The Hyped Campus Rape That Wasn't

Article here. Excerpt:

'If a satirist had set out to write a scathing parody of the campus crusade against rape, he could not have come up with anything more bizarre, or more ridiculous, than the real-life comedy-drama that unfolded last month at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio.

The scandal started, like many scandals do these days, in the social media. On Saturday, October 12, amidst the school's Homecoming Weekend festivities, photos and a video of two young people engaged in a public sex act near the campus--the man on his knees performing oral sex on the woman while she leaned against a plate-glass window, half-sitting on its ledge--showed up online and promptly spread on Twitter.

... OU senior Allie Erwin lamented to 10-TV, "Our first instinct as a community was not to intervene and help this woman, but to post it on social media, and make a mockery of probably the most traumatic experience of her life."
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Meanwhile, the photos and videos--initially taken down after the rape complaint--resurfaced. They appeared to show a fully consensual encounter; the woman was seen smiling, flipping back her hair, at one point putting her hand on the back of the man's head, and even posing for the camera with a grin on her face. Witnesses confirmed that, while both participants were clearly drunk, the "victim" was not incapacitated and "seemed like she was enjoying it"; she also left with the man afterwards, walking unassisted. (While none of the onlookers thought the sex was non-consensual, at least one or two of them berated the man as a "slut" and physically assaulted him after he stood up, bloodying his face--an ironic detail considering feminist complaints that women are stigmatized for sexually "loose" behavior while men are not.)
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The university is still considering whether to take disciplinary action against one or both of the students. (One may safely assume that charges against the woman for filing a false police report is not one of the options on the table.) Meanwhile, a follow-up "campus conversation" on sexism, sexual assault, and alcohol is scheduled for November 18. Since the proposed topics include "double standards," it would be interesting to invite the discussants to consider the following scenario:

An intoxicated woman performs oral sex on an equally intoxicated man in public view. Some female passers-by outraged by the woman's loose conduct berate her as a slut and beat her up before she leaves the scene in the man's company. Which of the two would be seen as the victim deserving of public support?'