UVA and the alleged frat rape - Rolling Stone backpedals

What do you call a preppy chick in bed?....... an inanimate object

 

Try the veal!

 

Yup and I'll be here all week

 

I'm saying that dating and romance are very awkward activities, and alcohol has helped ease more than a few jumpy nerves in such situations.

 

You know how many highballs it took for Papa to bed Honest Lil?

 

I feel like she raped me this morning via e-mail. (Real email)

I'm Jewish, how do you give a girl communion?

Here are the photos she attached:

 

That's quite a bit different from what you said earlier.

 

Is it, though? My wife really meant it. It took a few drinks to get her to act on it.

(And me, too, for the record.)

 

I guess I just can't understand it. I've married nondrinkers. It's either there or it isn't. Someone who won't show it without a few drinks is someone I have no interest in. (Nothing personal to you and yours, of course.)

 

Well, I DO love lamp....

 

I want to revisit this 1-in-5* thing, not numerically (because it's been debunked about as thoroughly as can be), but within the broader context. PW2 and others have raised the issue of resources, suggesting that if the risk of campus sexual assault is overstated then an excessive amount of resources will be directed to handling it. I don't know that that's necessarily wrong, but I don't think that's the right way to look at it (or be concerned by it).

The thing that really concerns me about it (the overstatement of the risk) is that it's being pushed by those folks who: 1) want colleges/universities to be much more involved in the adjudication of campus sexual violence; and 2) seem to be perfectly OK with both a "preponderance of evidence" standard and limited protections for the rights of the accused. If indeed they are so cavalier with these in the broad sense, I am not at all confident that they won't behave similarly when an individual case comes before them.

A hypothetical might be useful here. Suzy Sophomore and Joe Junior meet at a party. Drinks are flowing. The two of them have a large time -- neither is blotto, but neither is sober, either -- and lots of folks see them in drunken grope mode. As the night comes to an end, they head off together. Come morning, one of them wakes up first, tiptoes away and makes the walk of shame across campus. They don't see each other again.

Now, let's say that a month goes by and Joe finds an official-looking letter in his mailbox. The letter states that he's being brought up on charges of sexual assault. Suzy had mulled over their night together for a few days before coming to the conclusion that she really hadn't given consent. Joe was certain that she had.

Keep in mind this is all the evidence we have: 1) Both say they had sex, but Suzy says she didn't consent and Joe says she did. In my mind, then, we have no evidence ... but I don't think a hearing panel as constituted by the "1-in-5" crowd will see it that way. Put another way, if the hearing panel has overestimated the risk of sexual assault, then it is going to be much more likely to see evidence where none exists.

So I don't see misdirected resources as being the real danger of the overstatement of the risk. Rather, I see the overstatement of the risk as being highly likely to shape the assessment of evidence.


*Or 1-in-3 or 1-in-33 or whatever ...

 

You and others have told that hypothetical here before, like that happens all the time - i.e., women viewing "immediate or eventual regret" as synonymous with "rape." It doesn't.

There's rarely any concrete evidence to speak of, regardless of each individual circumstance or risk. It's almost always a he-said, she-said case, which if anything leads to the drastic underreporting of such incidents, and definitely leads to stats like "only 2 percent of accused rapists ever see a court room." Not because the victim is lying or feels a tinge of regret, but because the system may be stacked against her.

Which is why, when talking about directing resources, maybe we'd be better suited training law enforcement to better adjudicate such cases, and perhaps requiring that rape victims be given emergency priority status at hospitals, like they do in the military. Better adjudication, an environment that encourages more reporting, and improved medical procedures to secure physical evidence would go a long way.