Content Warning: The following article contains graphic descriptions of homicide, performance art, multiple false accusations and consensual sex where it slipped in the poop shoot. Not suitable for the fainting couch crowd.
Nearly all of my writing is about a mind virus from a Minnesota Swamp and its downstream effects.
Today’s article starts at Columbia University, where the script (Sexual Politics) was written that allowed the mind virus to replicate and eventually mutate.
Mattress Girl
In April of 2013, Columbia University performance artist and activist, Emma Sulkowicz (She/her Them/They), aka Mattress Girl, began a year-long performance piece, carrying a mattress across her campus.
This performance art, like Millett’s book, was a viral thesis accusing men of rape without evidence.
In the case of Sulkowicz, the Columbia administration failed to expel the foreign student had Sulkowicz accused of raping her 8 months earlier.
A 2011 Obama Admin “Dear Colleague Letter” demanded colleges and Universities eliminate due process and the presumption of innocence for male students, or be in violation of Title IX.
Failure to presume guilt and force accused men to prove their innocence in kangaroo courts could result in the loss of millions or even hundreds of millions of dollars.
Many of these courts are administered by gender-studies trained administrators with no legal background or training.
Given all of that, the Columbia University inquiry still found him “not responsible” based on the testimony. Sulkowicz, then took her case to the NYPD, who said the sex was consensual.
The district attorney’s office also interviewed both students, but did not pursue charges, citing lack of reasonable suspicion.
The foreign student maintained that their encounter was consensual and based on the facts and the statements of both the accused and accuser, this was a consensual sexual encounter.
Sulkowicz accused everyone at every stage of mistreating her for not taking action against the foreign student.
In protest, Sulkowicz began carrying her mattress on campus as a performance piece for her senior thesis. Sulkowicz would carry this mattress everywhere on campus until the man Sulkowicz had consensual sex with left the college or was expelled.
Sulkowicz was not allowed to ask anyone for help unless they offered it.
A homeless man was the first to help. “He was the first person who helped without some sort of preconstructed belief for why they were going to help. He was like, ‘Oh, look, a struggling girl—let me help her and be a nice human being.’ That was probably the most honest interaction I had.”[30]
The man just thought Sulkowicz was a girl who needed help with a mattress. (Sulkowicz now uses “They” pronouns.)
Stations of the Cross and Scarlet Letter Comparisons
New York Magazine, the New York Post, the New York Times, and hundreds of other magazines and news sites picked up the story.
Artnet called it “almost certainly … one of the most important artworks of the year.”
Jerry Saltz, art critic for New York magazine, included it in his list of the best 19 art shows of 2014, calling “clear, to the point, insistent, adamant … pure radical vulnerability.”[9]
The New York Times art critic Roberta Smith described it as “strict and lean, yet inclusive and open ended, symbolically laden yet drastically physical,” writing that comparisons to the Stations of the Cross and Hester Prynne‘s scarlet letter were apparent.[25]
Once word got out that it was a performance piece drawing attention and praise, women at the college began to participate. Some helped her carry the mattress, some brought their own mattresses to the foreign student’s classes and filmed him while he was trying to finish out his degree.
Awards and Plaudits
Sulkowicz received the National Organization for Women‘s Susan B. Anthony Award and the Feminist Majority Foundation‘s Ms. Wonder Award.
Hillary Clinton told the DNC Women’s Leadership Forum in September 2014: “That image should haunt all of us…”
U.S. senator Kirsten Gillibrand (NY) invited Sulkowicz to attend the 2015 State of the Union Address.
In October 2014, Columbia students carried 28 mattresses on campus, one for each student who joined the federal Title IX complaint, then left them outside the home of university president Lee Bollinger. They were fined $471 for the men who were hired to clean-up the mess they left behind.
There is no public information about who ended up paying the bill.
The accused young man maintained his innocence, all while being harassed and bullied on campus, while other women whom he’d ended consensual relationships with came out of the woodwork to get in on the action.
He was investigated for years by the university, the NYPD, the District Attorney and eventually Federal Investigators.
Despite being blocked from using exculpatory text messages from Sulkowicz wanting to get together for weeks after the alleged assault, the preponderance of evidence standard, and despite the presumption of guilt, he was never charged, nor found guilty of any crime by University inquiries.
After suing the university twice, he was issued a non-apology in 2017 acknowledging that he “experienced a very difficult time” and promised to keep its gender-based misconduct policies fair.
Sulkowicz went on to graduate with 50 other women carrying mattresses to get their diploma.
Sulkowicz has since performed other important performance art pieces including standing on a pedestal answering questions about herself, bondage in high heels in a bikini, and an 8 minute sex tape entitled Ceci N’est Pas Un Viol (“This is not a rape”) for women’s rights.
At the time of this writing, no charges have been filed against her co-star.
Meanwhile in Texas…Dumpster Dudes
“You are not going to shoot my husband.”
Spoiler Alert: Everyone in this video is going to shoot your husband (1:25:08) and nothing you’re doing is helping.
“I’m putting this mattress in this dumpster.”
“No you’re not.”
“Yes, I am.”
“No, you’re not.”
“Yes, I am you pulled that gun in front of my kids mother fucker.”
“Calm down.”
“You are not going to shoot my husband!”
“Give me that bat!”
@Vivafrei ‘s exceptional pre-roll historical analysis.
Fin
