When Did Rape Become “It Depends”?

Over the years, hundreds of posts have appeared here about Title IX and male students denied due process at campus sex tribunals because it involved one of the most heinous wrong ever. Rape. Of course, most wasn’t “rape” as its legally understood, but rather rape as its been redefined to mean whatever the putative “survivor” believes it to be, whether before, during or after. But it was rape. Believe the women. Me Too. Because it’s rape if the woman says it’s rape, and that’s all you need to know.

So how, then, did it become understandable, justifiable and forgivable, when rape, the real kind of rape, was perpetrated on Israeli women by Hamas soldiers? And then there’s murder. And kidnapping. And beheading babies, as is now confirmed by independent forensic pathologists?

On campus, Jewish students, who have tended to be every bit as progressive, if not more so, than others, have come to the realization that it’s no longer safe and welcoming. At least not to them, unless they shed all reason and morality to join with the forces who would rape and kill them. Then there are groups who share similar sensibilities toward Palestinians, even if Hamas would just as soon murder them without a thought.

What this has revealed is something that was clear long ago: If rape by Hamas is understandable, then it can’t be as heinous as is claims, and those innocent men whose lives are ruined by accusations can’t be justified as collateral damage in the war for woke women’s hegemony.

This by no means is intended to suggest that rape, at least real rape rather than the post-hoc accusations or the women who enthusiastically consent and then claim the next day they were  tipsy and get to be victims instead. Rape is, indeed, a heinous crime. And it’s just as heinous, if not more so, when perpetrated by Hamas as a weapon of terror. Some will call it a war crime, but Hamas isn’t a nation at war but terrorists. Everything it does is a crime, and war crimes only apply to distinguish what a nation does during the course of a war, where uniformed soldiers of one nation fight soldiers of another. War crimes makes no sense when applied to terrorists raping random civilians.

The explanation for this irrationality, this dissonance, is that there is no way to conform the woke paradigm of oppressed and oppressors with that conduct of Hamas, and so progressives gloss over the ugliness with a blithe “of course Hamas was wrong, but…” as they emote about the suffering of Palestinians from whence Hamas comes.

Kugel also explained that the age range of the victims spans from 3 months to 80 or 90 years old. Many bodies, including those of babies, are without heads.

Asked if they were decapitated, Kugel answered yes. Although he admits that, given the circumstances, it’s difficult to ascertain whether they were decapitated before or after death, as well as how they were beheaded, “whether cut off by knife or blown off by RPG,” he explained.

If the woke can shrug this off because the Palestinians are on their list of oppressed, and therefore cannot be held responsible for their conduct as black people can’t be racist, looting is the voice of the unheard and Hamas can’t be rapists, the issues crystallizes. What has ruined the lives of innocent young men on campus isn’t that they were accused of a heinous crime, for which they only defense is their word that it was an entirely consensual encounter until the next day, week or year, when it suddenly wasn’t.

It’s only about identity, that the accused were male and the accusers were female. The ability to manufacture excuses, which have been readily lapped up by progressive judges who will seize any rationalization to relieve themselves of the heavy burden of doing their job when they don’t want to, Colleges claim that they aren’t anti-male, but anti-rapist, and it’s not their fault that most rapists are male.

It’s a lie, and it’s always been a lie. It has always been about backing women, whether their accusations are true or false, whether there was a wrong or just some imaginary post-hoc trauma borne of a change of heart, Rape is wrong. Destroying the lives of innocent young men  denied a fair opportunity to defend themselves is wrong.

But now that we see how swiftly excuses were crafted to overcome the rapes by Hamas, we can see how what happened on campus was just another indulgence in identity at the expense of innocent male students. Like the Israeli women who were raped, the right identity prevails uber alles. It’s not about the conduct, the content of one’s character, but about identity. When did rape become “it depends”? It always was.