'Date Rape' on Campus

By Murray N. Rothbard

A lot of strange things are happening on college campuses these days, and one of them is a great deal of kvetching about the alleged epidemic of “date rape.” William Celis 3rd’s special report to the New York Times on the subject (Jan. 1) is best summed up by its subtitle: “Agony on Campus: What is Rape?” To a libertarian, or indeed to any sensible person, there is no problem: if the sex was coercive, and took place against the will of one of the parties, then it was rape and if not, not. If it was, you call in the gendarmes, and if it wasn’t, you don’t. So what’s the big problem?

But to the current generation of college students, things are very different. One says; “it’s such a fuzzy topic,” and another adds, “it’s easy to look at sex and second-guess.” There follows a lot of guff about how the feminist movement has succeeded in alerting countless coeds about this terrible problem. But why should it take feminist theoreticians to inform a girl that she has been raped? Why is this topic “fuzzy,” when to this reactionary it appears clear-cut? What’s going on here?

Reading on, we find that many men are confused about these rising protests by college females. The guys charge that “women with whom they have had sex did not say ‘no’ and did not physically resist, yet later complained of date rape.” Other “angrier” men claim that “in some cases women have encouraged their advances.” But the feminists lash back that these are “after-the-fact excuses.” Instead, “sexual intercourse, they argue, should proceed from clear mutual consent.”

Now we’re getting somewhere. For whether or not “encouragement” took place, it strikes me as crystal-clear that if the girl did not say no and did not physically resist, then sex did indeed take place by “clear mutual consent.” What do the feminists want? Will they only be satisfied if (a) the two parties sign an express consent form before the act, and then (b) sign another one immediately after? And have them both notarized on the spot, with forms sent in triplicate to their respective attorneys and to the county clerk? If so, the notary publics in college towns are in for a thriving business, plus some Peeping Tom (or Tomasina) opportunities on the side.

The point is that

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