<p>@Vladenschlutte Sure, it is clear that clear-cut cases of assault are wrong. But a much bigger problem on college campuses are situations that are more vague, such as a college guy that takes advantage of a girl who has had too much to drink, or who pressure girls into messing around even if the girl is reluctant and unwilling. Neither of these situations is what most people typically think of as assault as they are both not violent and are fairly normalized by peers and media. Sure, most people know that they shouldn’t attack and assault a young woman walking down the street. But many young men (and women) just don’t know that either of the two situations I described are in fact assault. Those are the kinds of assault most prevalent on college campuses, and that is what I was referring to.</p>
<p>And unfortunately, campus security often heavily discourages getting police involved, and a person who has just been assaulted is not likely to push the issue due to fear of retribution or trauma. In my opinion this is one of the biggest issues with the handling of assaults on campuses. It sucks, but it’s the reality of the situation at many schools</p>
<p>Which is why no means no. It’s a good word to learn how to say and will come in handy raising kids. It’s not “no (giggle giggle)” it’s simply No. </p>
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<li><p>I think that many girls are taught to say “No” firmly and unambiguously, leaving no room for doubt. However, they all should be taught this.</p></li>
<li><p>Boys need to understand that if a girl is too drunk or drugged to give legal consent, then “yes” still means “no.”</p></li>
<li><p>I do not think that boys understand how significant the time is. In my state, I believe it is 4 - 15 years in prison, if convicted of rape, and that is for a first offense. Boys need to understand how long that is and that the fact that they were drunk will not get them out of it.</p></li>
<li><p>The 800 pound gorilla here is alcohol. I do not know the statistics, but I am pretty sure that most college rapes involve one or both parties drinking alcohol. No matter how much education you provide, if 18-21 year old boys and girls are getting drunk together, these situations will continue to occur. This needs to be addressed.</p></li>
<li><p>I suspect that it will not be very long before one of these situations occurs in Florida, and when the boy does not stop, the girl will simply pull out a gun and kill the boy. Under stand-your-ground, it appears that she is within her right to do so. Maybe that is what it takes to get everyone’s attention. </p></li>
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<p>A girl is being attacked, so she should have the right to stop the attack. We live in a very strange world when the inherent right of basic self-defense is questioned or seen as some over-the-top action.</p>
<p>I agree that a girl has the right to defend herself. I even think that killing the boy is okay (at least if he is assaulting my daughter). </p>
<p>I am also suggesting that too many people (especially college administrators) are not taking these situations seriously enough and it is unclear to me how to get through to more people that this needs to be taken seriously and actions need to be taken that go beyond forming another flaccid review committee. </p>
<p>Yes, yes, much better after the clarification. Whenever I see someone bring in Florida I cannot help but throw my hands in the air. People are always saying how if they visit Florida they would never walk down a street because they would get shot. </p>
<p>But perhaps that news story would show that girls are willing to fight back. </p>
<p>The world is a big place, and some parts of it seem to allow significantly less latitude for self-defense against serious crimes than many US states do.</p>
In many previous discussions, I’ve expressed concern that gray-area situations–such as when both parties are drunk–are different from calculated assaults. However, are there really any college men who think it’s OK, and not a violation of both law and college rules, to get a woman really drunk and then have sex with her? Or to have sex with a woman who says, “No.”? I accept that there is a culture that may promote this kind of situation, but I guess I’m doubtful that education will change the situation all that much as long as we have the kind of heavy drinking at colleges that exists now.</p>
<p>You lost me at the gun thing…if the girl is too drunk to say “no” then presumably she’s too drunk to think to pull out a gun and shoot a boy and if she did she’d have major, major legal issues when she sobered up. If you are a girl and you are too drunk to say no let’s cut to the chase…you’ve got big problems that are far more reaching issues in my opinion. At a minimum you could be killed being hit by a car stumbling around campus or arrested for disorderly conduct etc.</p>
<p>Being drunk is no excuse for anything and the world isn’t here to protect drunk people from themselves frankly. If you think about it most of the current law surrounding drunks is to protect other people from the drunks (drunk driving, disorderly conduct, etc. etc.) not to protect the drunks from their own negligence. </p>
<p>My statement was not meant that broadly. When I said world, I meant the US. I am only commenting on the state of the self-defense situation in the US. It was meant to be read, as the “world” I live in, which is the US.</p>
<p>@momofthreeboys - Where both are out-of-control drunk is but one situation. I suspect that there are cases where the female is sober enough, but the male is just more overpowering. Self-defense is the issue at that point.</p>
<p>I think the cases in which a male physically overpowers a resisting female are very rare on college campuses, and do not constitute the kind of case we are talking about. I would also think that such cases are the ones in which it is most likely that the actual police will be called, and in which timely physical evidence can be collected. So the discussion of physical self-defense is probably pretty irrelevant to this topic–whether it’s guns, pepper spray, or martial arts training.</p>
<p>Hunt, maybe the physical overpowering is rare, but it may be because of the use of the rape drug and the willingness of women to fight back. I bet the majority of women have been bruised on a date. One of my sisters had her finger broken on a date. </p>
<p>I agree physical overpowering happens–I’m just saying that much of the current discussion (including the need to teach about “no means no”) doesn’t really apply to that kind of case.</p>
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