Do Feminists and their fellow Regressives act a lot like white nationalists have historically acted when it comes to presuming guilt when a woman makes an accusation of rape? Well, not exactly. As seen in the picture, a black man targeted by white nationalists would more likely be dead.
And yet, prejudice and bigotry – and presumptions of guilt based upon them – are present in both camps.
At issue: a person’s state of drunkenness is not in and of itself determinative of nonconsent and non-agency in regards to his/her actions. Some other element would need to be present. This holds true for both men and women.
Of course, for most people in the sane world, this makes sense.
If parents beat their children while drunk, we don’t pretend that they didn’t make the choice to beat them simply because they were drunk. If people drive while drunk, we don’t pretend they didn’t make the choice to get in the car, turn the ignition, and drive off – even if someone else bought their whiskey, and even if someone asked them more than once to give them a ride.
And given that consent is an element of virtually everything we do, the same holds true in sex as it does anywhere else.
Duh.
The Regressives are out in force this week, and they are defending false rape accusations and false rape accusers. Why do I call them Regressives? We’ll get to that in a second. First, the background.
James Taranto has written a column about college sex and rape at the Wall Street Journal. He makes the same claim I did at the beginning of this article: a person’s state of drunkenness is not in and of itself determinative of nonconsent and non-agency.
The reason he is arguing this is because it has become a dogma among Feminists and their fellow Regressives that if a man and a woman are both drunk and have sex, then based on no other information the man is considered a rapist and the woman a rape victim.
On a related note, there’s nothing wrong with being progressive (which is what Taranto’s critics erroneously call themselves) in the true sense of the word: taking us forward in society by analyzing and deconstructing racism, sexism, classism, and so forth.
But there nothing “progressive” about being a sexist, or assuming guilt on the basis of sex (or any other demographic for that matter). Such things are actually REgressive, taking us backwards into mindless, dogmatic bigotry rather than forwards.
And that is why I call people who advocate such values Regressives, rather than the “Progressives” they falsely claim to be. I won’t fall into the trap of letting them define themselves on their own terms, even as they preach one lifestyle and live another. And I advise you to do the same.
Taranto says:
Winerip notes that between 2005 and 2010, “more than 60 percent of claims involving sexual violence handled by United Educators”–an insurance company owned by member schools–“involved young women who were so drunk they had no clear memory of the assault.”
We know from Sgt. Cournoyer that the accused young men typically are drinking to excess, too. What is called the problem of “sexual assault” on campus is in large part a problem of reckless alcohol consumption, by men and women alike. (Based on our reporting, the same is true in the military, at least in the enlisted and company-grade officer ranks.)
Which points to a limitation of the drunk-driving analogy. If two drunk drivers are in a collision, one doesn’t determine fault on the basis of demographic details such as each driver’s sex. But when two drunken college students “collide,” the male one is almost always presumed to be at fault. His diminished capacity owing to alcohol is not a mitigating factor, but her diminished capacity is an aggravating factor for him.
It is important to keep his argument in context. Of course, being drunk while also being forced to have sex by some other element, or being totally wasted and passed out, would be rape. And he never argues that it isn’t.
Nowhere is Taranto arguing that “having drunk intercourse” + “having a gun held to your head” is not rape. He’s not arguing that “having drunk intercourse” + “being intimidated by threats of violence or blackmail” is not rape. He’s not even arguing that “having drunk intercourse” + anything is not rape.
He’s simply saying that having drunk intercourse does not in and of itself equal rape.
Queue the hysteria and the straw men. A “straw man,” for those who don’t know, is the fallacy of misrepresenting someone’s argument, arguing against it, and declaring victory. Feminists and Regressives are famous for this. Headlines from the online publication and activist hub Think “Progress”:
Wall Street Journal Columnist: Rape Victims Are Just As Guilty As Rapists If They’re Both Drunk
From their article:
Taranto argued that a “balanced” approach to the college sexual assault crisis involves placing equal blame on rapists and their victims, if both of them were drinking alcohol.
No, that’s actually not what he said. He never said a rape victim was to blame. In fact, his arguments were never modeled on a woman who is raped “taking responsibility,” because his argument was that having drunk intercourse was that not in and of itself rape.
And Think “Progress” has yet to prove it is.
Taranto is not blaming a hypothetical rape victim, because if the only thing that transpired was drunk intercourse, such a person was never a victim to begin with. And if such a woman accused the man of raping her, he would be the victim of a false rape accusation. Consequently, blaming him for buying her a drink would be also blaming the victim of a false rape accusation.
In other words, contrary to the accusations of those who support Taranto’s arguments, the only people blaming the victim are actually Feminists & their Regressive friends.
Think “Progress” continues:
The fact that intoxicated rape victims aren’t held responsible for their assault is “self-evidently unjust,” according to Taranto.
When someone only quotes three words from another person’s sentence, we can be pretty sure it’s taken out of context. Feminists and their friends are famous for it. Here’s the real context:
As the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education notes, at some campuses the accuser’s having had one drink is sufficient to establish the defendant’s guilt:
In theory that means, as FIRE notes, that “if both parties are intoxicated during sex, they are both technically guilty of sexually assaulting each other.” In practice it means that women, but not men, are absolved of responsibility by virtue of having consumed alcohol.
That is self-evidently unjust, yet it turns out to be a matter of high principle for many feminists.
These people opposing Taranto have to lie about what others say, and then argue against the lie they have constructed, because if they ever actually engaged with the real argument they would lose. I’m pretty sure progress – in the real sense of the word – is not on the agenda of Think “Progress.” Neither is actual thinking, for that matter.
And of course, from the usual suspect Huffington Post College (which might as well be called Rape Hysteria Daily), we find the usual practice of always siding with the woman, regardless:
“Taranto suggested the female college students are as guilty as their aggressors if they are sexually assaulted while intoxicated.”
Pretty sure that’s not what he said. And by “pretty sure” I mean that is definitely not what he said, and it’s a deliberate lie to say otherwise. The commenters at HuffPo College are emblematic of the mentality of its editors. Here’s a few:
So a woman has absolutely no agency and cannot be held responsible for her choices while drunk (including consent), but a man has total agency and total responsibility for his actions while drunk.
This is “equality” to these people.
So how do we know who was the victim – if anyone – if they were both drunk? Some have argued that whoever is the accuser. And who is the rape accuser 99% of the time?
Women, of course.
Yes, many modern day Feminists and their Regressive friends do indeed act very much like historic Jim Crow racists. And again, not of course in terms of degree, given that men do not suffer to the same degree as blacks historically did. But much of the bigotry of Feminists and Regressives does indeed function in much the same way.
For example, Jim Crow racists knew how to embed their own discrimination and bigotry into public policy without actually calling it that. Don’t want blacks to vote? There’s no need to actually make a law called the “No Black Can Vote” law. Simply make a policy that no one could vote unless their ancestors held land prior to the emancipation proclamation. And given that blacks didn’t even have the right to own land before then due to the fact that 99% of them were enslaved, there would be no way most of them could vote.
When challenged as discriminatory, whites could easily play dumb and say “but the letter of the law doesn’t discriminate against blacks, so therefore it can’t be racist. It ‘just happens’ that the law disproportionately affects blacks.”
Much in the same way, Feminists, Regressives, and education personnel say that their policies can’t be discriminatory or bigoted because the letter of the policy doesn’t target men per se. It just targets “the accused,” 99% of whom “just happen to be men.”
The same men they so often make a political point to demonize and run into the ground.
These people can’t see beyond the veil of their hollow self-righteousness to perceive their own bigotry. On the contrary, they see themselves as valiant defenders of womenfolk, protecting them from “those evil men.”
Similarly in function, the whites of the past didn’t see themselves as bigots either. They actually saw themselves as valiant defenders of proper white folk, even as they “valiantly” and “heroically” presumed guilt on the basis of race, and – motivated by that bigotry – proceeded to destroy the lives of others.
By the way, do you remember this picture from the University of Toronto protests? Here’s what it looks like on the AVFMS Facebook page. Take particular note of the commenter outlined by the black box:
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
And as Bob Dylan sang many years ago, the times, they are a-changin’.
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More from Title IX for All
Accused Students Database
Research due process and similar lawsuits by students accused of Title IX violations (sexual assault, harassment, dating violence, stalking, etc.) in higher education.
OCR Resolutions Database
Research resolved Title IX investigations of K-12 and postsecondary institutions by the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR).
Attorneys Directory
A basic directory for looking up Title IX attorneys, most of whom have represented parties in litigation by accused students.
Do Feminists and their fellow Regressives act a lot like white nationalists have historically acted when it comes to presuming guilt when a woman makes an accusation of rape? Well, not exactly. As seen in the picture, a black man targeted by white nationalists would more likely be dead.
And yet, prejudice and bigotry – and presumptions of guilt based upon them – are present in both camps.
At issue: a person’s state of drunkenness is not in and of itself determinative of nonconsent and non-agency in regards to his/her actions. Some other element would need to be present. This holds true for both men and women.
Of course, for most people in the sane world, this makes sense.
If parents beat their children while drunk, we don’t pretend that they didn’t make the choice to beat them simply because they were drunk. If people drive while drunk, we don’t pretend they didn’t make the choice to get in the car, turn the ignition, and drive off – even if someone else bought their whiskey, and even if someone asked them more than once to give them a ride.
And given that consent is an element of virtually everything we do, the same holds true in sex as it does anywhere else.
Duh.
The Regressives are out in force this week, and they are defending false rape accusations and false rape accusers. Why do I call them Regressives? We’ll get to that in a second. First, the background.
James Taranto has written a column about college sex and rape at the Wall Street Journal. He makes the same claim I did at the beginning of this article: a person’s state of drunkenness is not in and of itself determinative of nonconsent and non-agency.
The reason he is arguing this is because it has become a dogma among Feminists and their fellow Regressives that if a man and a woman are both drunk and have sex, then based on no other information the man is considered a rapist and the woman a rape victim.
On a related note, there’s nothing wrong with being progressive (which is what Taranto’s critics erroneously call themselves) in the true sense of the word: taking us forward in society by analyzing and deconstructing racism, sexism, classism, and so forth.
But there nothing “progressive” about being a sexist, or assuming guilt on the basis of sex (or any other demographic for that matter). Such things are actually REgressive, taking us backwards into mindless, dogmatic bigotry rather than forwards.
And that is why I call people who advocate such values Regressives, rather than the “Progressives” they falsely claim to be. I won’t fall into the trap of letting them define themselves on their own terms, even as they preach one lifestyle and live another. And I advise you to do the same.
Taranto says:
Winerip notes that between 2005 and 2010, “more than 60 percent of claims involving sexual violence handled by United Educators”–an insurance company owned by member schools–“involved young women who were so drunk they had no clear memory of the assault.”
We know from Sgt. Cournoyer that the accused young men typically are drinking to excess, too. What is called the problem of “sexual assault” on campus is in large part a problem of reckless alcohol consumption, by men and women alike. (Based on our reporting, the same is true in the military, at least in the enlisted and company-grade officer ranks.)
Which points to a limitation of the drunk-driving analogy. If two drunk drivers are in a collision, one doesn’t determine fault on the basis of demographic details such as each driver’s sex. But when two drunken college students “collide,” the male one is almost always presumed to be at fault. His diminished capacity owing to alcohol is not a mitigating factor, but her diminished capacity is an aggravating factor for him.
It is important to keep his argument in context. Of course, being drunk while also being forced to have sex by some other element, or being totally wasted and passed out, would be rape. And he never argues that it isn’t.
Nowhere is Taranto arguing that “having drunk intercourse” + “having a gun held to your head” is not rape. He’s not arguing that “having drunk intercourse” + “being intimidated by threats of violence or blackmail” is not rape. He’s not even arguing that “having drunk intercourse” + anything is not rape.
He’s simply saying that having drunk intercourse does not in and of itself equal rape.
Queue the hysteria and the straw men. A “straw man,” for those who don’t know, is the fallacy of misrepresenting someone’s argument, arguing against it, and declaring victory. Feminists and Regressives are famous for this. Headlines from the online publication and activist hub Think “Progress”:
Wall Street Journal Columnist: Rape Victims Are Just As Guilty As Rapists If They’re Both Drunk
From their article:
Taranto argued that a “balanced” approach to the college sexual assault crisis involves placing equal blame on rapists and their victims, if both of them were drinking alcohol.
No, that’s actually not what he said. He never said a rape victim was to blame. In fact, his arguments were never modeled on a woman who is raped “taking responsibility,” because his argument was that having drunk intercourse was that not in and of itself rape.
And Think “Progress” has yet to prove it is.
Taranto is not blaming a hypothetical rape victim, because if the only thing that transpired was drunk intercourse, such a person was never a victim to begin with. And if such a woman accused the man of raping her, he would be the victim of a false rape accusation. Consequently, blaming him for buying her a drink would be also blaming the victim of a false rape accusation.
In other words, contrary to the accusations of those who support Taranto’s arguments, the only people blaming the victim are actually Feminists & their Regressive friends.
Think “Progress” continues:
The fact that intoxicated rape victims aren’t held responsible for their assault is “self-evidently unjust,” according to Taranto.
When someone only quotes three words from another person’s sentence, we can be pretty sure it’s taken out of context. Feminists and their friends are famous for it. Here’s the real context:
As the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education notes, at some campuses the accuser’s having had one drink is sufficient to establish the defendant’s guilt:
In theory that means, as FIRE notes, that “if both parties are intoxicated during sex, they are both technically guilty of sexually assaulting each other.” In practice it means that women, but not men, are absolved of responsibility by virtue of having consumed alcohol.
That is self-evidently unjust, yet it turns out to be a matter of high principle for many feminists.
These people opposing Taranto have to lie about what others say, and then argue against the lie they have constructed, because if they ever actually engaged with the real argument they would lose. I’m pretty sure progress – in the real sense of the word – is not on the agenda of Think “Progress.” Neither is actual thinking, for that matter.
And of course, from the usual suspect Huffington Post College (which might as well be called Rape Hysteria Daily), we find the usual practice of always siding with the woman, regardless:
“Taranto suggested the female college students are as guilty as their aggressors if they are sexually assaulted while intoxicated.”
Pretty sure that’s not what he said. And by “pretty sure” I mean that is definitely not what he said, and it’s a deliberate lie to say otherwise. The commenters at HuffPo College are emblematic of the mentality of its editors. Here’s a few:
So a woman has absolutely no agency and cannot be held responsible for her choices while drunk (including consent), but a man has total agency and total responsibility for his actions while drunk.
This is “equality” to these people.
So how do we know who was the victim – if anyone – if they were both drunk? Some have argued that whoever is the accuser. And who is the rape accuser 99% of the time?
Women, of course.
Yes, many modern day Feminists and their Regressive friends do indeed act very much like historic Jim Crow racists. And again, not of course in terms of degree, given that men do not suffer to the same degree as blacks historically did. But much of the bigotry of Feminists and Regressives does indeed function in much the same way.
For example, Jim Crow racists knew how to embed their own discrimination and bigotry into public policy without actually calling it that. Don’t want blacks to vote? There’s no need to actually make a law called the “No Black Can Vote” law. Simply make a policy that no one could vote unless their ancestors held land prior to the emancipation proclamation. And given that blacks didn’t even have the right to own land before then due to the fact that 99% of them were enslaved, there would be no way most of them could vote.
When challenged as discriminatory, whites could easily play dumb and say “but the letter of the law doesn’t discriminate against blacks, so therefore it can’t be racist. It ‘just happens’ that the law disproportionately affects blacks.”
Much in the same way, Feminists, Regressives, and education personnel say that their policies can’t be discriminatory or bigoted because the letter of the policy doesn’t target men per se. It just targets “the accused,” 99% of whom “just happen to be men.”
The same men they so often make a political point to demonize and run into the ground.
These people can’t see beyond the veil of their hollow self-righteousness to perceive their own bigotry. On the contrary, they see themselves as valiant defenders of womenfolk, protecting them from “those evil men.”
Similarly in function, the whites of the past didn’t see themselves as bigots either. They actually saw themselves as valiant defenders of proper white folk, even as they “valiantly” and “heroically” presumed guilt on the basis of race, and – motivated by that bigotry – proceeded to destroy the lives of others.
By the way, do you remember this picture from the University of Toronto protests? Here’s what it looks like on the AVFMS Facebook page. Take particular note of the commenter outlined by the black box:
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
And as Bob Dylan sang many years ago, the times, they are a-changin’.
Thank You for Reading
If you like what you have read, feel free to sign up for our newsletter here:
Support Our Work
About the Author
Related Posts
17 Comments
-
Great article. If bigots respond to this it will be about how you are crazy to compare the KKK to feminists and not all feminists are like that, even thought you made it quite clear that the principle is the same however the degree is different. Of course it is nothing light to throw a man in prison for having sex with a woman that had one drink for year in the prime of his life. Of course none of these bigots have ever had a drink before consensual sex, so it is always rape to them…cough.
-
Mark, many US gender-feminists don’t even like hetero’s, and feel nothing about twisting, and Inflaming law enforcement against them.
-
-
I think, what many Americans do not fully understand, Is That US gender-feminists are going to continue to pervert American law enforcement, Until we reach the point where hetero-sexual relationships in the US become a legal liability for guys.
-
““Taranto suggested the female college students are as guilty as their aggressors if they are sexually assaulted while intoxicated.”
Pretty sure that’s not what he said. And by “pretty sure” I mean that is definitely not what he said, and it’s a deliberate lie to say otherwise.”
__________He said: “What is called the problem of “sexual assault” on campus is in large part a problem of reckless alcohol consumption, by men and women alike.”
And if saying that sexual assault on campus is due (in large part) to reckless alcohol consumption by men and women doesn’t suggest that female college students are as guilty as their aggressors if they are sexually assaulted while intoxicated, what does it suggest? Exactly?
I don’t see another way to read it.
********************************************
“From their article:
Taranto argued that a “balanced” approach to the college sexual assault crisis involves placing equal blame on rapists and their victims, if both of them were drinking alcohol.
No, that’s actually not what he said. He never said a rape victim was to blame. In fact, his arguments were never modeled on a woman who is raped “taking responsibility,” because his argument was that having drunk intercourse was that not in and of itself rape.”
Pretty sure that’s not what he said. And by “pretty sure” I mean that is definitely not what he said, and it’s a deliberate lie to say otherwise.
Look. Right here, he says:
“In theory that means, as FIRE notes, that “if both parties are intoxicated during sex, they are both technically guilty of sexually assaulting each other.” In practice it means that women, but not men, are absolved of responsibility by virtue of having consumed alcohol.
That is self-evidently unjust, yet it turns out to be a matter of high principle for many feminists.”
See how he’s talking about who’s to blame for sexual assault when both parties have been drinking? And not arguing that drunk intercourse is not in and of itself rape?
Well. There you go.
-
-
FIRE is misrepresenting Stanford’s policy by throwing in an ellipse and then adding their own interpretation, which they evidently pulled out of their asses.
Stanford defines consent and sexual assault the usual way, like so:
“3. What Is Sexual Assault?
Sexual assault is the actual, attempted or threatened unwanted sexual act, whether by an acquaintance or by a stranger, accomplished (1) against a person’s will by means of force (express or implied), violence, duress, menace, fear or fraud, or (2) when a person is incapacitated or unaware of the nature of the act, due to unconsciousness, sleep and/or intoxicating substances.
Back to top
4. What Is Consent?Consent is informed, freely given, and mutually understood. Consent requires an affirmative act or statement by each participant. If coercion, intimidation, threats and/or physical force are used, there is no consent. If a person is mentally or physically incapacitated or impaired so that the person cannot understand the fact, nature or extent of the sexual situation, there is no consent; this includes conditions due to alcohol or drug consumption or being asleep or unconscious. Whether one has taken advantage of a position of influence over another may be a factor in determining consent.”
(source: https://adminguide.stanford.edu/chapter-1/subchapter-7/policy-1-7-3)
Taranto is talking about “some campuses,” without naming any.
And thank you very much for the link.
But I’m confused. Because I don’t see anything at that Mississippi State Link that says male students will be punished for having sex while drunk but female students won’t. Because they’re not talking about sex. They’re talking about rape and sexual assault, which — as we just established — is still a crime if the perp is drunk.
As MSU says:
“Be aware of the effects of drugs and alcohol on decision-making. The fact that you were intoxicated is not a legal defense to rape. You are responsible for your actions, whether you are drunk or sober. Taking sexual advantage of a person who is mentally and physically incapable of giving consent is rape. If your partner has had too much to drink and has passed out, or is not in control, having sex is legally defined as rape.”
^^Again, that’s the same as the legal standard.
Harvard is the only school I see that you have listed there that has different language:
“In summary, consent is an agreement that each person makes if they want to engage in sexual activity. Each person must be fully conscious and aware, equally free of coercion, communicating clearly and unambiguously, and sincere in their desires. The more intoxicated a person is, the less they are able to give conscious consent.”
That’s subjective bullshit and also overly intrusive/controlling, imo. But it’s also unenforceable. So until someone gets booted out of school for assuming a drunken-but-conscious-and-aware “yes” meant yes, I’m sticking with “non-problem.”
-
I meant that Duke wasn’t the primary institutional actor. They weren’t calling the shots. The state was. So it was actually more serious than a “problem at Duke.”
IIRC, Nifong thought he was making a play for female and African-American voters.. But I might be wrong about that.
______________
“Also, a lousy witness for the criminal justice system is a compelling witness for a campus administrative hearing, where the standard of evidence is more or less cut in half.”
First of all:
I’m not sure I follow. Someone who doesn’t remember what happened isn’t and can’t be a witness to anything besides not knowing what happened.
Maybe you could point me to a few examples.
Second of all:
If they use a preponderance of evidence standard — which I assume is what you mean — it’s true that it’s lower than a reasonable doubt standard.
But the consequences of an administrative hearing are also lesser than the consequences of a criminal trial, and by considerably more than half. Prison is hell. Suspension or expulsion isn’t comparable.
____________“Again, administrators can read the rules however they want. It doesn’t matter what the rules are regarding due process in sex-assault accusations if there is no method of accountability (including threats of fines and investigations by the Dept. of Education)”
OK, now you totally lost me.
What are you saying? The Department of Education has accountability. It’s a public institution. Colleges that take money from the state — which is all of them — are accountable to it in gazillion ways. The Clery Act springs to mind.
Also, they’re not banana republics. They have to follow the same law as everybody else.
And in the event of civil litigation, they’re liable for damages. Not too long ago, Brown University had to pay a million dollars to a student it tossed overboard on behalf of a big donor. For example.
http://brown-spectator.com/2012/05/a-universitys-shame-how-brown-betrayed-one-of-its-students/
What accountability do you have in mind?
Comments are closed.
More from Title IX for All
Accused Students Database
Research due process and similar lawsuits by students accused of Title IX violations (sexual assault, harassment, dating violence, stalking, etc.) in higher education.
OCR Resolutions Database
Research resolved Title IX investigations of K-12 and postsecondary institutions by the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR).
Attorneys Directory
A basic directory for looking up Title IX attorneys, most of whom have represented parties in litigation by accused students.
Great article. If bigots respond to this it will be about how you are crazy to compare the KKK to feminists and not all feminists are like that, even thought you made it quite clear that the principle is the same however the degree is different. Of course it is nothing light to throw a man in prison for having sex with a woman that had one drink for year in the prime of his life. Of course none of these bigots have ever had a drink before consensual sex, so it is always rape to them…cough.
Mark, many US gender-feminists don’t even like hetero’s, and feel nothing about twisting, and Inflaming law enforcement against them.
I think, what many Americans do not fully understand, Is That US gender-feminists are going to continue to pervert American law enforcement, Until we reach the point where hetero-sexual relationships in the US become a legal liability for guys.
““Taranto suggested the female college students are as guilty as their aggressors if they are sexually assaulted while intoxicated.”
Pretty sure that’s not what he said. And by “pretty sure” I mean that is definitely not what he said, and it’s a deliberate lie to say otherwise.”
__________
He said: “What is called the problem of “sexual assault” on campus is in large part a problem of reckless alcohol consumption, by men and women alike.”
And if saying that sexual assault on campus is due (in large part) to reckless alcohol consumption by men and women doesn’t suggest that female college students are as guilty as their aggressors if they are sexually assaulted while intoxicated, what does it suggest? Exactly?
I don’t see another way to read it.
********************************************
“From their article:
Taranto argued that a “balanced” approach to the college sexual assault crisis involves placing equal blame on rapists and their victims, if both of them were drinking alcohol.
No, that’s actually not what he said. He never said a rape victim was to blame. In fact, his arguments were never modeled on a woman who is raped “taking responsibility,” because his argument was that having drunk intercourse was that not in and of itself rape.”
Pretty sure that’s not what he said. And by “pretty sure” I mean that is definitely not what he said, and it’s a deliberate lie to say otherwise.
Look. Right here, he says:
“In theory that means, as FIRE notes, that “if both parties are intoxicated during sex, they are both technically guilty of sexually assaulting each other.” In practice it means that women, but not men, are absolved of responsibility by virtue of having consumed alcohol.
That is self-evidently unjust, yet it turns out to be a matter of high principle for many feminists.”
See how he’s talking about who’s to blame for sexual assault when both parties have been drinking? And not arguing that drunk intercourse is not in and of itself rape?
Well. There you go.
Drunk intercourse is not in and of itself rape. If it is, two drunk lesbians having sex would be raping each other.
And if drunk people were absolved of agency, drunk men wouldn’t be responsible for raping or beating people. But they are, of course. And you can’t have it both ways unless you’re a female supremacist.
Of course drunk intercourse is not in and of itself rape. It’s also not treason, perjury, or slander. Name a crime or misdemeanor! Any crime or misdemeanor! Drunk intercourse isn’t (in and of itself) any of them!
But If you rob a drunk at knifepoint, it’s still robbery!
And if you do it while drunk, it’s also still robbery!
Yet, the drunk whom you robbed isn’t responsible for your criminal act in either case!
You are!
Same goes for rape.
Right, but if a drunk man gives someone else money it’s not robbery.
Same goes for sex and consent.
Edit: also, you misread Taranto’s original quote in your earlier comment. He put “sexual assault” in scare quotes. That means he’s not actually talking about sexual assault. He’s talking about what other people erroneously call it.
Yes, again, obviously: Consent is still consent whenever someone who’s capable of consenting does so.. That’s why drunk intercourse is not rape.
I quoted him twice. And the second time he doesn’t use scare quotes. But sexual assault is defined by federal and state law, not :James Taranto (or “people”):
“In general, sexual assault is involuntary sexual contact that occurs through the actors use of force, coercion or the victim’s incapacitation. The law will consider the victim incapacitated if they do not have the mental ability to understand the nature of the sexual acts, or if they are physically incapable of indicating their unwillingness to participate in the sexual conduct. Common examples of these charges may arise from the use of alcohol or date rape drugs, both of which can make it impossible for a victim to legally consent to sexual conduct. ”
(Source: http://criminal.findlaw.com/criminal-charges/sexual-assault-overview.html)
And that’s what Stanford’s policy says. Couldn’t be clearer. They’re talking about incapacitation.
The whole part about how “In other words, any sexual activity while intoxicated to any degree constitutes sexual assault….even if the partners are in an ongoing relationship or marriage” is just some crap that the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education made up and Taranto repeated.
So it that’s the “it” you have in mind when you say “what other people erroneously call it,” I agree with you. Nobody’s being accused of sexual assault for having consensual sex while mildly buzzed. It’s a non-problem..
I think I see where the misunderstanding lies. Yes, you are correct in that the law source you are citing is talking about incapacitation. It’s also talking about sexual assault as defined by criminal law, as opposed to how it is defined by education policy.
Universities have their own definitions of sexual assault which are very often broader than the legal definitions of the crime, and they adjudicate such felony accusations in administrative hearings under very low standards of evidence. These schools are also empowered to reach totally different conclusions from what police and courts conclude, and to expel students based on their verdicts (“findings”).
Taranto and FIRE are talking about adjudications of sexual assault in educational institutions, where the definitions of rape are broader than they are in a criminal court. They are not talking about how it is adjudicated in criminal court.
Read more here:
http://boysmeneducation.com/know-the-issues/issues/rights-and-protections-men-boys/
FIRE is misrepresenting Stanford’s policy by throwing in an ellipse and then adding their own interpretation, which they evidently pulled out of their asses.
Stanford defines consent and sexual assault the usual way, like so:
“3. What Is Sexual Assault?
Sexual assault is the actual, attempted or threatened unwanted sexual act, whether by an acquaintance or by a stranger, accomplished (1) against a person’s will by means of force (express or implied), violence, duress, menace, fear or fraud, or (2) when a person is incapacitated or unaware of the nature of the act, due to unconsciousness, sleep and/or intoxicating substances.
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4. What Is Consent?
Consent is informed, freely given, and mutually understood. Consent requires an affirmative act or statement by each participant. If coercion, intimidation, threats and/or physical force are used, there is no consent. If a person is mentally or physically incapacitated or impaired so that the person cannot understand the fact, nature or extent of the sexual situation, there is no consent; this includes conditions due to alcohol or drug consumption or being asleep or unconscious. Whether one has taken advantage of a position of influence over another may be a factor in determining consent.”
(source: https://adminguide.stanford.edu/chapter-1/subchapter-7/policy-1-7-3)
Taranto is talking about “some campuses,” without naming any.
And thank you very much for the link.
But I’m confused. Because I don’t see anything at that Mississippi State Link that says male students will be punished for having sex while drunk but female students won’t. Because they’re not talking about sex. They’re talking about rape and sexual assault, which — as we just established — is still a crime if the perp is drunk.
As MSU says:
“Be aware of the effects of drugs and alcohol on decision-making. The fact that you were intoxicated is not a legal defense to rape. You are responsible for your actions, whether you are drunk or sober. Taking sexual advantage of a person who is mentally and physically incapable of giving consent is rape. If your partner has had too much to drink and has passed out, or is not in control, having sex is legally defined as rape.”
^^Again, that’s the same as the legal standard.
Harvard is the only school I see that you have listed there that has different language:
“In summary, consent is an agreement that each person makes if they want to engage in sexual activity. Each person must be fully conscious and aware, equally free of coercion, communicating clearly and unambiguously, and sincere in their desires. The more intoxicated a person is, the less they are able to give conscious consent.”
That’s subjective bullshit and also overly intrusive/controlling, imo. But it’s also unenforceable. So until someone gets booted out of school for assuming a drunken-but-conscious-and-aware “yes” meant yes, I’m sticking with “non-problem.”
First of all, the backlash to Taranto’s statements wasn’t concerned with any policy at any specific institution, even if FIRE mentioned it elsewhere. The Feminists/etc were concerned with the very concept of whether drunk sex is in and of itself rape. Their assumption that it is – and their desire to push that assumption into higher ed policy – is a problem, and hence it is worthy of discussion in and of itself.
Next, the Stanford policy can indeed be interpreted in a way that suggests that mere intoxication – no matter how slight – is incapacitation. Granted, it depends on how you read it. But administrators thrive on subjective and vague policies in this day and age, especially when coupled with privacy laws which wall off public scrutiny. It gives them wiggle room and power. This phenomenon is also evident in many campus speech codes.
The MSU policy was perhaps your strongest point. However, your skepticism never seemed to ask: why doesn’t MSU lecture female students on alcohol and decision making in the context of having sex and then making false rape accusations, just like they lecture men on alcohol, decision making, and rape?
There’s a reason why that is, and it has to do with gender bias. I’ll admit that the section of my website regarding MSU needs rewording, however, as it is not as solid a piece of evidence as I earlier suspected. So good work there. I’ll get to that later.
Lastly, if you want to get technical about education policy, the deeper problem is the standard of evidence. All public universities are required to do to find a student “guilty” is believing that there is a “more likely than not” chance (50.01% chance, so to speak) that the alleged sexual assault occurred.
They don’t need “clear and convincing” evidence (the next evidentiary standard up), let alone “beyond a reasonable doubt” (the next standard up from that).
They don’t need solid evidence that someone is passed out drunk to “prove” a person accused of sexual assault is “guilty.” They can just look at a drunk man or drunk woman and say, “hey, this person is intoxicated. We can’t prove that she was incapacitated, but it could be that they were, given that they were both drinking.”
And yes, that’s really all it would take, given the standard of evidence.
You say that Harvard policy is “unenforceable.” Unfortunately, you are mistaken. It’s totally enforceable if you punish the innocent along with the guilty. And you can easily do that when you only need 50.01% “certainty” that the alleged misconduct occurred.
Lastly – and this is something I learned working in higher ed, and it pretty much negates the arguments of people who don’t actually study how higher ed works – the rules that matter the most are the ones that are not written down. That may be a hard difficult concept to understand, but it’s the truth. Administrators often do things that are politically convenient for both their jobs and their institutions, regardless as to what the rules say.
And that has bad implications for both men and women.
“The Feminists/etc were concerned with the very concept of whether drunk sex is in and of itself rape. Their assumption that it is – and their desire to push that assumption into higher ed policy – is a problem, and hence it is worthy of discussion in and of itself.”
Citation?
Look. He’s talking about Winerip’s piece on campus sexual assault. He then mentions FIRE’s misrepresentation of Stanford’s policy on sexual assault. He then says that “sexual assault” (in scare quotes) is due to in large part to alcohol consumption by men and women. And he then quotes FIRE saying that if both parties are intoxicated both are guilty of sexually assaulting (without scare quotes) each other, and remarks:
“In practice it means that women, but not men, are absolved of responsibility by virtue of having consumed alcohol.”
So possibly — just possibly — the reason they thought he was talking about sexual assault was that he repeatedly says that’s what he’s talking about.
Besides, nobody needs to be absolved of responsibility for consensual drunk sex. Makes no sense.
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“Next, the Stanford policy can indeed be interpreted in a way that suggests that mere intoxication – no matter how slight – is incapacitation. Granted, it depends on how you read it. But administrators thrive on subjective and vague policies in this day and age, especially when coupled with privacy laws which wall off public scrutiny. It gives them wiggle room and power. This phenomenon is also evident in many campus speech codes.”
No, it can’t. They explicitly state that the person has to be incapacitated or unaware/uncomprehending, for reasons that include but aren’t limited to intoxication.
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“However, your skepticism never seemed to ask: why doesn’t MSU lecture female students on alcohol and decision making in the context of having sex and then making false rape accusations, just like they lecture men on alcohol, decision making, and rape?”
I figured it was because:
“Surveys have consistently reported that college men acknowledged forced intercourse at a rate of 5-15% and college sexual aggression at a rate of 15-25% (Koss, Gidycz, and Wisniewski, 1987; Malamuth, Sockloskie, Koss, and Tanaka, 1991).
The national survey of rape conducted by Koss et al. (1987) revealed that 1 in 12 college men committed acts that met the legal definition of rape, and of those men, 84% did not consider their actions to be illegal.”
Also, per what they told Kanin (yes, that Kanin), it’s 26 percent for attempted rape, and per what they told Lisak, it’s 1 in 16 for rape/attempted rape..
Kanin and Lisak both did in-person follow-ups on the men in their samples who self-reported committing rape and/or sexual assault. And none of them had been accused by anyone, falsely or otherwise.
The non-rapists — ie, the vast majority of male college students surveyed — didn’t seem to be having a problem with it either.
And since (per Lisak) 95 percent of the college age females surveyed who have been sexually assaulted don’t report it, that’s not at all surprising.
The only way there could be an endemic problem would be if women who hadn’t been sexually assaulted were habitually hurling false accusations at men who hadn’t sexually assaulted them in nearly complete secrecy.
That seems unlikely to me. Because when false accusations of sexual assault on college campuses do occur — eg, Hofstra — they tend to get a lot of coverage.
Also, absent hard data and based on anecdotal evidence from the last half century or so, I’ve never noticed any particular correlation between drinking and making false rape accusations. Most false rape accusations are either made by young, exceptionally troubled women who have sex and then freak out about the consequences; or by young, exceptionally troubled women who are just confabulating, in which case they usually don’t identify their (ostensible) attackers.
In short: I didn’t question why they don’t lecture college-age women about drinking and making false rape accusations because I don’t see one iota of evidence.that women are making false rape accusations in problem numbers, or that the few who do make them because they drink too much.
But I’m all ears.
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“They don’t need solid evidence that someone is passed out drunk to “prove” a person accused of sexual assault is “guilty.” They can just look at a drunk man or drunk woman and say, “hey, this person is intoxicated. We can’t prove that she was incapacitated, but it could be that they were, given that they were both drinking.”
And yes, that’s really all it would take, given the standard of evidence.
You say that Harvard policy is “unenforceable.” Unfortunately, you are mistaken. It’s totally enforceable if you punish the innocent along with the guilty. And you can easily do that when you only need 50.01% “certainty” that the alleged misconduct occurred.
Lastly – and this is something I learned working in higher ed, and it pretty much negates the arguments of people who don’t actually study how higher ed works – the rules that matter the most are the ones that are not written down. That may be a hard difficult concept to understand, but it’s the truth. Administrators often do things that are politically convenient for both their jobs and their institutions, regardless as to what the rules say.
And that has bad implications for both men and women.”
No argument here, believe it or not. By “unenforceable,.” I actually meant exactly what you said.
But the thing is: Just because the rules (or laws) can be abused in a certain way doesn’t mean they will be. And after a certain point, you end up overlooking real abuses if you’re too selective about your hypotheticals.
For example, there are a lot of young men whose lives have been ruined because they were wrongfully accused of rape whom you’re not speaking for at all, because they were wrongfully accused by the cops and not by drunk women. The Central Park Five, let’s say. They beat those Hofstra kids all to hell, wrt victimization. Where’s the empathy for them?,
By the way:
Whether they ever enforce it or not, that Harvard policy does implicitly ask men who aren’t rapists to prove it by (in effect) adhering to a Non-Rapists Code of Conduct. And that is discriminatory and demeaning to men.
It’s also stupid. All those studies I mentioned in which a small number of men self-report committing sexual assault show that they’re not just nice guys who have had too much to drink and forgotten to get a clearly, unambiguously communicated green-light. They’re serial sex criminals. They plan their attacks.
Requiriing the innocent to follow insulting and disempowering rules doesn’t help anyone. I object to it.
“But the thing is: Just because the rules (or laws) can be abused in a certain way doesn’t mean they will be.”
That is technically true. It is also technically true that if you leave a loaded gun in a room full of toddlers and walk away, it would not necessarily mean that bad things will happen. But it does mean that the probability is greatly increased that bad things will happen, and that the space is most certainly not a safe one. Also, we have to question the integrity of people who would accept such a thing as the norm, just as we should question persons and institutions that regard due process in such a cavalier fashion.
Furthermore, an administrator need not abuse a policy to do harm to the innocent. Time and time again I have heard administrators say they feel they are being forced to act and cast judgment upon students when they do not have enough information to be making such calls. We will be discussing more such administrators in our next article.
And lastly, we do have evidence that administrators have committed abuses against male students based upon the leeway granted them. The Duke lacrosse case is a notorious example, and not just for the singular action of that administration. No, in that case it was very evident that a wide academic community stood behind incredible institutional abuse, and proudly did so in a symbolic manner that demonstrated strongly shared beliefs.
“Citation?”
The Think Progress and Huffington Post College articles, linked in my article above. Unless I’m misunderstanding you.
“No, it can’t. They explicitly state that the person has to be incapacitated or unaware/uncomprehending, for reasons that include but aren’t limited to intoxication.”
But who defines “incapacitation?” That is the question. Is incapacitation mere intoxication? The sentence can be read that way.
Even when we put aside the concern that Koss may very well be a purveyor of academic fraud in the pursuit of politicized scholarship, data collection is notoriously difficult for sexual assault (as any honest scholar will declare). We’ll discuss statistics more in the future. It deserves a full article, more than what we can discuss in this comments section.
“That seems unlikely to me.. Because when false accusations of sexual assault on college campuses do occur — eg, Hofstra — they tend to get a lot of coverage.”
I disagree. Generally they do not. It’s only in rare cases – especially when there has been a horrible rush to judgment (Duke, Hofstra) that the media makes a big deal of a false accusation. Furthermore, many media sources report accusations that are false as if they were true. Examples: coverage of the Duke and Hofstra case. Also, see Huffington Post College, where they dogmatically take the side of the accuser in nearly every individual scenario.
We’ll likely talk more in the future, but it’s late. An interesting discussion. I appreciate that you are of higher caliber than my usual contenders, however.
“But who defines “incapacitation?” That is the question. Is incapacitation mere intoxication? The sentence can be read that way.”
Respectively: They do; no; and no, it can’t:
“If a person is mentally or physically incapacitated or impaired so that the person cannot understand the fact, nature or extent of the sexual situation, there is no consent; this includes conditions due to alcohol or drug consumption or being asleep or unconscious.”
How does that read as mere intoxication? They’re explicitly saying the incapacitation/impairment = not being able to understand what’s going on.
In reality, it’s usually a moot point, since people who are that incapacitated usually make such lousy witnesses wrt consent that no sexual assault charges are brought as, for example, in this case::
http://www.kansascity.com/2013/10/12/4549775/nightmare-in-maryville-teens-sexual.html
http://nation.time.com/2014/01/09/a-cold-end-to-maryville-sexual-assault-case/
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2543928/Daisy-Colemans-mother-opens-daughters-suicide-attempt-family-followed-private-investigators.html
I can only think of two cases of rape/incapacitation that were treated as crimes in the last twenty years. (Steubenville and the St. John’s University Lacrosse team allegations in 1990 that ended in acquittal.)
I might be forgetting a frat-house rape or two. But unless the victim’s really badly hurt and/or it’s an alleged gang rape, I don’t think the issue arises often.
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That Duke case was a mess. But it wasn’t primarily Duke’s mess, was it?
In a sense, you are correct that the mess wasn’t *just* Duke’s mess. 88 faculty – many of them poisonously prejudiced – openly took the side of the accuser, taking out an article in the campus newspaper. They ignored students who marched on frat houses carrying banners reading “castrate,” which is if anything a promotion of sexual violence, and something that administrators who enforce Title IX would frown upon if they actually gave a damn about enforcing the principles behind Title IX equitably, rather than carrying out the role of CYA and Feminist politics. They looked the other way when members of the lacrosse team – including one of the falsely accused – were surrounded and harassed by protesters who shouted “confess! confess!” while going about their business as students (imagine a rape victim being treated this way). And much more. The administration ignored the abuses and at times supported them (including suspending the team and firing the coach based on nothing more than an accusation), and so did the rest of Duke.
The problem at Duke was not an incidental “error in judgment,” but the prejudiced and bigoted subculture of Duke itself, particularly in the humanities. And there is compelling evidence that such a subculture is present in many other educational institutions as well.
Again, administrators can read the rules however they want. It doesn’t matter what the rules are regarding due process in sex-assault accusations if there is no method of accountability (including threats of fines and investigations by the Dept. of Education) or culture in education to support it – like there is when it comes to how administrations treat accusers. Until that happens, talking about “the rules” is a moot point.
Also, a lousy witness for the criminal justice system is a compelling witness for a campus administrative hearing, where the standard of evidence is more or less cut in half.
I meant that Duke wasn’t the primary institutional actor. They weren’t calling the shots. The state was. So it was actually more serious than a “problem at Duke.”
IIRC, Nifong thought he was making a play for female and African-American voters.. But I might be wrong about that.
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“Also, a lousy witness for the criminal justice system is a compelling witness for a campus administrative hearing, where the standard of evidence is more or less cut in half.”
First of all:
I’m not sure I follow. Someone who doesn’t remember what happened isn’t and can’t be a witness to anything besides not knowing what happened.
Maybe you could point me to a few examples.
Second of all:
If they use a preponderance of evidence standard — which I assume is what you mean — it’s true that it’s lower than a reasonable doubt standard.
But the consequences of an administrative hearing are also lesser than the consequences of a criminal trial, and by considerably more than half. Prison is hell. Suspension or expulsion isn’t comparable.
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“Again, administrators can read the rules however they want. It doesn’t matter what the rules are regarding due process in sex-assault accusations if there is no method of accountability (including threats of fines and investigations by the Dept. of Education)”
OK, now you totally lost me.
What are you saying? The Department of Education has accountability. It’s a public institution. Colleges that take money from the state — which is all of them — are accountable to it in gazillion ways. The Clery Act springs to mind.
Also, they’re not banana republics. They have to follow the same law as everybody else.
And in the event of civil litigation, they’re liable for damages. Not too long ago, Brown University had to pay a million dollars to a student it tossed overboard on behalf of a big donor. For example.
http://brown-spectator.com/2012/05/a-universitys-shame-how-brown-betrayed-one-of-its-students/
What accountability do you have in mind?