BrianGarst.com

The folks at EveryJoe have been kind enough to offer me a platform for a weekly column under the title Free Radical. It will feature many of the same topics I address here, though are likely to be a bit more in-depth.

The first column is up today, and takes a look at the troubling emergence of a new moral panic:

Rolling Stone reporter Sabrina Erdely’s sensational tale of a gang rape at a University of Virginia frat house has been unraveling practically since the day it was published. From the beginning, the article’s parade of sociopathetic characters – both the alleged perpetrators and the friends of Jackie, the pseudonymous accuser – were hard for many to believe. Other claims, such as the idea that Jackie was rolled around on broken glass for three hours without sustaining serious injuries requiring hospitalization, were simply nonsensical. It took only minimal scrutiny and the kind of basic fact-checking that should have preceded publication to poke major holes in the story, eventually forcing Rolling Stone to repeatedly backtrack and apologize.

Perhaps the final blow to the sordid tale came in the form of a Washington Post story featuring interviews with Jackie’s friends, who despite never being contacted by Erdely were portrayed as more concerned with their social status and popularity than getting Jackie help or justice. Not only do they refute that account, but they also claim that Jackie identified her alleged attacker to them, only to have it turn out that no such person attended the university or met the description provided.

Even more interesting than how Erdely botched the facts is why it happened.

Simply put, Jackie’s tale was too good to verify. It fit neatly the “rape culture” narrative that contends not only that the nation is suffering an epidemic of sexual assaults, but that the public is grossly indifferent to the plight of female victims, particularly on college campuses.

The rape culture narrative has become so ubiquitous that it has reached the level of a moral panic, with ideologues seeing signs of its influence everywhere. And like the moral panics that have come before, it is becoming a major threat to individual liberty.

You can find the entire piece here.

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