<p>Colleges are seeing sexual assault where it doesn’t exist while letting dangerous men go free. </p>
<p>The author’s recommendations are summed up in these paragraphs:</p>
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<p>Well written and well stated article. </p>
<p>Yes agree.</p>
<p>As a 17 year-old male, I’m glad that I hear someone advocating for our rights. I don’t want women to be raped and I certainly don’t want any woman to feel uncomfortable around me, but I feel like at the same time there has to be some equal responsibility. I think that the article was pretty well written and I hope that some college administrators take note.</p>
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<p>I think this is a very important statement. I don’t think it is fare to hold one drunk individual to higher standards than another drunk individual for the choices that they both make. Equally, they might both regret the act the next day, but they were both in on that bad decision together. If they feel they made a bad decision, it isn’t a crime on the other person’s part, is a bad decision that they will hopefully learn from and not repeat. </p>
<p>Obviously, if someone is drugged, their drink spiked in some way, or they are unconscious, that is a whole different situation. I think it is important to make the distinction between the two scenarios. </p>
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<p>it may be, but the federal government had deemed otherwise.</p>
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<p>Fair does not matter to the feds. The policies at Yale and Duke are adhering to federal requirements.</p>
<p>So what, bluebayou? Are you prepared to defend the Dredd Scott decision, too?</p>
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<p>Why does it make sense to have equal responsibility between a drunk criminal and a drunk victim? Does this work for other crimes, too? Why are victims supposed to be responsible for their victimizers?</p>
<p>We’ve hashed this out a million time but discrimination can result when rules and policies are applied differently. If both parties have been drinking and neither party was drugged, unconscious or incapable of standing on two feet than neither party should be a protected class. I do believe that a drugged, unconscious student of either gender incapable of standing on two feet does need protection - and we have laws for that. </p>
<p>Protected class is a group of people with a common characteristic who are legally protected on the basis of that characteristic.</p>
<p>One thing missing from the op-ed and similar calls to use the criminal justice system to prosecute campus rapes is the unfortunate reality that DAs don’t really want to bring cases where the victim has been drinking. If the victim is under age 21 and has been drinking, juries start out thinking that the victim has been breaking the law, and getting a conviction is more difficult. DAs are judged, to a significant extent, on their conviction percentage, so they don’t like to bring cases they think they won’t win. Police naturally pick up on this, and probably don’t investigate cases as hard if they believe that prosecutors won’t bring the case to trial. Since a very high percentage of college rapes involve alcohol, this almost automatically means that many of them face substantial hurdles from the criminal justice system.</p>
<p>I thought it was a good article, but the solutions proposed would be difficult and would cost a lot of money. So I’m not too optimistic about it. I think he makes a good point that the current trend has the danger of both over-punishing behavior that isn’t really assault, while under-punishing serial rapists.</p>
<p>I think we have to be very careful about deciding that any person who has sex while under the influence of alcohol has been raped. The author of the article makes an important distinction between being incapacitated and being under the influence.</p>
<p>Here’s an article from the Yale Daily News about this very subject: <a href=“Enough alcohol to call it rape? - Yale Daily News”>http://yaledailynews.com/blog/2014/11/07/after-uwc-complaint-two-students-wait/</a>. You can see from the comments after the article that it is polarizing, but I think it shows pretty clearly the difficulties involved in determining how drunk is too drunk to consent.</p>
<p>That’s an interesting article. I don’t say that the Yale woman was raped; if I believe her own account, she consented. If she knows she makes bad decisions when she drinks, the remedy is in her own hands.</p>
<p>But plenty of other drunk guy/ drunk woman situations are rape. Just as she doesn’t get off for her bad decisions while drunk, so also does a man not get off for his criminal decisions to ignore a woman saying No, No and pushing him away. If he can’t recognize clear non- consent when he has been drinking, the remedy is in his hands.</p>
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<p>Are you saying that without a judge and jury, two drunk kids having sex automatically makes one of them a criminal? Again, drugged, drink spiked, unconscious yes criminal act and should be pursued and proven through the courts. Two drunk kids, not as clear cut to me that I would say either is a criminal. </p>
<p>You are expecting one drunk to be more responsible than the other drunk and that two kids with impaired judgement aren’t equal? </p>
<p>Male or female if their guard is down and they agree to do something they might not have if they were not drunk that is a result of them getting drunk. There has to be some personal responsibility for their choices that they make. Many females can be just as persistent with males and pursue guys with much more vigor while drunk. Are they also to be charged with rape because the guy thinks the next day he never should have slept with her? What happens if the next day they both think, bad idea, I never would have done that sober are they both charged with mutually raping each other?</p>
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<p>That is exactly the over-reaction/knee-jerk reaction some of the colleges have had.</p>
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Are you serious? What court would say that if two intoxicated people (neither of whom is incapacitated; that is a different offense altogether) have sex, the male is responsible for whatever actions the woman makes?</p>
<p>There is a difference between exploitation and mutual bad decision making. If the man clearly takes advantage of the woman by having sex with her after she clearly can no longer function at a basic level, then there is a case to be made for rape. However, if two people both get drunk and decide that they are going to drive in separate cars and get into an accident, no one would say that one party is more responsible than the other. They both made dumb decisions and both are equally at fault.</p>
<p>I don’t think women are “victims” for consenting to sex after drinking. You can’t have it both ways. Either don’t drink, or face the consequences of what does happen if you do drink. And for the record, no one should be going out and getting intoxicated to the point of passing out or not being able to function. It’s terrible for you in so many ways beyond just putting yourself at risk for sexual assault. And no, I don’t hate feminists or think that men are superior to women. However, I think that if you put yourself in a precarious position, you have to face the consequences. No party should be given license; that is just opening the door to irresponsibility and enmity between different groups. In my opinion, everyone should have to take equal responsibility for their decisions. No woman should be raped, but I also don’t think that anyone should abuse drugs/alcohol and not expect repercussions.</p>
<p>I don’t believe that blaming rape on women acting slutty or wearing provocative clothing is at all fair, but I also realize that by using drugs or alcohol a person is basically forfeiting their reasoning ability and common sense. It’s dangerous, and you need to be your own advocate in this case. You can’t expect anyone else to look out for you, and you need to make sure you are always sober enough to protect yourself. Obviously it’s just my opinion and many people (especially college administrators) seem to disagree with me, but I think everyone needs to be their own advocate and take responsibility for their actions.</p>
<p>Yes, I’m serious. “Both students were drunk” is not a defense. “She didn’t consent but I didn’t notice because I was drunk” is not a defense. “She consented” is a defense.</p>
<p>I’m not talking about mutual bad decision making, or even bad decision making on the part of the woman only (as seems to be the case with the Yale woman). If she makes a drunken decision to have sex with a guy, and regrets it when she sobers up, too bad for her; that’s not rape.</p>
<p>But I say that HE is responsible for HIS bad decision making. </p>
<p>We know that being drunk causes some men to misinterpret or ignore clear refusals, such as saying No, No and pushing the guy away. If HIS drunkenness made HIM ignore her lack of consent, then her drunkenness is irrelevant-- he raped her. And it doesn’t matter whether she was drunk or not. And it also doesn’t matter whether eventually she stopped saying NO-- if you say No five times and the guy ignores you, you have no reason to expect he’ll suddenly notice No if you say it the sixth time, or the tenth. He’s stronger than you are, and you don’t seem to have any way of stopping him, so you may want it to be over as soon as possible. </p>
<p>Nobody is claiming that the aforementioned cases are ok though. However, what a lot of the issues comes down to is sending messages like this:</p>
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<p>This is not what you’re claiming the issue is. I agree with you that if a woman says “No” but a man is too drunk (or doesn’t care enough) to realize what he’s doing, it is rape. However, that is not what this message is saying. It’s claiming that if a woman has consumed any alcohol, she has an “out” to get out of some bad decision she made. I think that it’s perfectly fair to say that women deserve protection from men who don’t respect their rights. I agree with your wholeheartedly on that. However, I don’t think it’s fair to tell women (or people in general) that they can make stupid decisions without fear of the consequences. That breeds all sorts of major issues and I think it keeps people from every maturing or feeling responsibility.</p>
<p>I don’t want you to think that I believe men should just be allowed to do whatever they want and get away with it. I just think that neither party should be free from the responsibility of their actions. I don’t want to shame women into thinking that they’re sluts for getting drunk and having sex with men, but I also don’t want them to think that they can just do whatever they want and always have an escape if something goes wrong.</p>
<p>I don’t agree with the idea that a drunk person can’t consent to sex. I think that’s absurd. </p>
<p>What I’m fighting is the equally stupid idea that because both people were drunk, therefore any sexual activity that resulted can’t possibly be rape. IT CAN BE RAPE! Drunk guys can rape drunk women! </p>
<p>It’s just like other crimes: sometimes drunk people make stupid decisions, and sometimes drunk people are victims of crimes. If I get drunk and buy $500 worth of junk online, I still have to pay the bill when I’m sober, even if 12 Snuggies no longer seem like a good idea. But if I get drunk and someone mugs me, that’s a crime, and the criminal doesn’t get to whine that we were both drunk so it’s not robbery.</p>
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<p>Yes they are. It happens all the time when women try to report their rapes. The police or the college administration say, oh, you were both drunk, it’s not a crime. People say, if she didn’t want to have sex, she shouldn’t have gotten drunk, as if getting drunk by itself counts as consent for sex (with any guy, I suppose).</p>
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<p>Then do you find the policies of:</p>
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<p>“absurd.”</p>
<p>btw: All of those colleges are just parroting back the federal rules…</p>