Yale's Comprehensive Sexual Misconduct Guide

[1964Alum]

This includes both prevention and response to sexual violence. Yale is NOT subject to a Title IX investigation, a rare Ivy that isn't.

It is very comprehensive and also quite detailed and long.
http://provost.yale.edu/sites/defaul...Misconduct.pdf

[honorgal]

Originally Posted by 1964Alum

This includes both prevention and response to sexual violence. Yale is NOT subject to a Title IX investigation, a rare Ivy that isn't.

Well, this is misleading. They aren't subject to a current Title IX investigation because they were on the cutting edge of the rape crisis hysteria when it started, back in 2011, with the OCR's "dear colleague letter." Yale was investigated, and reached a settlement wih OCR in 2012.

It is very comprehensive and also quite detailed and long.
http://provost.yale.edu/sites/defaul...Misconduct.pdf

Yes, quite detailed and quite long. The typical college student (even at Yale) won't even bother to read it. I submit that if most rape allegations were anything like the UVA story, it wouldn't need to be long and complicated.

But the universities are now being required to investigate and adjudicate a whole range of behavior that common sense tells us are not rapes, like the woman at Swarthmore. And if she doesn't get the "justice" she wants, she can file a Title IX complaint, or go to the media, or walk around with a mattress, or go on CNN and say she was sexually assaulted and her school did nothing about it. And how are we, her audience, to know the seriousness of her sexual assault? We can't know, because the universities can't comment and fill out the "other side of the story" and we have to believe the "victims".

The result: Its now the conventional wisdom that we have a rape crisis on our college campuses.

[pinksand]

I don't post much, but I feel the need to put my .02 cents in here. To me, the only thing "common sense" about rape is that if I tell a man that I don't want to have sex with him, and he has sex with me anyway, then I have been raped. Regardless of any victim blaming excuse (level of intoxication, etc.) if I say or clearly indicate a lack of consent, and he does it anyway, I have been raped and I will never understand hesitance to adjudicate claims such as those. Why don't we, instead of blaming victims, teach our men/sons to ASK for EXPLICIT consent rather than ASSUME they have it?

I also find the notion of "seriousness" of sexual assault (i.e. levels of rape) extremely troubling.

[honorgal]

Originally Posted by pinksand

I don't post much, but I feel the need to put my .02 cents in here. To me, the only thing "common sense" about rape is that if I tell a man that I don't want to have sex with him, and he has sex with me anyway, then I have been raped. Regardless of any victim blaming excuse (level of intoxication, etc.) if I say or clearly indicate a lack of consent, and he does it anyway, I have been raped and I will never understand hesitance to adjudicate claims such as those. Why don't we, instead of blaming victims, teach our men/sons to ASK for EXPLICIT consent rather than ASSUME they have it?

I also find the notion of "seriousness" of sexual assault (i.e. levels of rape) extremely troubling.

Perhaps then you did not see this example I posted in another thread:

Sendrow is a 23-year-old brunette from Princeton, New Jersey. Her mother is from Mexico; her dad is a Jewish guy from the Bronx. She graduated last spring and works in health care in Washington, D.C. If 3,000 smiling Facebook photos are a good barometer, her four years at Swarthmore seem to have passed by untroubled. But in the midwinter of 2013, Sendrow says, she was in her room with a guy with whom she’d been hooking up for three months. They’d now decided — mutually, she thought — just to be friends. When he ended up falling asleep on her bed, she changed into pajamas and climbed in next to him. Soon, he was putting his arm around her and taking off her clothes. “I basically said, ‘No, I don’t want to have sex with you.’ And then he said, ‘Okay, that’s fine’ and stopped,” Sendrow told me. “And then he started again a few minutes later, taking off my panties, taking off his boxers. I just kind of laid there and didn’t do anything — I had already said no. I was just tired and wanted to go to bed. I let him finish. I pulled my panties back on and went to sleep".

Read more at http://www.phillymag.com/articles/ra...07gdZ2c5RUd.99

If you are a college administrator being asked to investigate and adjudicate her accusation of rape, several months after the fact, would you call this rape? Or sexual assault? Would you expel the male student?

[pinksand]

I didn't see that you posted, but I did read that article. Its a very troubling case. What I think needs to happen is that we need to teach men that they need to make sure that each sexual act is explicitly consented to. Once we stop the notion that one has consent, unless the woman explicitly and forcibly says no (which she did do in this case), then a lot of potentially troubling cases will never come to be. (Put more eloquently, a man should assume a lack of consent unless explicitly given, rather than assume consent unless explicitly revoked.)

Cases like this make me glad I'm not a college administrator having to deal with this issue. I can see why this case, and others like it, inspires such strong feelings on both sides, especially with a college culture so focused on binge drinking and "hooking up" (not Swarthmore in particular but college in general). In my opinion, once she said no she totally revoked consent, so yes this is rape.

[honorgal]

Originally Posted by pinksand

I didn't see that you posted, but I did read that article. Its a very troubling case. What I think needs to happen is that we need to teach men that they need to make sure that each sexual act is explicitly consented to. Once we stop the notion that one has consent, unless the woman explicitly and forcibly says no (which she did do in this case), then a lot of potentially troubling cases will never come to be. (Put more eloquently, a man should assume a lack of consent unless explicitly given, rather than assume consent unless explicitly revoked.)

Cases like this make me glad I'm not a college administrator having to deal with this issue. I can see why this case, and others like it, inspires such strong feelings on both sides, especially with a college culture so focused on binge drinking and "hooking up" (not Swarthmore in particular but college in general). In my opinion, once she said no she totally revoked consent, so yes this is rape.

She "basically said no" (those are her words, according to the mag article) and he stopped. He then tried to initiate sex again and she was "too tired" to "basically" say no again. This is a common scenario in bedrooms across America every single night. I wouldn't call it rape. But if it is, my husband and I are both guilty.

[1964Alum]

I am VERY aware of the history of this issue at Yale, thankyouverymuch! I also have great familiarity with men from Yale, starting with my grandfather who got his Ph.D. there. You underestimate the diligence with which students at Yale familiarize themselves with serious matters such as this.

Will there ever be a Title IX investigation of Yale? Who knows. I never said there won't be. Nor do you know what might happen in the future there.

What I have posted isn't in the slightest misleading.

[honorgal]

Originally Posted by 1964Alum

I am VERY aware of the history of this issue at Yale, thankyouverymuch! I also have great familiarity with men from Yale, starting with my grandfather who got his Ph.D. there. You underestimate the diligence with which students at Yale familiarize themselves with serious matters such as this.

Will there ever be a Title IX investigation of Yale? Who knows. I never said there won't be. Nor do you know what might happen in the future there.

What I have posted isn't in the slightest misleading.

I never made a prediction that there would be another one in the future.

I simply stated the fact that Yale already had a Title IX investigation just a couple of years ago. The way you wrote your post "Yale is NOT subject to a Title IX investigation, a rare Ivy that isn't." implies that they have not been investigated even as so many other colleges have.

[AGDee]

Originally Posted by honorgal

She "basically said no" (those are her words, according to the mag article) and he stopped. He then tried to initiate sex again and she was "too tired" to "basically" say no again. This is a common scenario in bedrooms across America every single night. I wouldn't call it rape. But if it is, my husband and I are both guilty.

I absolutely call it rape and when it happened to me, my first call the next morning was to a divorce attorney. I couldn't call the police because, at that time, spousal rape was legal. It didn't mean I had to put up with it. If I say NO to a man and he continues to try and I'm not able to fight him, it is absolutely rape. Are you saying it's only rape if you physically fight back? Because that's also one way to suffer additional physical assault. Sometime the least traumatic thing to do is to be passive and hope it's over quickly. That doesn't mean it isn't rape.

I'm kind of appalled that you think it is ok just because it is your husband.

[SydneyK]

Originally Posted by honorgal

She "basically said no" (those are her words, according to the mag article) and he stopped. He then tried to initiate sex again and she was "too tired" to "basically" say no again. This is a common scenario in bedrooms across America every single night. I wouldn't call it rape.

What would you call it, then? The woman said no, yet the man had sex with her anyway. If it's not rape, what is it?

Originally Posted by AGDee

I absolutely call it rape

I do, too.

Originally Posted by AGDee

I'm kind of appalled that you think it is ok just because it is your husband.

Same here.

[honorgal]

Where does she say that she had ever suffered a physical assault from this guy and was afraid of another one? On the contrary, she specifically says she was too tired to say no the second time he tried to initiate sex.

[catiebug]

Originally Posted by AGDee

I'm kind of appalled that you think it is ok just because it is your husband.

But don't you know that's the way they do it at Yale. </snark>

[LAblondeGPhi]

Warning, this is a long rant.

I'm going to go ahead and say that I'm conflicted on the Ms. Sendrow story and I feel sorry for both the individuals involved. After reading the quoted paragraph above, I see a pretty complex interpersonal situation that was probably filled with confusing actions and interpretations on both sides - both before and after the sexual incident.

Unfortunately, we still live in a culture where there are double-standards about male and female sexuality. Men are still seen as being on the hunt for sex, and women are still seen as needing to protect their virtue, and I think those assumptions play into too many of these gray area scenarios.

How many magazine articles have you read that told women not to "give it up" too soon when dating a new guy, or he'll lose interest in her?

How many times have you witnessed a double-standard applied to a young man and a young woman who have virtually identical sexual histories?

How many times have you heard a woman referred to as "sl**" for behavior men actively applaud each other for and congratulate? Now compare it to how frequently you actually hear any word remotely similar applied to men.

How many pop-culture depictions (or examples from your own personal life) have you seen where a woman seems to fight with herself about having sex that she wants vs. the feeling of what she "should" do?

What I mean to say with all of this is that we are a society that still buys in - enough - to the notion that men often can, or, "have to", convince a woman to have sex with him even when she wants to. We buy into this notion that women are still overcoming all of those virtue roadblocks. We buy into the idea that women need to "appear" to put up a little bit of a fight or she'll look a certain way.

On top of ALL that - in the case of Ms. Sendrow - you add the complexity of a relationship that has been freshly broken off, but with incredibly unclear boundaries. I've seen many, many relationships where people continued to hook up for months or years after breaking up with each other. It's always the same story - "in my head, I know the relationship isn't right... but we're still so attracted to each other"... blah blah. This encounter sounds awfully similar to those situations.

Whew... ok ... coming to a conclusion soon, I promise.

Now - I don't want you all to think that I'm a woman-hating, rape-defending, excuses-taking maniac. What I'm trying to say is that I do believe there are cases that are much more cut-and-dry than others - the same with ALLLL kinds of other crimes (murder or manslaughter or self defense?).

Interpersonal interactions are rarely so simple to understand or parse - and sexual/romantic interactions can be some of the most difficult to interpret. I think that underestimating the complexities of life really does a disservice to this discussion of sexual assault and violence. I think that both men and women bear plenty of responsibility around sexual assault prevention - in many, many different ways that go all the way back to how we support and treat each other's romantic relationships and actions. It goes back to how we all treat sex and judge the sexual lives of others. It goes back to how we re-enforce, or squash, potentially problematic attitudes towards sex and romance.

Basically, it's complex. I would love to buy into this "no means no" line in the sand for every circumstance, but in some cases, I just don't.

[DeltaBetaBaby]

Originally Posted by LAblondeGPhi

Unfortunately, we still live in a culture where there are double-standards about male and female sexuality. Men are still seen as being on the hunt for sex, and women are still seen as needing to protect their virtue

YUP. In addition to everything you mentioned about slut-shaming, these things also play into the notion that guys have to "get some" to be manly or something. There's the question of, "why would you ever want to have sex with someone who didn't ENTHUSIASTICALLY consent?" Surely it's not *that* physically pleasurable to have sex with someone who is not actively participating. But if you feel that the act is somehow tied into your masculinity, you are less likely to back off and jerk it the next morning.

Oh, which are other points that occurred to me as I was writing this: there's no reason that masturbation should be taboo, there's no reason that penis-in-vagina sex should be considered differently from other sex acts, and in general, a lot of our Neo-Victorian norms about sex lead to less good sex for everyone.

[honorgal]

Originally Posted by DeltaBetaBaby

There's the question of, "why would you ever want to have sex with someone who didn't ENTHUSIASTICALLY consent?"

People have consensual sex all the time when they do not have the same level of desire or enthusiasm. And that does not just include marital sex.

Who knew that extreme feminism would try to turn the mechanics of sex into such a soul-sucking, lawyer-driven transaction, overseen by an army of campus administrators pouring over the minute details of individual sexual encounters.