Yale University fraternity says sorry for rape chant of "No means yes"

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      Advocating rape has found its way on to the list of misogynistic practices featured in the pledging process for joining a Yale University fraternity.

      A YouTube video posted on October 13 records members of the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity marching with their pledges around Yale’s Old Campus—which houses most of Yale’s freshman women—chanting “No means yes, yes means anal”.

      They also chanted, “My name is Jack, I’m a necrophiliac, I fuck dead women, and fill them with my semen.”

      The frightening video has spurred responses from the Yale Women’s Center, which has called it “hate speech” and “an active call for sexual violence”.

      In an opinion piece for the Yale Daily News, Women’s Center board members wrote that the incident is a “jarring reminder that Yale is not always a safe place for women”.

      “For everyone on Yale’s campus, this sets a tone for our community’s sexual culture that is at best irreverent, and at worst, violent,” the board members added.

      The student newspaper reported today (October 15) that DKE has apologized to the Women’s Center, and four fraternity members attended a meeting with five Women’s Center board members to discuss the situation.

      In an e-mail to the paper, DKE president Jordan Forney stated, “It was a serious lapse in judgement by the fraternity and in very poor taste.”

      Forney added that DKE doesn’t condone sexual violence.

      Unfortunately, not everyone seems to think that the hateful slogans warrant any kind of severe punishment.

      One commenter on the Daily News site said the Women’s Center’s is “overreacting” and called it just one of their “pet issues”. Another commenter deemed the incident just a “tongue in cheek misogynist rant”.

      Yale University has not said if any of the men involved will be punished.

      Former U.S. president George W. Bush served as president of the Yale chapter of Delta Kappa Epsilon when he studied at the Ivy League school.

      Comments

      26 Comments

      Kay Curry

      Oct 15, 2010 at 6:46pm

      I'm 64 years old. Rage doesn't come close to describing my reaction to this event. Here’s a question. Do any of you, instigators, participants, apologists, or commentators, love a woman? Wife, sister, mother, [potential] daughter]? Is it fine with you that rape and forcible sodomy are fine with Yale men? Do you really think that the Women’s Center has over-reacted? Try this for over-reaction: every member of every fraternity at Yale gets a tattoo across the chest, with a URL that links to a website that describes this travesty. Live with it. Try to explain it to the women in your life. If Darwin was right, our next generation might just be a little better than the previous.

      flipmore

      Oct 15, 2010 at 7:22pm

      When will all men be willing to say that sexual assault and sexual violence are never okay?

      Mark Johnson

      Oct 15, 2010 at 7:50pm

      Yesterday, the University of Victoria Students Society voted to re-instate the policy of non-recognition of fraternities and sororities on campus. At last year's AGM, members of Delta Kappa Epsilon managed to get the policy removed, and were planning to form an official chapter of DKE on campus this year. Luckily, it was shut down by a hugely-attended meeting this year.

      Many of the arguments against allowing fraternities and sororities included cases such as this. It's horrible that this culture is actually sanctioned by supposed institutions of higher learning. Anyone who disagrees with this type of behaviour needs to stand up and send a firm message that this is not ok

      Petar Ticinovic

      Oct 16, 2010 at 2:26am

      The Kennedy family still got the liberal "progressive" vote-need I say more?

      Barry McD

      Oct 16, 2010 at 5:27am

      Have dead people demanded an apology as well? If i were a dead person or zombie, I definitely would be considering litigation.

      A working-class guy

      Oct 16, 2010 at 1:09pm

      This is a universal issue, not one among just white, privileged boys at a ivy league frat house. It spans all religions and all social classes.

      It won't give any charity to homeless men because you never know which ones are rapists. I've heard too many horror stories of women getting gang-raped on city streets. And the thing is, these men want to go to jail, so they get fed and sheltered in the winter.

      There is marital rape. A woman's body does not become the property of a man just because she says "I do." The world's major religions are brutal and patriarchal (including the all time champion, Islam), but they think some flowery prose about Jesus and Mary Magdalene excuse the bible's horribly misogynist other passages. Christians cherry pick and choose what they want to believe out of the bible, and ignore the rest, as though it wasn't the word of God.

      There is date rape, of which many white college frat boys are guilty of every single day. If the Yale boys represent what white, privileged males in North America believe, it is this: when rape happens to a woman, she should have a sense of humour about it and get over it. That is the message behind "no means yes, and yes means anal."

      Of all the things they could have been doing that day, they chose to taunt their female classmates with "no means yes, and yes means anal." It was an initiation designed to test a pledges' willingness to look a woman in the eye and tell her that the definition of rape still is defined by the male assailant, and if he says it's consensual, well it must be consensual. It is some sort of test of a pledge's "stones." And it reveals a lot about what white college frat boys consider to be a core value: that women need to be reminded that their bodies belong to men.

      Men are the cowards in the battle against all forms of rape. Men can't let militant feminists monopolize the dialogue when it comes to women having control of their own bodies. Men have to educate other men when it comes to respecting a woman's right to choose her partners and her sexual encounters. We won't get to the college frat boys and US college football players: they think they can rape who they want when they want and their wealth and privilege will protect them. And for the most part, tragically, they are right. It's the men at the other end of the spectrum who can make a difference: truck drivers and construction workers, union delegates and white-collar middle management. There needs to be visible and substantial leadership in women's rights from the men who make up the majority of men in our society. We need to get angry that women still don't believe that their bodies belong to them and that they can't live with the freedom they want because of probable date rapists like those Yale frat boys.

      And it's not just an ivy league thing. How many rapes by US college basketball and football stars have been covered up because the assailant was just too valuable to the school to go to jail?

      Karen-Lynette Bauer

      Oct 17, 2010 at 11:39am

      So the men in Deke think rape and forced anal intercourse are funny?? I say we let prisoners in a local state house rape them, force them to have anal intercourse. Let's see if they're still laughing then.

      I think we should sue Yale for allowing sexual harassment. Anyone up for joining a class action lawsuit??

      omar

      Oct 17, 2010 at 3:18pm

      If I was a woman, I would be frightened listening to those chants. Women at Yale should carry guns.

      everybody knows

      Oct 17, 2010 at 3:49pm

      Surprise!

      We live in an abusive patriarchal class based society.

      And these men know they are better than you.

      Anon Pledge

      Oct 18, 2010 at 8:30am

      While this definitely reflects very poorly upon the fraternity, and the fraternity system as a whole, it may not be fair to view the pledges themselves as terrible people. As a pledge at a different frat at a different school, I may have gone along with something like this as it is an initiation activity that has basically no physical or mental discomfort for me, despite the terrible message it conveys