If you think that the Columbia student who lugged her mattress around campus for year is a real hero (or, I guess I should say, "shero"), then you'll probably love Vanessa Grigoriadis's book Blurred Lines: Rethinking Sex, Power, and Consent on Campus. If you think Mattress Girl is a vindictive attention seeker who wrongfully made an ex-boyfriend's life a living hell by continually publicizing his name and the alleged act of rape, smearing his name all over campus and the national media, then reading Grigoriadis's book will be a frustrating and infuriating experience.
Grigoriadis spent a few years traveling to college campuses to interview Mattress Girl and her friends and like-minded survivors/victims and activists at Columbia and elsewhere. If her account is all you ever know about college life, you will get a picture of hyper-sexualized post adolescents who have sex all the time and frat boys who have no qualms about having sex with passed-out young ladies. You will be disturbed by the author's accounts of young ladies who knowingly attend parties where they know vast quantities of alcohol will be consumed and where the male hosts intend to have sex with someone--anyone--before the night is done, and then they're shocked--shocked!--when a girl wakes up hungover, her panties off, her clothes in disarray, and doesn't remember who or how many guys she had sex with.
In this world, it's perfectly OK to ruin a young man's reputation and educational experience over a misunderstanding about intercourse, or even kissing or groping. It's perfectly OK to willingly have sex with a bunch of fraternity brothers, then turn them all in to the school administration when they compare notes and make up a bawdy story about their shared experiences. And it's perfectly normal to go to an ABC (anything but clothes) party and not expect that the guys there won't see the presence of a bunch of mostly naked women as an invitation for a bit of whoopee.
Look, rape is horrible. No one should ever be forced to have sex. No one should take advantage of a passed out drunk person. I think everyone agrees on that. But Blurred Lines and other books and articles written from a similar perspective weaken the case of rape victims by placing them in the same category as a girl who gets mad because the guy she was grinding with on the dance floor grabs her boobs without asking, or the girl who is on the receiving end of an unwelcome kiss from a guy she's talking with at a party.
Grigoriadis does talk with and about guys who claim to have been wrongfully accused, but she seems to minimize their plight. The whole "believe the victim" mentality puts guys in a position of "guilty until proven innocent." In fact, Columbia found Mattress Girl's accused perpetrator innocent, which prompted her to begin her years-long smear campaign. After suffering her public shaming, which Columbia allowed and even encouraged, he won a lawsuit against the school, getting some measure of satisfaction, but his name is forever linked to this case.
Here's what I would have liked to have heard from Grigoriadis, but she and her ilk will not say. "Ladies, you think you are liberated by having lots of sex. But you're not weighing the costs." Even though she mocks calls for abstinence before marriage, there is no question that a lifestyle of chastity keeps young people away from much of the pain and hardship she discusses. The vast majority of cases of campus rape and sexual assault are in the context of sexually promiscuous lifestyles. Does that make it OK? Of course not. But if college kids embrace a culture of sexual promiscuity, the opportunities for misunderstanding and miscommunication, especially after a few drinks, increase exponentially.
If you read Blurred Lines and still get excited about sending your kids to college, you're crazy. The college life she portrays herein is predatory males, non-stop drunken parties, hookups and promiscuity, and very little studying and academic work. Weep for our culture and teach your sons and daughters to live right.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the complimentary electronic review copy!
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