<p>But, better safe than sorry, and I rather my boys to have their heads and brains on a swivel. When it is you, it is no longer rare.</p>
<p>I also think tons of college males going out raping college females is also a rare situation. The problems are regulated to a small percentage of males. However, the current wide net, catch-all policies, which treat all males, as predators-in-waiting are now the operating standard. So much for understanding rarity. It is like poisoning the entire lake to kill the one fish.</p>
<p>I also think these policies’ unintended consequence is to subtly encourage irresponsible behavior, and I do not see affirmative consent laws changing that problem. It does not take much to see that it is easier to do something stupid if you know that you will not be held responsible for what you say and do, even if you meant it at the time.</p>
<p>I’ve been having a lot of conversations on this topic with my S, a 2012 college graduate. Far more than we ever did when he was actually in college, or before. (When people say that one needs to have a conversation with one’s son to “tell him how not to rape,” it somewhat boggles my mind. My S was raised by a feminist mother to believe in “the innate worth and dignity of every human being,” as the first UU principle puts it. He had the benefit of the UUA/UCC sexuality education program OWL (Our Whole Lives), which emphasizes respect for oneself and others. It is also antithetical to his nature. But anyway…) </p>
<p>He has recently covered a conference on sexual assault for his newspaper. So we’ve had conversations about the definition of assault–can it be determined by the individual who experiences the action, is there an external definition that should always be applied–and so forth, often using my personal experiences as a woman as a reference. We also discussed some publicized incidents on his campus during his years there. All kinds of stuff. </p>
<p>Recently, I asked him if he had ever witnessed something at his fraternity house that looked like a possible predatory situation, or one in which consent was clouded by drinking, and if so what was his reaction. He said that there was one occasion. A couple has both gotten quite drunk, and gone up to the guy’s room. He and some other people were standing in the hallway a little while later, and the girl came out and said to them, “He’s trying to take my clothes off.” She didn’t seem upset, though, and she was wearing the guy’s shirt. She went into the bathroom, came out, and went back into the guy’s room. S said that they kind of stood there and looked at each other, and wondered if they should intervene. They didn’t. A couple of months later, the pair started dating. </p>
<p>I wish my son had a big brother to listen to. Of course, that would mean I would already have gone through this, but that would mean that I had already gone through this . . . It really is a different experience for us from girls. </p>
<p>I have both girls and boys. This is a big issue for BOTH. I get really irritated when people make this out to be an issue that only sees one side or the other as the victim. When it is your kid (or you) the only number that matters is 1. If a million girls are victims it is no less horrible when your son is falsely accused. You can never put that back in the bottle. If a million boys are falsely accused it is no less horrible when your daughter is molested. You cannot put that back in the bottle either.</p>
<p>We should all be warning and training our children. </p>
<p>All of that being said, the point of this thread is an important nuance that changes the whole dynamic of male-female relationships. I pity the person who never found themselves in a passionate situation where both parties knew where things were going and raced to it with the fiery intensity that has to be experienced to be understood. To take all of those situations and expect both parties to calmly stop and sign paperwork or to even stop and confirm where they are going is ludicrous in the extreme. Will either party have second thoughts hours or days later? Probably. It is part of what makes us human. </p>
<p>We have already determined that the bad stuff happens to too many people and is committed by a few bad apples. Like so many policies that are well-meaning, this unintended consequences of such a policy serve to squelch one of the most basic and beautiful of human expressions.</p>
<p>This legislation will do little or nothing to stop the actual problem. Predators don’t really care what the law is. The law only applies to the law-abiding. It is also unenforceable. It will always come down to the testimony of two individuals that took place (usually) in private.</p>
<p>Zooser I have two older sons who are now both graduated from college and my youngest is a sophomore. The biggest difference I’ve observed is that the freshman now get alcohol counseling AND what I can only call Sex Ed 101 which covers drinking again, and STDs and touches on appropriate sexual behavior and available resources on campus which neither of the older two boys experienced as freshman. The oldest didn’t even have required alcohol counseling. But I will say that all three of mine were no angels in high school with regard to alcohol and sometimes i channeled MomofWildChild. I haven’t observed much different about boy/girl stuff other than the youngest one and his friends seem to be more negative/leery of females - I can’t assume that is significant because this is the one that had a very good friend accused of rape in high school and went vicariously through the he said/she said scenario in high school (and the girl recanted so it was dropped, which is in a different post). I’m sad that he is leery of females, but I’m OK with it also because of all the quasi-judicial stuff that is happening. Your son will be fine if he just stays aware and the advice for females and males is pretty similar - don’t drink to excess, be aware of others and be personally responsible. I’m not terribly worried about my kids, but there are naive kids heading off to college these days who can get in over their heads with alcohol and the heady taste of freedom. There are also some wonderful young people in our colleges these days…they are not all male and female hellions, quasi-alcoholics and class-skippers.</p>
<p>When S was about 16 we were on a cruise. As will be the case, some of the youth group got into the alcohol and one particular young woman was seriously inebriated. S, being the gentleman we taught him to be, escorted the young woman to her cabin. He wanted to make sure she got there safely. (S was the ‘founder’ of the sober group). When he relayed the story to H and I the next day we both just caught our breaths in fear. What if this young woman now accused S of assault. It would be a he said/she said. It was a teachable moment. Our advice was to never, ever, ever put himself into such a situation. If someone needed assistance get a third party with legal authority involved. Regretfully, being a gentleman can backfire. Young men need to have an acute awareness of situations where they could potentially be falsely accused. Sad, but true. </p>
<p>Totally confused by post number 145. Sounds like he did exactly the right thing. He wasn’t falsely accused, and there was little risk that he would have been. Has anyone read George Saunders’ story collection called The Tenth of December? The parental attitude in post #145 reminds me so much of the attitude of the boy’s parents in the first story in that collection. I think it is a highly regrettable message to teach a young man – to intentionally turn your back on someone in need because there is a very slight chance that you might be harmed. </p>
<p>If everyone had that attitude, there would be no fire fighters, for example, who truly put their lives on the line to help others. </p>
<p>Many places have good Samaritan laws…especially college campuses. It’s a good thing for kids to know if their town and college honor being a good Samaritan. </p>
<p>^^^ He was not taught to turn his back, he was however taught to cover it. Next time, get a crew member to assist, get at least 2 other sober people to walk with you, or in the case of a college campus call security. Sorry, as a parent it is my responsibility to explain the world as it is, not as I’d like it to be. When colleges like Harvard and Stanford bypass ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’ and instead settle for a ‘preponderance of evidence’ in determining the guilt of an accused person well, then again - sorry - one must have a much higher level of CYA than in the real world.</p>
<p>Some may recall in one of the other threads that I mentioned that my DS refuses to walk females home who have been drinking, even if they are drunk and need help. He would call security instead.</p>
<p>I was going to say something in an earlier post, but did not want to come off as simply anecdotal, but given the experiences expressed here, I will add it. Several guys in my DS’s dorm last year were open about not trusting females, even in public, much less in private. Yes, they were leery to the point that if girls showed up drunk or drinking, many of the guys would scatter and leave the scene; my DS being one of them. So another downstream unintended consequence of current policies is the good guys leave the scene to avoid being caught up in anything. Unfortunately, this leaves the females to fend for themselves against a higher ratio of the not-so-good guys to good guys. And as stated above, the bad guys could care less about affirmative consent or any consent for that matter.</p>
<p>These examples are why this thread is valuable to people like me. I never would have thought that a sober boy helping a drunk girl might benefit from the presence of a third party, but I can see why that would be smart and give it serious thought.</p>
<p>There is 8 years difference between my oldest and youngest…I do think there are unintended consequences of the legal entanglement that could potentially surface that will not bode well for the women. Rape used to be a very powerful word, but it has denigrated into a something else. It used to mean something horrible, warranting police and the criminal system to intervene. When it turns into something that our judicial system thinks is appropriate for college and university laypeople to judge it’s a sad day indeed. When it makes some of our country’s supposedly best and brightest young men “leery” of our sex it’s a sad day indeed. </p>
<p>I mentioned this in another thread, i.e., there is point where biology takes over for both males and females and to expect them to stop and have some rational conversation is next to impossible. I got called all sorts of names for pointing that out and told to read a book. I admit though you do say it more eloquently than I did.</p>
<p>From a medical point-of-view, our instincts, given certain hormones levels in certain situations, are multiple times stronger than any rational thinking at those precise moments - and the effect is same on both males and females. Alcohol is the supercharger here since it reduces our ability further to have rational thoughts (calculations) in those situations by binding (and effectively blocking) the receptors that would allow the proper sequence of nerve depolarizations to take place that precisely promote rational thinking. This is why a forever awesome good guy, who has had some beer, can easily find himself in a world of trouble, even if he means no harm to anyone and why a female can easily find herself agreeing to and doing things that she might not do otherwise. Put those two together and irrational behavior rules the day. To expect rational behavior out of an irrational construct is irrational in itself, but that is what these laws try to legislate. No law could ever address or solve the medical facts occurring at those times.</p>
<p>My main concern with affirmative consent and other similar laws is it gives females a false sense that they are being protected when in fact all they are getting is the right to allege a different legal scenario. The female must still get hurt for these remedies to be used. I do not get how people see that as a solution to preventing rape. It is like inventing a better cast, but fully allowing the conditions that cause the the broken bones in the first place to continue unabated and then thinking you are protecting the person; no, the bones are still broken.</p>
<p>I’m completely gobsmacked. I’ll admit to not following all of this stuff closely enough, but i am not aware of a single instance where a sober boy claims to have been falsely accused of assaulting an intoxicated young women whom he helped to her room WHEN THERE WAS NO SEXUAL CONTACT whatsoever between the two. It is so unlikely that it seems equally likely – that is, of minuscule likeliness – that someone would randomly accuse another person who DID NOT help the person at all. In any event, even if there were such accusations in the world, the risk would still be so low as to massively outweighed by the basic moral duty to help another person in need. </p>
<p>I need to ask a serious question: Would your advice to your son change if the girl was a close friend? Surely you would not allow your son to deny aid to a friend in need because of the fear of false accusations? </p>
<p>I strongly believe that our kids – male and female alike – should be taught to look out for each other and to help each other in times of need. Kids without a lot of experience with alcohol can become quite intoxicated very quickly. I ASSUMED that kids are taught to look after and help each other. This is truly shocking to me! </p>
<p>I met all the boys in my daughter’s co-ed dorm floor – in fact, a group of 8 kids from her floor, boys and girls, came and stayed with us over the holidays for a few days. Some of the boys were big – 6’3" and 200 lbs. – and it made me happy to know that she had strong male friends who would come to her aid if she ever experimented with alcohol and exceeded her limits. The idea that the parents of these boys – boys I’ve hosted in my home! – would teach them to turn their back on her in time of need (unless there were official security present etc.) is so beyond shocking that I don’t know what to say!!</p>
<p>Please tell me your rule pertains only to strangers!</p>
<p>Here, let me fix that for you. Rape used to be a very scary word and only 2% of rapes were even reported. Now, it is a reported crime, a word women aren’t as ashamed to say out loud, and even though it remains underreported, underinvestigated and underpunished in our current system, at least now we are starting to talk about it. </p>
<p>Why this frightens people is understandable. Of course it is frightening when the dialogue changes. But, given the number of decades this has been going on, it’s not at all surprising it hasn’t been figured out yet.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>There’s a large group of men who are really great, some of whom I happen to know myself, none of whom have ever been accused of any crime, and all of whom have walked a young woman or drunken young man home, some of whom have interfered in rapey situations, and one of whom has testified on behalf of a woman who was raped by someone he had once believed to be his friend. </p>
<p>The undertone of: men are just not interested in women now that women expect not to be raped, is kind of weird to me. Does someone think that women WANT men who are like that? Does someone honestly believe men need women less than women need men? It’s such a weird thing the way this comes out on these threads. Borderline creepy.</p>
<p>I’m not so extreme. My son and his friend (my son is 6’4" and 230 lbs and his friend is 6’2" and at least 210) carried a drunk sorority girls 2.5 miles this summer and never got stopped by the police.I thought it was good of them as she would have been picked up and spent the night in the local drunk tank. Instead she probably had a massive hangover after sleeping it off at her girlfriend’s out where my son and friend deposited her. I never once worried for my son or his friend. But it’s not drunk girls that the men are leery of, it’s girls that have had a drink or two or three and get something in their head that they aren’t comfortable with. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing in this day and age. Incapacitated girls aren’t generally very attractive to non-predator guys. I don’t think men and women should get married until they are close to thirty so I don’t care if they think each other manipulative…really…they will sort it all out after the hallowed halls of college close behind them. Somewhat ironic that some women always claimed that the men were trying to manipulate them into having sex and now that some men think that the women MIGHT manipulate them into having sex and then cry foul one day, one week, one year later that’s a creepy conversation to you. i haven’t found any of the dialogue surrounding Title IX or California “creepy”…fascinating that our lawmakers think the way they do (or don’t think) but creepy…no. </p>
<p>Notelling, would you point me to the post advocating not helping? I missed that and would like to see the context.</p>
<p>Poetgrl, I am having trouble quoting, but your comment in post 145 is what I would consider bizarre and creepy. I haven’t seen any post that comes even close to the undertone of men not being interested in women who expect not to be raped and that comment is sexist and hateful. That isn’t what is being said. What is being said is that if a woman is incapacitated it could be worthwhile to have either professional support or a witness. No one said anything about turning backs on anyone. Male medical or other helping professionals often have a witness when dealing with a drunk or incapacitated woman because if she won’t remember what happened to her and ism too impaired to have good judgment then nothing good can come of being alone with her. Maybe your experience of dealing with the worst possible situations has colored your perspective to such a degree that you can’t see the difference between young and inexperienced men and predators. There really is a difference.</p>
<p>Not drunk passing-out women…alcohol infused happy tipsy women…things are never black and white…unless someone is passed out, then things are pretty black :-)</p>