But it seems to me that plenty of people seem to second-guess decisions about whether a person reasonably believed he had consent. In a number of the controversial cases we’ve discussed, the accuser exhibited behavior that suggests consent, but we hear the refrain that we’re not believing her when she says she didn’t consent. As has been asked a number of times, how drunk do you have to be in order to no longer be able to be held to have exhibited consent by your conduct? It seems to me that most of the definitions of that line are tautological.
In reference to many of the campus policies and these surveys, the question of impairment is completely subjective. Simply does the complainant, or survey respondent, assert that she was too impaired to consent, which is a whole different set of problems.
Various people wonder whether these surveys accurately reflect the incidents that happened. I wonder myself: if someone reports an incident, would I classify the incident the same way they did? Here’s a paper on assessing the Sexual Experiences Survey, which is the survey we think was used for the Syracuse/Brown study:
Assessing Women’s Experiences of Sexual Aggression Using The Sexual Experiences Survey: Evidence for Validity and Implications for Research1
Maria Testa
Carol VanZile-Tamsen
Jennifer A. Livingston
Mary P. Koss
http://pwq.sagepub.com/content/28/3/256.abstract
Unfortunately, it’s behind a paywall. But according to the abstract, they gave some women the SES (this would be the older SES without the questions on incapacitation, I think). Women who answered yes to the one of the questions were interviewed about their most recent incident. Women who answered no were interviewed and asked about an incident where they feared they would be sexually assaulted, but then they weren’t. Coders read some of the transcripts (why not all?) and classified the incidents as if they were filling out the SES. The coders typically agreed with the survey respondents when it was a case of rape or coercion (“responder-coder agreement was high”), but not so much for attempted rape.
The seriousness of the alleged act didn’t correlate very well with the subjective trauma of the sexual assault.
This article doesn’t tell us whether the survey respondents were truthful about what they experienced, but it does tell us (if the article backs up the abstract-- I wish I could get a copy) that when the subject described an incident as rape, the independent coder generally agreed that experience would be rape. Sounds like we should be skeptical of the attempted rape stats though.
This is a pretty interesting finding, as well. I don’t really know how to ask this question, but how traumatic should sexual crimes be, as compared to other crimes? Should our educational efforts seek to reduce the felt trauma (and thus perhaps reducing the stigma and increasing the likelihood of reporting) or should educational efforts emphasize the trauma in order to strengthen teaching about consent?
There in Ohio, the crime of rape is not called gross sexual imposition. It is called rape, and it requires sexual conduct, viz. penetration.
There is another, lesser, crime, called gross sexual imposition, which involves sexual contact: touching the erogenous zones of the other person.
In Ohio, as elsewhere, touching the genitals of another person for sexual gratification without consent is a crime, as it should be. In Ohio, as elsewhere, touching the genitals of another without penetration is not the crime of rape, but a lesser crime. I asked for a jurisdiction where the crime of rape does not require penetration. You failed to supply one.
I don’t think it makes any sense to ask how traumatic rape should be. We should instead ask how traumatic it is, and not be surprised if different people have different reactions.
I read this as saying that more severe acts didn’t necessarily cause more severe trauma. But this should not surprise us. One soldier comes back from Afghanistan with PTSD, and the guy in the next bunk, who experienced all the same horrors of war, comes back fine. One kid has lasting trauma from childhood abuse, and her sister, who had the same abusive childhood, is unscathed. People have different reactions to the same situations.
Okay, I’ve been silently following this discussion…but that above statement has written a theater of the absurd play in my head.
Raise curtain:
He: kissing, open mouth kissing
She…Hmmmmm
He: touching above the coverings of the mammary glands…;
She: hmmmmm
He: touching mammary glands directly…aka. his hand skin on her mammary skin
her;hmmmmmm
He: Touching genitalia above the clothing…
Her: hmmmmmm
He: touching genitalia below clothing:
Her: hmmmmm
He: fondling L****a major and minor
Her: hmmmmm
He: Fondling cl****s
Her :hmmmmm
He: inserts finger into vagina
Her: Hey you a**hole, you just raped me! I didn’t give you permission to penetrate!!! What the h@ll were you thinking> You rapist animal!
Curtain drops.
Thanks for explaining Ohio law to me. I have been struggling with it for awhile now. Is your point really that a woman can’t be guilty of sexual assault without sticking her finger in some guy’s butthole? That was your original point, in post #398, wasn’t it? Or are you willing to concede that the use of the term rape is different in the criminal law context and the survey data we have been discussing?
On your more interesting post, I would reiterate for the umpteenth time that there is likely broad agreement on what constitutes physical, penetrative sexual assault. Attempts are the problem, as is incapacitation. Again, the broader the definition, the more noise that is captured. I would guess they didn’t review all of the transcripts because of the resources available. It is likely a very labor intensive process.
@Hunt, you seem to be asking for a degree of specificity in rape laws that is not present in other laws. What’s the difference between first degree murder, second degree murder and manslaughter? It’s what the defendant was thinking, and it’s for the jury to decide.
Whether an accused rapist’s belief in consent was genuine, and was reasonable, is also for the jury to decide. In most cases, it’ll be easy: that two-year-old did not consent to sex no matter what the pedophile thought. That woman did not consent to sex; she was unconscious. The woman threatened with violence did not consent to staying in her attacker’s house and having sex; she stayed because she was afraid he’d beat her up. Saying “No, Stop!” does not constitute consent. Other times, it will be more difficult: exactly how drunk was she?
Well, I don’t know. What impact, if any, does the tone of the public discourse about this have on the trauma experienced by victims? For example, should we accept that carrying a mattress around for months is a normative depiction of the trauma a victim experiences? I know this may be flamebait, but couldn’t there be a flipside to trivialization? Is it to the benefit of victims to portray the normal reaction to rape as a shattering life-altering event, as opposed to a terrible but survivable crime?
Let me put it this way: which is more traumatic, to be raped while incapacitated by an acquaintance in college, or to be robbed at gunpoint? I think the answer to that will vary a lot by individual. But which one do we talk about as highly traumatic?
You know, it frustrates me that discussions of sexual assault (use your own term as you desire) on CC so often some down to two sides: one side assuming there there is a high enough degree of subjectivity in what a sexual assault is that any attempt to deal seriously with the subject is pointless, and the other assuming that there is a low enough degree of subjectivity that any attempt to deal with grey areas undercuts any attempt to deal with the issue seriously.
Yes, I exaggerate—but not as much, I think, as one might hope.
I’m guess “how traumatic” someone feels certainly might impact how they respond to a survey question, but that is also it’s own bias. I got robbed when I was young…two people climbed in my apartment window and stole from me. I never lived in a ground floor apartment (because I feared being robbed) but the criminals pushed a dumpster against the building and stood on each other shoulders. I was pretty traumatized, I was pretty scared for many weeks and months after. The police, were callous, as they told me the criminals “might come back for more.” But just because I was a victim, traumatized, scared and all that other stuff doesn’t mean that the “criminals” would be charged for anything more than probably petty larceny. I was more scared of this because they came into my space than I was getting pick -pocketed and rubbed on the subway in Boston during rush hour…
So yes, I could see respondents labeling themselves a certain way when taking an anonymous survey that really doesn’t align with what is considered criminal or what degree of criminality occurred.
@“Cardinal Fang” in what way do you believe that the distinctions between 1st degree murder, 2nd degree murder and manslaughter are less defined than the definition of rape/sexual assault/whatever in criminal law? I think most would agree that the distinctions between 1st and 2nd degree murder and manslaughter are pretty well defined, and that the challenge with sexual crimes is that absent some degree of statutory incapacitation, the law does not permit that degree of specificity. In a very basic sense, one can not consent to be killed, but one can consent to sexual activity. I just don;t understand where you are going.
@hunt That is an interesting point. I don’t get why it needs to be an either or situation though.
I would be interested to hear from current college students about their impression of the trauma and stigma of reporting rape nowadays.
I lived in a sorority house full of women for several years in the 70s, and did not hear about a single rape case. On another thread, poetgrl claimed this was because the women would of course not tell me about it (?).
Today, with the President, the press, and public rallies and college vigils, etc prominently condemning and addressing campus rape, one would expect that victims of rape would be supported, and thereby the stigma of coming forward would be lessened. At a campus of 5,002 women, victims would be the company of 1,000 others. What is holding them back from coming forward or at least affirmatively reporting every incident to the administration? This is what makes me wonder whether the majority of them do not consider the actions described in the surveys to rise to the level of criminal rape or even action that needs addressing to them.
^^Yes or they fear their “story” won’t stand up to scrutiny so they report this or that on a confidential survey, but follow through and pursue. It’s easier to tell your friends and confidants this or that occurred and more difficult to tell someone in a position of authority who will ask some basic questions to verify before taking action - the old Trust but Verify message that’s been around forever when you hear something that may or may not be true.
FYI, @northwesty sends his child to Tulane in New Orleans, a place with astoundingly high rape and murder rates. Bad parenting by his definition.
By the way, I asked my soon-to-be junior son last night what percentage of women he knows from college were raped during their freshman year. He guessed about 15%, much of it centered around a few notorious fraternities. He does not understand why women continue to attend their parties and drink their pre-mixed punch.
40 years ago fraternityhouses were generally full of half-decent guys. Is the current generation different? Have the modern perpetrators been profiled? What’s changed? I’ll bet a lifetime of video games and Internet porn has something to do with this.
What would be the downside to a college setting up a text hotline to the dean, on which Judy Jones could easily report that Bill Brown digitally penetrated her without her consent last night?
If nothing else, this could help the college understand what is really going on.
“He does not understand why women continue to attend their parties and drink their pre-mixed punch.”
Me neither.