Is affirmative consent before all sexual contact the best policy?

[traveller2013]

Some rape victims wrote online about how forceful their attacker was, and how he did what he wanted without asking her. Some think that if only the law stated he must ask permission, maybe he would have, and she could have avoided being raped. I think rapists do not care about their victim’s feelings, and that men making small mistakes often apologize immediately when they realize they made a misinterpretation.

Many courts require that victims say no. (I think there are many ways to say or hint no, which should be legally recognized under the “reasonable person” standard). However, have any rape victims said no, and then watched their attacker claim that she did not? He can lie either way. Let’s suppose people were required to always ask permission. Do you think rapists would ask permission, or do you think they would lie about that too? Or would they ask with a threatening look on their face, and then say she nodded, when in fact she was silenced by fear?

On many college campus across the country, under pressure from the Obama administration, students are required to ask permission before touching their partner sexually. This includes kissing. At some campuses, this includes in between each kiss. Being in a relationship does not matter, and the fact that she continues to date him afterwards also does not matter. If an accused student admits to not asking even once, that is grounds for being found responsible of sex misconduct and expelled. Many students pay close attention and test the waters with light touching first, escalating gradually and judging reactions, asking only before major jumps such as actual sex. At almost all colleges, that is grounds for expulsion.

Should you have to ask permission every time you give your partner a hug or kiss, assuming he/she appears happy to see you with all being normal? (obviously, that person may end consent at any time, and there are facial expressions to indicate it). I say, if a reasonable person would guess from a recent fight or that person’s apparent mood that they do not want to be touched, then verbal questioning should be required. Otherwise, at most the penalty should be small, unless they are strangers.

What are your feelings about affirmative consent on college campuses?

[traveller2013]

My proposed solution:
We have reasonable rules of contact, and deal with liars as follows:

If stories conflict and are undetermineable, but we know there is a high likelihood that sexual contact occurred consensually, nonconsensually, or accidentally, we allow the physically weaker party to have the physically stronger party fined up to, say $500, and more if other suspicious circumstances are present.

This would not be a penalty nor intended as justice. It is just intended to level the muscle-power fear playing field. The fine is low enough to not overly harm the innocent, but high enough let the guilty know they are guaranteed to at least pay something. And it lets victims feel at least some vindication easily.

I think this is far better than setting justice penalties and then agonizing over guilty vs innocent. We can do that too, but use the fine in undeterminable cases.

[OnMyWay2013]

@traveller2013 Even if it’s a scenario in which the physically stronger person claims to be the victim? Or what about couples in which it’s not easy to determine who is physically stronger?

[usualhopeful]

@traveller2013
Exactly how is that not a penalty? “We have no idea if you’re guilty, so you have to pay hundreds of dollars.” You also mention that “the fine is low enough to not overly harm the innocent.” Sure, it probably won’t completely derail your life, but for someone who’s already struggling financially, losing $500 could mean choosing between rent and food for the next month.

Our legal system is not set up to “[let] victims feel… some vindication easily.” It’s terrible that victims have to go through court cases and, especially in the case of rape, hurtful victim blaming. However, a flawed system cannot be replaced with one where actual guilt is not taken into account before handing out fines.

[traveller2013]

The fine only protects the weaker party. If the stronger party presses charges, they just go by the evidence alone.

The fine is based on income, $500 for most, and does not have to be paid back immediately, but before the accused’s next sexual encounter or at least next accusation or else it goes up.

Currently, students are simply expelled if accused, after a kangaroo court. I’m trying to propose a middle ground.

[NorthernMom61]

This situation with rape on college campuses (or anywhere for that matter) is extremely complex and there is no simple answer. Young people should not be engaging in all of the risky behaviors that seem to be highly correlated with many of the campus rape accusations–especially excessive use of alcohol and other drugs, often illegally (underaged or illegal substances) just to name a couple, and these offenses impair judgement significantly and if caught are often grounds for expulsion in and of themselves. Like most things in life, you can’t have a blanket solution, it doesn’t work that way.

[OnMyWay2013]

The fine is based on income, $500 for most, and does not have to be paid back immediately, but before the accused’s next sexual encounter or at least next accusation or else it goes up.

Like how they tell you that you can’t take another book from the library when you have outstanding overdue fees? :))

The concept of affirmative consent is good, but it seems like some places are taking it too far.

Some rape victims wrote online about how forceful their attacker was, and how he did what he wanted without asking her. Some think that if only the law stated he must ask permission, maybe he would have, and she could have avoided being raped.

It makes no sense that people would expect someone with malicious intent to respect boundaries just because the law says so. So I’m assuming the focus of this policy is those grey-area cases where initiator thinks the sex is consensual, but it, in fact, is not.

On many college campus across the country, under pressure from the Obama administration, students are required to ask permission before touching their partner sexually.

If someone is accused of rape or assault, it seems to me that the person has two options if the accusation is true: 1. For fear of the repercussions, outright lie and say that there was consent. 2. Be honest and say that the sex seemed to be consensual, and had the accuser expressed a desire to stop, he/she would have (e.g. we were drunk, she initiated the sex, he said ‘no’ at first but then he started getting into it, so I assumed that he changed his mind).

This policy wouldn’t really stop students from approach #1. The lie would just change from “He/she never said ‘no’” to “He/she said ‘yes’ each of the twenty-five times I asked.” I guess it would better combat approach #2; “seemed consensual” isn’t good enough.

So out of all the possible forms of sexual misconduct, it seems that the convicted would largely consist of people who did seem to have made an honest mistake. That might not change the fact that someone ended up violated, but such people might also be the group of people least likely to be a danger to the student body, and so maybe in that sense, a fine and maybe a mandatory class on proper sexual conduct or something would be a better solution than expulsion.

But if colleges want to increase the number of aggressors being brought to justice, policing the entire student body seems like a really inefficient way to do it.

[traveller2013]

This policy wouldn’t really stop students from approach #1. The lie would just change from “He/she never said ‘no’” to “He/she said ‘yes’ each of the twenty-five times I asked.” I guess it would better combat approach #2; “seemed consensual” isn’t good enough.

So out of all the possible forms of sexual misconduct, it seems that the convicted would largely consist of people who did seem to have made an honest mistake. That might not change the fact that someone ended up violated, but such people might also be the group of people least likely to be a danger to the student body, and so maybe in that sense, a fine and maybe a mandatory class on proper sexual conduct or something would be a better solution than expulsion.

Option #3:
He did get consent. She is just upset because 2 months later, he is breaking up with him. So she goes 2 months back to the time he did not clearly ask. Affirmative consent makes every guy either always guilty of something, or always having to ask 50 times per night. If enforced, and if good guys don’t lie, then good guys can be convicted on a whim.

That is why I say the “reasonable person” standard is better than strict asking. If he says she was moaning and he thought she liked it, that is enough to avoid expulsion unless proven otherwise to say, 2-3x as likely as not. However, for the 50-50 case, the stronger party pays a fine. It is not a conviction, but just a way of leveling the muscle-power playing field.

[traveller2013]

This situation with rape on college campuses (or anywhere for that matter) is extremely complex and there is no simple answer. Young people should not be engaging in all of the risky behaviors that seem to be highly correlated with many of the campus rape accusations–especially excessive use of alcohol and other drugs, often illegally (underaged or illegal substances) just to name a couple, and these offenses impair judgement significantly and if caught are often grounds for expulsion in and of themselves. Like most things in life, you can’t have a blanket solution, it doesn’t work that way.

We don’t know if the rape accusations are correlated with drunkenness or not, since we don’t know how much college sex is drunken vs sober. We just know the majority of accusations come with drunkenness. What if the majority of sex comes with drunkenness? Then that would mean there is no correlation between the 2.

There are people convicted who were not drinking, and people convicted who denied having sex at all. There have been guys who committed suicide because they could not bear the stigma of the accusation. Unfortunately, real rapists just get angry they got caught, whereas the innocent are psychologically destroyed.

All I’m saying is that if we are only 51% sure, we should not expel someone or label them for sex misconduct. We should at least think the odds are 2-3x as likely as not, and just give a fine for the 51% cases. If the fine has no public record, the innocent will get over it, but the true rapists will get hit with the increasing fine every single time and be forced to stop. It is about prevention, not justice.

[traveller2013]

I’m OK with a woman I slept with being able to fine me a week or 2 later because she got angry for some other reason, as long as she can only make 1 fine for the time period prior to the accusation. It would be the last time I would date her, unless she made a valid point and chose a smaller fine. But then I don’t sleep with lots of women. The guys who do sleep with lots of them might be at greater risk.

[SpringAwake15]

If you view woman as vindictive harpies who are likely to accuse you of rape because they get mad at you, you really shouldn’t be sleeping with them at all.

Also, maybe it’s just because I’m a lesbian who clearly has no clue how heterosexuality works, but…

Affirmative consent makes every guy either always guilty of something, or always having to ask 50 times per night.

…it’s good to ask? Like if you’re onto doing something new, you should ask your partner to make sure they want it, make sure it feels good, make sure everyone is enjoying themselves. It’s not that hard. You also seem to be insinuating that it’s only men who move things forward and who have to ask for their partner’s permission – it’s not. Healthy communication is healthy communication, regardless of gender.

[OnMyWay2013]

Option #3:
He did get consent. She is just upset because 2 months later, he is breaking up with him. So she goes 2 months back to the time he did not clearly ask. Affirmative consent makes every guy either always guilty of something, or always having to ask 50 times per night. If enforced, and if good guys don’t lie, then good guys can be convicted on a whim.

Maybe I should have clarified to “if the accusation of rape / assault as defined by the lack of affirmative consent is true…” In Option 3, the accused did get consent, but not enough times, technically making the accusation true, leading back to Options 1 and 2: lie or be honest that consent was just assumed.

There are people convicted who were not drinking, and people convicted who denied having sex at all. There have been guys who committed suicide because they could not bear the stigma of the accusation. Unfortunately, real rapists just get angry they got caught, whereas the innocent are psychologically destroyed.

Billy and Austin get drunk at a party and hook up. Billy had a lot more to drink than Austin did. Austin says that Billy molested him. Billy doesn’t remember that happening at all, and in his past experiences being drunk with guys, things never escalated beyond making out.

Prayesh and Nadia meet up through Tinder. Nadia’s never dated before, and she really wants Prayesh to like her. Prayesh asks her if she wants to have sex. She consents even though she doesn’t want to. She starts crying and says, “Wait…” but she’s so overwhelmed. she doesn’t actually tell him to stop, and he doesn’t register her distress.

There are many people who had no malicious intent, but at the end of the day, they did violate someone. They may still be “psychologically destroyed” by repercussions, but that doesn’t make them innocent.

Question: Couldn’t the accused counter-accuse the accuser if he/she also didn’t ask for consent even one time? If affirmative consent is needed from both parties, does that mean both partners need to ask each other every time, lol? Maybe the administration should hand out mutual consent contracts or something. :))

[traveller2013]

If you view woman as vindictive harpies who are likely to accuse you of rape because they get mad at you, you really shouldn’t be sleeping with them at all.

I do not view women that way. I believe 5% are that way, just as 5% of men are rapists. I can’t know in advance which woman is out to falsely accuse, just as you can’t know in advance which man is out to falsely accuse. All I’m asking is that you not give the false accusers extra tools to attack good men with.

Also, maybe it’s just because I’m a lesbian who clearly has no clue how heterosexuality works, but…

Bingo. You don’t want men to date you at all, so you don’t care if the law makes men afraid to date women at all.Same is true of the lawyers and legislators pushing all this. Most are lesbian and don’t care if men stop dating women.

Affirmative consent makes every guy either always guilty of something, or always having to ask 50 times per night.

I did not say 50 different new activities. I said 50 separate kisses. I kiss her belly once but ask before, Then must lift my lips to ask again, then again, then again 50 times, same spot. Affirmative consent says between every kiss. I know you do not do that, yet you demand that men do that.

…it’s good to ask? Like if you’re onto doing something new, you should ask your partner to make sure they want it, make sure it feels good, make sure everyone is enjoying themselves. It’s not that hard.

I agree for something new. And of course I’d pay attention to see how she feels about it.
Answer me this: **If I’m going down on her, and I lift my mouth off to ask her if it feels good, how is that not going to ruin how good it felt? **There are ways to tell just by looking at her face that don’t require a verbal asking.

You also seem to be insinuating that it’s only men who move things forward and who have to ask for their partner’s permission – it’s not. Healthy communication is healthy communication, regardless of gender.

The women I’ve been with never ask me. They know that no guy would ever accuse them of rape. Look at who is getting accused. It is never a women. The vast majority of women don’t accuse either. It is just a small minority who want the power to railroad men.

[traveller2013]

Maybe I should have clarified to “if the accusation of rape / assault as defined by the lack of affirmative consent is true…”

I’m saying verbally asking should only be required before any sudden or fast escalation. Slowly kissing one’s way south does not count as a sudden escalation. Getting getting out a pen-- does.
I’m also saying people should ask before kissing, but they should not have to ask in between each kiss when they just kissed the person 5 seconds ago.
I’m saying people should pay close attention to each other to make sure the other is having fun too.
Rapists will get around this law by simply lying and saying that they did ask. It will be the nice guys who get hammered because out of 50 kisses, they asked only 10 or 49 of them, unless they lie too.

I’m also saying there are degrees of transgressions and the penalty should depend on the degree. In some states, there is no penalty unless the woman fights back. I think that is wrong. There should be a penalty if a guy fails to notice the sad look on her face. If he fails to respond to a “no”, the penalty goes much higher. If he uses force or threat, higher still. We should not label someone a rapist unless we strongly suspect they knew they were raping. And we should not define rape by standards that turn 99% of women and men into rapists, knowing that only a few women will actually use the rule to convict nice guys.

Billy and Austin get drunk at a party and hook up. Billy had a lot more to drink than Austin did. Austin says that Billy molested him. Billy doesn’t remember that happening at all, and in his past experiences being drunk with guys, things never escalated beyond making out.

There was an event like this, where a nearly sober woman went down on a guy who was blacked out. He was expelled, because she, 2 months later, accused him of forcing her. He remembered nothing from the event and says he would never force anyone. However, while he was drunk, he told friends that he slept her. She was best friends with his girlfriend. Her move on him while drunk ruined their friendship.

Prayesh and Nadia meet up through Tinder. Nadia’s never dated before, and she really wants Prayesh to like her. Prayesh asks her if she wants to have sex. She consents even though she doesn’t want to. She starts crying and says, “Wait…” but she’s so overwhelmed. she doesn’t actually tell him to stop, and he doesn’t register her distress.
There are many people who had no malicious intent, but at the end of the day, they did violate someone. They may still be “psychologically destroyed” by repercussions, but that doesn’t make them innocent.

She said “wait”, so he should have stopped. I count that as a no and say he should have been penalized. The fact he was drunk makes him as guilty as a drunk driver. Drunks who kill other motorists are not murderers, but they do get a lighter penalty that is still, I believe, 4 years.

Question: Couldn’t the accused counter-accuse the accuser if he/she also didn’t ask for consent even one time? If affirmative consent is needed from both parties, does that mean both partners need to ask each other every time, lol? Maybe the administration should hand out mutual consent contracts or something.

That is how some guys are saving themselves when accused. They point out that on the same night, she too never asked him and did kiss him a few times too. When that happens, the school sweeps the whole thing under the rug, or maybe the female drops charges to avoid her own charges. That is why we don’t hear of any women getting charged.

The real question is, if they change the law to say that the first person to report and event is immune to a counter accusation, would that fly ethically? If so, rapists, knowing with 100% certainty that they will be accused so, will make an accusation first, and they will lie to say she made the moves on them, and be immune. The nice guys will be the ones who fall prey to false accusations. The way the law works, it favors the ones who plan it out.

[SpringAwake15]

1. Dude, if you genuinely don't trust a partner to the degree that you think it's probable that she'll accuse you of rape -- *you shouldn't sleep with her*. Of course you can never fully know a person, but if you see any signs that she has that in her personality, don't be with her. Period.
2. [quote] Most are lesbian and don't care if men stop dating women.

   [/quote]

   Um. In what world are “most lawyers and legislators” lesbians? Like the fact that you think people enacting laws to protect rape victims HAVE to be lesbians… that’s kind of skeevy. I don’t mean to betray the gay agenda in this way, but I can assure you that there’s not some sort of secret plot to stop men from being with women. We really don’t spend that much time thinking about men, to be totally honest.

3. Can you point me to a case where a man was accused of rape or harassment because he didn't ask if it was okay to kiss his partner each and every time during a makeout session? Maybe I'm wrong about this, as I'm certainly not infallible, but it seems unlikely that a school would convict in a case like that.
4. I'm not going to directly address your bolded point, because that's sexually explicit enough that I think it probably violates the site's terms of service. Suffice to say: it doesn't ruin the moment.
5. I can believe that you haven't personally been with women who take the lead. That doesn't mean they don't exist, and it doesn't mean that the laws don't also apply to them.

[traveller2013]

Everyone, please, we are on the same side ( I hope):

We want to end rape.

I want you to realize that rapists plan their rapes and the lies they will use later. They can press charges first and accuse a woman of making the moves. Your affirmative consent plan won’t stop them, but it does let mean people hurt nice people just because they failed to verbally ask permission before just 1 kiss out of 50.

I have a better proposal that won’t destroy the innocent but will stop the rapists:
Give physically weaker women the benefit of the doubt to have their male partner fined on her word that it was not consensual, by her own definition of consent, without going into detail. All that is required is that the authorities have a convincing reason to believe there was sexual contact at all, regardless of if it was accidental.

A fine will not overly hurt a guy who is rarely accused. But it will be 100% effective at nailing a rapist every time. Since she need not explain, but only need say when and where to they can confirm to some degree it likely happened, most women will come forward. If 5% of men are falsely accused, and fined $500 each, that is 1 per 20, which means they will be falsely accused 1 per 20 years. They can afford that $500. But a rapist will know he will for sure be fined $500 and that it will get higher each time.

[traveller2013]

Also, on sexual assault, can we all agree there is a big difference between violation and fear? When a small woman is touched wrong, she feels fear, in addition to violation. I think that fear is worse than violation. When a big man is touched wrong, he only feels violation, not fear. I think that makes a huge difference in the penalties.

If a guy overpowers a woman, he makes her feel fear. If a guy fails to ask permission for a kiss once, while she is on top of him, she only feels violation, not fear. The penalty in that case should be far less, even under current rules.

In addition to my fine idea, if there is proof he did attack her, not simply failed to verbally ask permission for a kiss once, then there would be higher penalties than just the fine.

[traveller2013]

Also, I want to apologize about what I said above to SpringAwake15 about lesbians not worrying about the men not dating women. I know 90% are good people who do care about men. It just feels that way sometimes as a guy when these rules that are so unfair to men tend to be proposed by … well.

Anyway, I wish I could delete that sentence from my post so not to start a fight about that.

[traveller2013]

When I watch Judge Judy pick apart a rape accusation with 5 questions, and watch a big smile come on the accuser’s face because she got caught and knows she won’t be penalized, it is very tempting to say that we should allow cross examination of all accusations. However, even I agree with Office of Civil Rights that that would be harassment. As soon as false accusers find out they will be cross examined, they put more effort into getting a good story, leaving the truly raped to get an unpleasant cross examination that gets no where.

By that same logic I conceded to, I hope you will agree that if you keep narrowing the definition of consent because you think it will catch the rapist on the witness stand for what he did admit to, well, they will just learn to lie that they verbally asked and got the exact word “yes”. It is a moving target. The rapists will lie. It will be the nice guys who get hit every time unless they lie too. We should not have to lie.

The solution is to let the weaker party administer a fine in cases where we don’t know if someone felt forced at the time. Saying you felt forced after the fact and imposing an unreasonable standard for asking will only hurt the innocent.

[traveller2013]

1. Dude, if you genuinely don’t trust a partner to the degree that you think it’s probable that she’ll accuse you of rape – you shouldn’t sleep with her. Of course you can never fully know a person, but if you see any signs that she has that in her personality, don’t be with her. Period.

How is that different from telling a woman, “If you do not trust a guy not to rape you, do not be with him period. If you do and he does, it is on you not him.” I think we can all agree that is bad reasoning. So is your statement above.