Oxford rugby players punished for “free pussy” social

An Oxford College Rugby club has been barred from all competition, after it organised a “free pussy” social in which players were encouraged to spike female students’ drinks.

Pembroke College Rugby Team (PCRFC) will no longer be allowed to play in the first round of the league season, and the Oxford University Rugby Football Union (OURFU) has demanded each and every one of the team’s leadership face re-election.

Over a week and a half ago, the social secretary of Pembroke College’s Rugby Team sent out an email to its members instructing them to pick out a first year female student who would be “quaking in her boots”. Another team member was instructed to produce a positive pregnancy test.

The captain of the team, who has resigned in the wake of the incident, said “I could have shown greater leadership and better judgement in reacting more quickly to the offensive phrases in the email. I reacted too slowly. In the longer term I will try my hardest to rid PCRFC of any elements of this culture that we find still reside in the club.”

In response to the email, the Pembroke Junior Common Room issued a statement early last week, which said that “we fear that the rugby committee do not seem to have grasped the seriousness of their offences, and will shrug this off as an overreaction of a female-led JCR committee.”

“It went on to say that ‘We are outraged and hugely offended by the email. There is very little about the email that suggests any level of respect for the women of Pembroke.

“From the imagined female freshers ‘quaking in their boots thinking that they might be picked’, to the concerning ‘challenge’ to a team member to bring a ‘positive pregnancy test’, the email is a pretty repulsive read.

“The proposed spiking of the dates’ wine with ‘spirits or food or anything you like. But not your sperm’ prompted our main fear for the safety of those going on the crewdate.

“We are committed to ensuring that misogyny does not prevail at Pembroke, and that basic disrespect towards our female members will not continue to be excused as ‘banter’.”