As before with Ryo and Casey, but when Casey says stop Ryo stops. Ryo is pretty furious, though. Ryo says, Fine, but the relationship I want with you includes sexual intercourse. If you pull that stuff with me again that's it, sayonara. Casey believes Ryo. A week later, they're back in the same situation. Casey initially consents to sex, after some persuasion, but then feels uncomfortable and wants to stop. But Casey is afraid to say stop, because that will be the end of the relationship with Ryo. After a few minutes, Ryo says What's wrong, Case, aren't you into it?
As before with Ryo and Casey, but when Casey says stop Ryo stops. Ryo tells Morgan about it. Morgan would like to have an exclusive romantic relationship with Ryo, and is jealous of Casey. Morgan uses social media to tell a few friends what a tease Casey is, and within 24 hours, everybody at the college with a social media account has read the story. Everything Morgan writes is truthful. Casey is humiliated, feels overwhelmed, can't stop crying, and can't get out of bed for days.
I suggest that each of these is as or more serious a threat to Casey’s wellbeing than the original Casey/Ryo story. But I would be surprised if any college administrator, or anyone here, would be anxious to get involved in disciplinary proceedings in either of them. Maybe the second, but it’s going to be awfully tough to expel Morgan unless you can prove Morgan meant to be a bully.
I submit that if you are not interested in adjudicating these scenarios, you shouldn’t want to adjudicate any of the Casey/Ryo scenarios.
^to me there seems a significant difference in being physically restrained. Since I have never been physically restrained during sex, I am not comfortable judging what is the more damaging scenario. I thought physical restraint at least equals assault and that assault is always illegal on some level. I understand it may be impossible to prove.
Outrage is my reaction. I want these individuals to have some reasonable recourse. My reaction to that scenario is probably going to be something that has potential to bring me to law enforcement attention. I am not going to ignore it. Even though this is outside the range of my experience it really upsets me to think about it.
I am a small person. I have to trust that people don’t use physical force against me in my day to day life. I probably can’t defend myself without weapons of some kind. I am not winning in hand to hand combat.
“Well of course, a no means no. However, a lot of these cases seem to be “I never actually said no - I froze and lay there and said/did nothing”? Or “I felt I couldn’t say no / no more because I was afraid I would hurt his feelings”? How do you adjudicate when the woman indeed didn’t explicitly say no, stop, attempt to push him off?”
Ding ding ding ding ding!!!
The most useful thing I’ve heard of in this area is that Canadian study. The one that taught women to yell rather than freeze up when a situation turns south. Turns out yelling is very effective at stopping these kinds of attacks in their tracks. And if yelling “STOP RAPING ME” doesn’t stop the guy, in a typical dorm or college apartment setting it will often create that exact kind of proof that makes adjudication easy to do.
So should we focus the resources on training girls to yell? Or should we instead spend those resources on a bunch of legal process mumbo jumbo that is by definition going to fail most of the time?
Prevention, prevention, prevention. Adjudication is not a solution – it is cleaning up as best you can after the train wreck has occurred.
In JHS’s rules, once I agree to have sex with a guy, I am his party doll. He can do anything he wants, and as long as he doesn’t cause me physical harm, I have no recourse.
Oh, and JHS, thanks for helpfully listing things that are worse than being raped. For example, having your boyfriend notice you’re not enjoying sex with him is worse than being raped. (Also, it’s reasonable to be furious if someone tells you to stop because you’re hurting them. I admit I don’t get this entire scenario.) Being gossiped about is also worse than being raped. JHS, I don’t think you quite have the full conception of how bad women find it to be raped.
JHS: my #268 was a cross post with your #267. I kept trying to decide whether to post at all because CF pretty much always writes what I would write, only more clearly. I flatter myself I understand where you are trying to get with your arguments and, if I do understand, may even agree after some consideration, but I definitely don’t agree with how you are going about getting there. Is there another route? Can you approach it from a different angle?
northwesty: I agree with prevention, but think successful prevention is changing how we think about this. My first reading of posts #263,which surprised me very much, and post #279, which did not surprise me one bit, was that they were arguing when a woman consents to beginning a sex act, there is an expectation she follow through, and if she changes her mind it is on her if her partner won’t stop. I hope I misread PG’s post because I find it impossible to believe that is what she meant. I think prevention means we teach you get to change your mind, among other things. Taking your clothes off and getting in bed with someone is not an agreement to any particular sex act at all. Men need to understand this. Gentlemen understand this.
I am a very small woman who has been the victim of a violent sexual assault, and reading this thread feels like strolling through a parallel universe. It is so far beyond bizarre, all the way to monstrous, to impose lifelong consequences upon someone because he failed to correctly read someone’s mind when she neither spoke nor otherwise conveyed her wishes. When you’re talking about a young man who probably doesn’t have enough experience to read cues and responses accurately every time, it is entirely too much to expect that he know with no communication that a woman doesn’t want to continue. I am also bothered by the situations in which an encounter is retroactively deemed to be assault after a passage of time and possible embarrassment or other regret by the woman having nothing to do with the behavior of the partner.
To answer the OP, what do I tell my son about consent: Don’t have sex while you or a woman are drunk. Don’t become intimate with someone you don’t know, because if she is embarrassed or otherwise regretful, she can ruin your life. If you see a woman in trouble, bring another woman with you when you help her. Break up kindly, but be wary of revenge. Never be alone in a room with a woman you aren’t in a relationship with. If you have a project partner, only study in a public or place or keep the door open. Never be the last person in a group to leave before a lone woman remains. Protect yourself, have witnesses, and document any trouble you ever have, but remember that you surrender your rights on campus.
We went to an audition about a month ago for a school that I would have sworn was the one my son would attend. He was the only boy auditioning that day along with about a dozen musical theater and opera singing girls. After seeing their behavior, I would have been afraid for my son’s physical safety there because they acted like wild beasts. They were completely fine with interrupting his preparation, making him uncomfortable, betting in his personal space, and treating him like an object. It was so offensive I can’t even tell you, but in that situation, the girls had absolutely no respect for the boy who was present and didn’t feel that they had to adhere to appropriate standards of behavior. In this day and age, boys would know better than to behave that way - as they should, but boys deserve respect too. Thankfully, this was a total anomaly, but he won’t be going there.
And I’m going with teach women to be proactive in communicating their wishes. If she is not strong enough to say the word no, then she needs to be in therapy, not in bed with another person. I have taught my son to treat women with respect since he was born, and my husband has modeled respectful behavior, but I have always told my daughters that in all situations, they alone are responsible for communicating their wishes and if they don’t then there will be consequences because mind reading is not yet a thing. if the partner thinks the woman was happy and willing because she never indicated otherwise, there is no way to teach him not to rape when the only way that would be possible is mind reading. Maybe mothers of sons should tell their boys to stay away from wormen on campus in the sexual sense, because at least in the real world he could get a lawyer and have his rights protected.
I have read the thread. You please take off your ideological binders and consider other viewpoints.
It’s not about blame. It’s about health. I have been violently assaulted. I know whereof I speak. If a woman has been assaulted and still freezes up in consensual situations such that she can not say the word no, she needs help in order to be healthy and safe. Expelling the boy in that circumstance (we are talking about non verbal withdrawal of consent in the midst of a consensual encounter) doesn’t help the woman to become healthy and in control of her life and sexuality. there is no shame in seeking help, and women who have been harmed should be encouraged to get help and get well before putting themselves in fraught situations, it is ok to be celibate on campus for any reason or no reason at all, a woman doesn’t have to feel like she should try and have sex unless she is fully engaged or able to communicate refusal.
@zoosermom Why are you taking this personally? I’m not wearing ideological blinders. Again, please see post #179 for info on “freezing up.” However, I’m not quite sure where your “rape survivor freezes up in consensual sex and believes she was raped again” diatribe is coming from. Could you point out where that was discussed because I genuinely have not seen that on here. Your comments about support for rape survivors are fairly obvious. I’m not arguing against that. But survivors and first time victims both can “freeze up.”
zoosermom, are you responding to the messages in the last few pages of this thread? You write that we shouldn’t impose lifetime consequences on someone because he failed to read a woman’s mind when she neither spoke nor otherwise conveyed her wishes. That’s not what we’ve been discussing.
JHS, Pizzagirl and (of course) momofthreeboys say that there should be no consequences in this scenario. Ryo and Casey are having sex for the first time, Ryo is hurting Casey, Casey tells him, in words, in no uncertain terms, to stop and he doesn’t stop. Instead, he holds her down and continues for several minutes. And JHS, Pizzagirl and momofthreeboys say it’s nothing for the college to worry about.
Pizzagirl in #263 says that Casey should have known they would not like sex with Ryo, although this is the first time they’ve had sex. JHS in #268 says that continuing to hurt someone when they’re telling you to stop is rude, but not actionable in any way. JHS says, further, in 276, that we shouldn’t referee sex once the two people are in a room with their clothes off, unless “if it doesn’t involve physical violence with lasting physical harm.”
What are you talking about calicash? My opinion, as a survivor and a mother of both genders is as valid as yours, it just happens that you don’t agree. And you misquoted and completely misunderstood my point.
Casual sex doesn’t have to be the default position. If a woman has been assaulted and hasn’t received professional assistance that would prevent her from freezing up when she is in a consensual situation, then prosecuting a man isn’t going to help her get healthy and in control. In fact, it will make things worse. We need women to know that they are perfectly fine if they are not sexually active at a particular time. That they aren’t freaks if they seek professional help to recover from a trauma. It really is ok to become sexually and psychologically healthy. If my daughter were freezing up in a consensual situation, I would urge her to seek help because that is a problem all by itself.
@zoosermom I’m adding onto the discussion. Of course your opinion as a mother and survivor matters. I just have no clue what you’re speaking about when you say "If a woman has been assaulted and hasn’t received professional assistance that would prevent her from freezing up when she is in a consensual situation, then prosecuting a man isn’t going to help her get healthy and in control. " What does that have to do with anything? This isn’t about prosecuting men who have had consensual sex with emotionally unstable rape survivors who have made false accusations in consensual encounters. Obviously rape survivors need support but that has nothing to do with what we are talking about on this thread. As far as I can tell, there were no conversations about rape survivors and their subsequent sex lives until you brought it up. You’re bringing up a completely new discussion.
CardinalFang, I am not agreeing or disagreeing with anyone else, I am stating that women needed to know that it’s ok to not be sexually active on campus, and that if a woman has suffered a trauma that impedes her ability to engage consensually in sexual relations, it should be communicated that it is ok to seek help because she has a right to whatever healthy sexual relationship she chooses. It seems to me that the default position is presented as being casual sex is the norm, and if there is a problem it can only be male rape. I reject that as being unfair to men and women. I happen to think that in a truly ambiguous situation, many women will be further traumatized by the disciplinary process. There isn’t just one solution to a complicated time of life.
As far as that scenario, I’ve been clear that I’m talking about non verbal communication. How does “Wait stop that hurts” count as non verbal?