Mattress girl’s sex tape and the problem with complete subjectivity
Complete subjectivity is not a victimless crime
You probably remember Emma Sulkowicz, who carried her mattress around Columbia University to protest her alleged rapists presence on campus. Sulkowicz’s “Carry the Weight” project was an act of “performance art” (her term, not ours) that resulted in college credit.
Her alleged rapist, Paul Nungesser, was later cleared by Columbia and has since filed suit against the university. Sulkowicz graduated with her mattress in tow. Wasting no time, Sulkowicz released her latest piece of performance art — a sex tape.
“Ceci N’est Pas Un Viol” or “This is Not a Rape” is Sulkowicz’s latest endeavor. Titled to imitate Rene Magritte’s “Ceci N’est Pas Une Pipe,” Sulkowicz’s project begins with a trigger warning, and includes a critical thinking guide.
From the entrance site:
Trigger Warning: The following text contains allusions to rape. Everything that takes place in the following video is consensual but may resemble rape. It is not a reenactment but may seem like one. If at any point you are triggered or upset, please proceed with caution and/or exit this website. However, I do not mean to be prescriptive, for many people find pleasure in feeling upset.
Ceci N’est Pas Un Viol is not about one night in August, 2012. It’s about your decisions, starting now. It’s only a reenactment if you disregard my words. It’s about you, not him.
Do not watch this video if your motives would upset me, my desires are unclear to you, or my nuances are indecipherable.
You might be wondering why I’ve made myself this vulnerable. Look—I want to change the world, and that begins with you, seeing yourself. If you watch this video without my consent, then I hope you reflect on your reasons for objectifying me and participating in my rape, for, in that case, you were the one who couldn’t resist the urge to make Ceci N’est Pas Un Viol about what you wanted to make it about: rape.
Please, don’t participate in my rape. Watch kindly.A special thank you to everyone who made Ceci N’est Pas Un Viol possible, especially my actor (*********), my director (Ted Lawson), and those I love who have guided and supported me.
Crazy? Compelling? Artistic? What is this?
So far, Sulkowicz has succeeded — at least to some degree. I’m writing about Ceci N’est Pas Un Viol and you’re reading about it.
For a moment, let’s assume her intentions were truly pure and that she hoped to spur collective consciousness. Even if this were the case, I have to wonder how a sex tape (aside from the obvious attention that Sulkowicz drew by getting down and dirty on camera), particularly a consensual sex tape, is supposed to change the world. Surely there are other ways for you “to see you” without watching a sex tape.
Also blurred in Sulkowicz’s odd artistic paradigm is the “yes means yes” mantra. Passed in California last year, “yes means yes” doesn’t really mean that saying “yes” is consensual. “The proposal requires all colleges taking student financial aid funding from the state to agree that in investigations of campus sexual assaults, silence or lack of resistance does not imply a green light for sex, and that drunkenness is not an acceptable defense,” wrote USA Today.
Sulkowicz affirms not only “yes means yes” but that quite literally anything could be rape, even in instances where a willing participant willingly participates.
It’s an incredibly fantastical world view — what one imagines actually is.
Perhaps the largest problem with complete subjectivity, particularly as the Sulkowicz’s of the world attempt to define it, is that it renders horrendously traumatic offenses like rape, undefinable. Beyond the legal troubles with undefinable crimes, the innocent get caught up in the semantical confusion. Just ask Paul Nungesser.
If the goal is a social plain that allows for perpetual victimhood because there’s no way to convict thought crimes (at least not yet), then Sulkowicz is leading an incredibly successful movement.
But to borrow a libertarian phrase, complete subjectivity is not a victimless crime.
Follow Kemberlee Kaye on Twitter
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
This girl is delusional. Straight up loony.
It frightens me no end that this – her “logic” and “rationale” – is the product of an Ivy League education – supposedly our best and brightest attend these exclusive, hallowed halls of “the best” higher education in the US.
Yes, she is the product of an Ivy League education and two parents who both are shrinks according to Wikipedia. She probably didn’t have a chance for a normal life!
Wow, she sounds like the second coming of Al Tawana Brawley Sharpton!
“Do not watch this video if your motives would upset me, my desires are unclear to you, or my nuances are indecipherable.”
How the HELL would I know if your “nuances are indecipherable” BEFORE watching this filth? How, at this point in your history, does ANYBODY find your “desires” clear?
So, no, you poor, sick child. I will take the safe road and never watch your “piece”.
Is that rapey, too…??? I think I can live with that.
Despite her disclaimer, many of the comments on her site show that some people believe this to be a re-enactment of her “rape”.
IMHO, this is NOT art, but it is libel.
I wonder if the director or publisher has deep pockets…
I’m trying to imagine the average rape victim making an amateur porn reenactment of the rape as a means of self-expression and I just can’t picture it
Emma is a nutcase….and so is her mother who posted said video on her facebook page. Normally, I’d suggest she seek some kind of professional help but let’s be honest…the “professional help” raised her and turned her into what she is today.
I’ve known several rape victims over the years. A couple underwent years of therapy so they could STOP reliving the event. None would voluntarily have reenacted.
But then, they wouldn’t have pursued their rapists with entreaties to come back to them, either.
Her mom posted that nasty vid on her Facebook page?!?!? Sheesh! Who in their right mind posts a vid of their kid using her butt as a landing zone? From what I read of the case, she ASKED Nungesser (poor sap!) to park his jet there. What mother does stuff like that? My granny used to say you have mothers and then you have mother’s arse. I think this girl’s mom is the second.
I’m pretty sure both her parents a psychiatrists, and therefore probably nut cases like her.
Yes, they are. Emma has been indoctrinated, first with her parent’s and then with her school’s progressive nuttiness since the day she was born.
IIRC, both parents are shrinks. This may go far to explain Emma.
Does she quote from her colorful text messages?
All this coverage of people with psychiatric problems like this girl and Bruce Jenner borders on sick voyeurism. It certainly isn’t journalism.
I wonder how much they spent in her “education” only to end up in the porn business.
Her mama doesn’t mind. The old folks say the upholder is worse than the thief.
She’s supposed to be an “Artist”, and has shown little talent. Porn may be their only hope to recover their expenses.
Confused. It’s an orientation that manifests in a minority of the population as a behavior. At least there were no babies aborted/planned in the course of its progression.
That said, she may be telling the truth or some version of it, but there is still a presumption of innocence, and the evidence does exist to support her assertions.
The sexual revolution waged on the belief in progressive morality (i.e. religion, cult, really) based on pro-choice or selective principles, has left a trail of emotionally and physically broken minds and bodies, dysfunctional relationships, and clinics full of aborted “clumps of cells”.
correction: the evidence does not exist to support her assertions.
5 More Bizarre Facts About The Mattress Girl Sex Tape
1. The film’s director is best known for making a selfie out of his own blood
2. Sulkowicz’s partner in the film is an actor from a fetish website
3. The director has some grandiose thought on the film’s artistic value.
4. The video was the third take. (Ew.)
5. The entire video is based on surreal French art.
dailycaller(.)com/2015/06/05/5-more-bizarre-facts-about-the-mattress-girl-sex-tape/
This young woman is batsh/t crazy.
She’ll wind up in porn. You’ll see.
She is already in porn.
What’s the videos link? Purely for research reasons of course 🙂
Regards
Mailman
If you read this comment and disagree with me, you are a rapist pig and belong in jail.
Meanwhile, look at me! Look at me! I don’t care if you’re making fun or feeling sorry for me, just please don’t look away or forget my name!!!
Seems that this girl didn’t get much attention paid to her when she was growing up. Daddy and Mommy were too busy with their careers to do anything for her. She also was not getting any during college, so she made up the whole rape thing to get the attention that she was starved of. Now that she is getting it, she is milking it for everything that she can get out of it. In other words. a typical spoiled rich liberal brat.
Kemberlee,
The political point (complete subjectivity is not a victimless crime) is a good one, but the example (Emma Sulkowicz) is a distraction. Sulkowicz is a train wreck. Giving her attention is like buying drinks for an alcoholic.
One would normally conclude that posting a video on a publicly-accessible website at least implies consent.
…A thought occurs; this reminds me of kids who were warned to leave each other alone, but one insists on playing the “I’m not touching you!” game.
Paul Nungesser is suing Columbia University for his 4 years worth of pain and trauma. And, the smearing of his good name. He is also suing the professor who gave Sulkowitz a great grade for carrying her mattress around campus.
Yes, she brought it to graduation as well. But couldn’t bring it up onto the stage. When she came within handshaking distance of the school’s dean, he turned around, putting his backside to her attempts at getting a handshake.
This video? Doesn’t hurt Paul Nungesser at all. For all along he said she’s a slut. Who made up her whole story. (She even dragged in one of her male friends, “Adam,” who claimed Nungesser, in a dorm room they shared together, ran his hand up this guy’s thigh. (Also a claim tossed out by Columbia U.)
There’s a good chance Columbia U is still roiling from this event. And, are going to look for ways to make “Paul happy” with a settlement. The endowment’s loaded for bear. They won’t miss $50-million. But so far? Paul hasn’t winked at the settlement. And, if there is a court case? You think this video shows up in front of the jury? The guy’s FAT! But his penis is as long as a thin pencil.