Go to any large American college or university campus and it’s understood — frat row is where the partying is taken most seriously. Movies like Animal House where debauched frat parties make Roman orgies look tame didn’t come from nowhere. Frat parties are really that debauched. Any time you let male culture run riot — that’s what a fraternity is — pure, unadulterated male culture — there’s enormous potential for bad things to happen. Sports (up until now) have been an extension of male culture — of a men’s locker room into the world at large. The only difference between a frat party and a men’s locker room is beer and clothing. The operating principle is the same: the alphas in the room will set the agenda, the betas will make it happen. If the alphas want someone to laugh at the dumb joke they just made, the betas will guffaw way too long and loudly. If they want someone to witness and approve of an act of bullying, the betas will hold their beer while it’s happening. Male culture, feeding on itself, pushed to its extremes, never suffers from an overabundance of sympathy. It celebrates conquest and cruelty and getting away with it all. It’s the “getting away with it” that truly sets male culture apart.
Male culture expects to “get away with” whatever it’s doing — because it pretty much always has. In male culture’s defense, it’s not entirely its fault. It really is not physically capable of thinking “the right way”.
It’s just a fact of biology that the male brain develops differently from the female brain. Research data is consistent: in general, based on brain function, males tend to excel at motor skills, while women tend to excel at integrating analysis and intuitive thinking. That doesn’t “just happen”. The brain structures that cause this to happen develop during adolescence with female brains developing those essential structures far, far earlier. That’s why adolescent boys regularly do things that seem inexplicably stupid. When asked to explain WHY they drove their bike into a wall or jumped off the roof or got someone pregnant, they can’t tell you why. They honestly don’t know; they really did it “just because” — because they’re an adolescent male and they literally do not yet have the brain structure that would make them stop first to THINK.
Frat parties are the way they are because they’re the feral male mind manifested in reality. The rapiness of the environment isn’t a bug — it’s a feature. And frat parties don’t have to be literal frat parties. The party where SCOTUS Judge Brett Kavanaugh raped Christine Blasey Ford wasn’t a literal frat party but it might as well have been. Frat culture — male culture — was flowing like beer from a keg. If rapists thought they’d get caught every time they raped someone, that fact alone would probably shut most of them down. Their urge to NOT go to prison is more powerful than their urge to rape. That is how the stick works relative to the carrot.
Matt’s fellow Republicans knew some of what Matt was up to. Hell, the investigation into Matt started while Bill Barr still ran the DoJ. The DoJ, apparently, stumbled over text messages incriminating Matt while investigating some pretty egregious shit that Matt’s buddy, Seminole County Tax Collector Joel Greenberg was up to. Barr not only approved of the investigation into Matt Gaetz’s role, he thereafter refused to ever be seen in the same place as Gaetz because Gaetz, Barr knew, was that dirty, that corrupt — and that likely to go down in flames. When even Bill Barr refuses to associate with you, your scumbag bona fides will beat anyone else’s hands down.
What gives a young male the notion that he can buy girls, transport them over state lines and have sex with them — all while communicating these illegal acts in ways that are easy to get ahold of? Answer — a culture that’s never punished him for doing the same shit in the past. So far, no one’s accusing Matt Gaetz of rape-rape, just statutory rape. It doesn’t matter how willing Matt’s seventeen year old hook up was, SHE’S SEVENTEEN. He was in his mid-30’s. End of story.
In the case of Matt’s young victim, she wasn’t mature enough to make good decisions (clearly). Matt wanted what he wanted and he made it happen, the law, common sense and his integrity be damned. Matt did not think for two seconds there would be consequences. That’s why he felt empowered. It’s the exact same empowerment the Republican Party feels every time one of their members does something for which they know there should be consequences but never have been. When you get it into your head that celebrating treason is okay — that’s what waving a Confederate flag is — it’s just a short hop to taking that celebration further into, say, sedition or insurrection. When Trump’s mob marched on the Capitol on January 6, they fully expected not to be punished but to be celebrated. As the crowd grew increasingly drunk on racism, hate, bigotry and power lust, they took on a frat party dynamic. The alphas were all up to something. The betas were there to guffaw when told to.
It’s time to end this party — the frat party and the political party masquerading as a frat party.