There were seven men in all, and it lasted almost seven hours.

What followed, according to the woman at the heart of the Cornell University case that has gripped student campuses around the world, was less a sexual encounter than a grim pack-bonding exercise fuelled by booze and ketamine, in which she was passed around like a blow-up doll.

Twenty years old and drunk at a college frat house party, she had reportedly agreed to a threesome with a student she liked, though her lawyer maintains she wasn’t sober enough to consent. But it is what allegedly followed – including a crude invitation sent to a group chat of more than 50 of the men’s friends, advertising “free pussy” upstairs if they wanted to join in – that really makes the blood boil. Could so many men really see nothing here to challenge?

One reportedly texted back “Shop still open?” in the early hours of the morning. By that stage, she was concluding that “there was no way for her to escape” a room full of predatory men, according to the lawsuit filed by the alleged victim against both the students she accuses of pressuring her into taking drugs and raping her in the autumn of 2024, and Cornell University which, she argues, failed to protect her. (All deny wrongdoing.) Though two of the seven were reportedly expelled after she went to campus police, none were arrested; five were free to continue their education after variously writing essays about what they’d done, serving short suspensions and attending workshops. It was the alleged victim who lost her future, dropping out of university and struggling with her mental health to the point that her lawyer says she is “barely hanging on”.

Her story, emerging just as this year’s freshers were settling into halls in Britain, has left young women understandably incandescent with rage but touched a deep nerve with older ones too.

All over social media, mothers are posting and swapping advice on how to raise sons who don’t just refrain from rape but who would, if they ever got such a message, realise........

© The Guardian