Lil Wayne has emerged as an interesting figure for feminist critique. As a rapper, Wayne peppers his lyrics with “pussy” and “no homo.” As a public figure, he has reluctantly helped to raise awareness about sexual assault against males and growing up with an absent father. And Wayne’s lyrics, as misogynist as they are, are also playful enough to usher in a few rare feminist hints. Let’s play the Weezy lyrics game: feminist or misogynist?

First up: “A Milli,” a track off Tha Carter III:

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Don’t believe me when I say that people actually think drunk girls deserve to get raped? Let’s take the case of the 15-year-old California girl who was brutally gang-raped at her homecoming dance for hours in front of dozens of onlookers. Apparently, the victim had been drinking. For some people, that turns her horrific rape into a valuable morality tale that will put the fear into our nation’s drunk girls. Helpful Comments points us to some not-atypical online reactions to the story:

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Eighteen-year-old Seth Rudnitsky, a freshman student at the University of Maryland, has been charged with first-degree burglary after allegedly entering a G.W. residence hall and attempting to sexually assault several sleeping women. That’s according to the charging documents in the case, which allege that Rudnitsky initiated “unwanted physical contact” with the women, and entered one room with the “intent to commit a criminal act.” The G.W. Hatchet reports that one of the women has secured a stay-away order against Rudnitsky.

Rudintsky’s attorney, Mark Schamel, has got another theory: He was just being silly!

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In a staff editorial, George Washington University newspaper the Hatchet reacted to two recent incidents of on-campus violence by calling for a “shared responsibility for safety.” In the first incident, a stranger approached a graduate student in the bathroom of an academic building and hit him in the head with a hammer. In the second, a stranger approached several sleeping women in a Freshman dorm and sexually assaulted them.

“Both of these incidents exemplify ways that GW can improve security on its campus,” the Hatchet editorial informed students. According to the camps paper, the bathroom hammering reveals how the university needs to “better expedite information in response to major security threats on campus.” The sexual assault, meanwhile, “shows that students have a responsibility to keep themselves safe.”

Perhaps it was not the best choice of words.

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Early this morning, George Washington University police apprehended a suspect who had been seen attempting to “touch several females while they were sleeping.” According to a campus alert, a male student helped the suspect access campus dorm Thurston Hall at 19th and F Streets NW around 4:30 this morning. A security camera then recorded the male student “leaving the building alone soon after signing in his guest,” leaving the suspect unaccompanied in the freshman dorm.

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This week, Catholic University newspaper the Tower reported that the Washington City Paper would no longer be made available on the school’s campus. In fact, the paper has been gone from the CUA campus since May 7th, the day that my story on CUA’s campus sex ban, Screw U: Inside the Secret Sex Life of Catholic University, was published.

That morning, a very nice man who identified himself only as a CUA employee called to tell me that the university was removing the paper from the campus racks. “I just wanted to bring that to your attention and let you know that really sucks, because I know for a fact there are a lot of staff members and students that love to read your paper, and especially for this article,” he said. ” Again, love your work, awesome, thanks so much for throwing that out there, and, we got a really great chuckle for it. I hope you don’t get in too much trouble. Take care of yourself.”

The Catholic University administration was less amused.

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Roman Polanski, the 76-year-old filmmaker who was accused of drugging and raping 13-year-old Samantha Geimer in 1977, has been arrested in Switzerland. Polanski, who was convicted of having sex with a minor but fled to France before he could be sentenced, is currently facing extradition back to the United States, where he could finally be sentenced for his 32-year-old conviction. In the wake of Polanski’s belated arrest, commentators have posed dozens of arguments in the Oscar-winning director’s defense. Most of them are bullshit.

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“But he’s already paid his price, because everyone knows he’s a rapist, and he can never work in Hollywood.”

As Patrick Goldstein wrote in the LA Times, “I think Polanski has already paid a horrible, soul-wrenching price for the infamy surrounding his actions. The real tragedy is that he will always, till his death, be snubbed and stalked and confronted by people who think the price he has already paid isn’t enough.”

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Last night, the Hofstra University freshman who had accused five men of gang-raping her recanted her statement. The 18-year-old student, who had told police that the men had lured her into a dorm bathroom, tied her up, and raped her, admitted to the Nassau County District Attorney’s office that the “incident” was, in fact, consensual. After being released from jail, where they had been held for nearly 24 hours, the four men cleared of the rape charges posed in a series of celebratory photographs, smiling, raising their hands in the air, and offering thumbs-up signs to the press. Overnight, the men turned from accused rapists to . . . four guys who had had consensual sex with a woman together.

It was an odd scene, if only because the implications of this situation are too thorny to be glossed over by a jubilant release story. Since the men were cleared of all charges, the public will likely never know what actually happened during this “incident,” why the woman reported it as a rape, and why she later took it back. For most bystanders, these details are unimportant. Whenever a high-profile rape accusation becomes public knowledge, commentators tend to gravitate to one side of the story, regardless of the outcome of the case. On one side are people who are concerned about the problem of rape. On the other, people who are concerned about the problem of false rape accusations. It shouldn’t have to be that way.
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According to D.C. police, a sexual assailant known as the “Cuddler” has been terrorizing dorms and townhouses around Georgetown University since January 13, 2008. But when did that other scourge of the Georgetown campus—the suspect’s creepily innocuous nickname—first hit the Hoyas? No one knows for sure. Below, track the moniker’s rise in the campus lexicon. (Suspected “Cuddler” assaults are marked in red).

! January 13, 2008. According to D.C. police officer Helen Andrews, as quoted in Georgetown Voice blog Vox Populi, “The first incident” in the string of sexual assaults “occurred on January 13, 2008 in the 3700 block of R Street, NW.”

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He Who Shall Not Be Named: TheVoice Doesn’t Like to Have to Use “Cuddler”

On Sept. 4, Georgetown University told its students to stop calling him “The Cuddler.”

Because cuddle is far too soft a description for what the suspect does. In a typical attack, a man enters a student’s residence through an unlocked window or door, lies down next to her, and attempts to sexually assault her. He’s been accused of everything from laying a blanket atop his victim to placing his penis on his victim’s thigh. According to D.C. Police, the episodes span a 20-month period stretching back to January 2008.

Read More “Why The “Georgetown Cuddler” Will Never Be The “Crapist”” »