Five students at the University of Ottawa, four in student government, were conversing on Facebook, in the hallowed seclusion of privacy settings. Student elections were going on, so there were issues to talk about.

They discussed whether the student federation president, Anne-Marie Roy, with whom they worked, was from Trois-Rivières in Québec, or from Western Ontario. As an ignorant American, this is over my head, but I think the idea is that she claims to be from Trois-Rivières, but isn’t really. And how convenient is her story – a ‘super political strategy” – that she was born in Trois-Rivières but moved to Ontario as a child. I think. It seems like an Anglophone-Francophone twist on the old schoolyard complaint, “She thinks she’s so great.” People from Trois-Rivières are called trifluviens or trifluviennes.

Much worse was ugly talk about sex acts that might be performed on her. Bart Tremblay pronounced he’d be doing this. Specifically, he said, “Let me tell you something right now: the tri-fluvienne president will suck me off in her office chair and after I will fuck her in the ass on Pat’s desk.” (This is a translation from French. “Pat” is Pat Marquis, a participant in the conversation and a vice president in the federation.) The others were boisterously supportive and promised to buy him drinks if he did. There were allegations that Roy had an STD (chlamydia or syphilis) – but one student reassured “those get treated bro.”

Good thing this conversation wasn’t out in the open. Until someone took screenshots and sent them anonymously to Roy.

Roy was not happy with what she saw. She did not take it as a glimpse of sensual delight and tribute to her femininity. She was shocked and nauseated. “This really goes to show how deeply rooted rape culture is in some people’s way of thinking,” she said later.

When she ran into one of the banterers, she confronted him. Not long after, she got a email from the five, which reportedly apologized for any hurt they caused her. It assured her those weren’t actual threats. “While it doesn’t change the inadmissible nature of our comments, we wish to assure you we meant you no harm. We realize the content of our conversation between friends promotes values that have no place in our society and our campus, on top of being unacceptably coarse.” (Also translated from French. Could it be charming in French? …Mais non.)

Roy was still unhappy. Maybe it was the emphasis on how the conversation was “between friends,” with its hint that it’s none of her beeswax if they feel like chatting about how she should be ‘punished with their shaft.’

She decided to bring it up at a meeting of the student federation’s board of administration, and make a motion to condemn this behavior. Two of the wits were on this board. She passed out copies of the conversation. At that meeting, she got an email from four of the guys threatening legal action if she did not stop showing people copies. Also she should destroy her own copy. It infringed their privacy rights. Not having a lawyer sitting next to her, Roy asked to bring the issue up later.

“It was kind of like getting a double whammy,” Roy said. “You get put in a very difficult situation and to have these men try to take all power away from me by telling me that I need to be censored and that I can’t take action.”

But it was too late to stuff the genie back in Facebook and pretend it never happened.

All five men eventually resigned from student government. Marquis (the one who didn’t threaten legal action) told the media he had gotten hate mail and threats, and didn’t feel safe. He issued an individual apology. “I sincerely apologize to Ms. Roy, my colleagues at the SFUO, and the student population for participating in an inappropriate conversation which was published online on Feb. 28, 2014.”

(The date indicates that he’s not talking about when it happened, or when Roy found out about it, but when others found out about it. He’s complaining about the injustice to him.)

“There was some conversation with some pretty violent, like, some pretty demeaning words,” he told the media. “I didn’t say much in that conversation, but I didn’t stop it either. There’s a lot of boys’ talk and locker room talk that can seem pretty normal at the time, but then when you actually look back at it, it can be offensive.”

Didn’t stop it? I guess not. Offering to buy Tremblay a drink if he had sex with Roy isn’t even changing the subject.

He also said, “My comment in that situation was about congratulating a friend about whether he would be able to seduce someone else. It was never about sexual assault. It was never about taking advantage of women.” Ah, seduction! (Imagine me kissing my fingertips to Marquis, but not in a nice way.)

Alexandre Larochelle, in his resignation letter, said his “immediate apology and attempts to resolve the recent situation with as little hurt and disrespect as possible have not been successful. I deeply regret my comments (meant to be private) and despite my commitment to the students I no longer feel I can represent you.” Larochelle also made an individual apology to Roy.

Two others, Michel Fournier-Simard and Alexandre Giroux, were asked for comment and replied with matching statements, each of which said, “We made a mistake in private; we presented our apology twice, the first time being on Feb. 10,” they said. “All the individuals involved in the recent controversial event have resigned in the best interest of their respective [student] associations to allow them to continue their activities effectively.”

That’s quite a collection of defensive, self-pitying apologies. It was private! It was the other guys! We were just kidding! It was only boy talk! We were betrayed! That’s illegal! We apologized more than once and she was still mad! I tried to make nice!

There’s an issue here besides saying nasty rape-y things. They were all members of student government, talking about a woman they worked with. (I’m sure none of this has to do with envy that she’s the one who’s president.) Their conversation was not simply private, but by its nature closed to Roy and to other women. This creates an informal cabal and a clandestinely hostile work environment.

One of the justifications that used to be given for men-only clubs was that women wouldn’t want to be/shouldn’t be subjected to the “frank” talk that goes on among men. We won’t even mention guys peeing on things. Therefore, even if that’s where important political and commercial business was transacted… too bad. (Used to be? Did I say used to be? Hi, Bohemian Grove!)

Frank talk? Bloody hell. What the fuck? We’ve all seen guys pee on things.

This becomes a little clearer now. “Hi ladies! Speak of the devil! We were just talking about different ways to rape you, and we ran out of ideas. Maybe you can help us out here.”