Campus sexual assault law welcome response to a longtime wrong: Editorial

Submitted by Mastodon on Tue, 2014-06-10 00:44

Article here. Excerpt:

'These solutions will come about by changes both in campus culture and its tolerance for the various kinds of date rape, acquaintance rape and other permutations of the problem, and in the enforcement of both regulations and the law. Most clearly, the best and most lasting solution would come from a recognition by young men, whether in fraternal groups or on their own, that there is essentially no difference between intentionally getting young women extremely drunk en masse at house parties and then taking advantage of them, and rape of any other kind. Laughing such practices off as a grand tradition and noting it was always thus in the groves of academe and in the frat houses located therein is no excuse whatsoever. It’s organized criminal activity, and it can’t be tolerated any longer.
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The bill, SB 967, at its core states a compassionate human truth: “lack of protest or resistance does not mean consent, nor does silence,” and says that it’s the responsibility of the person initiating sex to ensure the other person consents, at every step of the way.

Critics will attack the bill as another manifestation of the nanny state, and say that it attempts to legislate romance. But looking at the actual text of the law rather than reacting from ingrained political bias may help here. In order to receive state funding, public and private colleges in California would have to maintain such a code aimed at stopping sexual assault. Important criteria contained in civilized countries’ larger rape laws are included, such as: “The existence of a dating relationship between the persons involved, or the fact of past sexual relations between them, should never by itself be assumed to be an indicator of consent.” It’s hard to argue with that.

That sometimes the “he said, she said” nature of such encounters will arise is not a valid argument against the law. You could say the same thing against any rape legislation. Where it gets tricky is already coming into play on California campuses, where some young men haven’t been allowed any say after being accused. Kangaroo courts will cause such laws’ repeal. But casual college rape has been tolerated for too long, and we welcome this attempt to right that wrong.'

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So, a group of boys on a college campus decide they want to have a party. And yes, with beer, too. Yikes! But of course it's nothing more than a criminal conspiracy to "get girls drunk" and rape them. So they go out before the party starts and kidnap the poor things and drag them blindfolded into the party venue and force beer down their throats until they're so drunk they go ahead and start snogging with some guy and eventually go to his/her room to have sex with him, but never said "Yes", only something like "Wanna come with me to my room?", because by this time, she has been forcibly intoxicated by him and his evil conspiratorial pals.

Well I can't speak to others' collegiate experience but in my case, I can't recall a single time my buds and I conspired to throw a party just to get girls drunk so we could rape them. Most times, throwing parties was kind of a pain. And, it carried risks associated with it-- running afoul of the administration for one or another reason, such as a "guest" barfing in an inauspicious place, etc. But yet, parties with beer served were still permitted.

Fraternities threw all the actual advertised parties. Sororities weren't allowed to, not by the college, but by their own national organizations. They still did, but on the down-low, and kept it "invite-only". But yeah, they got drunk as skunks. Were they trying to get the boys they invited drunk so they could rape them, too?

Well anyway, the only actual "college parties" left being held were put on by fraternities, which bore considerable expense in doing so. Still, it was to have fun. Can't recall any sudden announcements of "Hey, gang rape time!" or girls being dragged kicking and screaming into the venue and forced to drink beer. If anything, they were the first people to show up.

But I do have a solution to this issue that, if every college in the US implemented it and enforced it, the matter of "consent" under the influence of alcohol would go away. It's this: dry campuses. If the entire US college and university system made their campuses dry and immediately expelled anyone caught, age 21+ or not, with alcoholic beverages in any amount on campus, there would soon not be this problem.

Of course, there'd be another problem: No one would want to live on campus. Well, some people. A few. But not many. Well I will assume that if booze and beer are *verbotten*, so too would the zero-toleranace policy exist for illicit drugs. Any amount of weed or anything else gets you booted. So it's not sounding too attractive to the typical 18-21 year-old who wants to PARTY while pursuing their very important and job market-relevant degree in underwater basket-weaving, "eco-feminism", and my own personal favorite, sociology. Yep, a B.A. in sociology will set you up for life really nice! =) But to be fair, my History B.A. was about as useful to helping me get a job after college as a certificate in rat-pucking might have been. Well, at least with that, I may have gotten that job I saw in the classifieds (back before this here Internet thing and monster.com, etc.), cleaning the dead rats out from under the human waste incinerator at the city morgue. At least it paid more than minimum wage (well, 5 cents more), and after a year, they let you use brush. Two years of service and you were allowed to use gloves. Hey, can't beat that, right?

But I digress. Point is, if college admins were *really* that concerned about innocent young girls being savagely or not-so-savagely raped/taken advantage of/etc. by evil college boy athletes or conspiring frat-boy gang rapists, they would, I suppose, make the campus dry, expel anyone caught with so much as a martini olive in a jar under their bed, and revoke the charters of the campus fraternities, thus shutting down any chance of anyone enjoying life on a college campus aside from avowed feminists who seem to have run of the place, even to go so far as to film soft-core lesbian movies in the actual university library! [Didn't I write just yesterday I would never let the Columbia administrative weasels live it down? You betchya! :)]

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Submitted by Matt on Tue, 2014-06-10 04:34

If frat parties are so dangerous, just don't go to them. If a bunch of guys want to throw a party and get drunk, fine--but women don't have to go. And one would think, if they're nothing but gang rapes, no woman would go--but yet women show up in significant numbers.

This reminds me of the claim by feminists that marriage is nothing but a way for men to oppress and control women. Yet when they first said this, and even today, the woman is usually the first to want to get married. Men are accused of being afraid of commitment. Why do women want to get married so much if it's such a bad deal for them and why do men resist getting married if it's such a great deal for them?

And if frat parties are so dangerous, why do women flock to them?

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Submitted by el cid on Tue, 2014-06-10 12:10