A student rugby club has been shamed into apologising for organising a "free pussy" event, where members were instructed to spike their date's drink.
The Oxford University sports team were told to pick female first year students who would be "quaking in their boots", while one member was told his "task" - ongoing until he succeeded - was to bring a positive pregnancy test.
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The email, from Pembroke College Rugby Football Club's (PCRFC) social secretary, was titled "Free Pussy" and has been described as "horrific" by other students.
A statement issued by PCRFC said the club apologised for any "confusion or misunderstanding" that had arisen from the "joke".
Pembroke College's Junior Common Room (JCR) committee issued a lengthy response to the email, raising its concerns for the safety of the young women who had been "picked" to attend the event.
The JCR, which described the email as "deeply offensive" and "repulsive", said it seemed the rugby team had not "grasped the seriousness of their offences, and will shrug this off as an overreaction of a female-led JCR committee".
"We are outraged and hugely offended by [the] email," the JCR said in a statement. "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’," the JCR concluded.
PCRFC's statement read: “Pembroke Rugby Club accepts that the emails circulated earlier this week about our proposed Crew Date were entirely misguided and represent a serious case of poor judgement.
“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. A leader of the club confirmed, in a follow up email, that what the joke was supposed to involve the player adding another drink or food to their date's wine (eg tabasco), and if the date guessed correctly what had been added then that player would then have to drink the wine.
“The rugby club and its members want to take this opportunity to apologise for any confusion or misunderstanding that arose from this.”
The event has now been cancelled.
Dr Clive Siviour, dean of Pembroke College, said: "I am aware of the e-mail sent by a member of the Rugby Club. The content of this e-mail 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. I understand that the event referred to in the e-mail has been cancelled and the organisers intend to apologise fully to the JCR community for their actions.
"It is the responsibility of all of us at Oxford to create a community in which our students behave responsibly and with mutual respect; for this reason we fully support the excellent sexual consent workshops which OUSU are running in a number of colleges, including Pembroke, and the enthusiastic engagement of our own students with this initiative.”