Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin - The Mattress Girl Saga

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Sept. 6, 2017 - Sargon of Akkad - Carl Benjamin

46:37

The Mattress Girl Saga

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	In October 2013, a petition was delivered to the Columbia University Office of Student Services of Gender-Based Misconduct, the Title IX coordinators for Columbia University and Barnard College, the Columbia University Office of Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action.
	The petition was a demand for the above-mentioned offices of Columbia University and Barnard College to disclose information on the number, nature and judicial resolution of cases of sexual assault, rape and gender-based misconduct, and involve students of Columbia University and Barnard College.
	The petition specifies that the Department of Justice reports and independent research have repeatedly estimated that approximately 20-25% of women and 4% of men attending college are sexually assaulted during their years on campus.
	Additional research has led to even higher estimates for the LGBTQ population.
	Recent scandals at Amherst, USC, Notre Dame and Occidental have revealed the shocking failure of colleges and universities across the country to prevent assaults on campus, or to fairly, compassionately and promptly address the charges of sexual assault and rape which are reported to them.
	The first thing that should jump out to you about these statistics is that they are not correct.
	It is not true that one quarter of women on college campuses have been sexually assaulted.
	Indeed, the actual Department of Justice statistics suggest that rape and sexual assault is actually lower on college campuses than it is in the cities surrounding them, giving the figures 7.6 per 1000 for non-students and 6.1 per 1000 for students.
	In December 2013, The Blue and White, the monthly undergraduate magazine of Columbia University, published an article called Accessible, Prompt and Equitable, An Examination of Sexual Assault at Columbia.
	This piece examined the alleged sexual assaults of two different women, with the identities of all of the participants protected by pseudonyms.
	One of these is the account of Tom and Sara, who were friends with benefits and had already had consensual sex twice.
	The pair were apparently at a party, and at the end of the night, they headed back to Sara's room.
	Sara claims that, minutes in, Tom grabbed her wrists and pinned her arms behind her head.
	He pushed her legs against her chest and forcefully penetrated her anus.
	They had never had anal sex before.
	They had never even discussed it.
	It was painful.
	Sara began to struggle, screaming at him to stop, yelling at him to get off her.
	He didn't stop.
	Afterwards, he laid next to her for a few seconds.
	They didn't speak.
	He abruptly got out of bed, gathered his clothes and walked out of the door, leaving a handle of vodka behind him.
	Apparently feeling distrustful of the police, Sara instead reported the incident to the university, expecting that Tom would be expelled.
	But according to Sara's lawyer, Columbia's concern with its public image resulted in a lack of transparency about a policy meant to keep its students safe and undermined the university's commitment to fairness.
	Despite Sara's account of what really could be described as a brutal rape, Sara never reported Tom to the police or procured a rape kit.
	She told a few close friends but otherwise kept it to herself.
	The reason she gave for this was that going to the police or even talking with a therapist, let alone filing a report of any kind, was too emotionally exhausting to pursue.
	Sara was apparently suffering from a serious depression before meeting Tom and had recently ended an emotionally abusive relationship herself.
	She would later wonder whether Tom had used her vulnerability to manipulate her.
	Her fragile state made their destructive and unhealthy physical relationship confusing at best.
	Tom often forcefully pinned her arms back against the mattress during sex.
	Natalie, the other woman featured in this article and allegedly the ex-girlfriend of Tom, would cry during and after they slept together.
	Not until months after their breakup did Natalie realize this as a non-consensual relationship.
	Sara claimed that she felt terrified for her peers after discovering that Tom had assaulted a second person.
	I knew if no one punished him, he would keep on raping women.
	If I didn't report it, he would keep harming people for the rest of his time on campus.
	He had to be stopped.
	That's why I decided to report it.
	The two women filed their complaints, Sarah on the 18th of April 2013 under non-consensual sexual intercourse, and Natalie on April 25th, 2013 under intimate partner violence and non-consensual sexual intercourse, and the university began its investigation.
	The investigation into Natalie's accusations ended within two weeks, with the university stating that there was not sufficient information available to indicate that reasonable suspicion exists to believe a policy violation occurred.
	Sara's case took seven months and Tom was found not responsible on the 8th of November 2013.
	Sara's real name is Emma Solkowitz, who is an art student at Columbia University, and she had made her allegations against a foreign national architecture student from Germany called Paul Nungesser.
	And really, this is where the story should have ended.
	It appears that false allegations were filed against Paul Nungesa.
	There was not enough evidence to substantiate these allegations, and indeed later on we would find evidence that would outright disprove them, and so no further action should have been taken because Paul should have been presumed to be innocent, as he indeed was by Columbia University.
	However, by April of 2016, feminist activists had been agitating for increased control and transparency over the sexual assault policies of Columbia University during the no red tape protests at Days on Campus.
	These protesters stood in solidarity with their feminist sister Emma Solkowitz with red tape over their mouths in protest over Columbia's sexual assault education and prevention programs, support services' disciplinary policies and the actions of administrators.
	This coincided with an initiative by US Senator and feminist activist Kirsten Gillibrand, who was seeking funds to fight college campus sex assaults.
	Gillibrand and Senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri released a joint bipartisan letter Friday to the leadership of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labour, Health, Human Services and Education asking for money to investigate and enforce sexual assault laws at colleges and universities.
	Speaking at Columbia University, Gillibrand pointed to a combination of underfunding and poor staff training at schools across the country and asked for $100 million in federal funding to boost enforcement of current laws.
	This was reported on by CBS New York, and to give this case extra weight, they interviewed Emma Solkowitz, who apparently claimed that Columbia University dismissed her case without hearing her, and that this is why she understands why so few survivors come forward.
	I'm loath to say that Solkowitz is lying, but this is not true.
	The university did not simply dismiss them, there was an investigation, and Nungessa was found innocent.
	This marked the beginning of Emma Solkowitz's fame as a feminist victim icon, as her story was picked up on and widely circulated by mainstream media outlets, such as this example from the New York Times, which helped fuel an unfounded wave of feminist hysteria about rape and sexual assault on college campuses.
	The article begins by centering itself around Emma Solkowitz's claims, recounting them in detail, then contextualizes it by pointing out that these claims are increasingly common at universities across the country.
	Interestingly, they point out that a new network of activists makes shrewd use of the law and the media in an attempt to step up pressure on colleges.
	These are networks of feminist activists, although the article omits that information.
	However, the article does include that there is, quote, scant evidence that sexual assault is more or less prevalent than in the past, or how Columbia compares with others, but the storm of attention has forced the university administrators to pay more attention to a largely unfamiliar set of duties, more akin to social work and criminal justice than to education.
	Put simply, what the New York Times is saying here is that there is no evidence that there is a significant problem with sexual assaults on university campuses in America.
	Indeed, the Bureau of Justice Statistics would indicate that university campuses are actually safer than their surrounding cities when it comes to the issue of sexual assault.
	So it would make the attempt by Senator Gillibrand and her network of feminist activists to influence or outright control the policies of universities in this regard rather unjustified, especially when the primary example of this being used is the false claim of Emma Solkowitz.
	The New York Times explains that the contention comes from compliance with federal rules.
	Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 states that no person shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination in an educational program supported by the federal government.
	The feminist interpretation of this is that universities have increasingly been told that this means that they are required to protect students from sexual harassment and assault.
	In 2011, the Education Department's Office for Civil Rights sent a letter to colleges, putting them on notice that it saw many of them mishandling sexual assault cases, and that it would use a new, stricter interpretation of their duties under Title IX.
	The article continues to weave elements of Emma Solkowitz's story with the information on Title IX to show why this is necessary, and then state that Solkowitz has channeled some of her frustration into action, appearing with Senator Gillibrand last month to speak out and joining in the federal complaint against Columbia.
	This would see the beginning of something of an informal public partnership between Solkowitz and Gillibrand, with Solkowitz wishing to have a platform with which to project her story, and Gillibrand wishing to use her as the Ur example of a young lady who has been wronged by universities as an example of why they should change.
	The article concludes by saying that they are following a well-worn path.
	The activists at Columbia have been advised by counterparts from around the country.
	Over the last few years, they have formed a national network of current and former students, spreading from campus to campus what they have learned about drafting complaints, dealing with administrators, and appealing to the media.
	And they have disproportionately targeted prestigious universities where allegations draw the most attention.
	For some, advocacy has become all but a full-time job.
	Ending the article with the words of a feminist activist called Dana Bolga.
	We've hit them where it hurts, their reputations.
	So what has happened so far?
	There's been a false claim, backed up with false statistics, and a media smear campaign against the university, drafting in political figures with an interest in this subject, and networks Works of feminist activists to gain influence over interpretation of the particular law and implement stricter policies, creating increased ideological control for feminism.
	And the only justification for any of this happening is feminism itself.
	Without a feminist making a false claim, without feminists providing false statistics on one in four women being sexually assaulted at campuses, without feminists in the media wishing to participate in this campaign and give Solkowitz a platform, and without feminist politicians like Senator Gillibrand actively pushing this, and without organized networks of semi-professional feminist activists creating the appearance of a grassroots movement,
	there would be no one to gain undue influence over the interpretation of Title IX, and there would be no need to implement stricter policies, and there would be no further ideological control of feminism over universities.
	Put simply, the feminist hysteria over rapes on college campuses is completely unjustified.
	And the only reason that this is happening is the self-interest of the feminist activists involved at every level.
	And most importantly of all, this is all built on lies.
	Two weeks after the New York Times article, it was reported that at Columbia University, groups of vigilantes were scrawling the names of accused rapists in the girls' bathrooms, which the university was having to have scrubbed off.
	Among the names on these lists was Paul Nungeser, the alleged rapist of Emma Solkowitz, who was cleared by the university.
	This story was picked up by New York magazine, who published an article called, After Police Report, Columbia Spectator Publishes Name from Campus Rape List.
	In this article, they interview Emma Solkowitz, who appears to admit to being the person behind the graffiti.
	She said, One of my main goals was to have his name somewhere, so if he committed another crime in New York City, it would show up on his record, so the next person he might assault would have a better time than I did in prosecuting him.
	I felt like I had a civil and public duty to report as well.
	She informs us that she was in the process of filing a formal complaint with the New York Police Department nearly two years after the incident is alleged to have occurred, and complains that the officer basically treated me as if I was the criminal.
	Police informed her that they were currently looking for Paul Nungesa, who was out of the country and had returned to Germany temporarily.
	Nothing came of the complaint, presumably through lack of evidence.
	Approximately four months later, Emma Solkowitz began her performance art piece entitled Mattress Performance or Carry That Weight.
	For as long as her alleged rapist goes to Columbia, Emma Solkowitz intends to carry around a dorm room mattress wherever she goes.
	Solkowitz decided to choose this performance piece for her visual arts senior thesis.
	One of the rules of the piece is that I'm not allowed to ask for help when carrying a mattress, but others are allowed to give me help if they come up and offer it.
	So I'm hoping that not only do I get better at carrying the mattress, but that other people will learn about the piece and I don't know.
	I mean, I'm not hoping that everyone comes and helps, but I think I'm very interested in seeing where this piece goes and what sort of life it takes on.
	And indeed, this piece did end up going a very long way and taking on a very interesting life.
	The very next day, the Huffington Post reported on this arts project and called Paul Nungessa a rapist in the title of their article.
	This story was so widely circulated, Emma Solkowitz ended up being interviewed by Melissa Harris Perry on MSNBC.
	And amongst the widespread reporting on progressive media was this puff piece on The New York Times, calling Emma Solkowitz a typically messianic artist.
	Despite reporting that Paul Nunges was found innocent by the university and that Emma Solkowitz failed to follow through with her police report in May, the tone of the article proceeds as if Emma Solkowitz is telling the truth.
	The author says, it is so simple.
	A woman with a mattress, refusing to keep her violation private, carrying with her a stark reminder of what took place.
	While in the previous paragraph praising Carry That Weight and stating that it will set a very high standard for any future work she will do as an artist and will also earn her a niche in the history of intensely personal yet aggressively political performance art.
	And this is the point at which Emma Solkowitz's star as a feminist artist really began to rise.
	Two days after she had begun mattress performance, Artnet.com was calling it one of the most important artworks of the year, and by December, Vulture.com had named it number one of the 19 best art shows of 2014, describing mattress performance as a piece that comes from righteous indignation, messianic rage, and the drive for justice.
	And the Brooklyn Museum Center for Feminist Art hosted an hour-long interview with Emma Solkowitz on the subject of the performance.
	And naturally, the question was raised as to whether the mattress itself would wind up in a museum, with Solkowitz telling The Times, if some sort of museum wants to buy it, then I'm open to that, but I'm not just going to throw it away.
	And Catherine Morris, the curator of Brooklyn Museum's Sackler Center for Feminist Art, saying, I can definitely imagine it having a future.
	What makes her work so interesting and viable for the long term is its immediacy.
	While all of this was going on, Emma Solkowitz found herself as the inspiration for a feminist protest movement based on her performance.
	Throughout September and October of 2014, hundreds if not thousands of feminist students protested at hundreds of universities across the United States, carrying their own mattresses throughout the campus as a statement of solidarity.
	Solkowitz acted as a de facto leader of this movement by setting up her own website called Carry That Weight and helping to organize a day of action through an email list.
	In January of 2015, Senator Gillibrand invited Emma Solkowitz to speak at the State of the Union address about her experiences and about her project, with the New York Daily News reporting that Solkowitz said, sometimes it takes a federal hand to make colleges listen.
	Gillibrand had invited Solkowitz to the speech in an effort to highlight a bipartisan bill that would force colleges to step up collection of information on sexual assaults and adopt tougher, standardized processes for dealing with sexual assault.
	This was an advancement of her mission to increase the strictness of the interpretation of the Title IX laws.
	Despite Paul Nungessa being found innocent of the charges, Gillibrand called Solkowitz a woman of great courage who got no justice.
	And of course, by this point, Solkowitz had vastly expanded the reach of her mattress performance project.
	She says, The piece I am doing is not just based on Columbia, it's based on all survivors' experiences at every college, so I hope that when people think of my art piece, they don't just think of it as a Columbia piece.
	Solkowitz's performance piece had taken on a symbolic aspect in feminist law.
	By May 2015, it was referenced in a commencement speech by UN Ambassador Samantha Power, saying that it takes a woman picking up a mattress and carrying it around her campus to make people really see it, a mattress that a good number of women in this graduating class have helped carry, and men from Columbia too.
	Speaking of men from Columbia University, let's take a look at what Paul Nungessa had been doing during this time.
	Nungessa had also had media coverage, although it was far less frequent, and finding positive pieces from his perspective was far more difficult.
	On the 24th of October 2014, while Emma Solkowicz was currently rising to prominence as a performance artist and protester, The Observer published an article that was based on an interview with Paul Nungesa's lawyer, who criticised Emma Solkowicz.
	He said, while drawing attention to the important issue of campus rape, she's clearly enjoying the celebrity she's created through the perverse spectacle of carrying her mattress around campus, but the attendant media frenzy has seemingly legitimized an event which, after an investigation and a hearing, the university determined did not occur and which the NYPD has thus far declined to pursue.
	What has clearly been lost in all of this is that she has achieved this celebrity status through a systematic campaign of publicly defaming and destroying the life of a young man.
	It's absolutely mind-boggling to me that Columbia has sanctioned her conduct by giving her course credits all after finding that the young man was not guilty.
	Needless to say, politicians, feminist activists and their cohorts in the media had made Paul Nungessa's life a living hell.
	Despite the fact that he was free to operate on Columbia University and was officially under no allegations, they pushed the story that he was guilty.
	The details of which Paul Nungessa was able to expand upon in an interview with the New York Times almost five months after the story of Mattress Girl had gone viral.
	He has gotten used to former friends crossing the streets to avoid him.
	He has even gotten used to being denounced as a rapist on flyers and in a rally at the university's quadrangle.
	Though his name is not widely known beyond Morningside Heights campus, Mr. Nungesa is one of America's most notorious college students.
	His reputation precedes him.
	He says he is innocent and that the same university that found him not responsible has now abdicated its own responsibility, letting mob justice overrule its official procedures.
	The Mattress Project is not an act of free expression, it is an act of bullying, a very public, very personal and very painful attack designed to hound him out of Columbia, and it is being conducted with the university's active support.
	There is a member of the faculty that is supervising this, he said.
	This is part of her graduation requirement.
	Nungessa said the charges filed against him, all filed within days of one another, were the result of collusion.
	Three women said in interviews with the New York Times that they decided to take action when they heard about one another's experiences.
	Everything he has said here is true.
	This is a campaign designed to hound him out of Columbia.
	The very premise of the art project was to carry the mattress until he had been expelled.
	Despite being found innocent, the media had picked up on this campaign, as had Senator Gillibrand, and perpetuated it as if it was true that he had raped this woman and had gotten away with it.
	This is not a narrative supported by evidence.
	What is interesting is that Nungesa was not allowed to bring up certain forms of proof, such as communication between himself and Solkowitz after the night in question.
	Nungessa claims that this is evidence that the university's procedure was biased against him.
	After Senator Gillibrand had invited Emma Solkowitz to speak at the State of the Union address, Nungesa said, I am shocked to learn that Senator Gillibrand is actively supporting Ms. Solkowitz's defamation campaign against me by providing her with a public forum in which to broadcast her grave allegation.
	By doing so, Senator Gillibrand is participating in a harassment campaign against someone who, for good reason, has been found innocent by all investigating bodies.
	On the 3rd of February 2015, the Daily Beast published an expose by Kathy Young, detailing, after seeing the social media interaction between them, how she believed he was not guilty.
	The piece details how they had a close friendship and intimate relationship that was, on occasion, sexual.
	Nungessa provided the Daily Beast with Facebook messages with Solkowitz from August, September, and October 2012.
	In an email to the Daily Beast, Solkowitz confirmed that these records were authentic and not redacted in any way.
	While she initially offered to provide annotations explaining the context on the messages, she then emailed again to say that she would not be sending them.
	In response to Kathy Young's accurate reporting for the Daily Beast, Emma Solkowitz was interviewed by Mike.com in an article called The Treatment of Emma Solkowitz proves we still have no idea how to talk about rape.
	Solkowitz describes Kathy Young's investigation and email correspondence with her as some kind of anti-feminist campaign.
	She says, I didn't realize she's extremely anti-feminist and would do this in order to shame me, and suggests that Kathy Young has written other articles supporting the rapists and making survivors look unreliable.
	It is Emma Solkowitz's refusal to address the content of the Facebook messages provided by Paul Nungessa that demonstrate that she is willfully lying.
	And there can be no doubt that Mike.com is facilitating this for a reason.
	Mike.com decides to defend Emma Solkowitz by saying there is no perfect victim.
	And then they proceed to obfuscate the content of the Facebook messages by suggesting that it was common for abused people to have had intimate friendships and relationships with their abusers.
	Despite the fact that Mike.com keeps referring to Nungessa as the alleged rapist, they declare categorically that Emma Solkowitz is a survivor.
	This means there must have been something for her to survive.
	This is them confirming that they believe Nungessa was a rapist and that Emma Solkowitz is telling the truth despite the content of their Facebook messages.
	We know this because the full content of their Facebook interactions was published after Paul Nungessa decided that he was going to sue Columbia University over bias.
	Nungessa filed a federal discrimination lawsuit against the school, its president, Lise Bollinger, and one of its professors.
	By refusing to protect Paul Nungessa, Columbia University first became a silent bystander, then turned into an active supporter of a fellow student's harassment campaign by institutionalizing it and heralding it.
	The lawsuit also alleges that John Kessler, the professor who is named as defendant, not only approved the project but also publicly endorsed her harassment and defamation of Mr. Nungesa.
	She is actively earning course credit from Columbia for this outrageous display of harassment and defamation, the lawsuit says.
	Paul's legal rights are being violated and that his well-being and future prospects are suffering immensely, which indeed they were.
	The interactions between Paul Nungessa and Emma Solkowitz were featured extensively in the lawsuit, and these interactions definitively prove Nungesa's innocence.
	The conversations demonstrate Nungesa and Solkowitz's relationship as friends, with them in this image discussing one of Solkowicz's boyfriends.
	They have long and intimate conversations in which Solkowitz tells Nungesa that he should feel proud of being a good guy.
	At one point, Solkowitz outright states, fuck me in the butt, and Paul replies, Emm, maybe not, joke, I miss your face though, to which she replies, ha ha ha ha, don't you miss my lopsided ass?
	To which he replies, I do just not that much.
	The lawsuit details how they were friends with benefits while they were still at Columbia.
	They had platonic sleepovers and had sex on two separate occasions.
	On the second occasion, Emma had asked Paul to engage in anal sex with her.
	Paul had stated he had no experience with it, Emma said she had enjoyed it in the past with other men and wanted him to proceed.
	The two engaged in anal sex as part of their foreplay, then they progress onto vaginal intercourse.
	Following their sexual encounters on both occasions, the two discussed their relationship.
	Both times they concluded that they would remain primarily as friends and they would not enter into a monogamous romantic relationship.
	An important factor in the decision was that Emma had previously been having sex with Paul's close friend, John Doe.
	Despite broaching the topic of anal sex with Paul, Emma later denied doing so.
	Emma further communicated to Paul stories and allegations of sexual abuse that she had experienced from other sexual partners.
	She stated, I've officially had sex with all of John Doe's best friends.
	Did lots of drugs, joke, just got very drunk.
	Well, anyways, now I have an STD.
	I actually hate John Doe.
	Like, if a girl is about to puke, don't put your unprotected dick into her.
	I really don't want to be known as the girl who contracted an STD because she was drunk, you know?
	It is more his fault for fucking me unconscious.
	I mean, I was conscious, but clearly not in my right mind.
	I was literally blackout.
	I puked all over the place.
	To console her about having an STD, Paul invited her to Berlin.
	Emma also messaged Paul frequently throughout the summer, with messages including, Wove You, Miss and Love You by the way, Paul, I really miss you, I really miss you, Paul.
	I love you so much, please stay with me forever.
	Paul, I miss you so much.
	Like, you know when you tell people you miss them and you don't really mean it, I actually mean it, I miss you so much, ah, Pookie, I miss you, I love you so much, I miss you more than anything, I love you, and I would love to have you here.
	Oh my god, we could snuggle, Paul, I miss you, Paul, I miss you, I miss you, Paul.
	Dude, I miss you so much, I love you, Paul, exclamation marks.
	These messages spanned from May 2012 through August of 2012, and similar messages continued until October 2012.
	When Paul messaged Emma to say that he had been seeing a woman while abroad, Emma typed, are you guys in love?
	Paul responded, yeah, seed time, sad.
	Well, I don't know, I mean it's not gonna last.
	Emma asked, are you guys a thing?
	And Paul responded with, it was more like a summer fling if you know what I mean.
	On August 21st, 2012, just prior to their return to Columbia campus for a sophomore year, Emma wrote to Paul, I want to snuggle with you and talk about our summers, but not right now, I also love you.
	On August 27th, 2012, on their first night back at Columbia campus, the sophomore sexual encounter, Emma invited Paul to her room.
	Once again, they engaged in consensual sex in Emma's bed.
	The sophomore sexual encounter involved vaginal and anal sex followed by oral intercourse.
	This is the alleged rape.
	Two days later, on August 29th, 2012, Paul Facebook messaged Emma to invite her to a gathering in his room.
	She messaged back, Lol, yes, also I feel like we need to have some real time where we can talk about life and things, because we haven't really had a Paul-Emma chill sesh since summer.
	Her alleged rapist responded, when are you guys coming through?
	Emma wrote back to her alleged rapist, I'll probably come about 10.45, is that cool?
	Her alleged rapist wrote back, sweet, yeah, you at the fencing thing, to which she replied, yeah, I'm just gonna chill with them for a bit.
	Haha, is ADP a rager?
	Paul wrote back, nah, nah, it's a little too many guys right now.
	Haha, so bring some peeps.
	Emma wrote back to her alleged rapist, okay, let them know I'll be dare with the female spawn.
	At 11.06pm she messaged Paul saying, Ack, are people still there?
	Heading over now.
	This is two days after she claims that she was raped.
	Two weeks later, on September the 9th, 2012, Emma messaged Paul.
	I want to see you.
	Thereafter, Paul sent Emma a happy birthday message as follows.
	To which Emma responded, I love you, Paul.
	Where are you?
	The lawsuit details how Emma's efforts for affection from Paul go unreciprocated.
	As evident from Emma's Facebook message to Paul during the summer prior to their sophomore year, Emma's yearning for Paul had become very intense.
	Emma repeatedly messaged Paul throughout that summer saying that she loved and missed him.
	She was quick to inquire whether he was in love with the woman he was seeing abroad.
	Thereafter, she continued pursuing him, reiterating that she loved him.
	However, when Paul did not reciprocate these intense feelings and instead showed interest in dating other women, Emma became viciously angry.
	And this brings us to the course of events that began this video.
	Solkowitz would then claim that in an interview with Vice magazine, the term, fuck me in the butt, was taken totally out of context, and that the phrase was an idiom used to mean, oh my god, that's so annoying.
	I'm happy to accept that this may well be true.
	But she at no point addresses why she pursued her alleged rapist long after the rape had apparently occurred, nor as to why she failed to report it to the university authorities or the police until almost a year had passed.
	On the 19th of May 2015, it was reported that an email had been sent around the school to the students to inform them that they would not be allowed to bring large objects to the graduation ceremony, and they would have to be left nearby and collected afterwards.
	This was obviously a direct message to Emma Solkowicz and her supporters, not to bring the mattress to the graduation.
	But of course, they did so anyway, and the university did nothing to stop them.
	You can see the procession of students carrying in the mattress with Emma Solkowitz to graduate.
	During the graduation ceremony, the president of the university is meant to shake each student's hand to congratulate them on graduating.
	So needless to say, when the Columbia president refused to shake Emma Solkowicz's hand, it was mildly controversial.
	It's alleged by Solkowitz and her supporters that the president, who had been shaking the students' hands, turned his back and leaned down as though to pick something up from his seat.
	Solkowicz leaned over with the mattress, trying to catch his eye, then straightened up and kept walking, shrugging with her free hand.
	I even tried to smile at him or look him in the eye, and he completely turned away.
	That was so surprising, because I thought he was supposed to shake all of our hands.
	Now, while you might be thinking, well, good for him, for at least standing for something, it seems that this may have been a miscommunication.
	The alternative version of this set of events is that, as thousands of people saw in person, and the video of the event illustrates, the students who chose to carry the mattress in their hands marched right past Dean Valentini and President Bollinger, rather than pausing for the traditional handshakes, with either the college dean or the university president.
	That is their right, but the idea that there was any intended snub is incorrect, and does not ring true to anyone who knows the President Bollinger and his graciousness.
	The day after the graduation, it was reported that a friend of Emma Solkowitz had accused Paul Nungesser of assaulting him as well.
	According to Adam, during the conversation he had with him, Nungessa asked him to sit on the bed, rub his shoulders and back, then gently pushed him down and proceeded to stroke his leg and finally massage his crotch for approximately 2-3 minutes while Adam froze in shock.
	He was finally able to muster the will to get up and leave.
	The investigators report noted numerous contradictions in Adam's account, as well as its drastic discrepancy with the Facebook record.
	Nungessa's account, on the other hand, was not only consistent, but matched by corroborative evidence.
	This appears to have been another lie, another false allegation of sexual assault, leveled at a man who has been dogged by a group of people consistently levelling false accusations of sexual assault at him.
	It seems that there is a pattern of malicious behaviour from this group of friends, and it seems to stem from the fact that Paul Nungessa did not want a relationship with Emma Solkowitz.
	Given the high profile of the case and the categoric nature of the evidence against Emma Solkowicz's accusations, and the fact that she had never been brought to justice for her false allegations or the allegations of her friends that she seems to have organized against Nungessa,
	combined with the highly politicized nature of the feminist activism being performed using this fraudulent case as a basis, it should come as no surprise that concerned members of the public felt the need to get involved.
	An unknown member of the public created a Twitter account called Fake Rape and using a picture of Emma Solkowicz proceeded to post various images of posters that had been put up around Columbia and posted these pictures to hashtags used to communicate about this case.
	The posters featured an image of Emma Solkowitz carrying her mattress with the words Pretty Little Liar overlaid on top.
	The same was also done to Lena Dunham after she had alleged she had been raped by a Republican who it turned out did not exist.
	Needless to say, these posters caused quite a lot of controversy and received a great deal of media attention, provoking one of Nungessa's accusers to pen an article on Jezebel.com entitled, I am not a pretty little liar.
	The anonymous author doubles down on the allegations that they made, claiming that they were just trying to do the right thing.
	They claim that the characterization that pins them as being a friend of Mattress Girl is not true.
	She's friendly with Emma Solkowicz, but not friends per se.
	But this is the point I find most interesting.
	Since then, I spent so much time and energy just trying to hold on to my narrative and my truth without making a demonstration out of it.
	This is a really interesting way of phrasing things, because the truth appears to be that Paul Nungesser did not sexually assault anyone, and he was the victim of a malicious smear campaign of false allegations that was picked up by the media in order to run him out of Columbia University and destroy his career and prospects.
	For someone to then say, well, my truth is different, is them, as far as I can tell, deliberately buying into their own lies, because that way they presumably don't have to feel like a liar.
	They end by saying, but even if you don't believe me, I don't care.
	I didn't report him for you, I reported him because it was the right thing to do.
	And if I've protected even one person from him, it's been worth it.
	Two weeks after the Pretty Little Liar poster campaign, it seems that Emma Solkowitz tried to strike back and reassert her narrative of the events in what was termed a troubling video performance.
	The project, which was titled, This Is Not a Rape, a reference to Marguerite's The Treachery of Images, was presented on a website with profanatory text which warned the visitor, the following text contains allusions to rape.
	Everything that takes place in the following video is consensual but may resemble rape.
	Solkowitz says, This is not a rape 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.
	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 This Is Not a Rape about what you wanted to make it about.
	Rape.
	The video, which was uploaded to Pornhub after the website was taken down with a DDoS attack, shows Emma Solkowitz and an unknown man allegedly reenacting Emma Solkowitz's story of events, complete with nudity and penetrative sex.
	Although Solkowitz wanted it to become a commentary on the people watching it, in an attempt to guilt-trip them into feeling like accessories to her rape, it did nothing to reassure people that these were the actions of a legitimate victim of rape, and reinforced in the minds of many onlookers that Emma Solkowitz was in fact lying and looking for attention.
	Solkowitz continued her artistic career, but found it difficult to move beyond the title Mattress Girl that she had earned for herself with the Carry That Weight performance.
	In February of 2016, she tried to move beyond the title of Mattress Girl, as reported favourably by the LA Times.
	No mattresses are in sight, only Solkowitz and an uncannily lifelike sculpture of her, Emmatron, standing on matching white pedestals.
	Empty pedestals are placed before the artist and artwork.
	Visitors are invited to step up and talk with them.
	You may speak to Solkowitz about anything you like, but if you stray into mattress territory, she will direct you to Emmatron who speaks through an iPad app loaded with preset questions and answers of which Solkowitz has grown tired.
	On the 24th of June 2016, the National Organization of Women gave Emma Solkowicz the Woman of Courage Award at its 2016 Forward Feminism Conference.
	I think this is absolutely proof positive that the feminist narrative surrounding Emma Solkowitz had diverged so significantly from reality that it no longer bore any resemblance.
	It doesn't matter how often Emma Solkowitz claims that she was raped.
	Her own words demonstrate that she was in fact in love with Paul, did not think he had raped her at the time, and she appears to have levelled these accusations after their relationship had broken down.
	But now, Emma Solkowicz's mattress performance, having been embraced by feminists far and wide as an example of the injustices done to poor young women on college campuses, are all in the same boat, where they have to accept her word as the God-given truth, regardless of the actual evidence that comes to light.
	This is in effect a mass delusion among feminists, in which they all must partake or the illusion is shattered.
	Emma Solkowitz's feminist art career kept going from strength to strength, holding bizarre and esoteric performance pieces that doubtless have some deep meaning to those involved.
	While researching this video, I had to investigate these art pieces for myself.
	I personally found them not for me.
	I can't really see the artistic merit in what is going on here, but I'm not a hipster art connoisseur, and so I'm really not the intended audience.
	The latest example of which was from the 25th of May 2017, in which Emma Salkowitz is tied up and whipped by an old man.
	Again, not a piece that was successful at persuading the public at large that she is actually a rape victim, and not someone who is...
	desperately seeking attention and attempting to satisfy her own sexual fetishes.
	She explains this by saying, what good is art hung on the wall of a sinking ship if our country is falling to pieces and you have artists running around and saying they're political artists?
	But really, that art is hanging on a sinking ship.
	The ship is still sinking.
	I was thinking a lot about this.
	Is it really possible for political artists to make work that makes a ship stop from sinking?
	The answer is, whatever i'm making work about that question, the answer in reality is no.
	She explains it in greater detail in another interview with ART NET.
	Lately, i've been reading this book Masochism, coldness and cruelty by Gills Deleuze.
	He talks about how the Marquis De Sard had a whole system of sadism and Leopold Von Sacker Masock had a whole system of masochism and they're very separate.
	The perfect sadist is the man who finds unwilling victims and rapes and tortures him.
	In Massock's system, it's actually about a man finding a woman who's willing to torture him, so it's actually consensual.
	So where the sadistic system is patriarchal, the masochistic system is actually matriarchal.
	It's really easy to jump on board with a masochistic system, but the protagonist is still the man.
	What about a consensual system with a female protagonist?
	It would look the same as a sadistic system, like a man torturing a woman, but it would be based on consent.
	Sokowitz's misunderstanding of the terms patriarchal and matriarchal notwithstanding, I will leave this to your own judgement.
	But finally, returning to Paul Nungessa, his lawsuit against Columbia University was successful and they decided to settle with him.
	The settlement comes more than three months after a judge threw out the lawsuit in which he alleged that Columbia contributed to Solkowitz's efforts against him in a way that discriminated against him because he is a male.
	A judge dismissed the case, but he appealed on july the 7th.
	Both parties filed to withdraw the case and they announced the settlement on thursday.
	Although we are not told the details of the settlement, in a statement Columbia said that it recognizes.
	After the conclusion of the sexual misconduct investigation, Paul's remaining time at Columbia became very difficult for him, and not what Columbia would want any of its students to experience.
	Columbia will continue to review and update its policies towards ensuring that every student, accuser and accused including those like Paul who are found not responsible is treated respectfully and as a full member of the Columbia community.
	Nungessa's parents said we are truly happy regarding this settlement.
	We fought for almost four years for a statement like the one Columbia released today.
	It gives Paul a chance to recover from the false accusations Against him.
	We hope that the resolution of the case also ensures that no student will ever have to endure what Paul went through after he was exonerated.
	Emma Solkowitz's accusations against Paul Nungesser are a classic archetype of a female revenge story, and this was bought into and supported by feminists in the media, in politics, and presumably in the university itself, as well as activists and various commentators across the internet.
	This should serve as a warning to believing people without evidence and rescinding the presumption of innocence of the people accused.
	Paul Nungessa's life was turned into a living hell.
	His friends abandoned him and he was treated like a pariah on the word of a few women who wanted to destroy him because he rejected one of them.

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