site banner

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 28, 2026

This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.

Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.

We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:

  • Shaming.

  • Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.

  • Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.

  • Recruiting for a cause.

  • Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.

In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:

  • Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.

  • Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.

  • Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.

  • Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.

On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.

4
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

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.

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.