Former Vice President Joe Biden delivered some blunt advice for college men during a campus sexual assault awareness event at George Mason University on Wednesday: "Guys, a woman who’s dead drunk cannot consent. You are raping her.”
Biden's talk was part of an event sponsored by It's On Us, the organization he and former president Barack Obama founded to combat "the epidemic of sexual violence" on college campuses. One of the group's key messages is that men need to be involved in preventing sexual assault and combating rape culture.
"I've been in a lot of locker rooms. I don't know where in locker rooms where it is acceptable to talk about, 'Man, I was out this weekend and boy, I got a piece of her, and I did this and I did that.'"
"The guys who usually say that are usually the ugliest sons of bi— guns in the room," he added, to laughter and applause from the crowd. "Here's the deal guys, you gotta speak up. You cannot let that kind of talk be bred on a college campus."
Later in his speech, Biden said that men who don't take action when they see women in bad situations are complicit in sexual assault. "When you see something, if you're a fraternity brother and you see a young freshman co-ed in the second week dead drunk, and him walking her up the stairs, you gotta go up to him and say, 'Hey, not in my house, Jack. Not in my house.' Because if you don't, you are an accomplice. You know what's about to happen. You know!"
Biden ended his speech with a message for men on college campuses. “I say to you guys, please, please act like men. Rape and sexual assault are not about sex, it’s about power. If you want to be a man, stand up, man.”
"And if you can't get her to say yes because she wants to, you ain't much."
Watch some excerpts from Biden's speech:
Joe Biden just offered some blunt advice to college men: “Guys, a woman who’s dead drunk cannot consent. You are ra… https://t.co/pt35LU4FfL