For many, it doesn’t apply to men when it comes to sexual assault.
Why?
dstark…I am sure there was a tiny, tiny minority of men at my college who would have used that term for the women in my social set because we had sex before marriage…but those guys probably would not have appealed to me because I wouldn’t have cared what they thought 
In fact, one guy told me to my face when we were hanging out before class they he liked me but wouldn’t “date” me because I had “opened my Christmas presents before Christmas”…I thought he was a dufuss. Nice guy but alittle out of touch with reality…I still remember that when I talk to him at reunions and told my husband that story at one point at a reunion, but I’m guessing he doesn’t remember it at all. He’s a lawyer too, just like the groper dufuss.
But yeah caroliamom2boys…each case is unique and people should be innocent until proven guilty and that proof needs to be more that a “gut check” feeling.
@HarvestMoon1, what the wrestler saw and the vacant eyes really bug me, but… I agree with what you wrote.
I would love to read UVA’s report. I would like to know if the wrestler or the policeman said anything that contradicts what is in the article.
Those of you who participated willingly in drunk sex you later regretted -
Would you want to spare young women you know such an experience?
Or do you just maybe regard it as part of growing up?
Even if it’s not a big deal to you, would you have been better better off without those experiences? Or maybe you see them as necessary to your maturation?
We sort of came of age in the golden time of easy access to birth control and abortion, and no fatal STDs. We could experiment safely in a way previous generations of women couldn’t. I have friends who had many casual experiences but I’ve never heard them say they had experiences they regretted.
I guess I would counsel young women to be thoughtful enough they don’t have that sort of regret. Of course, we can never know about an individual until we are intimate, but I don’t think that is exactly what is being described here.
The only reason I pose the question is I just wonder if we have any life wisdom to pass on to younger women, some of whom may be reading along.
eta: I’m of the opinion one can open lots of presents early with absolutely no regrets if one if thoughtful about the process. I guess I’m asking if we want to teach young people to be thoughtful.
It clearly wasn’t the arms that needed to be open to qualify
@momofthreeboys, maybe it was a tiny tiny minority of men during our time… and some women too who objected, but prior generations had different views and advocates for women’s rights fought to change this.
The guy shouldn’t have groped you. The guy was an —.
It’s common and practical to consider the source in evaluating testimony. Could there be personal bias or promotion of self interest? Doesn’t mean that the statements are false but it makes sense to consider the source in weighing them.
The condom claim is coming from the accused and it is an action that would specifically tip the scale in his favor on the very issue that could decide his fate. It also was never even mentioned when he was questioned on the recording about her consenting. I would think that would have been the first thing out of his mouth.
On the comment that the athlete claims she made I believe he was one of the athletes who lived in the house throwing the party. Not going to help him or his frat{?} to have a rape allegation connected to his house or his party where they were serving alcohol unlawfully.
Neither of those circumstances would cause me to dismiss them out of hand, but I think they are relevant in the weighing of their truth.
No I would not spare other women the experience.
Yes I regard it as part of “growing up” and finding the right partner.
No I would not have been better off…I could very well have a divorce under my belt for marrying someone I wasn’t compatible with.
I would tell young women to embrace the freedoms for which their grandmothers (and mothers) fought mightily for and to use the wisdom they inherited to make good healthy decisions and to realize that Disney is fiction, life is not a fairy tale and the right “guy” is not a brass ring to grab onto or someone that will elevate your social status, the right guy is someone that will be your best friend for hopefully a very long, long time.
dstark…my mother was a very strong woman who was never a “Donna Reed” type mom. She was more of a be your own woman type mom who had no difficulty talking straight to me about life, about men, about sexuality and sex and about growing of age in the 40s. Huge influence on me and ahead of her time. I am deeply saddened not to have a daughter, but I wasn’t willing to keep trying in the absence of science that would produce only a daughter at the time…3 was enough. I like to think that “the big guy” gave me sons because I am a strong woman heaven knows you need to be strong to raise boys.
@momofthreeboys, I like your last paragraph in post 130.
Your first two sentences, didn’t like too much.
Edit… You edited your post. I like your second to the last paragraph. I have to read your new last paragraph.
Edit again… I like your last paragraph too.
That’s OK dstark. Everybody doesn’t need to be in a big group hug!
The individuals with whom you had willing drunk sex you later regretted were individuals who you could have envisioned as potential life partners? That is not what I have been imagining from these descriptions.
I have friends who had lots of different partners, all of whom they imagined as potential life partners.
And I have friends who had lots of different partners, they never once imagined as life partners, just as a good time/experience.
I don’t think I have any friends who fell into bed with someone and the next morning thought, “I wish I hadn’t done that.” They may have thought, “wow, not doing it with him again” Those seem two different reactions to me. Maybe I’m wrong about this, but that is my impression.
eta: one of my sorority sisters used a European back packing trip to sleep with all the cute boys she wanted without worrying about damaging her reputation. Which was still an issue in the south in the early 1970s. I thought that was genius at the time.
eta II: crossposted while momof3boys edited Can’t fix now!
I think @dstark makes a very good point in his #114 - one which I agree with. It is an age old word that served the purpose of keeping women in line - used to discourage sexual freedom or as a “scarlet letter” if she alleged assault. I really dislike the word and think it has no place in society today.
There is still a stigma on girls who are considered to be “slutty” or too free with their sexuality. I would imagine it is a fine line to walk for young women who want to explore their sexuality along with partying, but not be seen that way.
I don’t get your point dstark in #126. I think she was pointing out that most college students even in the dark ages of the 1970s were having pre-marital sex and nobody labeled them sluts. Some had “one-night stands” as we called them. Somebody who had one of those every week might have been labeled a slut, but not once per college or even once per year.
It is not all that different today, at least based on studies. But it does seem like the level of drunkenness is higher. We drank beer, from what I hear girls today prefer vodka because it does the job more quickly and has less calories.
If being “questioned on the record” you are referring to the session with the older guys, it sounds like he was pretty much blindsided. I would think nothing of his not mentioning it because of embarrassment about discussing details of a sexual encounter, especially if he were an innocent kid who suddenly found himself the object of an inquisition by quasi-authority figures. It sounds as if he just wanted to tell her he was sorry if she felt bad about it, and make the whole embarrassing thing go away ASAP. In addition, it seems like the same phenomenon many experience at the doctor’s office. One frequently feels nervous, and fails to mention various details, fails to ask relevant questions, etc. It does not surprise me that he wouldn’t mention that detail until he was taken through the whole encounter step by step and encouraged to relate everything that happened. From the description we have, it doesn’t sound as if he entered that meeting fully aware of what was going on and prepared to make a case for his innocence.
As for the “give us a minute” thing, since we haven’t read the report we don’t know, but it seems perfectly possible that the investigators talked to the people who tried to get into the bathroom and they confirmed it. The investigators obviously talked to a lot of people at the house.
I am sorry for the young woman. I think she needs to have major, constructive help in coming to terms with her own behavior. I think she needs to be encouraged not to beat herself up about it or feel guilty, but to accept that she behaved in a way she doesn’t feel proud of or comfortable with when drunk. She needs to be helped to take control of her life. Instead, I fear, she has been encouraged to turn her feelings outward and blame someone else.
Leaving aside the issue of actual intercourse, does she really want to be the person who is making out in public with a total stranger within half an hour of entering a party? Who quickly goes upstairs with him, who was so drunk that she didn’t know what she was doing? Somehow, I doubt it.
@alh, when I, for one, say “regret,” I am not talking about severe angst or embarrassment or anything traumatic. I’m talking more about “I wish I hadn’t done that, because that’s not the kind of relationship I want with that person, but no harm, no foul. Next time don’t get drunk and do stupid things.”
I agree with your take on the recorded session Consolation.
@mom2and, post 126 is just a reply to what momofthreeboys wrote. I could have written the post better. You can ignore it
Post 132 written by HarvestMoon1 is better.
mom2and…I think the drinking thing is huge now. We never, ever felt the need to “pre-party or pre-game” mostly because the drinking age was 18. Alot of us turned 18 our senior year of high school and so headed for college with a pretty darn good understanding of how much we could drink before turning into sloppy, puking, unattractive drunks or worse “targets” for predatory males. We learned how to say no, put a knee in the groin and get the heck out of harms way in high school.
The young man in this story was 18 and so new to the campus he hadn’t even had the orientation concerning sexual behavior and drinking on campus. Ms. Lind was a 19 year old sophomore athlete with a year of college at UVA under her belt. They both behaved irresponsibly (not to mention illegally) with respect to drinking but if their sexes were reversed, most of the posters here would be calling her a predator and calling for her to be expelled at a minimum.
The double standards on display here are very telling and it’s no wonder many young men feel like they will be treated unfairly by the current system on college campuses because it’s obvious that some of them are (including the kid in this story).
I think UVA got it right, although why it took most of the school year to come to their conclusion is hard to understand. To me, Ms Lind comes off as a young woman with a serious alcohol problem who is also deeply vindictive. She needs some therapy and the young men around her need to stay far, far away from her until she gets it.
@Consolation - Yes, I think I specified I was referring to the “recording.”
Your guess is as good as mine but I wouldn’t take either of those statements at face value. Especially the one about the condom which pretty much exonerates him given the specific motor skills required.
I know I am alone in this conjecture, but I do not believe he was totally “blind sighted” by the meeting. Nor do I believe that the boys just recorded the conversation for “their own protection.” And they also knew to specifically tailor the questions to the issue of her consent. I don’t think that recording would have seen the light of day if he had made a specific admission of guilt.
At the end of the day it doesn’t appear to me that the meeting or the recording made much difference in the outcome. It was the absence of her ability to offer anything whatsoever in response to their version of the incident.