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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 28, 2026

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Cornell 7, Law, Truth, Sex, and Morality

I would like to compare and contrast two sources on the Cornell Seven case. The first is https://cornellseven.com/ which is the top search result one gets when searching the term. The other is «District Attorney statement re: Jane Doe v. Cornell University, et al.»

The first source begins with

In October 2024, a 20-year-old Cornell student went to the Chi Phi fraternity house to meet someone she considered a friend. According to her lawsuit, what followed was hours of drugging and sexual assault.

The second source largely agrees:

On September 18, 2026, I learned of the civil complaint filed in New York County Court alleging a series of heinous and despicable acts committed by members of the Chi Phi fraternity at Cornell University against a fellow Cornell student on October 19, 2024. The lawsuit, which has been published and widely discussed online, sets forth allegations of multiple sexual assaults committed by male fraternity members against a woman who is referred to as Jane Doe. Given the lawsuit’s graphic allegations of criminal conduct, the question of why those individuals were not criminally prosecuted has been raised. Over the past two weeks, many people have called my office, left voicemails, and sent emails about this case. Some people have understandably sought answers. Others have simply insulted and sometimes threatened my office and my staff. In each case, the comments and questions have been based solely on the allegations in the civil lawsuit and its characterization by news and social media sources.

Unfortunately, this is where the sources diverge. The more popular, but less informative source continues:

The complaint alleges that members of Chi Phi coerced her into taking ketamine, supplied her with marijuana and high-proof alcohol, and sexually assaulted her while she was incapable of consenting. It alleges that one fraternity member then sent a message advertising “free pussy” upstairs to the fraternity’s group chat, after which additional men entered the room. She says she tried to cover herself and push one of them away.

The more informative source disagreeing:

Jane Doe’s sworn statement in November of 2024 did not allege that she was drugged against her will or gang raped. On the contrary, Jane Doe’s statement described her participation in drug use and sexual conduct as voluntary, conscious, and consensual.

The police's summary of Jane Doe's statements is where this comes from:

Male Number 2 “asked [Jane Doe] if she wanted to do more Ketamine.” At that, Jane Doe remembered “that [she] had taken Ketamine at some point on the couch with [Male Number 1 and Male Number 2] during this night” but she could not remember “where or when that took place.”

Jane Doe thought that she “had already done Ketamine once so why not do it a second time.” “At that point, [Male Number 2] poured a line of Ketamine on his erect penis, implying for [her] to snort the line. [Jane Doe] snorted the line of Ketamine, which was a heavy amount of Ketamine.”

The popular source says:

The lawsuit further alleges that all seven men named on this site were present while ketamine was poured and snorted from her body, and that she was made to consume additional ketamine as the assaults continued. According to the complaint, the ordeal lasted until approximately 5:45 a.m.

But her statements say:

The males began complimenting Jane Doe and “talking about how pretty [she] was.” Male Number 4 “asked [Jane Doe] if they all could do drugs off of [her] perfect body.” Jane Doe responded, “Sure.” While the men were doing drugs off of her body, “[Male Number 3] and [another male] entered the room and said something like, ‘Ok we’re shutting down whatever the f*** this is.” Jane Doe felt dizzy due to a pre-existing medical condition causing dizziness combined with the effects of the Ketamine use. Male 5 or 6 (who apparently have the same first name) “encouraged [her] to stay seated as long as [she] needed.”

Eventually, “[Male Number 1] and [Male Number 4 ] ushered [Jane Doe] out of the room brought [her] upstairs to a small room.” Male Number 1 stated, “Let’s do more Ketamine.” Jane Doe “remembered snorting more Ketamine” and “remembered feeling extremely high.”

About being forced to go to 5:45 AM:

Male Number 1 “said he wanted to have sex again because he wanted redemption for passing out earlier in the night.” Jane Doe initially stated that she was tired and asked Male Number 1, “What happened to just you and me?” Jane Doe could not remember how it started but she then engaged in a threesome with Male Number 1 and Male Number 4 involving oral sex and vaginal sex. She described her level of intoxication as “8 out of 10” at this point. “The threesome continued until at some point, around 5:45am, [Jane Doe] said [she] was tired and needed to turn in. At that point, both guys stopped the threesome with [her] as far as [she] can remember.”


It would seem that the legal system has so far behaved reasonably well. No criminal charges have been filed, and the lawsuit was opened two weeks ago. Hopefully she will get no money, but now everyone will know about her. That would be justice in this case.

I think the demand for stories of male rapists outstrips the supply. A lot of people want the Cornell 7 to be rapists, but they aren't. In fact, they come off as rather meek to me. Something about sharing one girl between 7 men like they did just seems that way to me.

And that's where I see what I think this case says about the dating market and the relationship between young men and women in 2026. The demand for horny women also outstrips the supply, to the point that handsome, wealthy, intelligence, social Ivy League frat bros need to, in a rather fruity manner, have sausage fest 3-or-more-somes, instead of each of them getting girlfriends independently.

The actual root of this case, ironically, is that men are so respectful of what women say they want, that they now let a huge chunk of women sit out romance and sex entirely, producing extremely sexually deprived young males willing to to share a one night stand with 3 of their male friends. They respect her consent every step of the way and still wound up with a frivolous false allegation because their behavior sounds more rapey on the surface than a one on one.

One element at play here as well is that under the law, only non-consent is illegal, but maybe many people think this behavior was immoral nonetheless. But I don't agree. On what rational basis can that be justified? The only downsides to sex that I see are the risk of pregnancy, STDs, and unwanted pairbonding effects. The former two are well under control in modernity. The latter is largely controlled by the legal consent framework, although strangely the people who buy in to that framework the most tend to justify it on far weaker grounds than this. Hopefully this case will go down as a pretty big hoax like the Mattress Girl.

The demand for horny women also outstrips the supply, to the point that handsome, wealthy, intelligence, social Ivy League frat bros need to, in a rather fruity manner, have sausage fest 3-or-more-somes, instead of each of them getting girlfriends independently.

While horny women outstrips supply there is in no way a contradiction between have a threesome with a girl and wanting/acquiring girlfriends. Those that different things that you get different things out of.

Having degenerate alcohol/drug fueled sexcapades with your bros doesn't in any way indicate an inability to get a girlfriend.

There are a lot of violent rapists, but women do not seem to care about them, and they don’t care about preventing that crime. They don’t advocate for harsher sentences and they don’t want to prevent the rape-inclined from migrating here. Neither do they want to introduce norms which prevent violent rape, like you find among the Gulf Arabs with 1/300th the rape per capita as us. It’s questionable whether women even care about justice as a concept: you don’t typically hear about a woman torrenting a book on judicial philosophy or discussing the merits and demerits of retributive justice online. They may occasionally discuss penal theories with their girlfriends but hardly of the judicial sort. It does not appear to me that they want “more justice” as evidenced by their complete and total disinterest in anything approaching an inquiry into matters of justice. I am exaggerating somewhat; there are of course women who pursue these fields in academia and produce important research. But the women yapping about the Cornell 7 are Not These Women but their opposite. They have probably never read the Wikipedia article on Blackstone’s Ratio.

I think what they care about is something more primitive and reflexive. I do not presume to understand them. But it appears that they enjoy attacking those whom they sense are the weaker coalition in power. Fraternity Bros have lost social capital in the West ever since they started being depicted as the villians of our culture in the 80s and earlier. That makes them an easy target: they are both disreputable and evil. But there is more to the story. Because the disreputable and evil hardly inspire passionate hatred among womenfolk. (They are not up in arms over Boko Haram, but Rho Chi’s harem). Perhaps the missing link in the explanation of their primitive reflexive hatred is that there is a weaker, losing coalition of men involved. This they hate, just as female chimpanzees hate such things. Among chimps, “a high proportion of coalitions involving female aggressors overall targeted males and occurred in the context of protecting a prior victim”, and in contrast to all-male or mixed gender chimp coalitions, the all-female coalitions typically attack a lower-ranked male: “among the coalitions involving only female adult [who] aggressed a male, [the victims were] mostly the lowest‐ranking adult males”. To me this makes perfect sense, because I just cannot imagine women responding in this fashion to an all-Native American or all-black fraternity. Those coalitions have more social capital in the sense that they possess the ability to destroy the reputation of any woman who goes against them. But predominately White fraternities, although they may have some abstract notion of value measured in Martha’s Vineyard acreage, have simply no social value in the grand scheme of mainstream American social life (particularly online, which is the new default social life). Consider also that the fraternity is the last vestige of the männerbund which is the last vestige of the traditional male tribal unit; this is all very elementary evolutionary.

Somewhat more speculatively: it’s possible that these women enjoy hating on the out-group while at the same time they are jealous of the accuser. A plurality of women have fantasized about gangbangs; don’t hate me, I did not make the rules and I did not design them. The fraternity brothers are pretty good looking, and are a veritable Disney TV show worth of diversity; you could almost imagine one of them in a wheelchair. So perhaps this also plays a role. Was it Orpheus who was torn limb by limb by frenzied spurned redheaded Thracian women after the death of Eurydice? No, wait, was it Pentheus after the Dionysian orgy? I’m sensing a theme here…

There are a lot of violent rapists, but women do not seem to care about them, and they don’t care about preventing that crime. They don’t advocate for harsher sentences and they don’t want to prevent the rape-inclined from migrating here. Neither do they want to introduce norms which prevent violent rape, like you find among the Gulf Arabs with 1/300th the rape per capita as us. It’s questionable whether women even care about justice as a concept: you don’t typically hear about a woman torrenting a book on judicial philosophy or discussing the merits and demerits of retributive justice online. They may occasionally discuss penal theories with their girlfriends but hardly of the judicial sort. It does not appear to me that they want “more justice” as evidenced by their complete and total disinterest in anything approaching an inquiry into matters of justice. I am exaggerating somewhat; there are of course women who pursue these fields in academia and produce important research. But the women yapping about the Cornell 7 are Not These Women but their opposite. They have probably never read the Wikipedia article on Blackstone’s Ratio.

I think the real explanation is to simply ask if the people doing anti-rape advocacy (and I see much the same in race-advocacy) are median women. The answer is pretty much no. Most of them are women drawn from the PMC, and as such they have PMC concerns about rape — specifically college male students and their right to dress and act as they please around them and blame them for the fallout. Other forms of rape don’t matter to them because as PMC females destined to work in the nonprofit industry, they are likely to live in safe neighborhoods and work with properly emasculated male colleagues. Workplace rapes still happen (to poor women, mostly) and local youths in poor neighborhoods still rape (poor women or women stupid enough to go into poor urban neighborhoods). But really, unless you are poor or go out of your way to visit the wrong sorts of neighborhoods especially alone and most especially at night, your chances of experiencing that kind of rape are practically nil. College rapes matter because PMC women go to elite colleges, and want to go to parties with men, wearing slut-worthy clothing and drinking/drugging themselves into a stupor. They want to do this and not face negative consequences.

There are a lot of violent rapists, but women do not seem to care about them, and they don’t care about preventing that crime. They don’t advocate for harsher sentences and they don’t want to prevent the rape-inclined from migrating here.

Not sure how I'm supposed to want to read on when your comment starts with this.

46% of women voted for Trump in 2024.

A third of AfD's voters are women.

In recent elections, the LePen/Bardella National Rally party has been getting about equal support from men and women.

But Goodgoy, there’s no reason to believe that they voted for Trump because of his stance on rapists. The premier 2016 magamaiden who complained about sexual assault by foreigners was Laura Southern, and she later hopped on a private jet to spend time with Known Foreign Arch-GigaRapist Andrew Tate, where she was promptly MegaRaped.

the Gulf Arabs with 1/300th the rape per capita as us

I have no faith in foreign crime stats. I have no reason to think they count almost all rape as rape. Islam in particular has norms of rejecting rape allegations. So those women know better than to complain when raped.

I think the demand for stories of male rapists outstrips the supply.

The demand for degenerate tales of upper-class white-passing male rapists where one can feed the Narrative about sexual assault at college outstrips supply.

Degenerate tales of poor rapists with poor victims are a dime a dozen but "woman gets wrecked with her dealer who then assaults her" isn't as fun for thinkpiece generators.

The demand for degenerate tales of upper-class white-passing male rapists where one can feed the Narrative about sexual assault at college outstrips supply.

Yeah, I was about to make the same point. Actually, if I am not mistaken, while the Duke Lacrosse Rape Hoax was going on, there was an actual gang rape by members of a sports team at another university in North Carolina. But the accused were from a different demographic and the case got very little attention.

And it's not only progressives who are eager to inflate stories of elite white male misbehavior. Apolitical middle- and upper-class readers/viewers find it more interesting too. For reasons of it being more naturally compelling to see people like yourself.

What case was this? I haven't heard of it and would like to learn more

What case was this? I haven't heard of it and would like to learn more

I can't remember, it was like 20 years ago. And it's possible my mind is playing tricks on me. That being said, it does happen now and then that there are accusations of gang rape against men who don't fit the narrative of elite men misbehaving. And those cases don't get anywhere near the level of attention you get from a Duke Lacrosse type situation.

The solution here is that Cornell should've expelled her after she reported this incident. Per her own statement and the various text messages, she voluntarily went unchaperoned to a party with the intent to engage in fornication with two men, and she consumed illegal drugs while there. I'm sure this was after curfew and she was probably out of uniform when she arrived, too.

Much of the same analysis applies to the men. They consumed alcohol and illegal drugs and engaged in fornication. Easy grounds for expulsion. The fraternity org itself should be fined for allowing an unchaperoned woman to enter the house.

Of course none of that would ever happen after the civil rights era eliminated universities acting in loco parentis because that was impeding student freedoms to consume drugs, engage in fornication, attend leftist protests, etc. The activists succeeded wildly and students now have those freedoms (apart from maybe at a few private religious universities). In fact, it's a big selling point of university that it's 4 years to drink, party, have sex, and generally make questionable choices. It's a shocked pikachu face moment that the freedom to make questionable or poor choices occasionally leads to questionable or poor outcomes.

Cornell recently released survey results claiming that 35% of female undergraduates reported non-consensual sexual contact in the last year (it will not take long for anyone here reviewing this survey to spot many issues). Given the apparent epidemic of such behavior, it would seem time to return to universities having far more control over student behavior to keep those students safe.

Cornell recently released survey results claiming that 35% of female undergraduates reported non-consensual sexual contact in the last year

Did they send the same survey to men as well?

Cornell recently released survey results claiming that 35% of female undergraduates reported non-consensual sexual contact in the last year (it will not take long for anyone here reviewing this survey to spot many issues).

This pisses me off. Being raped is not the same thing has some rando trying to dry hump you at a nightclub or a friend trying to grab your ass while drunk. As a woman I'd rather we report statistics about actual scary and life changing situations rather than obscuring the numbers with nonsense. Especially as real rape skyrockets in some countries.

Pretty sure that one dropped the bar as low as "Have you ever felt pressured?"

No, figures 6 and 6a in the linked PDF give 35 percent specifically for the proportion of undergraduate women "experiencing nonconsensual sexual contact involving force or incapacitation" (8 percent for undergraduate men, 15 percent for all undergraduates and graduates).

National discussions concerning the prevalence of sexual violence on college campuses often define such violence as including experiences of nonconsensual penetration (including attempted penetration) and/or sexual touching that involves physical force and/or incapacitation. We have expanded that definition to explicitly list unwanted choking or strangulation as a form of nonconsensual sexual contact.

Huh. You are very correct. I would like to amend my previous snarky comment. I am no longer being facetious. Cornell University should be shut down, and the people responsible for it's operations charged with assorted relevant crimes.

It'd be a brilliant move for the Trump admin to shut down all coeducational universities under the guise of investigating all sexual crimes committed up to this day.
Perhaps prevent any new Pell grants to these universities until they can prove that no rape is happening at any time.
It's not like in-person universities are needed at this time, students can just google/AI a curriculum.

Cornell recently released survey results claiming that 35% of female undergraduates reported non-consensual sexual contact in the last year (it will not take long for anyone here reviewing this survey to spot many issues). Given the apparent epidemic of such behavior, it would seem time to return to universities having far more control over student behavior to keep those students safe.

More like time to shut down Cornell University and bring charges against everyone responsible for its operations. Cornell is more dangerous for women than an African nation in a civil war where rape is being specifically and broadly used as a weapon!

I'm sure this was after curfew and she was probably out of uniform when she arrived, too.

Who/whom here? Who does this benefit? What is the point of it? I think the only bad thing that happened here, conditioned on the existing sexual marketplace, is that this girl decided to lie. The sex itself was fine. Sex is not magic. It's not magically wrong. I would prefer a sexual marketplace where there is easier access to loving monogamy as it is far more enjoyable than a sausagefest gangbang but the problem is generally not enough sex is happening, so I can't fault people for doing it in a different way. It's like a famine, and these people found some bread. Is steak better? Yes. But let them eat bread.

It's good toxoplasm of rage stuff and ultimately not that interesting to me. It will probably go nowhere because apparently most of the men weren't white. I expect lots of stupid stuff in the mean time. It's all so tiresome, etc...

But I just want to share this story that I saw on X because it's too good. It appears to be true.

Apparently, in 2014 at Washington State University, there was actually a case of this happening with the roles reversed. A female and male student got drunk and had sex. He was more drunk than she was. His friends were worried about him because she was short and very fat. Apparently the friends even went to check on him. He said he got uncomfortable and tried to leave but she tried to keep him from leaving. But he also apparently at one point left to get a condom and came back. Afterwards, he filed a complaint against her. The school ruled that she had violated the code of conduct and expelled her, because obviously he wouldn't want to fuck someone so ugly.

So, see guys, it's not just a cudgel to use against men. 0.001% of the time it's also used against women!

News article with broken embed for primary source, fixed here

Student A said that after the sexual contact had occurred he "realiz[ed] [it was] bad and [he] wanted out". He said he "kept trying to leave" but Student B asked him to wait. He said he felt uncomfortable, and he told Student B he had to leave to find his friends. Student A said he left Student B's room and "ended up" in Student C's room and told her what had happened…

Based on the foregoing and the totality of the evidence documented by the investigation, using a standard of "more likely than not", OEO finds:

  • (9) Student A and Student B went to Student B's residence hall room where kissing, oral sexual contact, and attempted vaginal intercourse occurred.

  • (10) Based on findings five through seven above, OEO finds that Student A was much more intoxicated than Student B at the time sexual contact occurred.

  • (11) Student B attempted to isolate Student A several times throughout the night…

  • (12) Student A was severely intoxicated at the time of sexual contact. As a result of his intoxication, he lacked the ability to understand the nature or consequences of his actions, and was therefore incapable of consenting to sexual activity.

  • (13) Student B knew, or should have known, of Student A's level of intoxication and his inability to understand the nature or consequences of his actions at the time of the sexual contact with Student A.

Student A said that if he had been sober he would "absolutely not" have engaged in sexual contact with Student B, in part because he had never had sexual contact before this incident. He said he felt "violated" and "uncomfortable" following the incident.

It would seem that the legal system has so far behaved reasonably well. No criminal charges have been filed, and the lawsuit was opened two weeks ago. Hopefully she will get no money, but now everyone will know about her. That would be justice in this case.

I mean she already lost the case in Cornell, and it seems like a gigantic bow to draw in the 2020s that an institution like Cornell would be falling over itself to help a bunch of frat boys accused of anything like this if they didn't have a pretty airtight defense.

All that has to happen is Letitia James has to find a friendly judge who will throw out all the exculpatory evidence and/or ignore the law and rule that voluntary intoxication negates consent. She's likely got a rolodex full of such.

Good luck getting an impartial jury for this too.

Probably they'll invite Mattress Girl to be on the jury.

I remember there being a coda to the Mattress Girl story where she ended up dating a conservative Chad. That was a long time ago though. I wonder what happened. Lots of women chill out politically with the right high-status husband.

I guess that's true I'd just expect whatever passes for a justice system/review at Cornell University would already be quite far along the spectrum to that interpretation.

I don't understand the signed victim statement to the police. It seems to really undermine the case, assuming the prosecutor's statement accurately summarizes it. It was done voluntarily working with the campus police, then she was given a chance to review it and apply edits before signing under penalty of perjury.

But the DA (several attorneys in the office) failed to, even assuming it completely true, find all the required elements of the purported crimes. Assuming the summary is accurate, this seems a really big own goal. Why submit such a thing at all? It was voluntary. I assume she didn't have a lawyer (I suppose "always have a lawyer when talking to police" remains evergreen advice), and either didn't know herself, or none of the parties she was working with bothered to tell her of the required elements. I could see some claim of impartially not prompting for details, maybe, but surely they were asking loads of questions about these details for their investigation ("were you coerced?"), and I'd expect at least someone friendly to make it known. Was she trying to claim "I went to the police" without really intending charges to stick? I'm really uncertain.

I can at least sympathize that she has probably gone through a lot socially and self-imposed as a result of the events in question. The law doesn't give you a right to see the party who wronged you punished, unfortunately (not sure I'd want that generally anyway). And this case exists in a blurry line between longstanding puritanical and libertine post-sexual revolution norms: plenty of naive readers will think no woman would ever consent to that (probably few, but there are, uh, documented examples for better or worse). Or that any intoxication implies no consent --- if we jailed everyone that had sex drunk, I'm not sure how many would be many left. Others will assume she knew the long term implications of those choices. It's a great setup for a scissor statement, and I'm not even sure I have an answer myself.

IMO it's reasonable to let the justice system sort it out the specific case, but I think the meta-principles could use more open discussion.

But the DA (several attorneys in the office) failed to, even assuming it completely true, find all the required elements of the purported crimes. Assuming the summary is accurate, this seems a really big own goal. Why submit such a thing at all? It was voluntary.

Reading around I heard this girl also said stuff like «back in the medieval this was normal» to the boys whiles doing stuff. So she's clearly at Cornell on something other than academic merit.

Horny nerd girls with wildly all over the place values and legitimately good grades aren't that rare. I had an occasional hookup who I could honestly see this sort of thing happening to since she was bigly into the idea of group sex/cnc/free use who is now a fairly high powered lawyer and did fine academically.

Now you gotta go and find out:

  • her stance on the Cornell story
  • her stance on Lindsay

I am not saying that only stupid girls are horny. Just that this one was not that bright. Not because she had sex but because of her dumb statements as well as her apparent failure to understand what she was doing.

I think the demand for male rapists outstrips the supply. A lot of people want the Cornell 7 to be rapists, but they aren't.

No, I think this is just another example of the toxoplasma of rage where the most dubious rape cases are the ones that go viral.

If a case is unambiguous, it gets dealt with by either the criminal justice system or the campus courts to the victim's satisfaction, so they don't feel the need to start a big public pressure campaign around it.

Even a lot of more minor cases turn out to be non-stories. Jacob Geller did... something that warranted only a one-semester suspension during peak #BelieveWomen, he immediately fell on the sword when questioned, everyone he's ever worked with wrote one perfunctory tweet each about how he's cancelled, and we all moved on with our lives.

I think I agree with @dailydogma on this. Here's a thought experiment: Suppose there was a Duke Lacrosse type situation, i.e. a bunch of upper class and upper middle class white guys were accused of raping a poor black woman. Except that they were actually guilty and there was overwhelming video evidence to prove it. I'm pretty confident that it would be huge news.

No, I think this is just another example of the toxoplasma of rage where the most dubious rape cases are the ones that go viral.

I don't think dubious stories are more likely to go viral. Rather, the difference between this story and most rape convictions is one of class. High class rape stories go viral. Most rape convictions are low class, rather mundane. But precisely because true high class rape is exceedingly rare, most stories people latch onto are dubious. Dubiousness is a self-own and I think this story will ultimately backfire on the people who really want it to be true.

High class rape stories go viral.

The intersectionalists made a lot about how "MeToo" was first put forward by a black activist in the 2000s, but didn't take off until celebrity women used it.

In that case a lot of the lurid stories were true.