What do you tell your sons about consent?

Parent Cafe
101

In a thread about what you tell your male progeny…you absolutely tell them that they could be kicked out of college, you absolutely tell them that they won’t go to another college without alot of legal help and alot of paid counselor help and perhaps a few years dishwashing at the local restaurant because no one wants them and you absolutely tell them they need to stick up for themselves and you absolutely tell them that they could be branded a “rapist”…a legal term that has meaning to a whole lotta people. Granted it will only happen to a few, and every woman on campus won’t turn into an accuser either - it’s just a risk like any other risk and the kids (male and female) need to know what to do and what it all means in the grand scheme of things. After using a condom it’s the second most important thing they need to know. They need to be thoughtful about their drinking and their sex lives and not take anything for-granted just like women. Men can get rolled, too, and robbed on urban (and some rural campuses) if they are walking around stinking drunk. As a woman and a mother I can’t sugar coat potential realities in the name of the sisterhood and maybe, just maybe, it will sink in between the ears somewhere. Hopefully as a parent you never, ever have to live through anything like this, but you want your kids prepared and ready to face the world so you talk about things that have some margin of risk. You don’t have to talk ad nauseam but you have to talk. Men aren’t fabricating these things in their heads. It happens.

I have little tolerance for people that don’t report crimes because it is basic to society, but like I said earlier it is an individual decision although I have every right to believe that people that don’t report a crime don’t think the crime is serious or don’t think what happened is a crime. No one’s up in arms about what percentage is false or that sexual assaults on campus can occur (they occur off college campuses, too), most people are up in arms that instead of a presumption of innocent some universities act on a presumption of guilt and make life altering decisions seemingly in a vacuum and that is why we need to talk straight to our boys.

Harvest…I have not lost faith that strong, intelligent women do exist. To do so would be rather sad. I know they are out there being raised by tail end second-wave feminists who are children of front end second-wave feminists :slight_smile: as are the sons.

102

@momofthreeboys I put consent before condom use.

Has our society done anything to encourage victims to step forward? We shame them, blame them and sympathize with their perpetrators. It reminds me of American Crime on ABC, which started with a powerful poem from a rape survivor. It was compared to investigating a home break in.

That intruder comes into your home, and enters every room, leaving a war path wherever they go, and people are more concerned with how the intruder got into that house and seem to forget about the person who actually lives there.

103

I don’t have a son, I have a daughter. But this is one of the areas in which if I had a son, I would be concerned. The presence of alcohol or drugs muddles the issue of consent. I’d advise my offspring not to have first-time sex with anyone unless both parties are sober. You need to build trust with your partner, which can’t come with a one-off drunken encounter.

104

^^^If only. That barn door has been open since the beginning of time. Lots and lots of sex happens after drinks…sometimes for the first encounter with a person. Looking for Mr. Goodbar sure had a chilling effect on my friends and I in the seventies and made us all stop and really think about the risks of pick-ups as they were called before the younguns adopted hook-ups as the language de jour and before AIDS. Hopefully fear will have a slight chilling affect on this generation. It might be, as I know for fact my youngest is alot more wary about sexual come-ons than his older brothers were.

105

I think what you need to do is apply some critical thinking skills to these stats and ask yourself whether they are conflating a guy putting his hand on your ass on the dance floor or someone cat calling with rape.

I think that a lot of rapes go unreported. I think that false accusations are extremely rare in comparison. But, being able to hold two thoughts in my head simultaneously, I think that both are deplorable and should not be condoned in some kind of “kill them all and let the Lord sort them out” kind of way.

I have had some of that sort of thing happen to me. I am NOT a “victim of sexual assault.” But some of these studies would classify me as such, no matter how I view the matter.

106

JHS makes good points in #88, but this is a poor comparison:

The right comparison is a student being kicked out of college and being labelled a sexual assaulter, not versus the average accuser, but versus the average accuser of someone who ends up being kicked out of college for sexual assault. Most sexual assault accusations do not result in a student’s expulsion.

Suppose Emily accuses Mr. Hands of being too grabby at a party, and Mr. Hands gets told to take some seminar/program and cut it out. Then Juliet accuses Brandon of raping her while she is unconscious, and as a result Brandon is thrown out of school. I don’t want to hear that Brandon is worse off than Emily. Brandon is NOT worse off than Juliet, who is having flashbacks of when she woke up to discover Brandon on top of her, who can’t concentrate, and who is failing half her classes even though she was previously an A student.

JHS, I do not think you can say with a straight face that in the cases where the accused person is kicked out, the accuser is having an easy time of it. Anecdotally, those accusers seem to have, at least in the medium term, moderately serious mental health issues, particularly PTSD, which apparently frequently end up in their having to leave school. There do not seem to be a whole lot of cases where the accused person is kicked out and the accuser is unscathed.

107

PTSD presents more commonly women than among men so who has suffered more emotional harm is not always easy to point to…I think it’s fair to say that in generalities neither comes away unscathed but may manifest in different ways. Both parties are probably doing a lot of woulda, coulda, shoulda and need therapy to sort out their feelings privately.

108

@CaliCash Totally agree with everything you’ve said

109

This is such an important and painful discussion. In a perfect world, young men and women would only engage in sex if they were both enthusiastic participants, and that is the way it should be. Some issues make the imperfectness of our world harder and sadder than others.

110

@QuantMech,

Your posts are excellent! Thanks for posting!

111

@Consolation The sexual misconduct that goes unaddressed leads to more serious issues. It should not be downplayed. They Duggars downplayed Josh’s innocent touching as a young man and as a married adult, he cheated on his wife and solicited sex from prostitutes.

112

This thread has strayed off topic. No one is discussing what people tell their sons about consent. As a father with 2 Ds I was curious how that is being handled. I or to my knowledge any of my friends never had a discussion concerning consent (I was in college late 1970’s/early 80’s) with any adult. I remember adults discussing birth control and VD (AIDS was not a subject at that time) but not consent. From my observations it should have discussed.

113

@Ivvcsf Maybe parents can start by telling their sons that you need consent for unsolicited touching. It’s highly inappropriate. It starts there.

114

It seems to me that everyone is much more open about the subject of sex than they were 40 years ago. At that time we were just 15 years or so past the beginning of the sexual revolution and while it was much more open in the media our parents were raised before birth control and the sexual revolution. We have discussed the subject of choice and control with our Ds. When I was in school consent was never discussed by the university. I know my D13’s university had that discussion as part of their orientation. I haven’t truthfully had a conversation with parents of sons concerning their conversations with them. I truly think many of the parents of college young men have this discussion with them. I also believe that the discussion is much more prevalent at the universities and in the media in general than has been in the past.

115

Yes means yes doesn’t protect a male if she is the aggressor. I don’t need to talk about no means no to my boys as they understand that but I have told my now college son to be extra cautious when the woman is the aggressor. I have told them that while intent on the part of a girl might offer some legal protection it might not be enough for a college tribunal that doesn’t operate like the “outside” world with legally afforded protocol.

116

I think it’s actually easier to talk to the boys because I can talk to them from the female mind and perspective. All along I think it has perhaps been “easier” to raise boys because typically you can be direct if you chose the right time and place and then sit back, be quiet and listen to what they say. We’ve also had some great dinner conversations, me and all the men in my life :slight_smile:

117

“What if pittsburghscribe’s point is true, that many instances of actual rape are not reported? (I believe that is true).”

It is unquestionably true. And we ought to do more about that: prepare young men and women to fight for justice if they are wronged. In addition to helping everyone learn ways to reduce their risk of becoming involved in a sexual assault, we should talk about ways to be a more effective complainant if they are assaulted.

“The amount of “I regretted sex, so I decided to ruin someone’s life” cases are statistically insignificant. Kinda like how the risks from vaccination are statistically insignificant.”

Assuming that’s true, vaccines are there to save lives. You subject your kids to the tiny risk because of a huge benefit. There is no benefit to anyone from false accusations, LEAST OF ALL survivors of rape. If we can get a small number smaller, we should.

“I think that a lot of rapes go unreported. I think that false accusations are extremely rare in comparison. But, being able to hold two thoughts in my head simultaneously, I think that both are deplorable and should not be condoned in some kind of “kill them all and let the Lord sort them out” kind of way.”

Exactly!! Furthermore, when we harshly punish some accused with minimal evidence, we are creating a new problem to layer on top of the first. Punishing the accused without figuring out if they’re really guilty makes it harder to address the problem of rape. Those of us who care about stopping rape on campus need to argue for processes that get at the truth. Hiding the fact of wrongful expulsions won’t stop them from diluting the force of just ones. Everyone benefits from a fair, truth-seeking process.

We haven’t even addressed the issue of students who are expelled/suspended because they didn’t follow the campus code of getting affirmative verbal consent for each new stage of an encounter. They are rightly found responsible in the sense that they broke school rules. But I’ve never had an encounter that met that standard, and I don’t believe that I am either the perpetrator or the victim of sexual assault.

I guess we have to tell students to follow the code of conduct, but I feel like a hypocrite when I do it.

See if any of you, in your marriages, obey these rules:
http://dean.williams.edu/policies/sexual-misconduct/frequently-asked-questions-about-sexual-assault/

118

Got a question–I read the Q&A from Hanna’s post above and am bothered by one aspect (also from the Occidental case)—the language is “if you don’t know if you’ve been assaulted then go see one of these counselors”.
Some of the counselors seem to have very strong personal agendas in convincing the alleged victim that they HAVE in fact been victimized.

119

I have raised one of each and that applies to both boys and girls - if fact just people in general. Women appreciate directness and being listened to as well. And if you have only raised boys what is your basis for comparison in stating boys are “easier” to raise?

120

Yes they do. It would be very interesting to be a fly on the wall if a young man called one of the supposedly confidential phone numbers because they were getting weird vibes days, weeks, months after they had sex with an aggressive, inebriated female they knew casually from classes or parties and they were worried, unable to focus on their school work, not sleeping well because he was afraid she’d turn the tables. What would they say to him? They better think about it, because that is the type of climate that could be created especially on a small campus.