<p>The issue with “intoxicated = can’t consent” laws is that they generally don’t address encounters between 2 drunk people. This is a part of a larger issue with rape cases in general - they often come down to one person’s word vs another’s. How can rape cases adequately be prosecuted without allowing for any wrongful convictions? It’s tough to say, but personally I think that if the system allows for a single false imprisonment, it is a failure.</p>
<p>So, Dupes, are you saying that if you see an attractive woman in attractive clothing, you can’t restrain yourself from raping her? Is this only when you’re drunk, or is it a problem when you’re sober as well? And this is the woman’s fault?</p>
<p>Maybe psychiatric counseling could help.</p>
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<p>Let me rephrase this.</p>
<p>“… If they didn’t want to get mugged, why would they wear such expensive jewelry? Why would they wear it outdoors they put themselves in that position? Live with the consequences of your actions, people”</p>
<p>How about this.</p>
<p>“… If they didn’t want to be carjacked, why would they drive such expensive cars? Why would they drive without security guard front and back? Live with the consequences of your actions, people”</p>
<p>Now, this.</p>
<p>“… If they didn’t want to be burglarized, why would they live in such expensive houses? Why would they flaunt their wealth so? Live with the consequences of your actions, people”</p>
<p>Now, do you get it?</p>
<p>If stores don’t want shoplifters to steal their merchandise, why is it right there in the open? </p>
<p>If parents don’t want their children kidnapped, why are the kids allowed to walk down the street to the neighbor’s house? </p>
<p>If men don’t want to be mugged at gunpoint, how can they carry enticing wallets with money and credit cards?</p>
<p>How can anyone be upset if their house is burned down, when they inexplicably failed to post armed guards, even while knowing that some people are arsonists? </p>
<p>How can I possibly bear to drink from a drinking fountain in the full knowledge that a poisoner could have poisoned the water?</p>
<p>And how can I walk down my street after dark, knowing that a rapist might grab me and rape me and it would be all my fault?</p>
<p>Normal people don’t blame the victims of the crime. They blame the criminals that committed the crime.</p>
<p>twistedxkiss–very brave of you to share your story. Know that it will help prevent someone else from being a victim.</p>
<p>I don’t intend to scare parents of D’s here. We have had two well publicized rapes this year involving two of our college students. The reason they received more media attention is because the young women were raped by the father’s of their roommates. Both lived in off campus apartments. The father’s were in town visiting their own daughters and staying overnight in the apartment. In the first instance the father ended up killing himself. The second was charged just last week. When my D comes home this week I will be discussing this with her. My advice will be that parents don’t need to stay at their child’s home, but IF they do she should graciously find somewhere else to spend the night and offer up her bed for the parents. </p>
<p>Our town, I don’t think it’s state wide, recently adopted a law which permits rape victims to go to the hospital and anonymously report the crime. The DNA and other evidence will be kept. If/when the rape victim changes her mind about pressing charges the evidence will be there. In the second instance mentioned above the young woman initially reported the rape anonymously. I don’t know if this type of law is prevalent across the country, but it should be. It might have helped Twistedxkiss and many others.</p>
<p>Twisted, I also applaud and thank you for speaking up.</p>
<p>I find it basically impossible to believe those statistics are useful or meaningful. I have 5 female friends. As far as I know (and yes, it’s possible that they haven’t told me, but I HIGHLY doubt it), none of them have been raped. I will venture to expand that to almost all the females I know. Perhaps its a product of the schools my acquaintances attend- perhaps the statistics only apply in even higher rates at small pockets and lower in others. But if that’s the case, they’re dangerously misleading.</p>
<p>Think also of a bradley effect here- you’re MUCH more likely to say that something you’d prefered not to have done but did in fact consent to was against your will, thus exculpating yourself from responsibility, to a pollster than to actually cry foul in a way that has consequences. Does this mean these alleged victims (and many are real victims, I’m sure, but 1 in 5?) are afraid of facing authority, or don’t really think its worth it. And if its not worth it, is that because it wasn’t really rape, perhaps, but just something they regretted, or were not clear about? (I recognize that you need clear consent beforehand, but in the heat of the moment mis-communication is easy, and how many people actually stop, look eye to eye and confirm, on a regular basis?) </p>
<p>Here’s a true story: a good friend of mine whom I know would not make this up, met a girl at a party and took her home. She was visiting from another school, yadda yadda yadda, she said something that horrified him entirely as pillow talk. So much so, that he asked her to leave.</p>
<p>This girls response? She threatened to accuse him of rape if he kicked her out (it was now in the early hours of the morning). He conferred with some friends and they decided he had to let her stay, so he slept on the floor and she left in the morning.</p>
<p>This isn’t even a reported case of rape. But I know its a true story, and its proof that many girls absolutely can and do use the fact that all the power is in their hands, that accusations of rape are incredibly difficult for a male to defend ex post facto, abusively. That’s arguably the much greater miscarriage of justice. A solution absolutely must be found, and until then, everyone needs to be more vigilant and on better behavior. As it was said earlier in the thread- evil is everywhere in the world. And it wears both sexes.</p>
<p>I am extremely confused that this thread is going on concurrently in the parents forum and the college life forum, with posts I made in the college life forum appearing here, too! I don’t mind, but was certainly surprised. There is more discussion at College Life if anyone here is interested, though I can’t promise it is worthwhile. May prompt a few frank conversations with your children, and perhaps it ought to.</p>
<p>I say this also for the fact that I mentioned this being one of the most unsympathetic groups of people, when in fact I meant the college life forum. :P</p>
<p>While I know rape exists and is an awful thing, I am agreeing with arbiter that these statistics are quite possibly inaccurate. No one really knows how many girls get raped in college. It is however very popular to make rape sound like it happens to “1 in 5 girls at college.” </p>
<p>There is also a big issue that is not being discussed: False rapes. Our current laws and media make an accused rapist into a criminal overnight. This of course is politically incorrect, but imagine if you were a guy that had consensual sex with a girl who realized after the fact that sex was a mistake. All she has to do is call rape and her testimony alone will get that man at least ten years in prison. I wonder what the numbers are for false rapes?</p>
<p>Call and arbiter - you really can’t make anecdotal interpretations of stats. I am sure these stats include estimates of unreported rape.</p>
<p>There is an occasional story of a false report - I personally know of one - but these are the minority. </p>
<p>Twisted thanks for being brave, open, and honest - without any doubt you have helped a lot of people by posting. I’ve never sent cyber hugs but this seems to call for it!</p>
<p>Cali and arbiter, besides what SimpleRules said about the danger of extrapolating from your own personal knowledge to the college population in general, you really don’t know how many of your friends and acquaintances have been raped. It still carries such a stigma (just look at this thread for a sample of the skepticism which the victim faces) that victims often do not tell even their closest friends.</p>
<p>Actually arbiter, what that proves is that you friend had one encounter with one girl and that particular girl decided to be manipulative (I’m guessing they were probably both under the influence of something). It says nothing about how “many girls” behave or how the college population as a whole behaves. And it’s possible (I hope very true) that none of your female friends have experienced a sexual assualt. But if the attitude of you and your friends seems to be that girls who claim to be sexually assaulted are doing so to manipulate the situation for their benefit, is it possible that your female friend simply aren’t comfortable sharing with people they don’t think would believe them? </p>
<p>Frankly, there is no “excuse” for rape. Drinking, how a woman is dressed, “teasing” are not excuses. Just as in court you won’t be excused from a physical assault because you were verbally provoked, young men need to be taught that there’s no excuse for a sexual assault because of what a girl said or how she looked. There simply is not.</p>
<p>"And it’s possible (I hope very true) that none of your female friends have experienced a sexual assualt. But if the attitude of you and your friends seems to be that girls who claim to be sexually assaulted are doing so to manipulate the situation for their benefit, is it possible that your female friend simply aren’t comfortable sharing with people they don’t think would believe them? "</p>
<p>Arbiter,
Most women who are sexual assault survivors don’t talk about their experience to anyone. You are being very naive to think that you’d know if anyof your female friends have been raped. Why should you know? That’s simply not the kind of thing that most people talk about.</p>
<p>After more than 35 years of friendship, I learrned that one of my college roommates was sexually victimized by a relative during her childhood. Another friend --at age 40 – told me that when she was 12, her uncle had raped her. I was the first person whom she’d told. Another friend – age 49-- told me that she had been molested as a child by her mother’s boyfriend. I was the first person she had told.</p>
<p>Men also have told me about their sexual molestations. A former boyfriend of mine was sodomized by a male next door neighbor when he was a child. Another person I know was sodomized at gunpoint when he was a teen by a stranger who assaulted him on the street.</p>
<p>Based on what I heard when I was a psychologist and what I have heard simply from people whom I know (and all of the sexual assault i’ve mentioned on this thread happened to friends and acquaintances), I believe the statistics regarding women and rape/molestation. I think, however, that probably more men are survivors of sexual abuse than the statistics reflect because most men who are victimized are too ashamed to reveal that info even anonymously.</p>
<p>If any young men would like to TRY to understand the impact of a rape on a young woman, I recommend reading Lucky by Alice Sebold.</p>
<p>You may remember Ms. Sebold as the author of The Lovely Bones. In the book, the victim dies. In real life…she didn’t. </p>
<p>She was viciously raped at knife point by a stranger when she was a student at Syracuse. The book is the true story of the aftermath of the crime. It’s a very honest portrayal. </p>
<p>A work of fiction that tells the story of the effect that a rape has on a teenager and her family is We Were the Mullvaneys by Joyce Carol Oates. </p>
<p>The vast majority of rape victims in college are freshman and first semester sophomores. Almost always, the rapists are juniors and seniors. Often they’ve already acauired a “rep” among upper class woman for being “aggressive.” </p>
<p>While I don’t think any woman ever deserves to be raped, it is true that you reduce your chances if you stay sober and refuse to go anywhere alone with someone who has been drinking too much.</p>
<p>There was a sexual assault recently at my D’s school. Apparently, the perpetrator, a male student, is not being disciplined by the college because there were no witnesses. The victim, a female college student did go to the hospital after the rape. I don’t have information about whether there was a rape kit exam other than that she was bleeding. My D is upset that this young man is still on campus. </p>
<p>This story confuses me. I don’t know much about the prosecution of rape crimes (could someone enlighten me?), but it certainly seems that the college is falling down on the job here. There seems to be a pattern of looking the other way when male students get aggressive. And by aggressive I mean everything from slapping a girl to sodomy rape.</p>
<p>“Apparently, the perpetrator, a male student, is not being disciplined by the college because there were no witnesses.”</p>
<p>I don’t see why a felony like rape should be something for a college to deal with. It should be something for the community’s court system to handle. I want men locked up who do things like sexual assault, and colleges can’t impose such punishments. </p>
<p>I’m wondering why the women aren’t going to local (not campus) police.</p>
<p>As I posted on the college life forum too, I simply do not understand how the “big issue” as some people state here is people getting falsely accused of rape. Considering the amount of doubt and suspicion girls who claim to be raped are put under, considering the amount of people out there (out here, on this forum, even), who’re ready to say “she was probably a drunk slut who provoked him”, and considering how uncomfortable it is to talk about, I don’t think any girl will happily cry “rape!” for one night she regrets. I mean, why would she even do it? Being embarassed about sleeping with someone or regretting is does not automatically equate to putting yourself through a complex legal process with very uncomfortable questioning and often no fruitful result to see them in jail for 10 years. I don’t see even a hint of a good motive for doing that and facing the stigma. So no, that’s not the important or the big issue here. For every one false accusation of rape that crops up, there are thousands and thousands of rape cases that go unreported because people are afraid of these very accusations: they rack up the courage to talk about a traumatizing experience, and what they get in response is, “maybe you were drunk and had consensual sex and you now regret it. Poor guy, he’s the real victim here.”</p>
<p>@mousegray - Is it possible that the victim is not pressing charges? Even if there were no witnesses, if she went to a hospital they probably did a rape kit and collected DNA, which could make a pretty compelling case for the police and jury. But if the victim chose not to press charges and there were no witnesses to the crime, then the school’s hands might be tied. I can understsand how very upsetting that must be to your D, and the lack of reporting of crimes like this is unfortunately just one of the tragic psychological consequences of sexual assault. </p>
<p>@jonri - Isn’t the point though that it’s not young women alone who should have to modify their behavior? Young women should be free to enjoy themselves at a party just as much as their young male friends, without worrying about sexual assault. I recognize we live in the “real world” here, but I often worry that the tone of these conversations places unfair, one-sided emphasis on the women. It seems to suggest that Men can be drunk, sexually agressive, predatory, whatever, and there’s nothing that can be done about it, so they should just be left alone and women, well, they just have to protect themselves from the male’s sexually agressive side. I’m not saying that young women should be reckless, but I am saying that the conversation needs to be equally directed at young men, to check their behavior as well.</p>
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<p>Why not? Colleges have discretion after all. There is no reason why a male student who has raped another student, or who has slapped three different women, should not be expelled at least.</p>
<p>I do think it’s important for victims to go to the local police, and that ultimately, it is a criminal matter that needs to be prosecuted in court. I believe this girl is pressing charges but this is third-hand information from my D. I do know that many girls are upset, that there is a petition going around campus, and several families have written letters of protest to the administration.</p>
<p>“Why not? Colleges have discretion after all. There is no reason why a male student who has raped another student, or who has slapped three different women, should not be expelled at least.”</p>
<p>I agree with you totally including that the local police should be involved, too. My comment that you had responded to referred to the rape in which it seemed that only the campus police were involved.</p>