Rape culture in universities - News - CBC Player

And my personal story about first contact with Rape Culture:

Here's a personal story when I began University in 1973 at Dalhousie , Halifax, NS, I was staying in a Fraternity house where I was introduced to University rape culture. Being male these Frat Brothers took it for granted I would get a kick out of their stories about getting under age college girls drunk and then raping them either the one guy raping a girl or gang raping a drunk barely conscious esp Freshmen underage girls. They thought this was funny. I was shocked and disturbed.


I went to University inpart because I hoped to find more open minded but thoughtful and compassionate people who were interested in scholarly issues. I was wrong most people just wanted to party get drunk and the males main thing was raping young drunk girls or finding girls they believed were easy or sluts or now they would say skanks etc. Sluts and skanks according to male rape culture are fair game and cannot really be raped because they have no real values or limitations or boundaries.

To me some of these girls were suffering from emotional or psychological problems so to me they like the really drunk girl were to be considered off limits or at least one had to make sure there was actual rational consent on their part and not merely assume such consent.

To my peers this type of thinking and talk was considered unmanly, immature, wimpy, effeminate and they wondered if I were Gay. Surely they thought no straight real Canadian male would refuse to take advantage of an under age drunk female or a drunk female who was of age. I was in a long term relationship at the time and so I often merely used that as my excuse for not taking part in these sexual exploits rather than have to explain myself.

It is sad and disturbing to realize in 2015 42 years later this is still a contentious issue and that many men and some women make excuses for this rape culture at universities. As the video from CBC explores this issue which appears absolutely surreal to me after all these years.

Later on I worked at Dalhousie security and so came to know about rape victims who were just told they brought it on themselves and that boys will be boys and that this sort of sexual exploits were adventures that mature people come to deal with and those who make too much of a fuss were simply encouraged to be quiet or withdraw from the University.