© 2009 NCSU Student Media
Our beautiful, state-funded campus will host the living embodiment of the American Dream tonight. His name is Tucker Max, dean of date rape. Of course, nowadays, one can make a nice living parading around in a freshly decaled tour bus, spreading a progressive message of “hey, let’s get drunk and have sex, it’s not rape.”
With jokes like “fat girls aren’t real people” and a Magic Johnson AIDS joke, his film looks about as fresh as Andrew Dice Clay. Sorry guys, this is not comedy. Comedy is about pushing the line and being offensive but it should create a construct with a larger point (i.e. Borat).
The film is nowhere close to his writings, which are a waste of precious paper. Writing down the demeaning and sick things you have done to women does not constitute comedy or, as some defenders have asserted, satire.
The scary thing is not that he is some monster, sage or trailblazer — he is shockingly normal.
Here is a teachable moment: having sex with someone who is drunk, meets the legal definition of rape. This is not my opinion — the North Carolina General Statute says it is second-degree rape to have sexual intercourse with someone who is unable to give consent (i.e. intoxicated or passed out). You may know people who do this or have done this. The National College Women Victimization Study published research indicating that 25 percent of women experience rape or attempted rape during college. Having someone on campus who prides himself on his drunken conquests does not make this statistic go down.
Max likes to point out that any woman who would sleep with him drunk, probably deserves it. At first that sounds pretty reasonable. But upon further inspection, it is clear that societal pressures nudge women and men to engage in dangerous behavior. Men who think it is cool to get pissed every weekend and behave in a way similar to that of Tucker Max are not supermen, transcending the societal norms and conventional morality. They have been suckered by the major alcohol companies, ping-pong ball lobbies, Solo Cup Inc. and their friends into intellectual slavery.
Anyone who dares utter a word more complex than “taint” is called “gay” — castrated for his perceived femininity. For the record, there is nothing less manly than essentially sleeping through lovemaking, with the prize not being love, but only the admiration of your friends the next morning.
As Simone de Beauvoir once said, “One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.” The mirror is true for men. A person of the male sex does not become a man by demeaning women, who are every bit our equals.
You become a man by treating everyone with respect; by admitting when you are wrong and realizing that those whose lives are less fortunate than yours have dignity.
You need to think for yourself and not cave into the chants of the faceless crowd. Only then do you deserve the title of man. Until then, you are still a boy.