The White House got behind the meme, of course, since they haven't done much public hand wringing on the subject lately, and suddenly it has a website (#ItsOnUs - more male shaming/white knighting) and it's a Movement.
I'm not going to try to re-hash misinterpreted and poorly gathered statistics on the subject here. Others have done that far better than I could. But that was just one symptom. Along came "Yes Means Yes" consent laws in California and elsewhere, "Dear Colleague" letters, the UVa rape scandal, Mattress Girl, Lena Dunham's fabrications, and all of a sudden making out with a girl from the same school you go to is an exercise in legal and academic freedom. I am going to criticize the really, really crappy marketing this here Movement has come up with. Using threats and celebrity endorsements and blanket male shaming, it takes a decidedly misandrist approach to the subject.
Don't mistake me: I'm not pro-rape. No one is. Consent is essential to the exercise of good sexual practice. But I've seen too many times just how prevalent the on-campus call of rape is. The special rules, the town v. gown laws, all seek to make men more vulnerable to false rape accusations on campus. I've also seen what a serial rapist can do to a campus, if undetected.
True story: a bud of mine, way back in college, had a dorm room threesome with his girlfriend and her best friend. A total of 3 beers were consumed by the three of them. He wasn't even particularly into it, but his girlfriend wanted to "help out" her best friend who was in a losing streak, and he was a stalwart dude, so he bit the bullet and had mediocre sex with two girls.
Three weeks later he hears rumors how he "raped" both women . . . despite the fact that his girlfriend insisted that everything was consensual. Apparently her best friend got convinced by a Campus Feminist ("Building A Compelling Argument For The Manosphere Since 1983!") that her one beer and low self-esteem somehow counteracted all of that hazily remembered 'consent' stuff she had actively voiced. Even if she had technically consented, the argument was, she was clearly taken advantage of. Therefore it was rape.
No official accusations were ever made, no campus kangaroo court, no shred of evidence was ever produced, but my bud learned his lesson. He had indulged unwisely and dallied with the wrong girl . . . and he nearly had his life ruined over it. He gave his girlfriend an ultimatum and quietly moved on with his life, older and wiser.
Things are even worse today, now that the anti-rape, anti-male crusade has become institutionalized. Screwing a collegiate undergraduate from the same school you attend is dicing with Fate over your life. (As most schools' campus codes of conduct only cover student-on-student or student-on-teacher sex, screwing a collegiate undergraduate from a nearby school is a LOT safer bet in most situations).
Today, I'm not sure I could even stomach what passes for dating and mating on campus.
But there is a way that the young Red Pill man can help stop campus sexual assault:
Drop out of college.
Seriously, fellas. Think about what you are doing to yourself by inflicting this rose-covered vision of success on yourself before you're committed.
Getting into student loan debt of any size over classes like "Introduction To Digital Photography" and "Contemporary Topics In Hip Hop Culture" is just stupid. When you're 30 and poverty stricken, perhaps it will suddenly become useful, but going to any kind of serious university (say, Belle Knox's prestigious institution) and spending enough to buy half a house every year for four years is insanity - particularly if you have no idea what you want to do. And since most college-age guys do not, indeed, know what they want to do, college ends up being an expensive vacation you pay for for decades . . . and it doesn't even help that much getting a job.
Now that college men are being targeted for anti-rape crusades like this, you can add a potential life-ruining event into your expensive vacation - some extra charges may apply. In addition to crippling debt, student poverty, and a murky future at best, you can add the specter of a campus show trial and the ruination of your reputation, just because that girl who had totally consensual sex with you last night has a boyfriend, and she feels guilty about what she did with you.
But your parents are on your back to do something, and OF COURSE they want you to go to college. To get an Education. To get a Good Job. So you can attract a Good Wife and give them Grandchildren, while you make them proud with your career as a ____________ (anything but an Art Historian). The problem is that this schedule just isn't working anymore. Men are getting to college, finding the "collegiate experience" to be crappy, and are finding all sorts of excuses to drop out.
University educators are quietly freaking-the-fuck-out over it, as the campus sex ratios start skewing heavily female and the college graduation rates start doing more so. Only they can't come out and say "Hey, we're scaring off all the dudes!" because that would be dis-empowering to the young women who are taking their places, and the daddies who are paying for it. A majority of female students on campus is exactly what feminism wants, so making that a "problem" isn't a good career move for a college administrator. Instead they're couching the issue in terms of "retention" and "graduation completion", and just not mentioning that the majority of drop-outs and never-finished students happen to have penises.
Thing is, this is an even bigger problem for the schools, and they know it. As pleasing a prospect as a majority female campus is to the HuffPo crowd, it's a serious issue for the institutional health of a university. Why? Because female alumni just don't donate to schools the way that successful male alumni do . . . and they very, very rarely make staggering multi-million dollar endowments or pay to get buildings named after them, the way that patriarchal, egotistical alpha success-junkies do. That's bad news for anyone into institutional giving. College count on succeeding generations of alumni to fill the fund-raising gap, and a bunch of low-donor female graduates whose husbands (if any) really don't want to donate to the school where his wife learned about penises.
(Digression: UVa frats, do you really want to fuck with your college over their punitive treatment of your hallowed institutions? Send out letters to your alumni requesting that they postpone any further institutional contributions to the college until a more reasonable and respectful approach to this issue is discovered. Look at the number of alumni gifts that come from former fraternity members - you'll find it not only surpasses the gifts by non-frat almums, but that it dwarfs gifts from sorority alums. If UVa realizes that it's going to fall short $10 million this year in its giving campaign, you'll start to get their attention.)
Consider that a college education, the usual 4 year sheepskin from pretty much any accredited school, is likely going to be required only if you are pursuing an advanced degree in a professional field, such as medicine, law, or STEM. For most positions you are likely to encounter, your brand-spanking new degree that you worked so hard for is a tick mark on someone's form and an extra space on your resume, nothing more. "Some college" tends to work as well as "College graduate" for most jobs.
So unless you have a burning desire to be a lawyer or doctor - at 18? really? - and have already dedicated yourself to your chosen vocation, going to college without a definite plan is a great way to waste your youth and your parent's money.
A better bet is to take 2-3 years off after high school, figure out your first career at your leisure, and work your ass off. Coming back to school when you're older and wiser and have a better idea of what you want out of life saves time, money, and effort.
There's method to my madness. In evaluating male and female patterns of occupational social behavior (because that's the sort of thing Sex Nerds do) it is becoming more and more clear to me that while Women Love Opportunistically and Men Love Idealistically, in terms of career development and approach to the workplace Women Work Idealistically and Men Work Opportunistically.
That is, when the most successful men and women's careers are examined, in general it can be said that men tend to "luck into" their successful careers or exploit an innate talent or interest, whereas women view work and their vocational aspirations in more noble terms. This can keep them from taking the risks their male counterparts take, and keep them working in an unfavorable position against their best interest out of a sense of duty to the ideal - not the job.
(Yet according to feminism women's failure to get ahead in the business world is due to "institutionalized sexism" . . .)
Dudes work differently. You should exploit that by not automatically accepting a preformed template of success left over from an age where it actually worked sometime. If men do best when they discover their own talents and interests and follow them opportunistically, then locking yourself into an ever-decreasing possible number of career paths through a premature commitment to academics might be the very worst thing for you to do.
Consider what your life would be like if you spent the 18-20 period in hard core monk mode? Get a dumb job, enough to pay whatever expenses you have, and then pump iron and read every day. In two years, you could read the hundred greatest books of all time, which I guarantee would be a more impressive education than you'd get from State U. And six pack abs beat the Freshman Fifteen for SMV any day.
Some alternatives to college for the ambitious young man:
1) Military Service
Not everyone's cup of tea, but if you want the most basic, traditional way of "making a man out of you", then you can't beat military life. Sure, it sucks. It's supposed to. But the skills you take away from it will last you a lifetime, and your chances of banging inexpensive Asian hookers goes up. While being in the military during the middle of a shooting war is exciting, and potentially career-ending, it does train you for basic security and a bunch of other post-military job. Plus there is a growing trend towards privatized security. Let the US Army teach you everything you need to know to be a mercenary in the Third World, and develop your badass aura.
2) Religious Service
Rarely taken seriously as a vocation anymore, thanks to the dilution of religion with free-form spirituality (not judging, here, just observing) a young man of a contemplative or compassionate bent might consider investing two years of his youth in the service of his church or religion. Mormons already do this as a mandatory act of transition to adulthood. If you are Catholic, Lutheran or Buddhist consider finding a monastery and seeing if you can't volunteer and participate in monastic life. If you're a Neopagan, consider devoting yourself in service to the Land for two years. Or if you are spiritually inclined but ignorant of religion, consider taking two years to explore your faith in context of religion. You might not gain great job skills, but in terms of personal and spiritual development it's hard to argue with the rewards of service.
3) Practice A Craft
Men work with their hands, even the ones who work with their minds. Most dudes have at least the ambitions to build stuff, even if they don't have the skills or the basic idea how to do so. If you've always wanted to build a guitar, a car, a bar, or a boat, now is the time to do so. Find a guy who's doing what you want to do and ask him to learn. Explore what talents your hands and eye might have. Learn how to build a wall, lay bricks, pound nails, dig a ditch, pour concrete, paint, whatever it is that you have a talent or fascination with,, this is the ideal time for you to explore that.
4) Travel
"Backpacking in Europe" instead of going to college is such a cliche that it's not even humorous anymore. But travel, as the venerable Roosh V has demonstrated, is an excellent way for a Red Pill man to broaden his horizons. Beyond Europe there is a whole world of incredible discovery available to you, usually for a lot cheaper than even living at home, if you know how to travel. Nor do you have to get a passport, if you don't want to. Spend two years going to wherever you want to, doing whatever you like, and see what places and people speak to your soul.
5) Learn a Trade
If learning a craft isn't your forte, consider learning a trade. Don't limit yourself to traditional male jobs like construction, if you can help it, there are a lot of perfectly good trades that can give you a good economic base from which to pursue more elaborate plans. Bartenders tend to be low-skilled positions that can be found anywhere, and the perks are well-known. Similarly learning how to be a high-end barista can get you work anywhere but Utah. Cooking is another great skill, and one that lends itself to universal employment opportunities. Believe it or not, learning how to cut hair allowed one of my friends to leave his depressing job as an analyst and embark on a world tour, with only his kit and his backpack. He was able to work in high-end salons (where the pussy was righteous) but he would also offer to cut anyone's hair in the campgrounds he stayed in for just $10. Two cuts and he'd paid for his rent and his meals for the day. There are many good service trades that a young man can master pretty quickly, allowing him to start reaping the benefits of employment. Find one and learn it.
One other advantage of skipping the boilerplate college experience? It keeps you from facing a lower standard of proof in a he-said, she-said shouting match over whether her enthusiastic fellatio also implied consent for coitus, or not, and other such diversions. Campus Sexual Assault has become a serious issue. Everyone says so. Clearly men are at fault. So clearly the absolute best thing that we, as men, can do to stop this horrible scourage is to avoid college without a compelling reason to go there.
Sure, if you want to be a doctor and a lawyer, then go. If you have a free ride lined up, GO. If there is an actual reason beyond "I graduated High School and I didn't know what else to do", then yes, consider college. But if not . . . don't believe the hype. You'll have more fun, more money, and be in a better situation than if you went. You can ALWAYS go back later, when you've figured out a career path to pursue and you've committed to it. Your SMV and Game will be far higher then, anyway, and you'll have the sophistication to avoid most of the boneheaded pitfalls everyone else makes. But don't go right out of high school.
This move serves not just you, it serves the forces of greater positive masculinity. Women are already the dominant force in most colleges. Let them be. The corporate feminist Lean In model of graduate universities are producing are not who you want to tie your fortunes to as a man, anyway.
Better to get a solid STEM degree, or apprentice in a trade, and spend your leisure time enjoying your youth, not struggling to remember Medieval French that you will never use again. By ceding the universities to women, men will actually improve their individual lots by making far better informed choices in academics, career, and mating opportunities.
Of course, that would be BAD news for college women, many of whom are secretly (desperately!) hoping they can land a future doctor or lawyer in time to pick up their $50k student loan debt for her Art History degree. It would also be BAD news for college age women who want to marry in the future at all. Less men at school means less "acceptable" partners for hypergamous marriage. And less dudes on campus means an explosion of Puerarchy, those fellas feminists love to hate.
So help stop campus sexual assault. Don't go to college. It's really that simple.