July 28, 2015

"Yes means yes" policies and the notion of "the initiator."

I hadn't noticed this "initiator" concept before. Here's a NYT article — "Affirmative Consent: Are Students Really Asking?" — which gets to the topic of a drunken couple having sex or, as a University of Albany male student named Tyler Frahme is quoted: "You both get drunk and it gets heated and you get into it." The student — who is concerned that these policies "cast men in a predatory light" and are not "gender-neutral" — is questioned by the author (whose name is Sandy Keenan):
Can a really drunk person give consent?

“My answer to that is no,” he said. He was right. “Consent cannot be given when a person is incapacitated.”

Mr. Frahme posed a (not-so-hypothetical) scenario of his own: “You both get drunk and it gets heated and you get into it. If the next day she regrets it and formally complains, to me that’s just plain wrong.” The initiator, in fact, is responsible for securing consent, but because the other party is intoxicated, it may not be obtainable.
It's interesting that the author's statements do not appear in quotes, but the student's answers do. Did Keenan say "really drunk" or did she use Frahme's word "incapacitated"? If one person is fully incapacitated and sex takes place, we know who the actor is. If both are completely incapacitated, there is no activity. So a hypothetical is needed to get at the difficult case, and Frahme aptly steps up with a scenario in which both are drunk and both are active. He thinks it's wrong for her to complain under those circumstances.

I would want to develop the scenario with additional questions about who did and said what in this encounter, but without more, the student deserves the respect of taking the hypothetical as it was offered: 2 individuals, doing the same thing, getting drunk and having sex together, neither doing more nor less than the other during the sexual encounter, and the woman being the one to take the affirmative step of lodging a complaint.

The author does not give the student this respect. She doesn't play fair according to the standards of discussing a hypothetical. She says: "The initiator, in fact, is responsible for securing consent, but because the other party is intoxicated, it may not be obtainable."

The initiator! What initiator? There was no initiator in the hypothetical. It was a shared and utterly equal interaction as the student phrased it. The "other party is intoxicated"? Both were intoxicated. How did the woman become the victim and the man the aggressor? If the author wants that to be the hypothetical, she must take responsibility for changing the hypothetical. The leap she made, the leap the NYT editors accepted, was that the man was the man is "the initiator." And so we see that the student's apprehensions were warranted. He's right should be concerned that the policies are not gender-neutral and that men are cast as predators.

What mental sloppiness the author and the NYT editors display here! The word "initiator" glosses over the gender-specificity. The author — intentionally or blindly — imposed a sex stereotype on the gender-neutral hypothetical. The male is visualized as the active partner. Why? That's not the way Frahme put it. It's certainly not a necessary implication from the fact that the woman later opted to lodge a complaint.

What immediately follows in the article is this:
[Another student, Jill] Santiago, who knew all about the issue, having helped put together university-mandated training in sexual assault prevention for her sorority, jumped out of the interpretive rabbit hole, locked eyes with Mr. Frahme and said: “If guys realize they have to ask and get permission — and I’ve been asked before, it’s not that bad — this could wind up protecting everyone.”

It wasn’t such a mood kill, she said, when a partner paused and asked: “Do you want to do this. Is it O.K.?”

But Mr. Frahme wasn’t buying it — at least not yet.
First, I just have to say, I don't know what an "interpretive rabbit hole" is or what you do when you're down in it, but rabbits don't lie in wait and jump up when aggravated. They flee from confrontation. And they never, never, never lock eyes. They can't. Their eyes are on opposite sides of their head. That configuration works for the animal's strategy of staying alive through vigilance and flight.



But we're asked — through this confrontational rabbit nonsense — to view Santiago as equipped with greater knowledge and insight as she uses the gendered word "guys." Guys could proactively ask for permission as they proceed in a sexual encounter. It wouldn't be too much of what the author paraphrases as "mood kill" and it "could wind up protecting everyone."

But in the hypothetical both are drunk, both proceed gropingly/casually/whatever, and we don't know who said what to whom. So the purportedly superior mind of Santiago is, like the author's, failing to acknowledge the words of Frahme's hypothetical. When are we in the "interpretive rabbit hole" and when have we emerged?

Isn't it strange that the people who are saying use language — you can do it, just ask permission and elicit a response — are demonstrably incapable of hearing and understanding the language we can read in this article promoting the communication solution. They themselves are terrible communicators, leaping and distorting and inattentive to their own lapses. And yet they tell men that they will be able to protect themselves by saying the right things in the middle of an encounter, as if these words will be understood, remembered, correctly repeated to others, and interpreted accurately.

You'd be a fool to believe in that protection.

By the way, I'm only talking about a small part of a long article, the beginning. But I think you should know that this Frahme character is wheeled out again in the very end. We're told that, interviewed a month later, he says he's "been practicing consent almost religiously."
He now asks for consent once or twice during sexual encounters with women he knows well, and four or five times during more casual or first-time hookups.
He seems to have had sex with at least 4 women in a month's time. But what a good little man he's become in the author's world view.

Personally, I can't see why "practicing consent almost religiously" is much. Almost? So, in a month, you had at least one encounter where you did not get consent? Or does that mean he sometimes had sex with a "first-time hookups" and slipped to the women-he-knows-well standard of only checking in once or twice? In my world view, the greater question is whether any of this sex is good.

87 comments:

Brando said...

The author clearly does not want to consider the real questions here, so she's (I'm assuming "Sandy" is a she) sticking with the usual leftist narrative--namely, that rape is going on constantly because men are forcing themselves on women and using the excuse that the women never said "stop" out loud.

What's ignored is, as Prof Althouse notes, whether two drunk, active people are raping each other and the first to complain to a tribunal wins. "Affirmative consent" is clearly an unworkable standard (despite what Ms. Santiago says, I guarantee that what she means by "consent" is "I didn't feel like I was being raped at the time and I interpreted my partners' actions and my reactions as asking and getting consent"). Drawing a line on the intoxication spectrum to determine where consent is no longer possible is difficult. And while determining if a rape took place requires looking at all the circumstances, the fact that two people will often tell a very different story makes this difficult as well.

But hey, why address these real world problems when we can advance a narrative? The Times could save everyone effort by just advertising itself as bird cage lining.

rhhardin said...

Do away with rape as a crime. It confuses women.

Just go with assault and battery. If it doesn't seem like assault and battery, it isn't.

tim in vermont said...

I am touched by your faith that there is any logic at all beyond feminist machtgelust behind these rules.

First rule of liberalism: If it feels good to think it, it's true. It is all in that stupid book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

Ignorance is Bliss said...

If guys realize they have to ask and get permission — and I’ve been asked before, it’s not that bad — this could wind up protecting everyone.

And, of course, asking and getting permission cannot protect the guy in the given hypothetical, since they were both drunk and she was, by the standards being promoted, incapable of consenting.

Scott said...

Wow, good post. Wonderfully pneumatic.

Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World" explored a society where sex had degenerated into mere recreation and was completely removed from making children or adding the glue to meaningful relationships. It just strikes me as bizarre that what has actually happened is the birth of a perverse progressive puritanism, where the propriety of relations between people is constantly judged by third parties who stand ready to insinuate themselves should a social boundary be crossed.

rhhardin said...

Women are confused because modesty always inserts itself in the narrative, unnoticed in these days where there is no feminine modesty acknowledged.

And rape is a crime against feminine modesty.

The something-wrong-that-can't-be-said-any-longer gives rise to idiotic swarms of words to surround it. Hence the confusion.

rhhardin said...

Women don't have an initiator. Men do.

rhhardin said...

The article would be fine for governing sex between pine boards.

Neuter as pine boards, as I misremember Marge Piercy.

Michael K said...

Not getting drunk might be a good idea. Since I did not read the article, and won't, I don't know if it was addressed.

rhhardin said...

Dogs get consent. The female has sharp teeth to enforce it, if she's not in the mood.

"It's been a minute. Maybe she's ready now." The male has to be wired to think it's worth trying again. There is a dog hostile work environment.

Steve M. Galbraith said...

In loco penis.

If a being from Mars came here he/she (it?) would find this incomprehensible.

We live here and find it incomprehensible.

Ann Althouse said...

Sandy Keenan is a woman.

rhhardin said...

An estrous cycle would really cut down on campus sex.

The Bergall said...

What year is it?

pm317 said...

In my world view, the greater question is whether any of this sex is good.

It is not rabbit sex, for sure.

Love it, when you go after these dumb mfers at the NYT and their smug counterparts.

Etienne said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
rhhardin said...

One day long ago the neighbor's beagle was chasing a rabbit, and they made many passes through the neighborhood, the challenge I guess being who could run longest.

The rabbit came through my yard where I was kneeling next to Susie my Doberman, and hid under me squatting there. The beagle couldn't find the rabbit and gave up. Then the rabbit ran off.

I suppose the rabbit figured that I wouldn't tip off the beagle amd he was running out of air.

Baby rabbits of the same species do not tame even if you raise them from eyes-closed in your shirt pocket. Escape is their single thought at all times.

I suppose all this shows is that rabbits think like women.

Ron Winkleheimer said...

Welcome to the future Professor, turns out it is dark and lonely.

One could almost entertain the idea that casual sexual encounters with near strangers who have no intention of forming any sort of relationship with you might have deleterious emotional effects.

In the past the woman would be the victim and the man the aggressor because:

1) Women weren't considered able to consent to sex outside of marriage because she was, if not the actual property of a man, at least under some man's authority.

2) Men were supposed to act with gallantry towards women. Thus, you did not have sex with drunk women, even if you were drunk too. This was part of of a code of conduct called "Chivalry" that is openly sneered at as oppressive and a tool of patriarchy now.

Now that we live in a society where neither of those conditions apply because grrl power and women are exactly like men, except better, the conundrum is that we want to make men the aggressor in sexual encounters where both are drunk, but have no logical reason to justify it.

So the answer is "shut up!"

From my perspective it looks like a lot of women want total sexual autonomy so that they can have casual sex that causes them emotional harm with men that have no regard for their well-being without having to suffer the adverse effects of casual sex that causes emotional harm with men that have no regard for their well-being. Failing that, they intend to inflict some emotional harm on those they perceive as responsible for their mental state.

Being an old fuddy duddy I would advise any man currently attending college to not only not date potentially insane college women, I would advise them to not allow themselves to be alone with one and to limit any interactions with one as much as possible.

Sprezzatura said...

"In my world view, the greater question is whether any of this sex is good."

Althouse is such a player: if the sex is good, everybody is happy.


walter said...

"Escape is their single thought at all times.
I suppose all this shows is that rabbits think like women."
Hmm..maybe..do rabbits also have rape fantasies?

If we extrapolate from this, can we please arrive at a point where any credit card charges I make while (claimed) drunk can be contested? If I hire a prostitute while lit?

damikesc said...

You still have no protection. If college kids don't see this, then college is amazingly terrible at instructing kids on critical thinking.

The Sexual Revolution was a bust and the people behind it are now initiating the New Puritanism.

Rick said...

They themselves are terrible communicators, leaping and distorting and inattentive to their own lapses.

I think if you re-evaluate you'll conclude this is true only to the extent their goals are the same as your implied goal of gender neutrality. If you accept that their goal is a gender differentiated process their language is obscuring that fact as well as possible. After all these rules are being enacted with essentially no opposition or understanding of the gender differentiation.

Peter said...

"In my world view, the greater question is whether any of this sex is good."

An interesting question, but is it (or should it be) relevant in determining culpability in these college tribunals? Is the deal that "the initiator" may be guilty if, in retrospect, perception is that the sex just wasn't very good?

In any case, I'd expect actual gender neutrality is unobtainable, as sexual behavior is gendered (just Google "female choice examples") and therefore on-its-face neutrality will result in very disparate impacts.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

Any man who has drunk sex with a woman, and she regrets it afterward, has only himself to blame.

Ron Winkleheimer said...

The Sexual Revolution was a bust and the people behind it are now initiating the New Puritanism.

Exactly, the old joke was that the sexual revolution was over and that the winners were the men.

Now, however, it would appear that the women are staging a counter coup.

walter said...

The thing is Eric the Fruit Bat, this level of insanity requires no actual sex act...no regret. People focus on the actual negotiations of the sex act..but if there is motive to invoke the accusation, it doesn't seem necessary for an act to actually have occurred. It is quite conceivable to imagine a woman seeking sex, being rebuffed..then claiming rape.

Ron Winkleheimer said...

It is quite conceivable to imagine a woman seeking sex, being rebuffed..then claiming rape.

That's already occurred, its called the UVA rape hoax. Though in that case she didn't name the guy who rebuffed her, just a randomly chosen fraternity.

HoodlumDoodlum said...

this could wind up protecting everyone.”

Well #1, no, it absolutely will not protect anyone in the case where one party can claim to have been intoxicated (since the "consent" given in that state isn't valid) and #2 that's a hell of a lot to stake on this woman's "COULD." Oh, it COULD protect you from an adverse decision found in a process designed to make that decision that will as a small side effect ruin your life. But don't worry, this one thing COULD protect you. (spoiler alert: it won't)

HoodlumDoodlum said...

I dare someone to try and define the word "equality" as it's used in actual fact on, say, a college campus today.

Rules about consent and sexual assault must be gender neutral and treat all students equally...except one gender is assumed to be the initiator, so equality can't mean "the same treatment regardless of gender."

Ron Winkleheimer said...

All of this make sense if you replace the words "men and women" with "party member and prole."

Scott M said...

You might as well ask if pizza is good.

(lol)

Laslo Spatula said...

"Are you okay with this, Huma?" Hillary asked sensitively, placing her hand on Huma's naked breast.

"Yes, Hillary. It feels good..."

"May I roll your erect nipple between my fingers?"

"Tenderly, yes."

"Am I okay with putting my other hand's fingers in your vagina?"

"Yes, Hillary, I would like that. Remember: slow circles work best."

"Slow circles," Hillary repeated, reaching into Huma's pale yellow panties.

"Can I put a finger up your ass?"

"Not yet, Hillary, not yet..."

"I understand, Huma: I will not put a finger in your ass at this point in time."

"Hillary, I think I am ready for Big Yellow."

"So you are consenting to me inserting a twelve-inch yellow polyurethane dildo into your vagina?

"Yes, Hillary, yes..."

"How far may I insert the twelve-inch yellow polyurethane dildo. Huma?"

"Maybe six inches?"

"I don't have a tape measure available -- are you Okay with me estimating the length?"

"Use your best judgement, Hillary: I trust you."

"Does that feel like about six inches?" Hillary asks, inserting the twelve-inch yellow polyurethane dildo into Huma's vagina.

"That feels just right," Huma says, moaning.

"Shall I insert another two inches?"

"Yes, yes -- please -- and harder..."

You consent to me using the twelve-inch yellow polyurethane dildo harder?"

"I do, I do."

"Can I slip a finger into your ass now?"

"Not yet, Hillary, not yet."

With this, Hillary slips a finger into Huma's ass.

"Hillary, I said not yet!"

"I'm a Clinton, Huma: I make the rules."

"Oh Hillary, this part of you scares me..."

"That scares you? I've drank two bottles of Grey Goose and haven't had a shower today: now eat me, you filthy bitch..."

"Hillary, I hate it when your vagina tastes like vodka and ass.."

"I wouldn't worry about that, Huma."

"No?"

"No. I'd worry about how, after that, I am going to straddle your naked body and piss all over you..."

"Can I at least get a towel?"

"Not yet, Huma, not yet."


I am Laslo.

Gahrie said...

In my world view, the greater question is whether any of this sex is good.

Careful Althouse, they're going to take away your hippie card.

What happened to "free love" and "if it feels good, do it"?

mikee said...

Rabbit Hole refers to Alice in Wonderland, wherein once Alice goes down the rabbit hole into Wonderland, the normal rules of language, behavior, reality and rationality don't exist, and nonsense, changeable at whim, is the only rule of the day.

Describes the current attempt to destroy due process on campus perfectly, I'd say.

YoungHegelian said...

You know, Laslo, when The Authorities come to arrest all the members of our little forum here it's going to be your goddamn fault!

Jes' sayin', is all.

MarkW said...

"And, of course, asking and getting permission cannot protect the guy in the given hypothetical..."

Asking and getting permission cannot protect the guy under almost any hypothetical, since the confused/vindictive/crazy ex-girlfriend can simply claim that he failed ask. It's just more he-said/she-said, and we know how that comes out in the current climate. Even videotape offers little protection since it can't prove A) that the woman was not intoxicated or B) that the videotape was even of the encounter in question (date/time stamps can be altered) -- especially given these complaints are sometimes only lodged months or even years after the fact.

walter said...

Senior Spatula,
Are you Wiener's editor? When does the book hit?

Michael said...

We are living in very crazy days. But what could we expect from people who have not let their children play ball without an adult present to call the plays and without trophies for all? There was a time when people could navigate their relationships without the aid of adults, when kids learned to compromise or fight to prove a point. Even women participated in these interactions. Imagine.

walter said...

Mark,
Maybe sexual notaries can be inserted into the situation.

Rick said...

MarkW said...
Asking and getting permission cannot protect the guy under almost any hypothetical, since the confused/vindictive/crazy ex-girlfriend can simply claim that he failed ask.


Lying has always been a risk for men in sexual relationships, affirmative consent doesn't change this. Increase risks come from how schools use the rules to justify their desired conclusion in the absence of evidence.

Wince said...

At least in Massachusetts, the legal definition of "incapacitated" is broader than unconscious, and can encompass the capacity to cause harm to others:

MGL Ch 111B, Alcoholism. sec. 3. Definitions. “Incapacitated”, the condition of an intoxicated person who, by reason of the consumption of intoxicating liquor is (1) unconscious, (2) in need of medical attention, (3) likely to suffer or cause physical harm or damage property, or (4) disorderly.

Fernandinande said...

The initiator! What initiator?

That's Newspeak for "the guy".

The word "initiator" glosses over the gender-specificity.

Obfuscation is the goal.

Chuck said...

Professor Althouse:

Significant numbers of the law school faculties at Harvard, Penn and elsewhere (someone at Michigan, I seem to recall, but cannot locate a reference) have gone on record expressing concern over the procedural due process problems posed by these quasi-criminal administrative proceedings.

Are there any rumblings of the same sentiment at Wisconsin? At any other law school(s) to your knowledge?

Fen said...

"If one person is fully incapacitated and sex takes place, we know who the actor is."

Nope. There is a college kid who was charged with rape because a girl gave him a blowjob while he was passed out.

TreeJoe said...

I'm a male married for 10 years - but if I was a single guy in college seeking lots of sex from different partners within this environment, I would send texts and e-mails immediately after every sexual encounter to multiple friends saying I just had sex, that I didn't consent to it, and that I may have been raped.

On the off-chance I would be accused, months or even years later, I would turn it around and claim that I never consented to the encounter and had immediate records demonstrating such.

The way I see it: If I was setup in such an environment, and still wanted sex, I would do everything in my power to protect myself.

walter said...

That's right, Chuck...Ann is a law prof. Sometimes forget that somehow ;)

Fen,
How the hell was that possibly argued?

TreeJoe said...

Also, this "process" is totally not gay-friendly - it's very heteronormative.

Chuck said...

TreeJoe you are being too clever by half.

It doesn't work that way. You would think, the better thing would be to exchange playfully romantic texts with your sexual partner. You know, sort of absolute proof of a non-rape encounter. Proof, in which the partner/accuser participates willingly.

But of course that is what happened in the phony rape case of phony-rape-celebrity Emma Sulkowicz at Columbia.

Gahrie said...

How the hell was that possibly argued?

They were both drunk, she was dissatisfied, and he is a male.

walter said...

i.e. not argued..
I thought maybe something like he was naked, drunk on floor..she tripped on him and her mouth landed on his erect initiator.

Gahrie said...

There is a college kid who was charged with rape because a girl gave him a blowjob while he was passed out.


http://reason.com/blog/2015/06/11/amherst-student-was-expelled-for-rape-bu

Stupid splooge stooge...never pass out around a woman.

Laslo Spatula said...

Regarding those who may question the value of my comments (and not just The One Who Is Deleted), let's look at the infrastructure of my 10:54 post...

1. It is ridiculous to even think of those in power following the same rules they proscribe for others.

1B: Also: it is embarrassing to think of Hillary wielding a twelve-inch yellow polyurethane dildo. This all coincides.

2. How thin do you slice the loaf of bread that is Consent? If this was Chess does every move need to be that of a pawn? Shown by example, that.

3. When the sexual encounter in question involves two women what happens to the idea of the "Instigator?" My guess is that it is the first one that goes for the ass, but I am sure it can be interpreted differently.

4. If one member has more Power than the other can we still expect them to follow the rules? Is this how it happens in Pretend World?

5. Hillary is a drunk. Because she is.

6. She pees on the little people figuratively: I suspect the word 'literally' can be applied, also. And: probably a weak bladder. Those pantsuits could very well be hiding Depends.

7. If the 'rules' are followed does that make it "good sex"? Can you tell by how one's fingers smell?

See? All of this insightful provoking of thought, and many people never even taste the medicine.

That is what I do.

I am Laslo.

Static Ping said...

I declare the rabbit to be insufficiently cute for Althouse.

Unless it is a rapist rabbit in which case it is too cute.

Sebastian said...

"He thinks it's wrong for her to complain under those circumstances"

He thinks wrong. He has a lot to learn.

"The author does not give the student this respect. She doesn't play fair according to the standards of discussing a hypothetical"

Faux indignation, right?

"He's right should be concerned that the policies are not gender-neutral and that men are cast as predators."

Yes. Welcome to Prog paradise, son.

"What mental sloppiness the author and the NYT editors display here!"

Umm, no. Deliberately, consciously, specifically advances the Narrative. It's their MO. Not sloppy in the least.

"You'd be a fool to believe in that protection."

And a fool to think that any actual law prof will stand up for you.

"In my world view, the greater question is whether any of this sex is good"

Interesting. Haven't seen that "greater question" applied to any discuss involving gay sex. (Of course, it might be involved here! But same-sex hookups always involve consent, never involve a predator, can't be exploited politically and are therefore uninteresting)

@MarkW: “Asking and getting permission cannot protect the guy under almost any hypothetical”

Indeed. Hetero guys will have to get more creative, or abstain, or retake power.

MarkW said...

walter said...
Maybe sexual notaries can be inserted into the situation.

Or maybe there should always be an audience just as there used to be when French royalty gave birth. The audience would assure consent much as the audience then used to assure the baby was actually the queens:

1. GIVING BIRTH WITH AN AUDIENCE

For hundreds of years, royal women gave birth in front of spectators. It was a big custom among the French royalty—poor Marie Antoinette was almost killed by the great crush of people who poured into her bedchamber at Versailles when the doctor shouted that the baby was coming. Contemporary reports claim that it was stiflingly hot, that it was impossible to move for spectators, and that some people were climbing atop the furniture for a better view. No wonder she fainted. (And no wonder the custom was abandoned soon after. Well, sort of: The royal mother still gave birth before a crowd of people—ministers, advisors, trustworthy types—just a smaller one.)

A public viewing, no matter how uncomfortable for the one being viewed, was designed to prove to the entire court that the child was indeed the fruit of the royal woman’s womb, that there hadn’t been a switch up at some point.

http://mentalfloss.com/article/51781/4-historical-royal-birthing-traditions

Laslo Spatula said...

The Shocker, as its name implies, generally comes unexpectedly. Thus, to ask consent to apply The Shocker is to remove the essence of its act. As such, Consent Laws effectively prohibit any use of The Shocker in its true form.

What other sexual moves will be removed from the People's sexual repertoire?

This probably applies to The Dirty Sanchez, too.


I am Laslo.

walter said...

Hey now..Sanchez may be dirty..but he's doing work that Americans won't do.

tim in vermont said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Static Ping said...

There actually was a same-sex example of these "yes means yes" tribunals. Don't have a link handy but it was two guys. From what I remember it was not pleasant.

But, yes, the way things are going the only safe thing for college men to do is either abstain or get married. (Actually, going to prostitutes would be preferable, though still criminal.) Everything else puts the man completely at the mercy of the woman and her bureaucratic enablers. Once this gets expanded to the penal code, which is clearly what is desired, that goes for everyone. Everything old is new again.

fivewheels said...

Frankly, the detail of the yellow dildo makes me question Laslo's scenario in its entirety. Who ever saw a yellow dildo?

Through the Amazon portal, I was able to find dozens of dildos in blue, purple, pink, clear and almost every other hue, but yellow? Just two. Vanishingly rare. (Green also appears to be disfavored, except for the "Hulk" one.)

I'm afraid I made no purchases on this trip through the portal.

MayBee said...

This all assumes men know what they want, are competent and confident sex partners, know what they want and know how to get it. And will get it.

But that takes away so much humanity from men, and especially young men. They don't always know how to go about things. They can be shy, insecure, inexperienced. Incompetent, even.

This is all about raising girls to assume men don't have emotions, don't have self doubt, don't have problems. It's a shame. It's no way to raise young men or young women.

Bobby said...

So I just learned that, apparently, MayBee knew me when I was in college, because that was a pretty apt description of me then...

Kyzer SoSay said...

Unless it's reported soon enough that the bruises haven't faded, to me, it's not rape.

That will be my standard of judgement going forward. Any time two people have sex, the woman (or the man) could easily claim rape the next day with the barest of evidence, or none at all. So, I think that any encounter that isn't actually fought against should not count as rape. At all. Same goes for drunk sex. If you go out to a bar, get smashed as intended, and go home with some random douche, and then regret it the next day, too bad. Don't be a slut and that won't happen. And fuck asking for consent at every step. I've never gotten to the point where, after having fun with everything else, my dick has been at her entrance, and even had a second thought about penetration. Pretty sure, the way female brains work, that if I did get that far to insert the tip, and then pulled it out, rolled off the bed, and started putting clothes on, the women in question would have forced me to continue. Probably because, on the pleasure scale, a man's orgasm is around "jet fighter through a loop-de-loop", while women's can go as high as "rocket fighter in space doing loops through an asteroid field while firing lasers and launching missiles, and, oh yeah, your wingman is a T-Rex and he loves pizza too!"

Yeah, men think with their dicks a lot. Women think with their labias just as much.

And yes, I know it's hard for women to fight a drugged rape. So, if the woman gets to the authorities soon enough to prove she was drugged, I'm fine calling that a real rape as well. But if the only drug present is alcohol . . . sorry miss. Maybe try not slutting it up quite so hard next time. Women put themselves out there as teases. We know this. We pretend it's not true, that it's all innocent, but mostly it's not even close. When I wear sleeveless shirts, I'm trying to impress women (these days, make them jealous of my wife - she loves it too). When women show cleavage, they're broadcasting the same signal. Is it okay to rape them then? Nope. But if y'all get drunk together, and she agrees to go home with you, what happens next is not gonna be clean even if both parties are totally fine with it.

walter said...

"This is all about raising girls to assume men don't have emotions, don't have self doubt, don't have problems."

That's also the general MO of the "privilege" meme.

Xmas said...

Five wheels, try "banana" instead of "yellow".

n.n said...

Colocate Planned Intercourse and Planned Parenthood/Abortion. The former to monitor intent and consent. The latter to dispose/sell unwanted or inconvenient "products".

walter said...

State sponsored/monitored version of the Japanese Love Hotels.

MayBee said...

walter- yes!

It's interesting to think about and compare to Tanehesi Coates and the writings these days about the "black body". The theory, I believe, is that black people are dehumanized to take exploit them. The #blacklivesmatters is an extension. Yes, of course black lives matter. But the movement wants white people to know it is our turn to focus on ourselves as perpetrators of violence against black people.

These movements are an attempt to take away the humanity of others. In this case, to young white men. Dehumanize so you can exploit. Why do people want to see this happen? It doesn't raise others up, if that is the goal.

campy said...

"Why do people want to see this happen? It doesn't raise others up, if that is the goal."

If males are brought down, then women are necessarily raised up. At least in comparison.

walter said...

Zero sum on many levels..

MayBee said...

If males are brought down, then women are necessarily raised up. At least in comparison.

But they aren't, not really. Just like white people weren't really raised up during Jim Crow. They didn't have anything they couldn't have had if they'd treated black people equally.
I mean, I guess people on the margins of the in-group are raised up from where they might be if they had to compete.

David said...

I had a eureka moment.

Two drunken undergrads have sex and one complains?

Suspend them both.

It's totally unfair but a great disincentive.

damikesc said...

This is all about raising girls to assume men don't have emotions, don't have self doubt, don't have problems. It's a shame. It's no way to raise young men or young women.

Men have been portrayed as borderline idiots for years now. Men have been told be enough women that we're not needed in child-rearing, etc.

...and now we're told we're man-babies for not doing the exact things we were told that we weren't wanted to do.

I don't how this empowers women, but what would I know? I'm only a dude.

Lucien said...

Seems like some of these hypothetical situations could be streamlined by stating at the beginning that both parties are of the same gender (and both are still cis-gendered).

OR, you could make gender deliberately ambiguous: "Lynn & Pat get drunk together and wake up in the morning with Chris and Terry."

Then whoever says, "Wait, I can't answer this hypothetical until I know who the male is" reveals their underlying prejudice.

Static Ping said...

David: Suspending both makes perfect sense if the concern is about drunken sex or non-consensual sex. But that's not the point. The Narrative here is reducing rape of women on college campuses. You can't do that punishing women.

It has gotten to the point that whenever the PC/SJW crowd making anything resembling a logical argument I go with the following assumptions:

1. They don't care about the argument. It is there merely to try to convince the naive and/or stupid.
2. If they quote numbers, the numbers are garbage, badly misinterpreted, and/or irrelevant. If it relies on logic, it relies on a logical fallacy, a bad (or at least disputed) premise, and/or a logical process which they would outright reject if it did not favor their goal and often do outright reject when applied to other similar subjects.
3. Once the goal is accomplished, the argument will be ignored as if it was never argued in the first place. It has served its purpose.

Freeman Hunt said...

It's a ploy to make young men act profoundly insecure, thereby reducing the amount of sex that will take place among college students.

"Is this okay?"
"Yeah." ...
"You okay with this?"
"Yes."...
"Do you want to continue?"
"Huh? Yeah." ...
"Is this something you want to be doing?"
"Do I seem unresponsive or something?"
"No. Is this something you want to be doing?"
"Yeah, yeah." ...
"Do you want to do this?"
"What the hell?"
"I asked, 'Do you want to do this?'"
"No! Nevermind! We're breaking up. Now."

campy said...

"No! Nevermind! We're breaking up. Now."

"Plus, I'm retroactively withdrawing consent for the other three times we did it. You're now a rapist."

Laslo Spatula said...

Freeman Hunt at4:56.

I could not do that better.

Which means Laslo is Freeman Hunt.


I am Laslo?

Kyzer SoSay said...

SP, that three-step dance you just described has been my default operation for quite some time, but you put it more succinctly than I could have.

FH, maybe this could work in the guy's favor though. Assume the girl wants him pretty bad, and he believes his friends might be listening through the door, having gotten word one of their pals was about to get lucky. If he continues asking questions like that, she might just get frustrated (but still wanting) and scream out "YES, YES, YES, THAT's WHAT I WANT!!!"

In a sexy enough tone, that would create an instant legend if the boy's assumption were true. That kid would have the envy of many of his peers.

n.n said...

Freeman Hunt:

thereby reducing the amount of sex

Are you suggesting that liberals have been infiltrated by conservatives or that progressive liberalism has reached a threshold and common conclusion? Namely that liberty is dependent on self-moderating, responsible behavior; but with a totalitarian twist to compensate for the consequences of their past policies, including penalizing heterosexual relationships, and population control processes (e.g. abortion or "planning").

campy said...

"...progressive liberalism has reached a threshold and common conclusion? "

The conclusion is that sex is great as long as it's not PIV.

Skyler said...

I recall from contract law that drunkenness was not an excuse from the obligation of a contract.

Unknown said...

Reading the article, you might get the impression that the subject of consent is really just an excuse for college students to boast to their peers about how much sex they have had and how very knowledgeable they are about it. Good to see that things haven't changed much since I was in school.

richard mcenroe said...

What happens if he asks, and she consents, but then says she was too drunk to remember consenting the next morning?

richard mcenroe said...

Freeman Hunt: I don't see "Hey y'all! Watch this!" on your list...

Gahrie said...

What happens if he asks, and she consents, but then says she was too drunk to remember consenting the next morning?

Then he's fucked again....

Bay Area Guy said...

Memo to young single men:

Stay away from crazy, left-wing women - even if they are good looking!

Find stable, secure, reasonably attractive girls who want to work, but want to become Moms too. Also, meet their family to see if future craziness or abrasive feminism may be coming down the road. If so, run like Hell.

That is all.