With respect, the article mentioning such increase is 2004, ten admissions cycles ago. No doubt, there are EQ issues. But I don’t see that info describing that these kids who visit counseling more than, say, 15 years ago, are necessarily the root of the sexual assault issues.
Alcohol is the root IMO. But we can see from statistics that kids that are vulnerable to assault - freshman first semester and kids with emotional problems are a big chunk of the victims so not the root of the problem that would be probably alcohol and potential serial rapists to some extent but the population that seem to be vulnerable. However, we also have situations where what has occurred would be best handled in the aftermath with counseling. So three points: The root of the problem and what that is, the vulnerable population and what can be done, the outcome of the event that best serves the involved parties, the college population and the society in general. Three separate touch points for attention.
C. Fang & awc With respect to two drunken college students in bed. Both may be too drunk to give consent to each other. But that doesn’t necessarily preclude a sexual assault. It is possible for one drunk person to be an aggressor and one drunk person to be a victim. For example, if a person murders another person, it is not a defense that the murderer was drunk. If a drunk driver kills a passenger, it is not a defense that the driver was drunk.
Same in sex. Either party absolutely has the right to say “I do not want to go any further” at any time in bed. But when a person is incapacitated to the point where they are unable to say that, the other person–whether drunk or sober–MUST understand that he/she is taking a huge risk in moving forward with the act, that significant trauma to the other person may result, and that expulsion and/or prison may result. In a sober person, consent can be articulated or implied. In a very drunk person, consent simply is not possible. Would a will stand up in court if someone had been compelled to sign it when stone drunk? Of course not. Male and female college students alike need to understand this principle from the moment they set foot on campus.
momofthreeboys, you are dancing on a very fine line. Very close to victim blaming.
You know what? A lot of college kids get drunk and they don’t assault anybody. Most college kids who get drunk don’t assault anybody.
Do we really want to train women to break the aggressor’s nose? Maybe, but that seems to me a bit too close to the requirement that a woman has to resist to show that there was no consent. “You were trained to break his nose if you didn’t want sex–why didn’t you?”
It seems to me that we need to train at least three groups of people. We need to train men to understand what consent is and how it can be communicated, and we need to train them about how incapacitation eliminates consent. We need to train women how to avoid risky situations, how to say “no,” and how to effectively report assaults. Finally, we need to train bystanders to intervene to head off risky situations, and to identify possible predatory behavior. Oh, yeah, we also need to train the investigators and adjudicators who are going to handle the cases. So at least four groups.
I’m convinced that this is a complex problem, and that no one single approach or solution will adequately address it. So, in a sense, I think everybody is right in terms of what we need to do–we need to reduce binge drinking, we need to improve procedures, we need to get police involved at the right time, we need to get the police to handle rape cases properly, we need to train people, we need to make basic cultural changes, and more. I think where we tend to go wrong is in thinking that if we would only do what I think is important, we won’t have to do what you think is important.
Following up on @Hunt 's post, is anyone aware of any schools that are doing this effectively? I know that Hobart & William Smith has said that they want to become a leader in the area, following the NYT story. Any college have a model program yet, that is statistically backed by a drop in occurrences?
No argument there, and I never said that aggressive behavior does not happen. And keep in mind aggressive behavior is not isolated to men when it comes to sex, especially when alcohol is involved.
However, the main issue is one needs to be able to figure out what happened, and that is made multiple times more difficult when both parties are fuzzy about what they said and what they did. And the difficulty with alcohol is it changes your behavior and your calculus of what is happening around you.
A judge made a point to me that I never thought of this way - he said in many drinking and rape cases both parties tell you on the stand what they would normally do, not what they did - essentially forgetting (or personally denying) that alcohol changed their behavior. So it not like they are making it up, per se, they just thought they were themselves at the time. And a lot of those cases just fall apart when parties are confronted with either videotape and/or eye witnesses that indicate otherwise.
I think that’s a good point, and I think it’s probably true of both accusers and accused, who are likely to testify that they would never do certain things that they did, in fact, do, while under the influence of alcohol.
I think this points up an issue which has really bedeviled us all through this discussion, and which makes the legal issues more difficult. Are there people who are sufficiently affected by alcohol that they have consumed that they will do things they wouldn’t normally do, but who are not incapacitated? If the answer to this is “yes,” then we have a very difficult line-drawing decision to make in cases where consent is the defense.
Here’s a kind of silly analogy: Was Dr. Jekyll responsible for the bad acts of Mr. Hyde? How about for the bad acts that resulted the second, or third, time he took the potion that caused the transformation?
I assumed CF didn’t necessarily mean nose breaking 100% literally. I also don’t think any college wants to train people to commit violence. But since it seems that in many cases a campus rape is committed by an acquaintance of the victim while they’re both intoxicated, I think a firmly shouted “STOP” (possibly followed by the proverbial face slap) might be enough bring some of these guys back to their senses.
Please don’t (deliberately or otherwise) misunderstand - I’m definitely not saying that guys are allowed to do anything until they are stopped. Their training should clearly and unambiguously emphasize their duty to make sure there’s consent. Policies should also clearly and unambiguously state that if a woman doesn’t do it then absolutely zero adverse inference can be drawn. But if shouting Stop prevent a few rapes from happening then I’m personally fine with the risk of sending a mixed message.
For those who are interested in college task force reports here’s a link to Amherst’s:
https://www.amherst.edu/media/view/452118/original/Toward_a_Culture_of_Respect_Title_IX.pdf
They make a point that many of these attacks are occurring during freshman year. I’m beginning to suspect this is an important fact that could tell us a lot about prevention. There must be some change that is occurring after freshman year. If we understood it we could improve campus safety for freshman women.
I actually disagree with this on several levels. First, no one is saying men have to keep their wits about them. What we’re saying is that everyone is accountable for their actions, drunk or not - i.e. we don’t believe in the Twinkie defense or the Stoli defense either. Second, I also disagree with “she must be able to keep her wits … to determine if … the male is capable of … determining if she can give consent”. No - she is not responsible for figuring out if he can figure out if she is responsible.
To me, the standard is very simple (1) everyone is accountable for their actions, drunk or not (2) having sex with someone who won’t or can’t give consent is a crime. All this is completely gender neutral and can’t be controversial. The problems are figuring out exactly how drunk is too drunk to consent, how can their partner tell, and how do we adjudicate things after the fact.
Having said that, the data is crystal clear that the problem is men attacking women. Simply completely ignoring this seems strange to me.
Added: comments on how being drunk should affect things:
Being drunk is not a defense (I’m not saying anyone above said that). Decades ago society said that drunk driving is itself a crime, and accidentally killing someone while drunk driving is worse than accidentally killing someone while you’re driving sober. In fact, many colleges’ policies state that not only is being drunk not a defense if you’ve committed a violation, it’s actually an exacerbating fact.
Is it possible that being intoxicated (but not incapacitated, which I define as being too drunk to give consent) makes people give consent when they wouldn’t if they were sober? Yes, of course. This also makes these cases hard.
Alsimon2, love your post.
Yes absolutely I believe this. There is a old term “liquid courage” that even young people use for a very real reason.
Sorry, I don’t believe in the words “victim blaming” I think that is a convenient accuse people use when they don’t want to discuss contrary opinions.
“. . . the main issue is one needs to be able to figure out what happened, and that is made multiple times more difficult when both parties are fuzzy about what they said and what they did.”
Yes, but one hopes that the ultimate goal is to reduce significantly the number of occurrences. IMO this can be done, as Hunt suggests, by much better training aimed at specific groups of people, and acknowledging that there are statistically vulnerable populations as @momofthreeboys and @al2simon suggest. I would like to see many more colleges address this proactively, from orientation onward.
Super post, Hunt. Four parties. At least.
But wait a minute. I know people don’t like the “two drunk people having sex” scenario, but what do you think should be the result if it happens? If the accuser says that he or she was too drunk to consent, what should happen if the accused says that he or she was also too drunk to consent? Punish both? Punish only the one who penetrated the other? Punish the one who makes the most convincing case that he or she wouldn’t have consented to sex if they were sober?
I think we have a preconceived notion that sex is something that men do to women, as opposed to something that both people do. Basic biology has something to do with that, but I don’t think that’s all of it.
Colleges training people on how to have sex? omg.
“Colleges training people on how to have sex? omg.”
Actually the exact opposite, @marie1234 . Training people when NOT to have sex.
Momofthreeboys, you think you can control your own body and actions but you are giving the drunk boys a pass. They don’t have to control their own bodies. They drink liquid courage.
I don’t think drinking liquid courage so you can lose your inhibitions enough to assault somebody is a positive trait.
So people drink alcohol and then do something they wouldn’t do normally.
So what?
They are still personally responsible for their actions.
One of the Vanderbilt guys is saying he was so drunk he didn’t know what he was doing. If that defense works, it is open season on women.
We will see if that flies with the jury. Case is almost over.
You mean, unless they are women who consent to sex that they wouldn’t normally consent to? See, again, here’s where I think the distinction between being drunk enough to lower your inhibitions and drunk enough to be incapacitated bedevils us.
I don’t know the details of the case, but this defense could work in terms of what crime, specifically, a person can be found guilty of, because some crimes require intent. If somebody gets drunk, and picks up a gun and shoots it indiscriminately, killing someone, he probably can’t be found guilty of first degree murder, because he lacked the necessary intent to kill somebody. Similarly, getting drunk and killing somebody with your car is a different crime from deliberately running somebody over with your car. Depending on how a particular state’s sexual assault laws are constructed, this may also be a defense to the most serious possible charges–but wouldn’t be a defense to a lesser offense.
During the Vanderbilt case, the accuser supposedly threw up, puked literally in the court room, when she listened to one of the accused give his testimony… The guy who said he was too drunk.
And we wonder why the victims don’t want to pursue these cases.
It’s traumatic!
The Vanderbilt case is a real criminal case. It’s not one of hard ones and “training” would in my opinion have been ineffective. Unless we are talking about training young women not to date creeps. But, I don’t think we are. So yeah.