Mattress Wars

Is Emma Sulkowicz the new Oleanna? Or Joan of Mattress? When I first encountered the story, I assumed it was another tale of campus rape, mediated, probably, as usual, by drugs and booze, at a frat party or dorm room somewhere, with the usual cast of characters: young, naive woman out for a good time; young man dragging her off somewhere and forcing himself on her; young girl’s friends warning her, losing her, looking for her; young man’s friends laughing it all off and calling her a slut.

But this story didn’t work out that way. The alleged rape took place in Emma’s room, and was, in it’s initial stages– by her own account– consensual. But, she claims, he took it too far, and forced her into anal sex. But, then again, she didn’t seem to regard it as non-consensual for quite a few days afterwards, as she exchanged friendly Facebook messages with Paul Nungesser, the “perp” in this story. And then again, some of her messages seemed rather specifically expressive: wanna come over and have anal sex?

Emma didn’t file a complaint immediately. In fact, she exchanged friendly Facebook messages with him for sometime after the event. It appears that only after encountering other young women who had relationships with the young man– and the young man’s detachment from her– that she decided that the anal sex had been, after all, non-consensual.

She went to the University and explained her situation. The University, even after refusing to look at the Facebook messages, or to hear from Paul Nungesser, declined to suspend the alleged perpetrator. Emma then went to the police. The DA also declined. I haven’t read a good account of why both the University and the DA didn’t proceed with charges, but it seems likely that Emma was honest enough to admit to exchanging messages with the alleged perpetrator that, at the very least, made it difficult to press the case that the sex was “non-consensual”. I wish we could hear the conversation with the University officials: there must have been something remarkable there for them to decline to punish a student for an alleged rape.

What is remarkable is that Emma Sulkowicz, from her statements and actions, appears to have a different idea of “non-consensual” than even devoted feminists have held up til now. She seems to actually believe that no matter how consensual the act was at the time, bad behavior by the man afterwards can justify a retroactive assessment of the act as rape. This is intriguing to me because I don’t think she is unique in this regard. Some of her comments about Nungesser suggest that her accusation is based more on a judgement of his character than her memory of the incident. Something about her comments sounds familiar and disturbing, in the sense that I wonder just how reliable some allegations made by other women are– which is something one should not wonder.

If there was any doubt about the nature of Emma’s accusations, she has released a video of herself and a male actor recreating the “rape”, from several angles, with considerable authenticity. The sex is not simulated. This is quite possibly the strangest attempt to build credibility I have ever heard of. The experience was so awful that I will recreate it, as artistic expression? You could build a lot of aesthetic theory on the idea but in terms of how this furthers her demands for “justice”, I am mystified.

Is this all drama? All of it? The mattress, the allegations, the protests, the re-enactment? Is the relationship itself another drama, with the University and the District Attorney denying Emma her catharsis?

[whohit]Mattress Wars: Emma Sulkowicz[/whohit]