I don’t usually comment on things like this, but having read the original article, I did feel Mary Jackson might have mis-read a bit, to the extent that I had some trouble following her argument.
Heather MacDonald wrote, “… if the rape industrialists are so sure that foreseeable and seemingly cooperative drunken sex amounts to rape, there are some obvious steps that they could take to prevent it.”
So later, when MacDonald’s arguing the possibilities to avoid “campus rapes”, it’s clear she’s doing it based on the extremely broad definition that the well-funded “campus rape industry” uses. That definition, encompassing as it is, still doesn’t keep the center’s phones ringing since most of the “victims” of “beer-goggled” sex, regardless of the number of earnest pamphlets, do not tend to view or report it as rape, even if it’s regretted. These women do largely take responsibility for their own choices, and judge the outcomes accordingly. However, MacDonald points out that avoiding drunken sex will largely eliminate everything currently being classified as campus rape by those who stand to lose funding and visibility if the many-fewer instances of non-consensual, forcible rape (whether alcohol-influenced or not) were the pure focus of their efforts.
Since serving women is the principal, proclaimed mission of these rape crisis services, I don’t fault that MacDonald deals principally with the female “victim” side of the “rape” equation here, rather than what men could do to prevent being categorized by these wide definitions as rapists. That’s important, too, but it’s another article, perhaps including mention of Duke and lacrosse.
