A Letter from the boys of a University of Virginia Frat House

(This “letter of apology” is based on a recent article from Rolling Stone Magazine that you can read here.)

To the victims…err…women…of University of Virginia,

It has recently come to our attention that being lured up to a room, thrown through a glass table, punched, and sexually assaulted by 7 of our frat brothers is not a preferred sexual experience for women. We are shocked and feel great sadness that what we called “a great Friday night” was so harmful to others.

We will also, in light of this information, stop referring to women as “it”. We now realize that may not be respectful or appropriate. It…we mean a woman, is a person too.

We, the boys of Phi Kappa Psi would like to apologize for our treatment of you, and beg forgiveness. Although we are all well-educated, intelligent men, we have suffered from confusion over how to properly treat women, and believed, in good faith, that our actions were acceptable.

After all, we were simply following suggested practices from the University fight song “Rugby Road”.

How were we supposed to know that:

• Women do not prefer to be drunk and taken advantage of (“fill you full of beer. And soon you’ll be the mother of a bastard Cavalier!”)
• Not all women like to perform certain sexual acts (“Are the ones who stay up late at night, and take it in the rear”)
• Not all women prefer multiple partners (“And you never know how many men they’ll bring home every night”)
• That women do not prefer to be seen as nothing more than “twat” (“She’s a helluva twat from Agnes Scott”) or that women don’t want to get get paid for sex (“she’ll f*** for 50 cents”)

We admit, we have heard some of these complaints previously, however it was always explained to us that women being upset by our actions were just “looking for attention” and that they were not leaving school because of these bad experiences, they were just moving on to other opportunities.

Even our own school, which runs a Sexual Misconduct Board, ensured us our actions were not that big of a deal, helping most of our victims realize that they had just had a “bad experience” and should continue on without pointing fingers and giving the school, or the frat houses, a bad name.

Amidst all of this guidance what were we supposed to do? In retrospect perhaps we should have reflected on our morals and values and realized that we were in the wrong, but to be honest, we were drunk, just didn’t give a shit, and were having a good time.

We are sorry you were not having a good time with us and promise to change our ways.

The Frat Boys

(You can read the full article this “letter” is based on here: http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/features/a-rape-on-campus-20141119?page=4)