Many students and faculty at the University of Rochester claimed that Landsburg's "thought experiment" was offensive and potentially dangerous, in that it called into question whether or not the rape of unconscious individuals should be illegal. Some protesters pointed out that the young men charged in the Steubenville rape case (to which Landsburg's post directly refers) claimed not to have known that it was illegal to have sex with an unconscious, non-consenting partner—an ignorance that, according to protesters, Landsburg's thought experiment was helping to perpetuate.