<p>Momofthreeboys, if my son took an incapacitated girl back to her room alone I would worry that she would die in bed or that someone would have seen them go into her room with her in that condition and report it. I wonder what responsibility under university honor codes come into play when not seeking help for someone you know to be incapacitated. If there even arguably is a responsibility, then professional help should be obtained. </p>
<p>PG, it is not that they are not interested, it is that they live in fear. That fear is worsened when well-meaning people get it in girls’ heads that any sex is rape. I know YOU are not saying that, but there are many people who believe that and they are the types pushing for things like Affirmative Consent. Giving girls a false sense of security is worse than doing nothing. Keep up your training to help them keep each other safe, but don’t make unenforceable rules that simply make criminals out of kids with poor judgment.</p>
<p>Someone very close to me was falsely accused by a girl and nearly spent his life in prison because the girl’s version sounded more likely to the prosecuting attorney. The only thing that saved him is that she was literally mentally ill and had a history of Histrionics. Pun not really intended. Great guy whose only crime was dating someone who was ‘off’. If she hadn’t had a previous history, he would be in prison today.</p>
<p>I know kids who were at the party that former football player Mark Chmura was accused at. The girl followed him into the bathroom and had been stalking him. He did nothing wrong other than have the bad judgment to stop by a friend’s house where teenagers were drinking (and him having to pee). He never really gained his good name back despite being acquitted. His friend was a real creep, but that didn’t grab enough headlines for the DA who had political aspirations.</p>
<p>I think the problem for you is that you are so close to the one side of the equation that you cannot fathom the real issue on the other side. False claims are real and they undermine the credibility of our daughters who have real claims. They also make it hard for our sons to trust and to form healthy relationships because they never know which girl might be ‘off’…or just change her mind…or want revenge because he just wan’t that into her after all…</p>
<p>I understand the fear and the other side. I think women are in fear and men are in fear, women, statistically, far more reasonably so, but both are in fear.</p>
<p>And both are in fear because of a tiny, teeny tiny number of repeat criminal offenders on campus. And, since bystander intervention is the absolutely most effective way to rid a campus of rapists, or at least significantly decrease the incidence of rape, nothing will be more important and nothing will change things more quickly than when the majority of healthy men step in and stigmatize those who are being protected and have been being protected by this misguided notion that false reports run rampant.</p>
<p>They don’t.</p>
<p>Yes you have poetgrl and I think undertone is a polite way of making something up.</p>
<p>Yes. I’m clear that you would rather fight with me than state anything relevant, but it’s sooo fun! Let’s continue. :-@ </p>
<p>Zoosermom, here are the quotes that set me off:</p>
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<p>Teaching boys not to help girls in need or refusing to walk someone home without the presence of security is what is shocking to me. There is not enough security in the world to escort kids on college campuses who have had too much to drink. That’s what friends are for. And big, strong men or boys are especially useful in helping to extricate intoxicated young women from the clutches of known predatory cads. (Sone of these predatory cads might turn out to be predatory rapists.) I think our boys should be taught to step up to the plate and intervene when they see potentially dangerous situations occurring. </p>
<p>What are they supposed to say to security? “Jane had x number of shots and she is now flirting with a dude we all know to be bad news? Can you come walk her home?” That’s ridiculous. That’s not the way the world works. Security will only be called in the most serious situations. What a friend should do in that situation – where they see Jane intoxicated beyond good judgment, before she has reached the level of incapacitation – is say firmly: come on Jane we are going home. And walk her out of there. </p>
<p>I’m a woman. I remember doing that all the time for friends in college. It would have been absurd to call security in 90% of those circumstances. Of course security should be called when the person has consumed dangerous amounts of alcohol. </p>
<p>You are the one who has chosen to hijack a a thread for your own agenda, not me. I am trying to learn something about the topic of this thread. Your posts may have been relevant to the"other" threads, but less so in this one, which is ironic because you complained last night about having to repeat these things. You don’t. At least not in this thread. Others are trying to figure out how such new regulations would impact our sons and what unintended consequences could arise. It is still not a keep girls safe from rape thread. It seems to me that you are the one fighting by refusing to allow a thread to continue on the path desired by other posters in compliance with the TOS. I get that you are passionate and I applaud your work, but there is room on this forum for multiple threads and various viewpoints even if you do not agree with or prioritize them.</p>
<p>You are right Zooser and you should never leave someone that drunk or totally passed out by themselves…ever. They could vomit and die from it. </p>
<p>My son is carting tubs up and down the stairs in front of my desk getting ready to head back to the uni tomorrow and I asked him what he does at college when he’s at a party and comes upon a girl he knows who is totally drunk. He said if she can walk he delivers her to her girlfriends. After he and his friend carried one 2.5 miles to her friend’s house when he was home this summer, I guess I really do believe him. He says in his situation girls are in packs and generally one is designated not to drink. Smart girls. </p>
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<p>I think what is important here is to understand the confusion that many policies have now created. When things are unclear, it is sometimes best not to be even in a situation that may raise a contentious issue in the first place. </p>
<p>It is also important to look at the entire field and realize that if things are not clear policy-wise best to err on the side of safety and assume the worst. I am not saying it is the best approach, but it is a lot safer and easier than trying to extricate oneself.</p>
<p>And please note, I did not say do not look out for each other, but to make sure that when you do look out that what you do and did are seen and understood by a third party who can back you up. That is very different than turning your back. Calling security and waiting for them to arrive is the safer route.</p>
<p>As for the drunk guys and girls at parties, I see that no different than leaving a nightclub that has a scene that you do not like. I see no moral obligation for my DS and his friends to become policemen for students drinking and doing stupid things. That is not their thing, not their scene, not something they would choose to do, and I do think it best if they choose to leave. </p>
<p>I do believe this weary approach is a result of the dire consequence that what the male now says holds pretty much no weight or even credibility for that matter. I have not met one male who does not think that if he gets accused of something he is assumed guilty by the college first, regardless of what the girl said or did. Therefore, sober or drunk, super careful is the best approach and males should understand that guilt is the operative for them from the very second any accusation is made. </p>
<p>The college situation is somewhat even more interesting now because more students do understand the policies, however, they have no control how policies get interpreted by different colleges. Therefore, essentially, there is no effective policy until a case is brought and then it is too late to say one followed the policy, which effectively did not exist at the time because of this on a new interpretation.</p>
<p>My son hasn’t yet faced one of these situations and he is, to put it mildly, very high on the flaky scale. Therefore, it is my responsibility to have a good sense of this issue to discuss with him. I am completely at a loss with big boy stuff. In some ways it was easier to support the girls to being safe because I was a girl once and understood what they faced, and because my husband looks like a professional wrestler. When they got to college, he made himself known to many people and the girls kept a picture of him, in high school boys were terrified of him and I was ok with that</p>
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<p>Jeez! This IS bystander intervention of the most effective kind. Unsurprisingly, of course. No matter what, I always knew your kids would know the right thing to do. Since I knew they had been raised right and are probably a lot like the exact guys my girls hang out with. Normal, healthy guys. Who really do know the difference between consent and drunk.</p>
<p>It’s really not rocket surgery.</p>
<p>Yes, I think it’s the right thing to do and I do not think any woman, or at least I hope no woman, would file a complaint about someone who dropped her off to another woman friend. But, if that rare circumstance occurred, i still do not have confidence that non-professional lay people fearing the withdrawal of their state or federal funding will “do the right thing.” I really have zero confidence in these expanded collegiate responsibilities. I think the colleges and universities are under extreme media and DOJ pressure to hurry to judgement. The irony is that TitleIX should protect BOTH men and women and the California legislation is not sustainable or prosecutable even if in effect it does not necessarily say that men are presumed guilty if the woman had one or two drinks - it doesn’t go that far thank heavens. </p>
<p>This kind of stuff, unfortunately, has the precision of a jackhammer. And it is an overcorrrection.</p>
<p>It will straighten itself out in the courts. In five, ten years, we will have some reasonable policy that works reasonably well. </p>
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<p>Of course I would advise him to make the exception for girl who is a friend. A hypothetical for him though as he has no girls who are actual friends that drink and get drunk. And again, I never said deny aid - see my previous post. </p>
<p>And he deals with this all the time. He is an athlete, one of those 3% body fat muscle guys and he gets hit on more that he cares to talk about. It actually irritates the heck out of him. He goes to a party to be with a few guy friends and drunk girls are trying to pull him on the dance floor and asking him why he does not like them. Well, I know what he is thinking, because you are drunk. I think it is wise for him to avoid the entire mess altogether.</p>
<p>He has pushed a couple guys into the wall when they went over-the-top with a couple females on the female team. But he hated being in that position because the girls were tipsy or drunk and he said they did not realize how their behavior was no different than the guys’ behavior, as they were touching the guys too, but he stepped in between because he could not tell if the girls knew what they were doing. After that happened a couple times early in the year, he just said to hell with it because he was getting into touchy situations that he would never choose to be in, so best to avoid altogether. So, he only rarely goes to such parties and then not for long and if the party comes to him where he is, he leaves.</p>
<p>"This kind of stuff, unfortunately, has the precision of a jackhammer. And it is an overcorrrection.</p>
<p>It will straighten itself out in the courts. In five, ten years, we will have some reasonable policy that works reasonably well."</p>
<p>You are 100% right which is why there is a learning curve for people within that five to ten years and this is what it looks like.</p>
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<p>I totally agree, and I too walked many a female and males home. But alas, we are not in college in this day and age; however, my son is. And for the record, security at his school has zero problem when this is done, as he is not the only one that does it. They show up in under 5 minutes whenever they are called. A couple times they called the student’s junior adviser to come get the student.</p>
<p>“He says in his situation girls are in packs and generally one is designated not to drink. Smart girls.”</p>
<p>I suppose it’s smarter than drinking to excess without a sober friend around. But I’m very uncomfortable with the idea of knowingly compromising your faculties to the point that you may need a sober friend. I just don’t see any reason to put yourself in a position where you can’t look after yourself. I know I’ll be screaming into the wind about that forever, though, so if this is what works for harm reduction, so be it.</p>
<p>@nottelling: If you have never been on a cruise, especially one populated with a high percentage of guests under the age of 18, I’d like to give you a frame of reference. One gets on board with about 3000 people one has never met. Part of the allure is that most cruise lines have ways for younger people to meet, socialize and spend time together. They are grouped by age. So, on the first night S goes to the club for his age group. He meets people, they do things. During the course of the week, some of these group members identify themselves by both behavior and comments as being in the … um…illegal drug/boozer/parents are unaware/don’t care group. So now you have evening activities which include both this group and a relatively sober group. S does not really know any of these people. So now, envision him taking one of the intoxicated young women from deck 3 to deck 12. Down a long deserted hallway and helping her into her cabin. There are no other folks around ( the hallways are usually empty). His intentions are the best, her memory is impaired. Not a good combo. Hmmm… pretty much describes a normal college campus.</p>
<p>Friends are very different. There is an established history and relationship. S has, does and will continue to assist friends of either gender. There are several young women from his home town attending the same university. All us mom’s know each other. They are very glad S is around. </p>
<p>Want to keep your daughters safer? Teach them from kindergarten on to travel in pairs or more. Teach them street smarts. In college, have them use a white board with their roomie to leave notes as to when the expect to be back. Make sure you know roomie’s parents contact info (yes, go ahead, meddle). Teach both genders that while they may have the right to dress, speak, associate, ingest, congregate and behave in certain ways, it might not be SMART or in ones’ best interest to do so. Teach them to understand the caveats ingrained in some of the rules guiding campuses today - be sure they understand that the protections they see regularly on CSI, Law and Order and Special Victims shows are NOT the protections they will receive on our campuses. </p>
<p>I will not apologize for doing my most important task…to keep my kids safe.</p>
<p>I would tell my son, I think, that if a girl is incapacitated she needs professional help, but if she is just drunk, it is probably best not to be alone in a closed room with her. I just wish so much drinking weren’t so pervasive, I find it scary. My friend’s son is going to a top LAC in a few weeks and I hope his parents talk to him a lot about affirmative consent and coercion and such. Probably it is too late. He is a wealthy, smart kid who is so angry at women that he had been slappy to his mom for years and is the guy who gets the drugs and booze. I would warn my daughters and sons to stay away from him. I don’t know if he has ever abused a girl but I have no doubt that he would.</p>