The Oxford University Pembroke College rugby club has being disciplined following an email distributed to its more than fifty members which invited the players to “pick” a female fresher for a night out and spike her wine with “a substance of your choice”. 

The email, sent out by Woo Kim, the team’s social secretary, was titled “Free Pussy” and outlined plans for the team’s next “crew date”, scheduled to take place on the 24th of October. Crew dates are similar to the Cambridge ‘swaps’, where a group of girls from one college or sports team go for a meal with boys from another college or sports team, and typically get drunk. 

Following angry protests from fellow students the event was eventually cancelled, Kim resigned from the club’s committee, and members of the team attended a sexual consent discussion forum organised by Pembroke’s JCR committee. 

A spokesman for Pembroke rugby club stated: "We would like to clarify that the ‘challenge’ proposed in advance of the intended crew date was intended to be a harmless drinking game joke, and was in no way intended to mean that the team member should lace their dates' drinks with anything illegal and/or to engage in any sexual abuse."

However the email clearly specified that: “You must open the bottle in advance, and include a substance of your choice.” It warns members to be “as clandestine as possible in your deed”, while also requesting one member of the team to “bring a positive pregnancy test. This task shall be on-going until you succeed.” It adds: “Every fresher in Pembroke is quaking in their boots thinking they might be picked as our date.” 

The team’s profile on crewdater.com does not improve their image. “Hi we're Pembroke Rugby and when we're not noshing on each others [sic] crotches, we like to show you ladies a good time! Apply accordingly”, it states.

Will Brown, a third-year undergraduate at the college, told Cherwell, the University of Oxford student paper: "I, like the vast majority of students at Pembroke, was disgusted by these comments. They represent an ugly, corrosive form of misogyny that simply shouldn't be tolerated in any level of society, and that can't just be dismissed as yet another supposedly harmless juvenile 'joke'." 

On the Cambridge front, Charlie Nye, a second year medic and member of the Selwyn College Rugby team, was shocked. Speaking to Varsity, Nye saud: “Our socials are really tame! Although I have heard some stories about other rugby clubs, I have never heard anything where people are being deceived like this.” 

Dr Clive Siviour, dean of Pembroke College, Oxford said: "The content of this email is completely unacceptable, and I am taking the appropriate action on behalf of the college authorities.

"These actions of a small number of students have been met with universal condemnation from their peers."