@preppedparent I think we all agree - the problem is who is the judge of “intoxicated to the point they can’t give consent” - and with two drunk young people how would we know?
I don’t think it’s that difficult as some would like it to be where alcohol is involved. If no explicit consent, it’s non-consensual.
I don’t pretend to know the answer, but the puritan “keep it zippered” or “keep your legs closed” is obviously insufficient. And I know a lot of people who really just stop there with sex ed for their kids–or they make any member the opposite sex out to be some sort of dangerous monster (either a potential predator or liar or both.) We obviously have to teach our kids to protect themselves, but not JUST that.
I like to think I’m pretty open about sexuality and relationships with my kids, and I would hope that regrettable, consensual sex would be chalked up to “oh well” instead of a source of deep shame. That’s not good for anyone. My hope for them is that they choose to be in loving, healthy relationships – but I’m just not into this shame thing at all.
I’m not into shaming, but I am into being smart, and both parties looking out for themselves and their partner. What about waiting for sober sex? It may be the smart thing to do. Nothing to do with shame.
OH I think it’s very, very difficult preppedparent. The tough cases aren’t the ones where one party is falling down drunk and can’t walk. We’re talking about cases where two kids who have been drinking and very willingly under their own steam go off to someplace private and take off their clothes and then have two completely different stories 6 months later about what happened with being too drunk to consent is the underlying reasoning for the accusation… And if both have been drinking then in reality neither can give consent. Yet some colleges and unis have presumed that the accused party should have totally been “capable” of understanding that the other party was in fact “too drunk” to consent. Not cool.
I know. What I am saying is each party needs to be smart about it and protect themselves literally and figuratively. Don’t make it harder than it is. Don’t get yourself into a situation you can’t defend. If you want to play dumb in college, you’ll pay for it. Maybe you shouldn’t be there in the first place, if you can’t act responsibly.
I don’t see the confusion. The mother is in denial. The line in this case is pretty clear. If a person is unconscious how can they consent. I don’t know why the strawman argument of what if they both was drunk always come up in these threads. Well if they are both drunk and conscious then that argument would applied.But that is not the case here.
If I was his mother I would not only be concerned that he thought that having sex with an unconscious person was okay. I would also be concerned that was some type of turn on from him. I know different strokes for different folks but in my mind I think having sex with a unconscious person is like having sex with a dead person. They’re just laying there not doing anything. I just don’t get it.
What mother are you talking about @sensation723? There was no reference to an unconscious woman in the NYT story? With the mother who has gone public’s son there was nothing in the case to imply that the accuser claimed she was unconscious…that is the woman who the police charged with filing a false report. The other mothers in the NYT’s did not disclose any detail about their son’s cases. I’ve lost the train of this thread I think…
- That study is horrifying if replicable. I'm not willing to pay $450 to be able to read it, however. And -- not to be too snotty, except a little -- I surmise that the survey was performed at North Dakota State, which is not necessarily where I would go to determine what typical college students think or believe about, well, almost anything. The principal authors were a practicing clinical psychologist and a clinical psych grad student. So it's not necessarily super-high quality as academic research. That doesn't mean it's wrong, or that its insights aren't valid. But I am morally certain that no large group of men over 18 I have ever been in would have a third of them say that they would like to force a woman to have sex with them if there were no adverse consequences.
I guess I will say this, though: My earliest sexual fantasies – at 9, 10 – were all about coercion. Based on the few clues available to me, it sounded like sexual initiation was so shameful, unpleasant and painful for girls that no one would ever do it without coercion. Plus I was certain that I was so unattractive that no girl would ever want to have anything to do with me voluntarily. If you had asked me the forced-sex question in 5th grade, I probably would have said yes. My attitudes changed a lot over the ensuing few years. But it wouldn’t shock me if boys raised in a repressive culture had a similar dynamic and took a while to outgrow it.
- Drinking and consent. I believe kids of both sexes drink specifically to lower their sexual inhibitions. They drink to make it more likely they will consent to something that they might not consent to otherwise. It's easy to have a rule, "No having sex with someone who is incapacitated." But if your rule is "No having sex with someone whose judgment is impaired," that rule can easily be interpreted to make some enormous percentage of sex among college-aged kids a crime. And it's going to be interpreted differently from one person to another -- it's not a rule that will produce consistent guidelines.
I DID discuss no-means-no, and respect for one’s partner, and withdrawal of consent with my kids. But I didn’t ever tell them they were not allowed to have sex with someone who had been drinking, or if they had been drinking themselves, even if they wished afterwards they hadn’t. (I did tell them that if they drank they would probably learn from experience that they regretted some of what they did or said while drinking.) Was that teaching them to rape? To be raped?
I do think, that many grossly underestimate how many families with sons have been adversely impacted. I’ve seen posts over the past couple months of people “upset” that the DOE even listened to families of the wrongly accused. What the heck? Nobody and no institution gets to ruin a person’s life on hearsay and the smartest thing our government can do is what they have done, take a step back and spend the time to listen to what the people have to say…and that is all people in the trenches from accused and accusers, to police and professors, to college administrators and college legal counsel and figure out how to be just and fair and non-discriminatory to all students and if something rises to a particular criminal complaint if should be turned over to local police investigation. I can see why groups like FACE need to exist, the vast majority comments on the NYTs article are so mean spirited that they turn my stomach.
University student conduct codes can prohibit other acts that are also illegal, such as theft, vandalism, and hazing (including such acts committed by one student against another), and universities can and do impose various penalties for such acts, in addition to whatever penalties the police and courts apply for such acts.
Of course, that universities can and do handle acts that are also illegal is a separate question from whether they handle them well, or better/worse than the police and courts. A pessimistic observation may be that neither the universities nor the police and courts do well in rape and other sexual misconduct, resulting in failed justice for both victims and accused.
University of Michigan Sexual Assault and Awareness Center:
https://sapac.umich.edu/article/196
Above is a fabulous summary of the literature on college age men and rape. All of you might benefit from reading it from beginning to end, and then maybe you should share it with your sons and discuss their perceptions.
Probably the one identified only as Judith (relevant part of the article quoted in reply #1). Most of the story dealt with two of the other mothers whose sons’ stories, at least from the article, could more credibly have been false accusations. Not sure why they would want to associate themselves with Judith and her son’s story for this purpose.
I think that was referring to the mother of the Kennedy guy in Colorado, who was videotaped carrying a limp, unconscious woman up to his apartment, and was proved by physical evidence to have had sex with her that night. He continuously insisted that the woman had consented to sex, and his mother strongly advocated for his viewpoint.
@preppedparent what do you mean explicit consent - like verbal acknowledgement, or going along in the moment or what? This is a serious question.
@toomanyteens If a woman hasn’t consented to sex with a man the young man is NOT “falsely accused.” He has committed rape.
The Michigan link posted by @mamalion is well worth reading.
I have said more than once on this forum that I think there’s a simple solution–nobody should have sex with another person when EITHER of them has had any booze UNLESS they have consented to the sex beforehand when they were both sober and/or are currently in a relationship in which they have already had sex with each other. There will still be a few false accusations, but IMO they would be really rare.
@JHS and I live in different worlds. I have met men who have admitted to me that they got drunk and went to a social event on campus with the hope that they’d “get lucky” and have sex with a female–any female. I have never had a woman tell me the equivalent. They have admitted getting drunk and then targeting a particular male they wanted to have sex with–usually, though not always, an ex. But getting drunk hoping that would make it likely that they would have sex with someone they’d never met and whose name they didn’t know? I’ve never met that woman–at least knowingly. If they exist, I am confident that they are far rarer than men who would.
There’s a reason why the majority of campus acquaintance sexual assaults happen during the first 6 weeks of schools and involve freshman women and upperclass men. Usually, though not always, at least one has been drinking. And, usually, the perps targeted a young woman and gets her drunk with the INTENT of having sex or seek out a woman who is drunk and rapes her. According to the Michigan site
That’s where the disconnect is.So, how about the parents of Ss teach them that if they get women drunk in order to have sex with them, the odds will be high that the woman was too drunk to consent. Or how about don’t have sex with a woman who has been drinking if you know that she wouldn’t consent if she were sober?
BTW, while I can’t give you a scholarly citation, my understanding is that it is quite common for the perp to drink to the drunk point AFTER raping someone, so he can later claim it was just “drunken sex”. The Michigan link sort of backs this up–men believed that being drunk when they raped someone made it less likely they would be punished for it. Supposedly, this is especially common when the male is a member of a frat or sports team and the rape occurred at one of its social events.
The idea that the colleges should just leave this to the criminal justice system and not kick anyone out of college until he is convicted is absurd. Colleges DO “prosecute” other felonies,as others have pointed out.
Using what used to be a well known example, two officers of the Hasty Pudding club at Harvard stole money from the organization. They used the money to fuel an affluent life style, designed to create the image that they came from wealthy families when neither did. When it was discovered that money was missing, Harvard conducted an investigation to figure out who was stealing the money, and then held a hearing to consider the evidence and determine the punishment. It didn’t just wait to see if they would be criminally prosecuted and let them go to classes until if and when they were convicted.
Many students have been expelled from college after illegal substances were found in their dorm rooms. The colleges didn’t need probable cause/a warrant to search. Nor did they have to wait for a conviction in criminal court to expel the students.
If your kid is unlucky enough to get the campus drug dealer as his/her roommate, do you really think your S or D should just have to put up with it unless and until the roommate is convicted ? Do you think his/her roommate should have all the protections of the criminal justice system and that your S or D has no right to complain? That the college has no right to expel the dealer–and has to leave it to the criminal justice system? If not, why do you think a rapist is entitled to full constitutional rights before being expelled from college but the drug dealer isn’t?
If a drunken student were to assault a campus police officer, does the college just report the assault to the local police, wait to see if there is a trial, and let the student remain on campus until he is convicted?
Look, I’m not saying that false accusations are non-existent. Of course, there are some. Heck, there are innocent people who have been convicted by the criminal justice system. But the young man who gets a woman drunk so he can have sex with her or targets a woman who has had too much to drink isn’t entitled to our crocodile tears.
I’d like to throw out a personal experience for all those moms of sons who insist they raised their boys right.
When my daughter was a high school sophomore she was frustrated about all the cat calling that occurred in high school. There were a group of guys by her locker in particular who would loudly discuss the female body parts of classmates walking by, describing, debating and labeling them 1-10. They would discuss what they wanted to do to it (and I use it on purpose). The terms used were vulgar. Strategies for exactly how they would pull off this assault were discussed. It was intentionally loud enough for the targets to hear and especially for my daughter who would try to get into and out of her locker as fast as possible. This happened daily.
When I found out about this I was livid. I was on fire to march down there and fix this intolerable situation. My daughter begged me not to do anything. I don’t want to go into all the details but she gave very compelling evidence on how my getting involved was likely to make her life much more difficult since she had to stay at that school. I honored her wishes because I believe victims have the right to make those choices for themselves.
Soon after, I’m at dinner with a bunch of other women, mostly moms with kids at the same school. Somehow the topic of sexual harassment comes up and I shared my daughter’s story. I also shared my anguish about not taking action. The women generally agreed that the administration in this case was not likely to make the situation better. One mom, who happened to have a son in the school said she recommended talking to the boys’ parents. “If it were my son, I’d absolutely want to know. I realize some parents will just blow it off as boys being boys but I’ve worked really hard to train my sons never to treat women as objects and to always behave as gentlemen. I’m glad my sons would never do something like this and I sure hope none of their friends are involved.”
I went home and told my daughter about the conversation and asked her if she was okay with me talking to the parents of the boys. She laughed and responded, “Well you’ll have to start with the one who gave you the advice. Her son has the locker next to mine. He is a part of the group. He isn’t the ringleader but he isn’t just standing there quietly or just laughing along. He is a full participant.”
So I had to have a pretty awkward conversation with that mom. She, I must say, was awesome. She was shocked. She apologized, assured me she would talk to her son, and told me she would talk to the other parents so that my daughter would not be outed as the whistle-blower.
This by no means cleared up all verbal sexual harassment in the school but it helped for my daughter at least.
^^agree @mamalion 's post #52 article very helpful. Answers a lot of questions here.
It doesn’t help that every time someone points out that both parties should act sensibly, someone inevitably screams that is “blaming the victim” . College students are adults, and adults should watch what they drink and not engage in risky behavior without considering the probable consequences, even if those consequences include the criminal actions of others. I have every legal right to drive to the South Bronx,fail to lock my car, and park it. Yes, it will probably be stolen, and yes, those who do the stealing are criminals and may be prosecuted. Yes, I would be a victim of the crime of auto theft. No doubt we already do spend resources advising the residents of the South Bronx not to engage in auto theft, but we should also spend resources advising drivers that parking unlocked cars in high-crime areas is risky behavior with probable bad consequences which should be considered before doing so. Common sense is expected. Excessive drinking puts one at risk of all sorts of crimes, including sexual assault.
the difference, Jonri, is that the examples you cited are incidents against the university itself-assaulting a campus official, stealing money from a college or sanctioned club thereof, bringing illicit substances onto campus property. In those cases, the university is the actual victim of the incident. In a case of alleged assault between students (and it doesn’t need to be sexual, it could be a physical fight), the university is cast as factfinder, assessor of witnesses, judge and jury-jobs it doesn’t particularly want, nor have any expertise in.