According to the CBC, “Saint Mary’s University in Halifax is promising disciplinary action after a frosh week chant glorifying underage sex with girls without consent was posted online.” Read the rest of their story, Saint Mary’s University frosh chant cheers underage sex, here.
I’m outraged both at the students and their chant and at the media for the way they’re talking about it. Non-consensual sex is rape, isn’t it? Please call it what it is.
You can also watch the video, and hear journalists again use the phrase “non-consensual sex” here at the Globe and Mail.
UPDATE: Salon does a better job, emphasis mine. “Consider this your humorless, offended feminist scolding of the day. Student leaders at Halifax’s Saint Mary’s University are being disciplined after an Instagram video posted on Monday revealed them leading an orientation week chant extolling the joys of sexual assault. And disciplined they should be. The brief clip shows a crowd of students, male and female, chanting, “SMU boys, we like them young. Y is for your sister. O is for oh so tight. U is for underage. N is for no consent. G is for grab that ass.” And W is for WTF?” See here for more.
Gross and shameful.
However, “non-consensual sex” and “rape” are not interchangeable except perhaps in a very colloquial sense. In many places, there are criminal acts of non-consensual sex for which the offence is designated by terms other than rape even though they are treated equivalent to rape in terms of sanctions. This was discussed here:
https://feministphilosophers.wordpress.com/2013/08/02/yale-still-not-getting-it-about-rape/