Re: the Title IX Coordinator allegations – turns out the association hired an outside law firm to review the allegations last year/in January, cleared the Indiana man, and the NYU woman released her letter at the conference after being informed they were not sanctioning him.
I am not entirely sure what kind of “sanctions” she wanted…other than criminal charges or a civil lawsuit (both of which SHE would need to be initiate)…it’s not like one’s profession can force someone to do something (or not do it) because of something like this…?!? Title IX doesn’t apply outside of education.
Of course many employers likely have policies on sexual harassment, and there are criminal statutes on sexual assault, but If I am at a conference and a colleague from a different employer accuses me of “taking advantage” of her in a bar in the hotel lobby, unfortunately there is nothing that she can do other than A- file a complaint with the police, B- sue me in civil court, C- inform my employer (who then has a choice of what to do, or not to do, but there is no requirement that my employer do or don’t do anything). [Of course she could also go to the press in an effort to put pressure on my employer…which is what happened here too…]
I’m not downplaying the power urge. I think that you are correct that selecting a victim who is a trophy clearly plays into that. I just think that it is often not the only thing in play, and repeating truisms about rape having NOTHING to do with sexual desire may make the victim feel better and certainly rebuts the old stuff about how she brought it on herself in various ways, but it is to some degree intellectually dishonest.
“I think that if a parent is telling sons that the “enormous majority” of women who are making out with a man want to have intercourse with that man, let alone that the “enormous majority” of the women want to have intercourse with that man that evening, I think the parent is misleading the sons”
Where are you getting this hypothetical? I never said that, and neither did anyone else. I said someone making out with you is “a whole lot likelier than average” to want to have sex with you. Since the average likelihood of any single person wanting you approaches zero, what I said is true. Surely you see the wide gulf between “a whole lot likelier than average” and “the enormous majority.” The first category might be 5%; the second has to be 80% or more.
Do we all agree with telling this to our offspring:
“If you are making out with another person in your room, and you want to have intercourse with them, don’t assume they want to-- ask them if they want to?”
I think most of us do agree with this. I guess that many of us who are women remember situations where we were making out with a guy, and we did not want to have sex with them at that time.
“Re: the Title IX Coordinator allegations – turns out the association hired an outside law firm to review the allegations last year/in January, cleared the Indiana man, and the NYU woman released her letter at the conference after being informed they were not sanctioning him.”
So when actual legal professionals got involved and said there was nothing to substantiate the claim, she nailed him with Google, from which there is no appeal. I don’t expect that we’ll see a civil suit unless she pays a lawyer out-of-pocket. He might have a good defamation or tortious interference claim against HER. She got him into big trouble with his employer – New York Times level trouble.
“I am not entirely sure what kind of “sanctions” she wanted”
She wanted the accused to be expelled from the organization and prevented from attending its conferences. So that she can feel safe.
"Do we all agree with telling this to our offspring:
“If you are making out with another person in your room, and you want to have intercourse with them, don’t assume they want to-- ask them if they want to?”"
To me, this discussion falls into the line of ridiculousness. I don’t need to tell my kids that any more than I need to tell them “if you are ordering a soft drink at a restaurant and you want Coke, don’t assume the other person wants Coke too.” Duh already.
““If you are making out with another person in your room, and you want to have intercourse with them, don’t assume they want to-- ask them if they want to?””
Yes, that’s smart advice. That said, almost half my cases involve activities that stop short of intercourse. Many college policies require affirmative verbal consent before every kiss or touch. @Cardinal Fang, do you agree with those rules? Should it be considered sexual assault if person A removes an article of clothing and person B responds by touching the newly exposed areas without asking?
It depends. If she is wearing a sweater over a low-cut top, and she removes the sweater, and he starts touching her cleavage, then it could be sexual assault. If she takes off her bra while they are making out, then no.
Hanna, you say that the Williams policy requires consent for every kiss or touch, but that does not seem to be the case to me. The policy says consent is required for every “kind of sexual activity.” Consent is required for kissing, but not individually for every kiss. Consent is required for touching, but not individually for every touch.
Is it really so difficult to understand as a woman if you don’t want to have sex, don’t remove your clothes? Just what would you recommend telling men when women start taking their clothes off? Run as fast as you can? That’s just silly. I would like to think that most men would not take their pants off witth out an invitation verbal or non-verbal. If they don’t want to go further, they don’t take their pants off. You don’t take your clothes off if you don’t want to get in a situation you don’t want to be in or can’t handle. Period. Goes for women. Goes for men. I would hope we don’t have to “teach” that to college age kids and we most certainly don’t need college administrators deciding whether Suzy took her shirt off because the room was too hot or she just wanted to try second or third base and that was an invitation that she really “didn’t mean” but Joe misunderstood and so Joe gets the boot.
Hanna, it is possible that I misunderstood the intent of your post #587, where you wrote, “I think we can agree that the subset of people who are making out with us alone in a room are a whole lot more likely than average to want to have sex with us. We should still assume they don’t want to, but not because of what the enormous majority of people want.”
I read the last sentence to indicate that the "enormous majority of people who “are making out with us alone in a room” are likely to want to have sex. But that we had to assume that any particular person did not necessarily want to.
Was the comment about “what the enormous majority of people want” untied to anything that preceded it?
“Consent is required for touching, but not individually for every touch.”
It’s clearly required for every touch in a new spot, since the example they give is “May I touch you here?”
“If she takes off her bra while they are making out, then no.”
It sounds like we are on the same page about some of this – taking off your bra is a nonverbal invitation to touch your breasts, and schools shouldn’t be requiring affirmative verbal consent when there’s a clear nonverbal invitation like that. But they are.
@northwesty “So it usually will be legally sufficient reasonably evidence of consent if it can be shown that the drunk person was walking, talking, flirting, texting, undressing, obtaining condoms, etc.”
@much2learn “Wow. I don’t even know where to start with this sentence. None of these things are evidence of consent for sex. Responsible women do all of these things without giving consent for sex.”
@consolation “Oh, for Pete’s sake, you know perfectly well that the example does not suggest that these things are occurring between random strangers in a drug store. Be serious.”
I don’t understand what is unclear about the consent rules:
1.) Yes means yes
2.) Positive, on-going participation means yes
3.) A person who is very intoxicated may be unable to consent, this may vary by state
4.) Responsibility for misinterpreting items 1, 2, 3 is the responsibility of the person who is initiating sex
5.) Not knowing the law is not a defense
Walking, talking, flirting, texting, undressing, obtaining condoms, may begin to establish #3, by demonstrating that the person is aware of what they are doing, but you still don’t have #1 or #2. For example, if the other person does not follow undressing with positive, on-going participation, then you don’t have consent.
Much2Learn, you quoted a post that was specifically about a #3-only situation and responded to it as though the poster were speaking across all situations. That’s the cause of the disagreement. You took a post out of context.
@hanna “Much2Learn, you quoted a post that was specifically about a #3-only situation and responded to it as though the poster were speaking across all situations. That’s the cause of the disagreement. You took a post out of context.”
I did not see or understand or that @northwesty was stipulating to #1 and #2, and is only discussing #3: legal capacity to consent.
In that case, I agree that “…walking, talking, flirting, texting, undressing, obtaining condoms…” do seem to indicate legal capacity to consent. I am feeling a lot better about that. Whew.
Again, I would advise my college age son that, if they have had a lot to drink, and the girl he is with is not his girlfriend/regular partner, it is a much better idea to be safe and just say no.
@Ohiodad51, this is off topic a bit, but your understanding of the criminal justice system is a bit incorrect. A prosecutor could take a he said, she said rape case to trial and a guilty verdict would survive appeal if there are no legal errors made. The reality is that prosecutors don’t like to lose and so don’t like to bring weak cases. However, in Ohio we have sent people to death row for crimes that not only they did not commit, but for which there was no more evidence than the coerced testimony of a twelve year old “eyewitness.” Google the names Ricky Jackson, Wiley Bridgeman, and Kwame Ajamu if you want to have your eyes opened a bit.