American University student and columnist Alex Knepper probably wasn't expecting to wind up featured on The Huffington Post's College section for days — days! — after suggesting in a recent column that drunk girls have no one to blame but themselves when they fall victim to date rape. Provided, of course, that they don't manage to clearly state to their frat-bro suitor, in a boozed-up haze, that they'd kindly prefer not to engage in intercourse at this time.
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"Any woman who heads to an EI party as an anonymous onlooker, drinks five cups of the jungle juice and walks back to a boy's room with him is indicating that she wants sex, OK?" says Knepper's now infamous polemic, quoted nearly 600 times on various websites, according to Google.
Most seem to immediately categorize the column, titled "Dealing with AU's anti-sex brigade," as some sort of pro-rape abomination. "Roxann MtJoy" posted an article in response on Change.org's Women's Rights section with the headline "American University Paper Runs Rape Apologist Column." HuffPo's report on the story has over 3,000 comments, one of which posits a vivid hypothetical situation in which Knepper is gang-banged by five male friends after "they ply him" with alcohol. And CBS' "Early Show" ran a four-minute segment on the controversy based entirely on the date rape premise.
The date rape premise comprises about 149 of the column's 541 words.
There are many things wrong with Knepper's column: exclamation points outnumber cogent arguments, it could not offer a more base, offensive stereotype of feminists if it tried (they don't, according to Knepper, "understand history, psychology, biology or sexuality"), and it ends with a call to action that demands readers "put down the Andrea Dworkin and embrace the fires of sexuality!" Yeah — yikes.
But I can't help but feel bad for Knepper to an extent. Like me, he's a young college student feeling out how to express his opinion, most likely developing his arguments on a day-to-day basis rather than surrendering himself to miserable, Ann Coulter-like stasis. He overextended himself a bit and made a radical claim or two that resulted in his getting utterly reamed by the burning clenched fist of the Internet. Sure, he said some stupid things about date rape, but his argument was completely blown out of proportion by the fierce media attention.
College journalists have a burden unlike ever before. A column in The Eagle, American's newspaper, sure as hell isn't about to stay confined to its campus of 6,311 people. It's going to get hurled into cyberspace, and untold thousands are going to read it. Perfection is now prioritized ahead of experimentation because of the immense scrutiny our work is put under. Frankly, I think that's a pretty unfair burden to put on someone in a university setting, where learning and talent development should be the primary goals.
Consider this: because of resources like the Huffington Post, unpaid college writers often find themselves at the mercy of a larger audience than a professional journalist writing for a lesser-known, or less-publicized, publication. Is it fair to hold the two to the same standard? Does Knepper deserve to have his name immortalized on Change.org, CBS and hundreds of other websites because of something he thought when he was an undergraduate?
Either way, I guess college journalists have to acknowledge their responsibility in this new age, what with that zany Google and all. I just hope that readers — and other writers — do the same.
