When Did Looking Away Become an Option?
Silence isn’t neutral, on a campus or in a clothes-free space.
I know many are waiting for part 3 of our series we were working on. But its not quite finished yet and something else has been bothering me for a bit now. I sat down and thought long and hard about whether we should even write this article, and who should be the one to write it. I decided Corin should sit this one out.
We’ve written about this topic many times before. Corin wrote about what it’s like navigating these spaces from a woman’s perspective in I Still Scan the Room. We’ve broken down the fundamental rules of trust in Consent and Safety Are Non-Negotiable in Naturism and How Men Can Help Women Feel Welcome in Clothes-Free Spaces. And I spoke directly to fellow men in What Men Don’t See.
Based on some of the responses we received in those article, I know what writing this will mean. Because we have felt the wrath before. Corin especially. We’ve received the comments, the direct messages, and the eye-rolls from some who think discussing safety, consent, and basic human decency in naturist spaces is somehow an attack on them. Every time we touch this topic, a handful of subscribers drop off or leave angry notes on their way out the door. I know it will happen with this article too. So let’s get that out of the way right off the top. If me standing here and saying these things makes you want to hit the unsubscribe button… don’t let the door hit you on the way out. I am not interested in maintaining an audience at the expense of my own integrity, nor am I going to stay quiet just to keep the comment section comfortable.
Yet as I read the news and watch the comments pouring in across social media regarding the Cornell 7, I realized I had to write again. Some of the commentary floating around social media right now is utterly disgusting. It’s what we see in the broader culture that isn’t all that different from what occasionally bubbles up right in our own comment sections.
Whenever Corin or I write about safety, a specific subset of people pops up with the same predictable script. Some take a dismissive, patronizing approach, telling us the topic is “repetitive” or dismissing it as “women moaning about men”. Others fly into an absolute rage, screaming about “misandry” and declaring that if a woman feels uncomfortable, they “don’t give a fuck”. They will do “whatever the fuck they want”. They act as if asking men to be mindful, active participants in standard safety is an unbearable burden that ruins their personal freedom.
For anyone who hasn’t followed the case… a former Cornell student has sued seven Chi Phi fraternity members and the university, alleging she was drugged and raped in October 2024. The men deny wrongdoing, and as of this writing, none has been criminally charged. The district attorney has reopened the case.
This isn’t about what happened between Jane Doe and the first men involved. What makes my skin crawl is the fact that a group of about fifty men were messaged through Snapchat to join. A handful of them decided to treat this woman as an invitation. The rest seem to have decided that stopping it was too awkward to bother with or never saw the initial message.
It makes me sick to my stomach.
As far as has been reported… not one called the campus police. Not one picked up a phone to see if a human being in serious trouble needed help. Potentially fifty men sat on their thumbs, looked at a message of a potentially vulnerable woman, and treated her predicament as entertainment, or simply not their problem.
When did seeing a vulnerable woman or any vulnerable person become an opportunity instead of a responsibility for us? When did we decide it wasn’t our job to protect people who might need help? When did turning a blind eye become acceptable practice? Look at what this story actually lays out there. It isn’t just an isolated tragedy involving a couple of people. It shows a complete collapse of basic human decency across the board.
What has modern digital culture done to us? We’ve reached a point where human suffering gets filtered through a smartphone screen and treated like a fucking spectator sport. If a guy sends a group message to fifty of his peers stating “free pussy” upstairs, he isn’t treating her like a person. He’s treating her like an object. Like content. And the guys reading on the other end feel so removed behind their little screens that they treat it like a show instead of a potential crime happening to a real human being in real time.
To make it worse, whenever something like this happens, some in the culture immediately turn around and blame the woman for being there in the first place. She had been drinking. She came to the house. She was in the room. As if walking into a space or trusting someone means you signed a contract waiving your right to safety. Being present in a room is not consent, and using a woman’s voluntary presence is not justification for preying on her.
Then comes the question I see some ask. Why did she put herself in that position?
According to her lawsuit, she went to visit a friend. Even if every choice she made that night was a bad one, none of them was an invitation. Advice to be careful is fine, but it’s a different thing from assigning blame. The question that matters isn’t why she was in that room. It’s why a group chat full of men who saw a message about what was happening… chose to do nothing. And to the people saying everyone knows what frat houses are like. If that’s true, then everyone who runs them knew too. Common knowledge that a place is dangerous isn’t a reason to blame the people it hurts. It’s a reason to ask why the fuck was it still open.
And then there’s the pathetic excuse of minding your own business. We’ve let men convince themselves that as long as they aren’t the one actively laying a hand on someone, their hands are clean. That is complete bullshit. Silence is permission. They care more about avoiding an awkward conversation with their frat brothers than they do about a woman’s life in trouble.
Consent is a clear, enthusiastic, uncoerced “yes.” It is not a puzzle, not an obstacle to get past, and never something you assume.
- It’s very clear. If someone is hesitant, quiet, or going along just to get it over with, that’s a “no.” Silence is not a yes.
- It’s free. There needs to be zero pressure, zero guilt-tripping, zero manipulation. If you have to ask ten times until they give in, that’s a “no.”
- It’s informed. Both people must know exactly what’s happening. Consent obtained through lies or tricks isn’t real consent.
- It’s specific. A yes to one thing is not a yes to everything. Being undressed, friendly, or at a resort is not a yes to anything.
- It can be withdrawn. Yes five minutes ago, or yesterday, or earlier in the night, is not a free pass. The moment someone wants to stop, everything stops. Period.
- It can’t come from someone who’s incapacitated. Passed out, unable to speak or walk clearly, drifting in and out of consciousness. That person cannot consent, and anything done to them is a violation.
And in every case: if there’s any doubt, any silence, any hesitation, the answer is NO!
The part that truly hurts my heart is that this isn’t new. It isn’t the first time, and it won’t be the last. If you spend ten minutes reading through the comments and social media posts from women reacting to this case, you quickly realize there are thousands upon thousands of Jane Does out there. Every single woman in your life likely has a story, whether she’s ever told you or not.
I recently watched a video of a seminar with about two hundred women in the room. The speaker asked a simple question: How many of you have been sexually assaulted, or know a close friend or family member who was? Over ninety-five percent of the room stood up. Think about that for a second. Almost every single woman in that room stood on her feet. Then the speaker asked everyone who didn’t report it or knew it was never reported to police or authorities to sit back down. Ninety percent of the room sat right back down.
That is the reality women live with every day. They get hurt, they get targeted, they get exploited, and then they carry the burden in complete silence because they know what the world does to women who speak up. They know they’ll be interrogated, blamed, dismissed, or told they’re “moaning about men”. So they sit back down. They keep it to themselves. And the men who stood by, watched, or participated walk away without a scratch.
If you have never seen this video of the seminars by Brittany Piper, please take a moment to watch this.
Brittany Piper Instagram video.
Why raise this on a naturist blog? Because it’s the principle behind everything we write about safety. About consent. And about respect. Just last month we also wrote about what happens when the passive majority stops being the ones to teach and enforce the rules and boundaries. The Cornell case is that dynamic at its extreme. The rules existed… and according to other students, so did the warning signs. The fraternity became a place where nobody was managing the culture anymore. Responsibility spread the way it does on a crowded beach, with everyone assuming someone else would act. But nobody did.
A person’s state is never an invitation. Just like being undressed in a clothes-free space doesn’t make anyone available, neither does being drunk, or drugged, or alone in a room. Shared spaces stay safe because the people in them look out for each other and speak up when something is wrong. What the lawsuit describes at Cornell was exploiting physical and chemical vulnerability for power and entertainment. That trust cannot survive in a culture where men treat bystander apathy as neutrality.
To the guys who complain that talking about safety in naturist spaces is “repetitive”… we will stop writing about it when men stop standing by while women are harmed. If reading about safety inconveniences you, imagine how exhausting it is for women to actually have to navigate the complete lack of it. You cannot demand the freedom of a shared, open space without accepting an ounce of the responsibility required to keep that space safe for everyone else.
As men, we have a responsibility. Not to be white knights or overbearing authority figures, but to be decent human beings who step up when something isn’t right. If you see a guy acting out of line, call him out. If you see someone in trouble, pick up the phone. Stop worrying about making things awkward for other men, and start worrying about the safety of the people around you.
None of this is an attack on all men, and certainly not on all young men. Many of the guys in a chat like that are college students, raised in a culture that taught them plenty about loyalty and status and almost nothing about what to do when a friend crosses a line. We teach boys not to commit crimes. We rarely teach them the courage to confront others including their own friends, or that a phone call might be the bravest thing they do all week. That’s a failure of ours, not only theirs, and it’s fixable. Receiving a message, knowing someone is in danger or incapacitated, and choosing to do nothing is not “staying out of drama.” It is active protection of the perpetrator over the victim.
Corin and I will keep writing stories that impact how we look at naturism for as long as they need to be written. If that makes our blog a little less comfortable sometimes for some, so be it. We’d rather support building a community of men and women who look out for one another than pander to people who think looking the other way is an acceptable way to live.
Kevin
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