recall, the reason fraternities had parties was to attract women and get them drunk. I don’t think I ever actually bought alcohol when I was younger and cuter.
I confess that I’ve not been following this particular controversy. Did the article get specific about the nature of the threat posed to fraternities by drunk female guests?
For instance, is there a big problem with drunk female guests rampaging through the frat houses they’re visiting, bashing holes in the walls, destroying the furniture, and setting fire to the building?
Well, the example in the beginning was a drunk girl falling out a window, ruining everyone’s fun because they had to call for help. So I assumed that was the threat. Made me giggle.
And clearly that would never happen to a drunk guy at a frat house! Because even when drunk, frat guys are known for never doing anything risky and stupid!
The writer specifically said one shouldn’t let in drunk guys in to parties: he merely extended the same rule to drunk girls.
I’ll say that I have nothing against people getting drunk. Just that drunk people can be the most depressing people on earth.
A bigger problem is hazing involving alcohol. For example consider the case of George Desdunes. Three fraternity members tied him up and got him drunk. He died during the night:
Note this was Cornell University, not some low quality, party school.
So sober guys can enter, and get drunk there? Or do no guests get to drink? Or do the frat members send guests on their way as soon as they seem to have had one too many? Do the frat members themselves stay sober? Or do they get drunk while their guests stay sober?
You apparently don’t know anything about college fraternities. The original writer claimed drunk guys aren’t allowed in:
This is like claiming that children are never allowed into zoos because they might climb fences and enter animal enclosures. The vast majority of attendees at any fraternity party are drunk people - male and female. It’s true that drunk male strangers would rarely be let in, but then male strangers of any kind wouldn’t be let in.
The whole (original) article reads like bad satire. If there were no drunk girls at fraternity parties, there would be no men - drunk or otherwise. Drunk girls are the raison d’etre of college fraternities.
I say that with no small amount of disapproval, but frankly all college parties are pretty much the same. Drunk girls are not a threat to fraternities. Hugely drunk girls - the kind whose stomachs later require pumping due to alcohol poisoning - are. So are hugely drunk men. And rapey men.
I think the gist is that the men are generally members of the fraternity and have, therefore, signed up to various rules. The women are guests, which can be more problematic. I’m not clear on the exact reasoning intended, perhaps it’s just that guests don’t know the rules, or maybe there are actually liability issues. The article also mentions that there is a lot more hesitation in kicking out drunk women.
The writer, asshole though he is, makes a few good points.
One, “pre-gaming” is indeed a problem. It’s not a new phenomenon, and it’s not confined to either sex. But it’s an issue. So the writer’s advice to
is sound advice.
So is
That’s just right on every level – ethically and legally (I’m guessing - IANAL).
And, finally, and unfortunately, I think the writer is correct when he says that turning away a drunk man is acceptable, but turning away a drunk woman is not. For some reason, some college campuses are places where a drunk man who falls down and hurts himself is (rightly) presumed to be an idiot who brought his injuries upon himself, but a drunk woman is presumed to be in need of protection and care and in some way not responsible for anything that happens to her (and PLEASE NOTE THAT I AM NOT TALKING ABOUT RAPE OR SEXUAL ABUSE OF A WOMAN INCAPABLE OF CONSENTING here).
Seems like a nice thing to do. Dunno if the taxi drivers like ferrying drunks.
They can do either; all he suggests is to not to let in pre-gamed young ladies who are three sheets in the wind. Because when things go wrong it’s the frats what get the blame.
And very nice of the press harpy to give out his email.
I heard on the radio this morning a story about sexual assault on HBCU (Historically Black Colleges and Universities) campuses, and how the assault rates were generally lower than that of non-HBCUs. Also, the rate of rape due to “incapacitation” (I think that’s the word they used) at non-HBCUs was lower among black women, with one of the theories being that black college women drink a lot less than their non-black counterparts. I was curious about what the rationales would be for why rape on HBCU campuses was about half of the norm, and found it curious that it was “fewer drunk girls.”
Well that was one of the theories, anyway, the others were generally less victim-blamey, but still.
The original Forbes pieces refers to extensive rules for fraternity parties. I believe these rules prohibit fraternity members from serving alcohol to people who are drunk, regardless of gender.
