Well I am a parent of a young woman and I certainly understand how an accusation of sexual assault “might impact the young man.” I am certain she does too. I don’t understand that statement.
@HarvestMoon1 I think most young women and parents understand, the issue is the 6% that don’t.
I have been very surprised by some of the people I have met, and some that truly believe if both parties consent but are drunk then the guy is always at fault.
The issue in these “wake up with little recollection” is that a guy is viewed as a predator when impaired, and a girl is viewed as vulnerable.
I know that some people do stupid things when people drink, but there is a societal stigma that goes a long with it that views only men as predators.
I am not sure that all young women realize that the accusation may have much more far-reaching impacts on the man’s life than they were looking for. In some other threads, posters have basically written they don’t care what happens to the man, even if he the evidence was not there, as the man must be guilty, regardless of the level of the assault or level of evidence. In some cases, a women is convinced by friends or family, that she was assaulted, even if she didn’t initially think she was. In some cases, that is definitely true, but in others maybe not.
Some young woman simply want an apology or some understanding that what happened was wrong, but once reported, it is out of their hands and has perhaps unintended long-term impacts on the man’s life. Of course there should be real punishment and even jail time if the evidence is there, but in these gray area, he said she said cases, perhaps more of a balance is needed. Most sexual assaults remain unreported. More woman are assaulted then men are falsely accused, but that doesn’t help the individual kid that ends up on the wrong end of the statistics. Or help parents know how to counsel their sons beyond don’t drink and have sex.
“If the man outweighs the woman by a factor of 2, has her in his grip, and is not listening to repeated statements, “No!” then good luck to the woman trying to leave.”
No one’s talking about those cases here. The guy you’re describing understands consent just fine. He’s deliberately violating it. For him, that’s the fun part. And in my experience, there’s a good chance he goes to jail if the victim is able to report promptly.
What CC parents need to talk to their kids about is the preventable mistakes that get grouped together with the scenario you describe, the ones where the accuser does not claim that s/he “repeated” no, tried to leave, was unconscious, etc. These are cases that turn on the intoxication level of a walking/talking person, failure to say “yes” at each stage of the encounter, the accuser’s unexpressed sense of discomfort, and the like.
I’m praying, and I mostly believe, that CC parents aren’t raising the kind of kid you’re talking about.
Ohiodad brings up some excellent points.
Have a lawyer’s phone number handy 
I’ll say it again. Seriously. If parents are actually talking about self-defense and pepper spray for young women, a young man’s best defense is a personal relationship with a lawyer. The sisterhood of the victimhood is ripe for attracting women with issues. And perhaps that is rare but you don’t want your male progeny getting caught in that. Fortunately alot of young men have already encountered this in high school and know to steer clear. All of it which is seriously damaging and unfortunate for actual victims of sexual abuse and rape who either get lumped in with the sisterhood or get ignored and a giant step back for women who seemingly want outside “protection” from big bad boys. So tell your sons not to “blow-off” or take lightly any college administrator accusing them of anything. Men and women are equal in the eyes of the law and any young man has a right to defend himself vigorously against a false accusation whether or not it’s a super -secret “investigation” by the university librarian and head of food service or an actual police investigation.
I think it is a futile exercise to compare sexual assault and false accusations and attempt to discern which is worse. They are equally damaging to their perspective victims and equally abhorrent. In my own mind each case has to be examined closely and evaluated according to it’s specific facts. But it does seem to me that the “scorned vindictive woman” is the first thing many people jump to when these cases arise - it is an easy way to deflate what might be a valid case of sexual assault. Of all the cases we discussed in the previous threads, there were maybe 2 that I thought just didn’t add up at all.
I participated in a lot of those threads and I really do not recall any poster taking this position. If they did I certainly would have disagreed.
Hanna, I agree with the first part of your post #63, but as a university faculty member, I know of 3 cases in which there is no possibility of the man going to jail. In two cases, rape kits were collected, and the assault was reported to the police, but the prosecutor declined to bring charges, because there was no objective evidence of a lack of consent. In the third case, the assault was not reported to the police, because there was no objective evidence of a lack of consent, and there seemed to be no point.
I understand that this thread is really about the advice that CC parents should give their sons. But it is also the case that if concerns about false allegations are raised in the general population to the level that people worry about their sons who have good judgment and are caring, that simultaneously makes it easier to defend a man who actually did rape someone–it establishes (in the minds of future jurors) the idea that false allegations are a common result of later regret.
Potential advice to sons: If a man does not know a woman well enough to trust her, it would probably be a good idea to get to know her better before having intercourse. If a man is breaking up with a woman, it would probably be a good idea to treat her humanely and part on as good terms as possible.
Wouldn’t there be two main classes of situations?
a. The man in question is a sexual predator, who will attempt to rape the woman regardless of consent (though in college situations, the sexual predators often use intoxication to rape their victims, rather than trying to force their way through victim resistance).
b. The man in question is not a sexual predator, but the situation could be one of those murky ones (often involving intoxication) where the question of consent may be unclear or difficult to remember afterward.
Being absolutely clear about non-consent may stop (b) even though it may not stop (a) (maybe it will help prosecution later, though).
I agree with you, ucalumnus, that it might stop case (b), but I doubt that it would help the prosecution much, if there is no objective evidence that the encounter was non-consensual. In the absence of witnesses, or serious physical damage, I see no way to remove doubt about the situation.
From my own son’s high school experience, I fear that some schools’ attempts to protect young women are backfiring. His school is so focused on protecting girls that crude teenage banter has become sexual harassment, comments made that are negative have become slut shaming, and all of that has led to a culture where young men now believe that there isn’t a real problem with sexual assault in our country. Until my son saw The Hunting Ground, he was convinced that charges of sexual assault on campuses were almost all false accusations. I don’t think this kind of culture is helpful to men or women (I have a daughter as well) because it gives girls a false sense of entitlement, an inducement to assert claims of sexual harassment when they experience an interaction that they don’t enjoy, and a lack of recognition of what the real dangers are out there. It gives boys a false sense that girls are overly protected by society, that they aren’t really victimized, but merely claim to be, and that sexual assaults are largely fiction. The Hunting Ground was a real eye opening experience for my son, a kid who is routinely upset by other social injustices, but had become unable to see injustices against women because of the over-compensating culture of his high school.
I think there are a fair number of scenarios where neither are really intoxicated, although might have had a few drinks. They start to fool around and one party does not anticipate going all the way but the other has a complete sexual encounter in mind. That person then forces it then claims consent based on what happened before the intercourse. And in some cases may truly believe that constituted consent.
The scenario of “you don’t get to say no to me” after a certain point, is one that I think happens frequently. I think some people interpret any kind of consensual physical contact as a total and complete green light.
I don’t think I ever had a conversation with my son specifically about the technicalities of consent before he went to college. His sexual education included a program at our church which stressed sexuality within a context of mutual respect and caring. Women and girls were presented in our home as multifaceted fellow human beings, not defined by their physical attributes. The idea of “scoring” sexually on an objectified female was just not there. This is a feminist household. That was really the context in which the subject of sexuality was treated in our home. From remarks he made over the years, I knew that he had absorbed his lessons about birth control and thought that anyone who didn’t use condoms was an idiot. I thought that covered it. (We did have some plain talk about drinking and drugs before he went to college. He was disapproving of the partiers in his HS, but I knew college would be different.)
I’ve seen some people talking about “teaching your son not to rape,” as if males are rapists by default, and that disturbs me. I knew that he had been raised to be–and was-- the farthest thing from a guy who would prey on women. He was disapproving of people he thought did that. At that time, it didn’t occur to me to worry that he could be accused of rape after a drunken hook-up in which there was mutual consent. Probably because when I was his age the women I knew took responsibility for what they did in those circumstances, and would not have dreamed of defining it as assault. I think it likely that most girls and women still do. (Before I am flamed, I am not talking about people being roofied or the victims of predators who use alcohol as a weapon. I’m talking about your standard drunken hook-up with two participating people.) If I had had the awareness of the issue I do now, I would have been a lot more worried about him, and I’m sure we would have had specific conversations.
In the intervening years, we’ve had numerous conversations about sexual assault and consent, and about specific cases.
“as a university faculty member, I know of 3 cases in which there is no possibility of the man going to jail. In two cases, rape kits were collected, and the assault was reported to the police, but the prosecutor declined to bring charges, because there was no objective evidence of a lack of consent.”
Of course this happens far too often. It’s possible that you work in a particularly crummy jurisdiction where the police/prosecutors aren’t doing their jobs. But why do your three cases cause you to disagree with my statement that “in my experience, there’s a good chance he goes to jail if the victim is able to report promptly”? “A good chance” doesn’t mean that 100% of deserving offenders go to jail. It just means that the victim has a real shot at justice.
However, police departments may become more interested in arresting a sexual predator suspect if there are multiple reports naming the same suspect.
http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/East-Bay-man-said-to-drug-assault-women-culled-6551999.php
http://www.news-gazette.com/news/local/2015-10-05/ui-student-wanted-string-california-sexual-assaults-arrested-champaign.html
Suspect was a student at UIUC, but attracted the attention of police in a city near his hometown during summer break due to four women reporting sexual assault by intoxication. Police believe that there could be more victims.
Hanna, I live in a reasonably enlightened area. None of the specific cases (quite a few more than 3, actually) of which I am aware have resulted in charges being filed against the man. I just knew the details about the rape kit and report or lack of report in those three cases.
I think the statistics suggest that a fairly large fraction of actual rapes are never reported, and of those that are, a fairly large fraction never go to trial. In my university town, I very rarely hear or read of a college student being prosecuted for rape. When it does occur, it is usually the most egregious cases of multiple stranger rapes.
I know a student who was roofied prior to rape. Freshman women are especially vulnerable to this. My daughter’s seventh-grade health class included a session on roofies and a worksheet to be completed at home, in an attempt to alert young women to the danger. It is really sad when the schools have to advise 12-year-olds about this.
I know a student who became intoxicated, and was offered an escort back to her dorm room by an apparently helpful and concerned student, who raped her when they arrived at her room.
But I also know college women, both undergraduates and graduates, who were careful about roofies and were sober, and were nevertheless raped.
If the incidence is declining overall nationwide, it may be that the incidence is declining elsewhere, while rising in my region. It may be that students are more likely to report the rape to faculty members than in the past. But I am certainly hearing of a distressingly large number of cases within the past two or three years.
“it establishes (in the minds of future jurors) the idea that false allegations are a common result of later regret.”
Here’s a hypothetical: what if it’s true? I think we ought to talk about the truth even if it may have some negative outcomes. Truth often does.
We need a LOT more education, for everyone.
One big issue that students need to understand is that Title IX proceedings use one label to cover wildly different acts. I’m giving a talk on this subject at the Higher Education Consultants Association conference in June. One of my slides shows a pack of gum and a Rolls Royce. If you take either one when it doesn’t belong to you, it’s theft, and it’s wrong. But the law calls taking the gum “shoplifting” and taking the Rolls Royce “grand theft auto.” That’s a useful and important distinction, especially when it comes to figuring out whether the young person is a threat in the future. The Title IX process doesn’t do that. It labels the student responsible for “sexual assault” whether we are talking about a drunken kiss on the dance floor (a real case of mine) or repeated penetration with a sex organ. Students need to be warned that shoplifters get the same label as car thieves.
Great analogy!
All I can say is, this thread is very eye-opening.
My recollection from the other massive threads, @HarvestMoon1, was that there were a number of posts stating that getting expelled from college was not a bad enough consequence to require due process (or that due process does not apply in college cases) and that even if a few men were falsely accused that could not possibly make up for the women who are not believed.
I don’t immediately think of a vindictive woman wanting revenge on a man that did not call after their encounter. I am thinking more of the times when a woman was drinking a lot and does not recall giving consent, but also does not recall saying no. She decides she could not have possibly wanted to have sex with that particular guy and so must have been forced. Or decides she was too drunk to consent, even though she did not say no and even if her level of impairment was not obvious to the man or to others that saw her. The how drunk is too drunk debate. Of course there are predators that ply unsuspecting woman with drinks, especially vulnerable freshman that haven’t been drunk before and those guys deserve every level of punishment.
The other cases I think are troubling are the ones where the woman says she agreed to some parts of the encounter and then decided she didn’t want to continue but really didn’t quite communicate that verbally. Of course she has the right to say no, stop, leave me alone, and if the guy does not stop, he has assaulted her. But if she doesn’t actually tell him to stop, but thinks he should have known, I have a hard time calling that a crime.
Again, the primary goal should be to protect young woman from sexual assault. As always, the grey area cases are the difficult ones to interpret.