Male Students: Do Not Go to Consent Classes

Lads, it’s time to get mad.

For years, you’ve been demonised as sexists, misogynists, and, more recently, potential rapists. A few brave students in England have finally had enough and are starting to make themselves heard. I think the rest of you should join them.

Yesterday, George Lawlor, a student at the University of Warwick hit the headlines after he refused to accept an invitation to his student union’s “Sex Consent training workship.” Today, he is joined in these pages by another Warwick student, Jack Hadfield. Here’s hoping that their voices are just the beginning–and that young men will stand up and say enough is enough. That they’ll say: “I’m not a rapist just because I have a Y chromosome.”

Today, in colleges all over Europe and America, men are forced to take classes, lectured about crimes they haven’t committed. They are expected to make pledges and take tests to “prove” they’re not criminals. But male students are objecting. They say it’s wrong, and it’s doing damage to the healthy sexual development of both men and women.

It’s notable that Lawlor didn’t even mention gender in his column for student newspaper The Tab, arguing instead that he found the whole idea of consent classes repugnant. “I don’t have to be taught to not be a rapist,” he wrote. “That much comes naturally to me, as I am sure it does to the overwhelming majority of people you and I know. Brand me a bigot, a misogynist, a rape apologist, I don’t care.” He’s right, of course, that these classes are demeaning and insulting to both sexes.

But Hadfield was more direct about the real driving force behind consent classes, even though they are, of course, marketed to both sexes: “I’m not going. I think we all know what goes down at these things anyway, don’t we? The male students will be bombarded with stats about ‘1 in 4 women,’ bogus and offensive conspiracy theories about ‘toxic masculinity,’ and suggestions that yes, all men are potential rapists.

“Well, I’m sorry, but in case you didn’t know, pre-crime is sci-fi.”

In the past few years, a long-smouldering, insidious force has nearly destroyed an otherwise pleasant and fun-filled relationship between the genders on campus. Driven by their insane, irrational fear of men, feminist activists have demanded “compulsory consent workshops” to “teach men not to rape.”And they’ve won, at least for now: some universities are making these courses mandatory. The implication is that without attending, men will not be permitted to graduate.

Some universities have a policy of affirmative consent that requires a “yes” every 10 minutes. First of all, gross. Secondly: for the majority of freshman coming into the university system, 10 minutes is an aspirational dream. Maybe they just need a thumbs up for the 2 minutes? I’ve seen how they expect this stuff to go down, and it’s… well, see for yourself. (Read the comments, too — and take note that they’ve disabled the ratings system. I’ve never even seen that happen before.)

In defiance of the facts, which show that only a tiny minority of men or women ever become rapists, feminists insist on painting all men as potential offenders, even broadening the definition of rape to encompass activities like kissing someone without asking. Such things are awkward, sure, but they are a normal and healthy part of sexual exploration. I mean, if you locked up every intoxicated woman who has ever made a pass at me, birth rates would collapse. It’s obviously mad.

The demonisation and in some cases criminalisation of ordinary male behaviour is the first result of this trend. The withdrawal of men from healthy relationships with the opposite sex is the second. And, in the case of less confident men, a cultish self loathing is the third. Feminism is creating an army of misguided and confused young men who walk the Earth thinking they’re but one thought-crime away from a rape. This can’t be allowed to continue.

The radicals of the 1960s, as people like to say, cut their hair, grew up, and took over Wall Street. But the victimhood-obsessed radicals of the ’90s and ’00s kept their hair blue and never left college. They infected universities with their bitter culture of feminism and authoritarianism. Worse, many of them achieved tenure, meaning they’re free to professionally babysit generations of listless upper-middle class white children with entitlement and Batman complexes.

Every sane person understands that outside of countries like Saudi Arabia, the wrongness of rape need not be a required class. It is already a core value of western civilisation. As another rebellious student recently wrote on a placard, there is no rape culture in the west.

You can see, in how little these women do to stop places with actual rape culture, how this whole campus rape culture myth is really just created to control men, by demonising them and making them fear their own masculinity. The message seems to be that without the oversight of women, men become uncontrollable brutes. Sorry ladies, but the gays are doing just fine.

Compulsory classes are fine when they concern subjects all students should grasp. Shakespeare, Plato, basic statistics. But at some point, universities changed their focus from shaping well-rounded, independent individuals to churning out politically-correct members of the Junior Anti-Sex League.

But compulsory consent classes that assume young men are potential rapists who must be trained out of their natural instincts? No. Young men should stick up for their rights, and they should not accept an implicit pre-judgment of “possible assailant.” If they do, they should be aware it’s a Kafkaesque trap; once they admit that they are filled with original rape sin, the trial will never end.

Even if you attend these consent classes and are the best-behaved little male feminist on campus, you can easily be found guilty of a nebulous crime against women by a campus kangaroo court that puts the burden of proof on the defendant and ignores outdated patriarchal notions such as “due process.”

It’s not in my nature to be petty, but I wonder if adequate consideration has been given to the inherent shortcomings of women among all this man-bashing. For instance, did you know that the majority of petty theft is committed by girls? Perhaps we should be insisting that women take “lifting awareness” classes? I mean, sure, not all women are thieves, but since most shoplifters are women… better be safe than sorry, am I right?

In fact, it’s not really about individual acts of thievery at all. Really, it’s a question of theft culture. How many men are sitting in the lecture hall broke because they spent all their money on biology textbooks, unaware that 1 in 4 female students steals her course materials? (No idea if that statistic is right, by the way, but that’s never stopped feminists before, has it?) No wonder more women are graduating these days.

And this before we even consider the abject horror that is female students behind the wheel. For those already rolling their eyes, I’ll stop now. Because I think you get the point.

Men have been the victim of a 30-year long collective nagging campaign. And, just as with a shrewish wife complaining about her shoe allowance, all men need to do is raise their voice once, and it will all be over. Now’s the time. Refuse to attend these patronising and absurd consent classes.

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