I have to admit, I used to be skeptical about Emma Sulkowicz, AKA Mattress Girl. It seemed odd that the Columbia University student was protesting an alleged rape by carrying a mattress around campus. Things became even stranger when it turned out there was no proof whatsoever of any rape, and even weirder still when voluminous evidence surfaced that she remained friends with her alleged rapist even after he supposedly brutalized her.
Sure, Sulkowicz became a media darling, and she even attended this year’s State of the Union address at the invitation of Kirsten Gillibrand. But despite this compelling evidence, I was unwilling to accept that an accusation of rape served as its own proof.
Well, now I may have to reconsider that opinion. Blake Neff reports:
Emma Sulkowicz, the Columbia graduate famous across the country as “Mattress Girl” after she hauled a mattress around campus for a year to protest the school’s handling of her alleged rape, has apparently released a sex tape recreating her alleged rape.
Titled Ceci N’est Pas Un Viol (‘This Is Not A Rape’), the video shows two people, one of whom appears to be Sulkowicz, entering a dorm room and proceeding to have sex from four different camera angles. Timestamps in the upper corner of each camera are used to make the video appear dated to August 27, 2012, the date Sulkowicz claims she was raped by fellow student Paul Nungesser. Over the course of the video, Sulkowicz’s partner becomes violent and begins to hit her, essentially recreating the experience Sulkowicz claims she underwent at the hands of Nungesser.
If that doesn’t prove what really happened, I don’t know what does.
The video is preceded by a rather lengthy introduction by Sulkowicz. Here’s a bit of it:
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.
This is an important reminder of that the word “consent” means. Sulkowicz has voluntarily posted a sex tape on the Internet, which means you may or may not have consent to watch that sex tape. It all depends on whether or not Sulkowicz appreciates your reaction to it. If you think it somehow reflects badly on her, or your reasons for watching it are different than her reasons for posting it, or she just decides she’s made a mistake, that means she has retroactively withdrawn her consent. That means it’s now your problem.
That means you are a rapist.
Seems legit.
In light of this new evidence, it’s only a matter of time before her accused rapist drops his lawsuit against Columbia. Clearly, Emma Sulkowicz is in full possession of every single one of her marbles.
