@Pizzagirl - she went outside with a friend to pee and stayed outside. He joined her group just outside the house and then… they were by the dumpster somehow.
Thanks, Greenwitch. I assume you’re going off the police reports.
Yes.
This is exactly the advice I gave my two DSs. And some of you may recall that I can chastised for this on a couple other threads about drunk females and hooking up.
My DSs took it one step further though - they totally stay way from females who need to drink to have fun and often leave parties when the drunk girls show up - the pre-game females run in packs. Best not to be around when trouble hits the fan because the females will blame someone. DSs want nothing to do with it because such females are, by definition, unpredictable because alcohol itself is unpredictable as to its effects from one person to the next.
It is even crazier for one DS because he is an athlete and gets hit on by drunk females all the time. He refuses to take any of the females up on their offers, and chooses to go home and sleep by himself instead.
I cannot complain about what my DSs do because they have stayed totally out of such scenarios.
My question is:
How is it rape if the woman unwrapped the condom and gave it to the guy? You might regret your choices later but that IS NOT rape, she gave him consent and she shouldn’t have drank so much, she’s an adult, she should be able to take care of her bad habits or at least to have some control over herself.
There is nothing inconsistent here with someone who has been drinking. You are projecting normal processing of events and assigning motives that sober person would do with the reduced cognitive abilities of a intoxicated person.
Unfortunately, alcohol stimulates the limbic system (the pleasure zone of the brain) and simultaneously desensitizes the fight or flight and instinctive protective responses, which is also controlled by the limbic system.
Intoxicated people do things that are inexplicable, even when they also having a good time. That is the point I was making - an intoxicated person does not process information normally, and one of the first aspects of behavior to go is ability to sense danger and when something is not proper to do.
For an intoxicated person, leaving her could easily be calculated as “no big deal,” yet at the same time he had a fantastic time. This is the same loss of danger perception that makes a intoxicated person walk down the middle of highway singing a song and smiling with no regard to speeding cars. Same reason intoxicated females leave a similarly drunk friend at a party without even thinking of the danger they put her in.
As important, the guy could do all the above and remember it all - it is not the details that matter to an intoxicated person; it is the fact that the details when intoxicated change in significance, as compared to a sober functioning brain.
And yes, to him, at that time, he did nothing wrong. Do not confuse remembering something with intent. I highly doubt he intended to abandon her and leave her vulnerable, but his sense of danger for her of leaving her there is something intoxicated people have difficulty computing and often cannot.
It could be rape IF she then later changed her mind after unwrapping the condom or during the encounter and the guy did not listen and did not stop when she changed her mind. However, there is no indication anywhere that she ever changed her mind and, based on the report, I believe she knows that as well.
One defining aspect of people in a blackout state is that they rarely change their minds actually, that is why they do a lot of stupid stuff, as their capability to notice a bad decision is pretty much muted by the alcohol.
Or it could be that she never unwrapped the condom in the first place. The only person who made that claim was the accused.
@HarvestMoon1 So why is his word any less credible than hers?
@awcntdb my comment was more about the claim of double standards. whether he thought at the time that he was doing nothing wrong is different than looking back and saying he did nothing wrong. And having people read the story and concluding he did nothing wrong (especially while concluding she was the only one who did something wrong…talk about double standards).
@mom2twogirls I would disagree that most on this thread would say that she is the only one who did something wrong. In fact, I’d say the overwhelming majority on this thread are supporting the girl and being accusatory and judgmental towards the boy , even though he was never charged or convicted of a crime . That to me is the double standard . Both parties made equally poor decisions , yet she is pitied and excused , and he is criticized.
@carolinamom2boys Lind said nothing regarding the condom as she had no recollection whatsoever. My point is that I do not take his claim that she unwrapped the condom as fact. It is a claim that basically could exonerate him. I think that has to be weighed when evaluating the statement.
@HarvestMoon1 Of course she didn’t mention the condom. She didn’t mention any of the encounter that she was unsure even occurred. Again, she is given the benefit of the doubt , and he is expected to prove his innocence rather than she present evidence to prove him guilty.
I was interested in what blackouts meant in law. In this case it’s moot because it’s not the accused that blacked out it is the woman who claimed she did not consent. I wondered how claiming a blackout would impact an accused and what that would do to the concept of mens rea. It is an interesting article if anyone is interested. It is from the Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatric Law but pretty old, from 2004.
http://www.jaapl.org/content/32/4/375.full.pdf
and this below which recaptures some of the info we have been discussing ironically the same circumstances used as an example on a police association website. I’ve never experienced a blackout so have no reference, but it’s rather scary that experts claim the person who is blacked out can appear “totally normal” and in control of their faculties. I cracked my skull when I was younger and was unconscious for about 15 minutes, apparently I had an entire conversation with the paramedics and seemed totally together according to my husband so they sent me home. Every question they asked me I answered correctly and lucidly. I don’t remember anything from the point in time I fell until early the next morning when I woke him up and asked him how we got home. Yet I had many conversations the rest of the day once home with friends who followed us home because they were concerned and wanted to help my husband keep an eye on me and later told me I seemed like just fine. it is frightening to have memory loss so I can sympathize with the young lady. It’s just a shame she had to put the young man through a year’s worth of trauma.
Regardless this episode should at minimum cause the young woman to really examine her drinking habits. I wonder sometimes about these women who claim they don’t remember and then suddenly days, weeks, months, later after ‘talking’ to people suddenly think they have been assaulted. Has the power of suggestion altered their memory especially if their memory was impaired by voluntary alcohol consumption leading to a blackout.
So let me get this straight: if HE said it, it is automatically deeply suspect, but if SHE said it, it is almost certain to be true. The circumstances don’t matter, only the gender. That’s the party line, and if you stray from it you are one of those people who make life so difficult for those who openly pat themselves on the back here for their superior sensibility.
I think that instances of a young woman deliberately lying about what happened are extremely rare. I think that lots of times the testimony of genuine victims doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to a person who has not been in their position, for reasons that have been well established. I think that the number of actual assaults that are not prosecuted at all are huge in comparison to the ones that are wrongly prosecuted.
But I also think that there are some cases where the current climate encourages people–either the victim, or those involved in the adjudication of these events–to push for an interpretation of confusing events as assault, often to the detriment of the young woman pushed to make the accusation. See Occidental. See this case. It’s a small number in comparison to the other. But as with many other things it is the exceptional situations–man bites dog–that we end up discussing.
I don’t think I said or implied any of that @carolinamom2boys. I think I have already said this was a very difficult case and UVA did the best they could in adjudicating it. Neither you nor I know what really transpired that night. I don’t give either one of them the benefit of the doubt, but at the same time I am not going to take self serving claims as fact either.
The investigators reached their decision - one that was inevitable in view of the fact that she was unable to offer anything in her own defense.
As a practical matter: If you suspect that someone who has been drinking might be experiencing blackout (which basically means loss of memory of the affected period), you should ask about something that happened 15 minutes ago. If the person cannot recall, it’s best that the person be escorted safely home.
The idea that people could appear lucid, yet be incapable of laying down memories of the period, fits with everything I have read about blackout.
On the subject of blackouts, it appears that even some experts can’t accurately identify when someone may be experiencing one, so IMO it is unrealistic to think a young adult with an immature temporal lobe will be able to accurately assess the situation , especially if there is alcohol involved .
In her own “defense”? Who was attacking her? She was the accuser. I think you are betraying your basic mindset. You apparently believe anything and everything SHE said that was “self-serving.”
I think it’s worth discussing though. I think things like these are more rare outside today’s college environment because victims have only the recourse of the judicial system which has the experts, subpoena power and investigative skills to parse through situations. It is much more alarming to me that the DOE has seen fit to force colleges to do this absent all the requisite skills. It’s far to easy to placate the now hyper inquisitive media by forgoing the depth and breath of investigation needed to fairly deal with these situations. It’s why I applaud colleges that work jointly with local law enforcement and take into consideration the wisdom available to them from people that are involved in these situations every single day. At minimum maybe it will raise awareness with “new to this” parents about what is happening on college campuses. A great deal of work went into this single case at UVa and now a young woman understands she has an issue she needs to deal with that impacts her personal health and the young man is in college and not running around with expelled sex offender on his record looking for jobs at the local factories and burger joints. It works the opposite way for young women who have been criminally assaulted in the evidence is located and her emotional needs are addressed and it starts at the very beginning with the initial report. Perhaps other colleges and universities will get the message soon and work in a more coordinated manner with the legal system which will be good for all students on campus.
http://www.dailyprogress.com/news/local/sexual-assault-team-incorporating-uva-into-its-response