Another Frosh Week, Another Terrible ‘No Means Yes’ Controversy

Hey Canada, we almost made it through another frosh week without having to hear the rapey slogan "no means yes," but some dickheads from my alma mater Western (of course) had to go out and ruin it.

Not particularly creative in their misogyny, some mysterious "jokesters" with a "sense of humour" decided to write "no means yes… and yes means anal" on a student house window near campus. If it sounds familiar, that's because it was infamously chanted by frat dudes at Yale in 2014—the same year students at Saint Mary's in Halifax chanted, "U is for underage, N is for no consent."

A woman named Emma Richard first discovered the shitty window sign last week. "I had no words. I couldn't comprehend what I was looking at," she wrote in a Facebook post. "This is what my neighbours appear to think is true of the English language, of acceptable actions."

Read More: Quebec University Students May Be Expelled Over a Game Accused of Promoting Rape Culture

Richard then wrote that her shock turned to anger and sadness: "I wept for everyone who has ever said 'no' only to have 'yes' heard, yes acted upon… I wept for those who will continue to suffer the consequences of a culture in which a household feels 'no means yes' is an acceptable thing to write on their window."

In the days following the discovery, the school's housing mediation coordinator appeared to downplay the incident in the local press. "I get it: the message is really bad, but students do dumb things," Glenn Matthews told the London Free Press.

The executive director of London's Abused Women's Centre Megan Walker called out the response for defending rape culture. "It's manager describes rape culture as boys being boys, kids play," she tweeted.

This week, the university apologized for the slow response time and announced an investigation into the rapey, unoriginal slogan. Jana Luker, Western's associate vice-provost of student experience, wrote that "Western takes full responsibility for not responding to the incident adequately."

"To be clear, sexual violence is not tolerated at Western. The message written on that window is a form of sexual violence. Its existence threatened the safety and security of our campus community," Luker wrote, adding that campus police have been notified.

"Glenn has since apologized and expressed sincere regret that his comments dismissed the seriousness of sexual violence and served to damage the University's initiatives to eliminate such abhorrent activity," reads the letter.

With universities like UBC set to unveil new sex assault policies in the coming days, here's hoping we'll do better next year.

Follow Sarah on Twitter.