The Cornell scandal shows that consent-only sex education has failed

The story emerging from Cornell University in the USA is horrifying.

A young woman, known publicly as Jane Doe, has launched a civil lawsuit against Cornell University. She has alleged that seven men from Cornell’s Chi Phi fraternity chapter sexually assaulted her on the night of 19 October 2024, when she was a 20-year-old undergraduate student.

In a statement given to police, she confirmed that she was heavily under the influence of alcohol after a night out, and had been “pretty OK” with participating in the first sexual encounter with two men; but that she had been too intoxicated to give consent to what happened next.

Disturbing WhatsApp messages appear to show members of the fraternity encouraging others to come and participate, referring to her by saying that “the shop was still open”, among other degrading slurs.

Some may laugh at the Christian vision of sex as unrealistic and prudish. But where has the alternative led?

Initially, the young woman did not view what had happened to her as rape. Text messages sent to one of the men involved show her reassuring him that their actions were “our body our choice”. But after taking time to “process” what had occurred, she says she became “100% confident” that she had been the victim of an assault. She reported it to campus police, saying that she was too intoxicated to provide consent.

At the time, two men were expelled and five temporarily suspended. Doe alleges that the men were “afforded the opportunity to mitigate their conduct by submitting essays”. 

Now, after launching a civil lawsuit against the university for not adequately protecting her in the aftermath, those allegations are being re-investigated. Two men have denied the allegations.

Wider than consent

What Jane Doe describes is truly awful. Having sex with someone who is incapable of consenting is deeply wrong. There is no excuse for rape, and no amount of alcohol, drugs or bad judgement can blunt the severity of such wrongdoing.

The theme of the discourse around the story has since centred almost exclusively on the importance sexual consent. But this misses another vital element of what went wrong here.

If Jane Doe had knowingly consented, would everything have been OK? Suppose, hypothetically, that she had remained conscious and enthusiastically agreed to every sexual act that took place. Would that mean the men had acted morally? Would the incident have left her feeling strong and empowered, rather than used and hurt? Would what happened that night at the frat party be ethical? I don’t think it would.

Consent is an important moral boundary, but it was never supposed to be the whole of sexual morality.

Pornography has made this problem considerably worse. A study of British schoolchildren shows that one in five 14-to-18 year-olds watch porn frequently or are addicted to it. Almost one in three university students have purchased content on OnlyFans.

Acts once regarded as extreme and violative can become normalised simply through repeated exposure. Then, when these behaviours migrate from the screen into real life, the only moral vocabulary many young people have been given is one of consent.

And migrate into the mainstream they have. Bonnie Blue is famous beyond the boundaries of OnlyFans because she proudly claimed to have had sex with 1,057 men in 24 hours. She has since raised her notoriety by releasing videos apparently showing her newborn baby in her arms (thought to be a doll) before seeming to engage in sex with several men.

Likewise, Lily Philips has become a household name for her depraved stunts involving sex with more than 1,000 men in a 24-hour period. Both women have been the subject of mainstream documentaries, one of which was recently broadcast on Channel 4.

Making a moral judgement

These women are not victims of sexual assault; and yet surely we are still entitled to ask whether what they chose, and what these many men chose, was good. If the answer is simply: “Well, they consented”, we have surrendered the ability to make any meaningful, moral judgements about sex.

We have taken a good and necessary principle - nobody should be subjected to sex against their will - and inflated it into a complete philosophy of human sexuality.

This attitude to sex is actively promoted by Cornell University. Another student notes that the official university health service is “shocking in its lewdness”, giving out sex toys as raffle prizes, and offering students instructions on exploring bondage and group sex. Cornell published a student resource labelling sex as a “terrific study break” and even encouraging students to explore pornography.

In the horrifying case of Jane Doe, the university must take accountability for promoting a reckless sexual culture that led up to this moment.

The impact of the normalisation of extreme and dangerous sexual practices is already widespread. BBC research shows that 43% of sexually active 16-to-17-year-olds have been strangled during sex. The National Survey of Sexual Attitudes shows that the number of 16-to-24-year-olds participating in anal sex has doubled in recent decades, which NHS surgeons have warned is causing incontinence, a rise in sexually transmitted diseases, pain and bleeding. One in four women in the UK have experienced some kind of sexual assault.

Consent answers one important question: Did you agree? It does not answer the other, equally important questions: Is it good for you? Is it good for the other person? Does it respect and honour their dignity and yours? Does it deepen a loving and committed bond, or reduce another human being to an object for someone else’s gratification?

We should absolutely teach young men that rape is evil, but young men - and women - deserve more than just being taught where the legal line is. They deserve a vision of what sex is for.

A better question

For Christians, that vision has traditionally been clear. Sex is intended exclusively for marriage between two people who have made a lifelong commitment to one another, who love each other and who are open to raising a child together. That is a much higher standard than consent - and a much more demanding one.

It tells a man that the question is not merely whether a woman will have sex with him, but whether he is prepared to love her, commit himself to her and take responsibility for the consequences of their intimacy if she becomes pregnant. And it tells a woman that her worth does not depend on how many people desire her, how many people she can have sex with or how adventurous she is prepared to be.

Some may laugh at the Christian vision of sex as unrealistic and prudish. But where has the alternative led? The sexual revolution has reached its conclusion, and its consequences have been painful. Men and women are both more isolated than ever before. Family breakdown is rife. Porn addiction is at an all-time high. One in three babies are aborted.

Consent answers one important question: Did you agree? It does not answer the other, equally important questions: Is it good for you or the other person?

Despite being told that we have more ‘choice’ than ever, the Yale University Paradox of Happiness study shows that women’s happiness has steadily decreased comparatively to men since the 1970s. 

We will not stop rape by pretending consent does not matter. But neither will we build a healthy sexual culture by pretending it is all that matters. The Cornell case should make us ask why a generation saturated in sexual imagery and taught that almost anything is permissible between consenting adults is struggling with sexual violence, widespread depression and severe loneliness.

What Jane Doe experienced is horrific. She deserves a response that not only condemns what happened, but actively recognises what is wrong and works to build a culture where such incidents are far less likely to take place.

Perhaps the answer is that we have been teaching young people the wrong lesson. We need to raise the bar from not only asking: “Did they say yes?” to a much bigger question: “Is this what sex is supposed to be?”