We don’t know that the adjudicator would have found John Doe incapacitated; the adjudicator did not need to consider, and did not consider, that issue. But we can certainly imagine a corner case where both parties independently lodge an accusation, and both parties are deemed incapacitated, and both parties are deemed at fault. I have no problem with this. A person is responsible for the crimes they commit while drunk. A person can both be committing a crime and be a crime victim, at the same time.
As I said before, I would have concluded that Jane Doe was, very narrowly and barely, not incapacitated. But I find it a difficult gray area case, and I can’t criticize the adjudicator for adopting mom2and’s definition of incapacitation. Jane Doe certainly was incapacitated to execute a legal contract in her drunken state. There’s evidence that she didn’t know what she was doing: she was “incoherent,” “didn’t seem to know where she was.” Under California law, in order to offer legal consent to sex, she had to “be able to understand and weigh the physical nature of the act, its moral character, and probable consequences.” There’s a good argument to be made that she couldn’t do that.
?? Again, bits of different examples mishmashed in and then arguing by exceptions. A college that learns of an issue needs to follow procedures. If she refuses to press ahead, the school proceeds with their hands tied. Severely tied.
This really isn’t about our opinions, how one or two personally don’t believe she was drunk because she could text. Where is, eg, texting ability a proof one was sober enough to drive?
“Yeah, but” wasn’t mentioned to mean the hard cases. It’s about those people who dismiss the basic concept that drunk can mean unable to rationally and reasonably consent, in the first place. No matter what words come out. Or that she can text. Or that she’s in his room or pawing him.
So yes, tell your sons not to “assume.” If you’re concerned, give him the wise, clear option. Don’t get rolled up in the “well this” and “well that.”
^^not sure I’d agree cf, but no matter. My point is that to prevent (reduce) drunken sex, it can easily start with reducing the drunks on campus. (Then a lot of the borderline cases fail to exist.) Of course, many – including many on cc – don’t think reducing college-aged drinking to be a worthy goal (at least its enforcement)…
I think it a worthy goal. I would prefer to achieve the goal through education rather than punishment, though if we decided we were really serious about it and expelled a few type A students on elite college campuses to make an example, I think that would almost immediately change campus culture… at least on those campuses and , of course, at the expense of those few type A students. (another version of the fat man experiment?)
These descriptions of binge drinking really boggle my mind. I thought I hung out with some pretty heavy partiers in college. This idea of drinking to the point of vomiting and then starting up on doing shots again is almost unbelievable to me. I am amazed there aren’t more deaths than already occur.
One way to do it would have punished both these Occidental kids( and all other college kids under 21 that decide to climb in bed together after drinking) for drinking underage - I think they were freshman. The criminal system said it was consensual sex, the college’s own investigator said it was consensual sex…it was the Title IX administrator who decided to expel the male. They both should have been punished for drinking and sent to counseling about drunk sex, about underage drinking. Colleges could have a 2 strikes you are suspended rule when it comes to drinking…but we’re so hung up on punishing for the sex, when it’s the drinking that leads to the sex. Might give kids pause on campus if they “actually” got in trouble for drinking underage. It might protect the women from themselves and from men on campus also if they don’t have easy access to alcohol. So much better things we could be doing that reading about poorly executed college policies regarding criminal offenses. Our government could have done a much better job of figuring this out.
Unfortunately, this is all too familiar to me, and there is a reason I decided to give up drinking almost 16 years ago. I once set the dorm record (and probably campus record) for drinking a shot glass of beer every minute, and then got sick and immediately started drinking again at a regular party (vs the record attempt). It came out to be between about 200 oz and 300 ozs in just a shade under 3 hours, depending on if the shot glasses had 1 or 1.5 ozs in each drink. That’s a minimum of 17 beers in 3 hours.
Had texting been around I guarantee I would have been able to text, and I know I could talk (albeit by slurring) but I doubt there are many people who think someone who drank close to a case of beer in 3 hours was able to “consent” to anything.
Even from a male perspective I’ve never fully understood the drunken sex thing myself, at least to the extent is seems to be happening. I was hardly Don Juan in college, but the few times a girl and I were drunk and heading back to the dorms I distinctly remember wanting to walk around or have a bite to eat so that we could both be fairly sober. Isn’t part of the magic of a sexual encounter in your college years having you and your partner fully aware of all the physical sensations? And if you want to have sex, isn’t it much easier to go to bed with someone again instead of mistreating them the first time?
Of course, this is from the perspective of someone who never had a one night stand. Or a ten night stand (I’ll take the fifth on a twenty night stand ) I’m currently in the midst of a 9000 night stand.
I’m not sure it’s fair to say the prosecutor said it was consensual sex. Did he/she actually say that? He may have just concluded the case was not winnable, that there was no way to convince a jury beyond a reasonable doubt. The standard of proof thing again.
I’m not very familiar with the details of this case and I don’t know what the sequence of criminal charges and Occidental’s proceedings were. But if I were advising the guy in this case and thought he’d been wrongly accused, I’d probably tell him to rush to file a claim first the instant he thought he might be accused, or tell him to file a counterclaim. In cases where there are two intoxicated people it could be that it’s the first mover advantage that is enormous, not female vs. male disparity of treatment.
I can see this from a bunch of points of view. Someone (JHS?) pointed out college has always been a time of drunken excess, since ancient times. Middle class families tolerate and expect this. But in those ancient times there were definitions of rape we find inconceivable today. If we don’t accept those definitions of rape any longer, maybe we can give up this idea alcohol abuse is an inevitable, and maybe even desirable, part of college culture.
There really are so many people having entirely different conversations on this thread that it’s becoming impossible to communicate effectively at all.
So, I’ll just say very quickly for the record that understanding clearly and dispassionately what professional advocates and agenda-driven magazine writers do and how and why they do it does not make me “dumb”.
Perhaps in the case of two very intoxicated people, the college ought to, as a policy, investigate the claim of Y against X when they are investigating the claim of X against Y.
Your original post did not say professional advocates and agenda driven magazine writers. You said “victim advocates”. Victim advocates are counselors and others who give support to the victims. Your post is still a slap in the face to those people and it is inexcusable that you would say they are only in it to “up the numbers”, or don’t want to reduce the incidents of rape.
Yes, well it was in the context of a larger conversation, so maybe that’s the issue. There are also those activists/advocates who don’t counsel anyone but rather publish and produce data which is who was being discussed at the time. And, I’m not saying they are against prevention obviously which really shouldn’t even need to be said by reasonable people which reminds me of earlier in this thread when we told that rape happens as though that was news to anyone. But, prevention is not their thing. And, I do think some of this counting and expanding is outcome based. Sorry.
) I’m currently in the midst of a 9000 night stand.