I’m not sure if I’m understanding this correctly, but why would ensuring mutual, enthusiastic consent in advance of having sex be a frightening concept?
@undeuxtroiscat because my experience teaches me that many relationships begin in social settings involving alcohol. Trying to stretch my mind back to when I was 20, 21 years old it is hard to imagine having a conversation in the library on Thursday afternoon that revolved around whether we would have sex for the first time that Friday evening after a party. Maybe things are different now, but I think you would agree it is counterintuitive.
It’s really not that hard to imagine.
I would not agree it is counter-intuitive, actually. I don’t pretend to be able to speak of others’ experiences, but my own and those of those I know well do include prior communication ensuring clear consent, which is why I found that statement so puzzling, especially with the phrase ‘very much afraid’.
@Niquii77 Really? It is hard to imagine casual sex between teenagers?
I doubt it is casual if they are teenagers.
A true Lassiez faire attitude comes with life experience.
If it really was " not a big deal", why would they need illegal substances to get through it?
It’s hard to imagine that your 20 year old self was so reliant on social settings surrounded by alcohol that having a sober talk with a woman about whether you two wanted to have sex or not is difficult to imagine.
A conversation doesn’t have to be daunting.
“What are your plans this Friday?”
“Mmm, I’m not doing much of anything.”
“Oh, want to come over? Have some sex, play some video games, watch Netflix, and have more sex?”
“That sounds pretty dope. Sign me up for that.”
End conversation.
Yeah, well. Maybe I am unique and people don’t hook up in bars. And maybe all this talk about the hook up culture on campus is just bupkis. I am sure that all teenagers treat sex as a serious, emotionless transaction, in much the same way they eschew levity in all walks of life. Maybe it is true that all of these surveys are only measuring violent, traditionally non consensual sex and our college campuses are like some sort of sexual hunger games. I guess that could be true.
And yes @jonri, this post is slightly less sincere.
Why is it hard to imagine two college students discussing their plans for sex (or not) ahead of time? Must we send our kids off to college with the expectation that each sexual experience will involve an “oops” factor- inebriated or not?
Protect yourself physically- birth control, condoms. Protect yourself emotionally- be in a relationship of some kind (i.e. know your partners name? Have had some contact/conversation which DIDN’T involve sex?)
How bizarre that we assume that all sex on campus involves hook-ups, drunken or not.
Some of you are missing the boat here, your daughter has to be able to be clear about consent and be comfortable communicating also. Yes males can “miss signals” but in my opinion it’s missing the boat big time if we think we need to only educate one gender and plenty of young men (and young women) are having sex, yet have problems talking about something as simple as birth control. And clearly there is a big percentage of college women that are befuddled about whether they were raped or not raped as that is often a reason given for not reporting. Also it feels to me like women are also not always clear about what is criminal behavior and what is not so it would be a miss not to educate all young people.
And CF I think you are incorrect with your comment as I do believe that in almost all states both men and women can be charged with rape even though it’s rare since men would be less likely to report being raped by a women and if it was a political statement I think we’re all pretty clear about your feelings about men.
The more I look at this issue, the more I am struck about how worthless all of these various “studies” are. It is a big problem.
The methodologies being used are amatuerish. The lack of any good data at all makes it impossible to have a meaningful discussion. Also prevents us from determining whether things are getting better or worse, or whether current practices and policies are helping or not. So this all degrades into name calling and discussion of one-off anecdotes and opinions, all untethered to any reliable facts.
The US DOJ stats are flamed by some for being way on the low side. Those concerns may be well founded. But those stats have been compiled longitudinally over long periods of time. Which is a really important and helpful thing.
Over time, they show that the rape incidence rates have come down over the years by 50-80%. They also show that college age women (students and non-students both) have all-time low incidence rates. Is that trend line accurate or not? Knowing that (or not) is pretty important. Knowing that would really inform your policy decisions. It is hard to drive at night without headlights.
If the trends are down significantly, why has it come down? What have we done to bring it down? Should we do more of that to bring it down further? What are the chances of coming up with good solutions if we assume that the rates are high and going higher when, in fact they are going the other way. Which would suggest things being done are working rather than failing. Saying “one rape is too many” just is not helpful in trying to figure out practical solutions that work.
All these campus climate surveys are messed up. Take for example the MIT survey. It “reports” that 5% of female MIT students reported being raped. Wow that’s a really high number if true. Especially since we are talking rape rather than some vaguer concept of “sexual assault.”
But there’s no attempt at doing a random sample, which is Polling 101. Instead, the respondents self-select. That’s a gigantic garbage-in problem. No professional pollster would ever do such a dumb thing. It renders the data worthless.
The survey has a 46% voluntary response rate from volunteers. So we know nothing about who the responders are. And we know nothing about the experience of the 54% who did not respond.
@northwesty, all violent crime has decreased drastically over the last 35 years. That’s good. Doesn’t mean the numbers today are good.
I wouldn’t like surveys either if my daughter went to Tulane and I saw their survey. 
18 percent…maybe the other school surveyed had all the attacks.
Your daughter said sexual assaults are very rare at Tulane? There is no talk about asaults. She is unaware of any attacks?
Let’s say 18 percent of women say they were assaulted in a survey. Only 40 percent responded to the survey. 60 percent did not respond. Let’s say none of the 60 percent were assaulted. None of the 60 percent were assaulted is a bad bet but that’s ok.
You are still left with 7.2 percent assaulted. That’s too high!
The numbers in the surveys are so high it doesn’t matter if they are too high. We are beyond any threshold that should be tolerated.
@Blossom Where did I say all sex on campus involves hook ups? Some sex is the result of committed relationships surely. But some sex is the result of hooking up in bars. To deny that either occurs is irrational.
And one other point that I think is important. Why assume that all sex that occurs after meeting in a bar is an “oops”? Sure, the percentage of life fulfilling relationships that start at 2:00am after belting out American Pie probably isn’t sky high, but if you happen to believe that sexual activity outside the bounds of marriage (or equivalent) should carry no stigma then what is the harm?
Isn’t it possible that your assumption mirrors the type of thinking which leads to “I probably wouldn’t have slept with him if I wasn’t drinking, so I guess I should check the box that I was “too out of it” to actually consent to sex”?
@dstark, would you agree that the real meaning of your 18% number would depend on how assault is defined and the questions that were asked? Or are you saying the positive results themselves lead to, at the very least, a generalized atmosphere of sexual assault which is in itself the problem?
US DOJ says that rate of campus assault in 2013 is half what it was in 1995. Is that true or not?
Are you saying your go-forward actions would be the same regardless of whether the rate is going up, down or sideways? How would you measure whether the actions you take are working or not?
Hard to drive while blind.
That article that @dfbdfb is an almost perfect summation of how I feel about the issue. I think there are so many nuances that she accurately describes, but which some people on here seem to ignore.
I am curious how some of the main protagonists in this thread view her opinions. And how are the 3 experiences that she talked about viewed by each of you? all rapes?
That sounds great in theory but there is a big problem. It does not matter at all if they have that conversation. A case we were talking about a few months ago (from California maybe??) had a woman and man having a conversation almost exactly like that and her texting friends that she was going over to his dorm to have sex and couldn’t wait.
I don’t remember all the details, but I believe I have the gist of the story correct. She then drank and they had sex. I’m not sure if she then regretted it, or what happened, but somehow he was accused of rape. He was found guilty despite the texts from her to her friends saying she was going to seduce him and have sex.
Conversations might help reduce the number of incidents (which is good!) but it won’t solve the problem completely because there are still going to be cases where a person will say they thought they wanted to but changed their mind and the other person didn’t read the signals correctly and therefore raped them,.
I don’t assume that all sex that occurs after meeting in a bar…or in college, a party…is an “oops.” I do assume though that when that sex occurs when the parties are drunk and without any previous sober discussion of sex between the participants, there is a much increased risk that (a) one of the participants got the other drunk for the express purpose of committing a rape; (b) one actually WAS too drunk to consent to sex and the other didn’t realize that, (c) when one did try to stop things from progressing the other didn’t realize it , (d) one or both of them will regret what happened later and (e) an accusation of rape will be made.
You asked
I answered that question. Your response seems to be “Oh no! He has to give up having drunken sex with women he barely knows and/or who have never expressed any romantic interest in him. How awful!” You’re certainly entitled to that opinion, but if your S shares it and engages in drunken sex frequently, he may be accused of rape and he may actually be guilty of it.
@northwesty, the DOJ numbers are ridiculous. I would bet real money on that.
I was a professional gambler. I was in the risk business. I was a floor trader.
Somebody else wrote if you get a Harvard professor in probability and a floor trader together, the floor trader is going to take all the Harvard professor’s money. 
Just wanted you to know.
The surveys don’t have to be perfect. They show a problem. Tulane survey shows a problem. Tulane is addressing the problem that you don’t think exists. post 541.
Of course you would go forward even if the rates are declining. If you have a temperature of 105 and it drops to 103.5, you do nothing? Wth?
If I was doing a trade and I could make $1,000, then $800…I would still make the $800. I would make $600… Then $400… I would do the trade until the profit is gone.
We are talking about women here. These are our daughters or are future daughters in law. We could invest in our daughters so they are safe. Who is more important than our daughters? It is ridiculous that we have to even talk about protecting our daughters.
Just listen to the victims. You don’t have to listen to the ones like Emma. There are a lot of victims out there.
What does your daughter say about Tulane?