When I was a college student now more than 20 years ago, sexual assault awareness was in its infancy. When we pictured the act of rape, we thought of the stranger jumping out of the alley to attack the unsuspecting woman. But sexual assault is often committed by an acquaintance.
In 1994, a bipartisan group in Congress passed the Violence Against Women Act which was developed after years of extensive grassroots lobbying.
One of the rallying cries is the notion that “no means no.” Mainly young men were taught that, if a young woman said no to their sexual advances, this was the line of demarcation. It didn’t matter whether she was drunk. It didn’t matter if she had been a willing participant up until a point, and it didn’t matter if she had originally said yes.
Despite these efforts, the statistics are stunning. About one in four college women has been the victim of a sexual assault during her academic career. Somewhere between 70 to 80 percent of these were by acquaintances. Many of these involved alcoholic consumption prior to the assault.
The vast majority of rapes and attempted rapes, 95 percent, are never reported to law enforcement, the National Institute of Justice reports.
This is a crisis. There is no way around it.
So California, for once, is blazing a trail with Governor Jerry Brown a few weeks ago signing SB 967. This law changes the standards for sexual assault and requires college campuses to adopt policies for rape responses that include an “affirmative consent” stand, which puts responsibility on someone engaging in sexual activity to obtain an affirmative, conscious and voluntary agreement from his or her partner.
Sexual assault is a highly personal crime and it is very difficult to prosecute. That is one reason, we suspect, why the percentage of unreported sexual assaults is so high. There are rarely witnesses to the assault, there may be physical evidence, but unless it is a violent rape, it is difficult to prove that it was coerced or that one was an unwilling partner.
“Affirmative consent” means “affirmative, conscious, and voluntary agreement to engage in sexual activity. It is the responsibility of each person involved in the sexual activity to ensure that he or she has the affirmative consent of the other or others to engage in the sexual activity.”
“Lack of protest or resistance does not mean consent, nor does silence mean consent,” the law now states. “Affirmative consent must be ongoing throughout a sexual activity and can be revoked at any time. The existence of a dating relationship between the persons involved, or the fact of past sexual relations between them, should never by itself be assumed to be an indicator of consent.”
This shifts the burden from the woman having to prove that she said no and he ignored her protest to the man having to demonstrate that she consented to the action.
Not surprisingly, many people object to changing the burden. Commenters on the Vanguard objected to the notion, implying that the need to obtain consent is onerous and could be ripe for abuse. That is a possibility. However, it is also the case, as one commenter noted, that perhaps the best defense is to abstain from casual sex, particularly if one or both of the parties have consumed alcohol.
Indeed, we have to sign liability waiver forms for children to go on field trips, we have to sign liability waiver forms and contracts in all walks of life – perhaps in the case of casual sex, in order to protect vulnerable portions of the population, we need to do the same.
The problem is that, while we have established that “no means no,” the easy defense is often that “she didn’t say no.”
That said, I take a lot of exception to Debra DeAngelo’s column in the Enterprise this week. She continues to want to rehash a trial that she didn’t even observe personally. But, really, it was this line that got to me: “[T]he ‘she didn’t say no’ defense is no longer valid… Sorry, sleazy defense attorneys. You can’t go that route anymore.”
Look, I get that rape trials are exceedingly difficult on the victim, but that doesn’t mean that defense attorneys are sleazy when they attempt to create doubt in the minds of a jury about whether the victim did not give consent. That’s their job.
If no one witnesses the crime and there is no physical evidence of a forced assault, what other choice does an attorney have? That doesn’t make the attorney sleazy, in our system of law, and the perpetrator, even a rapist, is entitled to a defense.
That said, I think the lessons here, on a college campus which is where this bill applies more so than in a court of law, are as follows:
First, if you are drinking and with a person with whom you have no established relationship, maybe it is better to refrain from having sex, particularly in instances where the intentions of the woman are in question.
Second, if you do have to have sex, make sure it is mutually agreed to and potentially document it.
Is that really where we have gone as a society that we have to document permission to have sex? Well, perhaps in a society where one in four women are raped during their college career and most don’t report it, then yes.
I am as big a libertarian as there is when it comes to civil liberties, but it is time to teach young people that with freedom comes responsibility. You have to sign an agreement to rent a dorm room on campus, so why is it so shocking to reach an agreement to have intimate relations with a drunken stranger?
The real question is why has it taken so long for the state legislature and college campuses to take sexual assault this seriously.
—David M. Greenwald
“I get that rape trials are exceedingly difficult on the victim, but that doesn’t mean that defense attorneys are sleazy when they attempt to create doubt in the minds of a jury that the victim gave consent. That’s their job.”
I agree that it is the job of the defense attorney to ‘create doubt’. I disagree that creating doubt in the minds of the jury should ever entail an attack on the character of the alleged victim. Bringing up past behavior of the “victim” says absolutely nothing about the current circumstance. Prostitutes can be raped. Wives can be raped by their husbands. Dating coeds can be raped by their boyfriend. Rape is not just about violence, it is about the imposition of an unwanted act upon a weaker ( physically or psychologically ) individual. It is about power. It applies to men as well as to women although the numbers are much smaller. However, the defense attorney can and will attempt to play upon the juries moral sense and imply that it was ‘no big deal’ because of the alleged victims past sexual choices. It is this implication that rape did not occur if she has chosen sexual activity in the past that is sleazy and should never be “part of the job” of a defense attorney.
Tia wrote:
> Bringing up past behavior of the “victim” says absolutely nothing about the current circumstance
If a guy has been “convicted” buy a court ten times for drunk driving do you really think it says “absolutely nothing” if he is found passed out holding a Jack Daniels bottle on F Street?
While I think Tia overstated the point when she said “absolutely nothing” particularly in cases where the alleged victim has a history of fabricating charges, she is correct that prostitutes can be raped and therefore sexual behavior in the past does not prove consent in the future. By shifting the burden here – at least in civil responses – we can avoid that conundrum.
David
You are correct. I did not make allowance for the circumstance in which a “victim” can be demonstrated to have lied under other similar circumstances. Thus illustrating why absolutist statements are rarely valid.
That being said, in a world where 95 percent of sexual assaults go unreported, I don’t believe the problem we face are false allegations. Moreover, there seems to be some strange notion that women who are more inclined to have had multiple sexual partners are also more inclined to offer false allegations. I don’t see any factual basis for that belief. Therefore I reject SOD’s analogy to the drunk.
“If a guy has been “convicted” buy a court ten times for drunk driving do you really think it says “absolutely nothing” if he is found passed out holding a Jack Daniels bottle on F Street?”
No, but if the bottle were sealed, and had a ribbon and card to his good friend who loves Jack Daniels while he himself only drinks cheap wine, I might give him the benefit of the doubt ! ( Smile)
I guess Tia Will would also not want a cop’s history of abusing criminals brought up in a trial where he was accused of beating an inmate. After all, that had nothing to do with the current beating.
David wrote:
> When I was a college student now more than 20 years ago,
> sexual assault awareness was in its infancy.
Did you lock yourself in a computer lab at Cal Poly 20 years ago and never come out or live off campus?
When I was in college THIRTY (30) years ago not a week went by without some date rape story or date rape awareness event on campus. EVERY kid at a UC and State school in CA has been getting date rape prevention stuff long before you started college and kids in the dorms and greek houses have been hammered with it. In addition to the big “take back the night” march (that has been around for FORTY (40) years) that usually goes down greek row (so the protestors can yell at the guys and call them rapists) most schools have extra marches and tons of press covering the “date rape culture” when some drunk idiot usually says something stupid to the people yelling at him telling him that “ALL MEN ARE RAPISTS” (I remember sitting on the deck watching 100+ women screaming at us calling us rapists and asking a friend what he thought would happen if 100+ white guys marched in front of a black fraternity and yelled a them and called them criminals)…
P.S. Trying to find an article about college women calling ALL college men rapists this popped up (I’m sure Frankly will like it since it is just another example of “we get to bully people and say whatever we want, but if you do the same thing it is a hate crime):
http://www.womenagainstmen.com/media/feminism-is-a-hate-group.html
As with the 55mph speed limit, this is unenforceable and unrealistic (repealed).
As with the smoking ban at UCD, this is unenforceable and unrealistic.
And with all three, the preceding laws (speed limits, not smoking in buildings, date rape laws and awareness) were all reasonable, and these laws went too far, going from protecting others from perpetrators (smoking, speeding, rape) to attempts at social engineering of human behavior. In the end, only a few saps will be caught in the net, while the real perps will be caught anyway (super speeders, smokers in buildings, rapists) while a few won’t be because resources are taken away to enforce social engineering laws (sap doing 60mph, sap standing 19 feet from building, sap having sex with young woman who self-loosened-up with alcohol wanting to have sex, later regretted it and filed changes, not taking responsibility for her part). If you kill someone because you were blacked out in a car drinking, that is not an excuse for getting away with killing someone with your car. If two college students are blind drunk and horny at a frat party and consummate sex, who is responsible, and who will get the blame? With this law, are we creating responsibility, or a new class of victims?
A lot of women have been date raped, and I do not lessen the pain of that, or the crime of that, or the difficulty in proving that if they are brave enough to try. My concern with this law is that it attempts to take rape, already horrific and illegal, and define the path of the semi-drunken human sexual mating ritual as if it were a DMV driving test and if you don’t pass you are a rapist. Drunken young people are not going to abstain from casual sex; casual sex is part of college life. The strongest barrier to rape is for women to know their drinking limits, and to know that at the core men are driven for sex and some, even when appearing charming, are rapists, especially when those men have been drinking themselves. So be careful out there. Laws not going to save you.
Alan wrote:
> If two college students are blind drunk and horny at a frat party and
> consummate sex, who is responsible, and who will get the blame?
Do you really need to ask, we all know the man will get the blame…
Alan wrote “to know that at the core men are driven for sex ”
South of Davis wrote”we all know the man will get the blame”
Hmmmm….let’s see woman are supposed to assume increased responsibility because men are too driven by desire for sex to do so. Well, if this is correct, who should get the “blame”? Not saying it is, just think that it is an interesting juxtaposition of ideas and that it does exemplify the way our society has traditionally handled men’s and women’s respective responsibilities and roles with regard to sexual activity.
… and we all also know that the woman will get pregnant. The man will definitely get the better of that deal.
Except that the pregnant woman can easily find an OB/GYN to remove the unwanted ‘product of conception’, which has ~ 50% chance of being male. Sounds like a start towards “restorative justice” to me.
Yes she can Hortense, but you as a woman should know that she is more than likely to emotionally remember in self recriminatory tones the life termination decision she made for that human being. That is a lifelong burden to bear for many women.
Note: I am 100% pro-Choice personally, but when actually confronted with having to make the choice, my choice was life.
“Indeed, we have to sign liability waiver forms for children to go on field trips, we have to sign liability waiver forms and contracts in all walks of life, perhaps in the case of casual sex, in order to protect vulnerable portions of the population, we need to do the same.”
LMAO, this sentence just shows what a stupid law this is.
why is that?
Re: “Indeed, we have to sign liability waiver forms for children to go on field trips, we have to sign liability waiver forms and contracts in all walks of life, perhaps in the case of casual sex, in order to protect vulnerable portions of the population, we need to do the same.”
“O, brave new world
that has such people in’t!”
William Shakespeare, The Tempest
Inspiration for Aldous Huxleys title for dystopic “Brave New World”
““O, brave new world
that has such people in’t!”
William Shakespeare, The Tempest
Inspiration for Aldous Huxleys title for dystopic “Brave New World”
Interesting that you should choose this quote, but fail to acknowledge the significance of its origin. It is spoken by Miranda who has spent most of her youth isolated in exile because of her father’s politics. Unexpectedly finding herself introduced to the concept of love, and romance in the form of the Prince of Naples when she has previously only had her father for company, she utters this line. Miranda was and is at the mercy of the whims and fortunes of the males in her life and has essentially no autonomy.
I find this a curious quote for this thread.
Yes, I had forgotton the context when Miranda said it; I was thinking more of the spirit in which it was used by Huxley.
Perhaps in the same way Miranda had little autonomy with males controlling her fate; we are increasingly ceding our definitions of acceptable social behavior and autonomy of judgement in social transactions to legal proclamations and lawyers; and while it might help to protect in some circumstances it generally comes at the expense of excercising one’s own judgement (for both men and women). Perhaps the metaphor of the different animals in Animal Farm is more appropriate, by ceding our personal judgement we move, as individuals, a step down on the evolutionary ladder. Not only is three a crowd in bedroom situations; but having a lawyer present as the 3rd is the last choice for most (I’d rather have a doctor there to caution me about disease and conception!)
No means no was good enough. But apparently women are not capable enough to control themselves and to be decisive when it comes to sex. The men have been saddled with this extra responsibility to make sure they treat the women like they are incapable and indecisive. And at the same time the men are told that women are their equals. Right.
Too bad boys grow to men and natural hormone cause them to be attracted to women. Because with this legislation pushed by NOW my message to growing boys is to very females as being extremely toxic to your well-being. Better just hang with the boys, drink beer and watch sports.
Interestingly enough, this is exactly what I observe to be happening.
And I also observe more frustrated females wondering why they cannot find a “nice man” to date.
Welcome to the liberal pursuit of dystopia.
“No means no was good enough. ”
1 in four women sexually assaulted on a college campus, 95 percent unreported. Those are bad numbers.
“But apparently women are not capable enough to control themselves and to be decisive when it comes to sex. ”
It doesn’t sound like women are the problem here. It’s amazing how the conservative, victim rights advocates, blame the victim when it comes to rape.
“1 in four women sexually assaulted on a college campus”
And this law will cure that? How, exactly?
Maybe it will increase the number of reported cases for which charges are actually filed. That percentage is very low right now.
maybe
David wrote:
> 1 in four women sexually assaulted on a college campus,
>95 percent unreported. Those are bad numbers.
If one in four college men had their wallets stolen by homeless guys that got them drunk after offering them Mad Dog 20/20 (or Night Train or T Bird) would you:
1. Tell your sons not to drink alcohol fortified wine from homeless guys (aka from David’s point of view “blaming the victim”) or
2. Work to pass a “yes means yes” law where any homeless guy that takes a guys wallet must get a “yes” from a sober guy first.
Bonus question: If the “yes means yes” law did not reduce the number of guys passing out and having their wallets stolen would you:
1. Think about now telling your sons not to drink alcohol fortified wine from homeless guys or
2. Work to pass a “written agreement law” (while bashing anyone who thinks more “laws” are not the answer as bad people who are “blaming the victim”.
WHO would DO such a thing?
Nothing like equating rape with petty theft.
If not stunningly obvious, this was not equating, but a metaphor.
Dictionary definition of metaphor:
In other words: equating it.
Don wrote:
> Nothing like equating rape with petty theft.
Nothing like jumping in to action (in less than five minutes) to “bash anyone who thinks more “laws” are not the answer” as a bad person that thinks rape is the same as petty theft…
You’re the one who posted the “metaphor.” If you didn’t mean to compare them, why did you compare them?
Rape is a serious problem. The statistics are daunting: a large percentage go unreported, a large percentage that get reported aren’t charged. And a percentage of cases turn out to be false charges (2 – 8%, per Wikipedia at least).
So we have a couple of problems, and to repeatedly minimize the issue — as you and others here do every time this subject is posted — doesn’t address those facts.
Reporting and prosecution rates: https://www.rainn.org/get-information/statistics/reporting-rates
False accusations: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_accusation_of_rape
Don wrote:
> A metaphor is a figure of speech that describes a subject by asserting that it is, on
>some point of comparison, the same as another otherwise unrelated object.
If I said Frankly would be like “a like a duck out of water” (a common metaphor) at the DNC convention would you say I was equating Frankly with a Duck?
P.S. I think Don not only missed my point, but does not understand what a metaphor is…
“And I also observe more frustrated females wondering why they cannot find a “nice man” to date.”
In my experience “nice men” don’t pressure girls to have sex.
“It’s amazing how the conservative, victim rights advocates, blame the victim when it comes to rape.”
It’s amazing how the liberal, defendant rights advocates, want to make it easier for the alledged rapist to get convicted.
i thought we decided last week that this didn’t have anything to do with convictions, that it only set up policy guidelines for administrative purposes on college campuses? what this really does, is as don says, makes it more likely that victims will have the administrative support on college campuses to come forward.
what this really does, is as don says, makes it more likely that victims will have the administrative support on college campuses to come forward.
Maybe, but it also codifies college practices for poorly investigating and adjudicating claims of rape and sexual assault. It is a “Man Presumed Guilty” piece of crap legislation.
It also stupifies and corrupts the real definition of rape and sexual assault.
It punishes 97% of the males that are good, because of the 3% engaged in real criminal behavior.
But most astounding, it will serve to destroy the future lives of many males undeserving of the harm. And for any parent of sons that supported this crap legislation, I have little empathy for your ignorance in harming your sons.
And so the sex should not have occurred. For it to have occurred in an instance when they were so drunk that they had no memory of the assault, the other participant in the sexual encounter IS responsible. That’s what this is all about.
I’m not ignorant. Please stop saying that. It’s derogatory, inaccurate, and serves no useful purpose in this discussion. I have a son and a daughter.
Once women feel safer about coming forward, and feel they will be taken seriously, there should be bona fide charges brought by a prosecutor who knows what he/she is doing. In the present circumstance, it is not uncommon for prosecutors to tell women they won’t succeed if they file charges.
Use the common sense side of your brain. Nobody able to do so should believe the “statistics” being used. It is the dream of militants feminists to label ALL men as rapists. And the political left is at least complacent, but often supportive, of this goal and narrative.
<i>“One in five women is sexually assaulted in college.” This one-in-five statistic came from a single web-based survey of two universities that was conducted in 2006 and posted on the Justice Department’s website in 2007. The survey was anonymous and took 15 minutes to complete. A total of 5,446 undergraduate women between the ages of 18 and 25 filled out the survey, a response rate that researchers admitted is quite low.
The researchers did not get their one-in-five statistic by asking women directly if they had been victims of rape or sexual assault. Instead, researchers asked women about their experiences and then decided if these women had been victims of rape or sexual assault. Two-thirds of the women whom the researchers cite as victims of drug- or alcohol-induced rape and 37 percent of those counted as forcibly raped do not consider themselves to have been victims of crimes. The website advises readers that the survey is not a publication of the Department of Justice and warns readers that reported sexual assault varies widely depending upon survey instruments.
Concerned that there is an unreported sexual assault epidemic on college campuses, the Office for Civil Rights is pressuring schools to inflate their numbers of reported and adjudicated sexual assaults. This is creating an Orwellian world in which a low number of assaults on campus is an occasion not for praise but for censure. In response, colleges are devising hearing procedures to elicit as many assault charges as possible.”</i>
This junk legislation is just another War On Men move… a mechanism for women to recover from regret from their own actions and mistakes, and to punish men and seek revenge.
Rape is terrible and must be dealt with as a most serious of criminal acts. Victims of rape deserve 100% compassion and support, and convicted rapists deserve to be punished to the full extent of the law.
But this legislation does not do anything to advance either cause. Instead, it will destroy the lives of many young men just because they happened to connect with the wrong female.
And for anyone that supports this and thinks it is good, I assume you don’t have college-aged sons or if you do, I pity your ignorance in what you have done to risk the frivolous and unnecessary destruction of his life.
“This junk legislation is just another War On Men move… a mechanism for women to recover from regret from their own actions and mistakes, and to punish men and seek revenge.”
republicans wondering why they are becoming the minority party, ought to read this sentence over and over again.
Don’t speak so fast, the election is in 3 weeks and so far the polls show some nice gains for the GOP.
not referring to the current election.
So DP… one way to look at your point is to say that liberal men will pimp out their integrity to win the game of politics… and maybe hope to be giving a seat at the table when women are finally feeling in charge.
Let me just say that this type of thing will not end well for you or anyone else.
my point is that you’re being insensitive in your comments – just as you criticized romney for his.
I probably am being insensitive to some, but then the legislation and its supporters are being more than insensitive to others… they are directly harming others.
And I think what feels like insensitivity to you is simply your inexperience being challenged on topics that are part of the sacred ideas of left ideology (religion?) surrounded with protection of PC code label weapons. For example, I oppose the legislation so I am anti-female. I provide the excuse for rapists and blame the victim. See how that works?
But if something is wrong, it is wrong. Nobody should get to prop up wrong on a one-sided sensitivity argument.
Who is speaking for boys on this? The same boys that fought and died for this country so others have the freedom to voice an option.
There is an ugly underbelly of the liberal political and media platform and narrative that is anti-boy, anti-male and anti-man. It is very troubling.
But any thinking female should dislike this legislation. They should dislike it because of the resulting social and gender relation impacts.
Part of me is happy about this sort of “progress” to a weird sexless liberal dystopia. It is so ironic though that it is perpetrated primarily from the generation of old, protesting, free-love, substance-abusing children of the greatest generation. Apparently women were stronger and more able to handle their consent during that period of time… because otherwise these do-gooders certainly would have demanded a similar enlightened step in securing women’s rights back in the 60s and 70s.
I am happy because I think the traditional business model for higher learning is broken and this will just be another reason for kids and their parents to start pursuing alternatives. Why the hell spend $30-50k per year only to place the kid in a hornets nest of life-destructing risk?
I am not running for office, so nothing I write is comparable to what Romney said. And I am also not denigrating anyone over this except for the state legislator the governor and all those that support the legislation without consideration of the harm it will cause innocent people falsely accused of wrong doing.
“Instead, it will destroy the lives of many young men just because they happened to connect with the wrong female.”
I actually do no think that this law is sound because I do not believe that it will serve the intended purpose. However, I think the core belief in this statement is that men should be exonerated for their sexual behavior in any circumstance except forcible rape. This is not the only time that this poster has implied that since men are so biologically driven, that it should be up to women to take sole responsibility for sexual responsibility. Note the phrase “happen to connect”. Sexual activity is not something that just happens like an accidental collision in the hallway by two people distracted who don’t see the other coming. Sexual activity is a deliberate acton. If the action is driven by the male, this is not something that is “happening ” to him, it is something that he is choosing to do. So to the men out there, I would ask the following question. What proportion of the time in your lives were you the more assertive partner in pursuing sexual activity vs the times when your female partner was the more assertive ?
There is a reason that men “joke” about not letting their daughters date until they are in their thirties. There is a reason that women ask me my opinion on how to keep their daughters safe, but rarely ask me the same question about their sons. There is a reason that the phrase “shot gun wedding” is used to describe a marriage forced by a girl’s father and no equivalent to force a woman to marry the man she “wronged”.
I am not claiming that women should not accept responsibility for their own actions. But, please let’s not forget that a man is at no risk whatsoever if he decides not to engage in sex. No one is making him take a girl to his room. No one makes him enter hers. Where is the comment that if he wants to avoid accusation, it is as simple as keeping his zipper up.
Frankly wrote:
> the Office for Civil Rights is pressuring schools to inflate their
> numbers of reported and adjudicated sexual assaults
Do you really think this happens and could happen in Davis?
http://www.news.ucdavis.edu/search/news_detail.lasso?id=9254
http://daviswiki.org/Jennifer_Beeman_(CVPP)
SOD. Thanks. I forgot about this for a minute. Apparently so did those that believe the fanciful statistics published.
So basically:
You don’t believe the statistics.
You think it’s all part of a feminist agenda.
You’re more concerned about the impact on young men of false accusations, than on young women who might be helped by any tougher legislation.
Others here basically seem to think this is all about ‘date rape’ and that ‘date rape’ isn’t really rape.
I have a son and a daughter.
I pity your lack of concern for women who are taken advantage of by men. I am always appalled by people who excuse bad behavior on the basis of ‘biology’ or ‘hormones’.
Judging from some of the other information he quoted in a previous thread related to the same topic, it looks like he’s borrowing arguments and rhetoric from typical MRA (Men’s Rights Activists) sites, which do focus all the blame back on “women” and either advocate MGTOW (Men Going Their Own Way) (or, as Frankly says, e.g., “enjoy drinks with your friends…women are wondering why they can’t find good men”), or PUA tactics (Pick-Up Artist), which advocate having sex with as many women as possible, but not forming connections (because women are evil raving feminists).
Again, it comes down to consent (No means No), and to stop perpetuating the idea that if a woman says “yes” (whether by words or actions) she’s a slutty slut who sluts around (this would, IMHO, drastically cut down any of the miniscule number of charges that are filed b/c a woman had regrets the next day–a situation others have already pointed out is already rare as to be “de minimis”).
You don’t believe the statistics.
Correct, I don’t believe the statistics. Read what I posted. Not only are they so extreme to bypass any level of common sense, they are poorly sourced and there is perfect evidence that they are biased and manipulated.
You think it’s all part of a feminist agenda.
Yes I do. And a hard left agenda which is one and the same.
You’re more concerned about the impact on young men of false accusations, than on young women who might be helped by any tougher legislation.
Sure, just like you and others are more concerned about the symbolism of an MRAP rather than its potential to prevent people from being unnecessarily harmed.
When is legislation that will clearly and irreparably harm innocent people justifiable? From your liberal playbook it is okay to throw some unfortunate male away just so you can raise your hand to claim you are a friend of the extreme women’s rights movement? Disgusting hypocrisy to say the least.
Others here basically seem to think this is all about ‘date rape’ and that ‘date rape’ isn’t really rape.
What the hell is wrong with NO MEANS NO!? Anyone says NO and has someone force themselves upon them has the right to claim rape or sexual assault. Anyone who drinks and regrets it the next day should have learned a lesson to never do the same again. But to charge forward to punish the male out of regret… the female goes on with her life, and the male is harmed for life.
You are really okay with this? Fascinating. Politics trumps common sense again!
Congratulations. You just excused the behavior of the person who had sex with an unconscious partygoer. As you would say,
I pity your lack of concern for women who are taken advantage of by men.
You are crossing a line here Mr. Shor.
I have complete and full concern for women. But I also have complete and full concern for men. Don’t you?
It seems that you are willing to accept the significant greater risk that many men would be unfairly harmed from this legislation, just because you think women are NOT capable of saying NO, and/or controlling their consumption of alcohol to a point where they would say YES and not mean it.
The related point here is that it paints women as weak and in need of extra help. I tend to look at them as equals… and perfectly strong enough to say no and to control when they drink to a point before they cannot even tell what they want or don’t want.
I am not crossing any line that you didn’t cross a long time ago in this discussion, Mr. Anonymous.
You have not once evinced the slightest concern for women in these situations. You have informed us that they
You are, indeed, blaming the victim. You repeatedly express your concern for the young men. You have not expressed anything approaching “complete and full concern for women.”
Yep. Men and women need to learn that you don’t force sex on an unwilling or unconscious person.
Although the more common instance is male/female, I have on the other thread on this topic noted the same-sex situation as well. It’s not an issue of being weak, it’s an issue (usually) of being intoxicated. People who are under the influence cannot make rational decisions, whether they are male or female.
Yes, once they’ve learned about alcohol, and other drugs, and mixing them. At the age of 19. There is a significant need for more education and awareness for young adults with respect to the effects of binge drinking. No question about it. But we need to stop making excuses for people who have sex with people who are too drunk or stoned to give consent.
Frankly and Don, there is a simple way to solve this problem … a solution that should work for both of you. Specifically, turn the realities of both the question and the answer around. Instead of forcing the women to affirmatively say “NO,” make it mandatory that the woman has to affirmatively say “YES.” That kind of default voting works in Proposition 218, where only land owners (the woman in the case of sex and its ever present risk of pregnancy) get to vote … and the absence of an actually cast ballot produces a “default” value, with “NO” being the default value in this case.
Think about the opportunities. Mobile phone software companies could produce a App that records any and all affirmative “YES” answers.
Both college and high school male students would see their Grade Point Averages climb as they spend more time studying rather than chasing around looking for situations where fear on the part of the woman causes her not to say “NO.”
“That kind of default voting works in Proposition 218”
In what sense does Prop. 218 “work”? It is a demented sick cruel hoax on democracy.
“It seems that you are willing to accept the significant greater risk that many men would be unfairly harmed from this legislation,”
Zero men who choose not to have sex will be harmed by this legislation. Men have a very easy way to protect themselves. No casual sex. Would any of you have a problem with this solution. After all women have been told for years to “just say no”. Why is this an inappropriate solution for men ?
Well said Tia. Very well said indeed.
Tia Will
“Men have a very easy way to protect themselves. No casual sex. Would any of you have a problem with this solution.”
So Tia, would you have a problem of single women not using birth control? After all, they wouldn’t have unwanted babies if they just said no, a very easy way to protect themselves.
“In other words: equating it.”
Being like does not mean equal in severity. How far do you wish to draw this out?
How far do you want to take the nonsense, Alan? If you post a metaphor, you are drawing an equivalency. It is part of a pattern on this topic of minimizing the facts, of trivializing the situation (“morning regret” comes to mind).
I would like to hear what Frankly, South of Davis, Barack Palin, and Alan Miller think should be done to help young adults who are victims of sexual assault get better outcomes when they report them. I would like to hear what Frankly, South of Davis, Barack Palin, and Alan Miller think might lead to a higher prosecution rate.
I hear excuses, absurd rationalizations, a strange nihilism of suggesting that laws don’t change behavior, and petty “metaphors.” So how about addressing the issue instead of debating language usage? If I need style guidelines, I have Strunk & White.
Back atcha.
There are limits to what more laws can do.
Don Shor: And so the sex should not have occurred. For it to have occurred in an instance when they were so drunk that they had no memory of the assault, the other participant in the sexual encounter IS responsible. That’s what this is all about.
So a female drunk driver runs a stop light and is broadsided by another car and is non-critically injured and she gets to file a claim of harm from the driver of the car that hit her because he is a male.
I get it.
Who is responsible for sex when one person is unconscious, Frankly?
See below. If someone is unconscious they cannot talk… they cannot say no or yes.
Why is it that you would hold anyone and everyone responsible for consuming alcohol to a point that they harmed someone including themselves, but not females?
But note that you just ignored the comparison above. Hard to deal with this pesky inconvenient comparisons that prove the absurdity of what you are promoting.
How about this… with this legislation, a female drinking herself to become unconscious around a male that has also been drinking… is hazardous to the male for being harmed. If the females are to be excused for drinking to a point that they cannot be trusted to control their yes and no, then why isn’t the male given the same consideration?
To my knowledge, an unconscious male cannot perpetrate a sex act.
Anyone unconscious cannot perpetrate a sexual act, but that does not mean they cannot function sexually.
So only males perpetrate sexual acts?
Frankly, you just updated the logic that said it was the girls fault she was raped because
-she was out at night
-she wore provocative clothing
-she went to a bar, party, etc
-she was flirting
since she passed out, it’s ok to fuck her. How about unconscious women in the hospital? Comatose women?
Nobody is saying it’s okay to have sex (not f*&% as you so vulgarly stated)) with someone who has passed out. Where have you read that? That is and always will be considered rape.
The one who is conscious. Duh.