Another high profile case is not quite what it seems...
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/02/03/columbia-student-i-didn-t-rape-her.html
As a father of daughters and sons, this is a troubling issue for me.
I obviously think women need to be protected from sexual predators, and I think for too long in history, men were allowed to get away with sexual assault and harassment way too much. Men should not feel free to force themselves on women, in college or anywhere else, without consequence.
HOWEVER...it is pretty damn scary that as far as these university hearings and media judgments, there is literally zero way to "prove" it is not rape.
The accuser doesn't have to say no, and she can say yes.
The accuser doesn't have to remember what happened at all.
The accuser doesn't have to even prove there was sex.
She doesn't have to be drunk.
She can initiate the encounter, and/or ask for the sex.
There can be a proven and admitted to sexual relationship before and after the incident.
The accuser can carry on a totally friendly relationship with the accused for any amount of time.
There can be witnesses before and after and even DURING the act.
You can find cases with all these circumstances and more that have ruined the reputations of people and or institutions. This is an important issue...and I am ALL FOR erring on the side of protecting the woman.
But there has to be SOME baseline to say, this is proven, and this means it is not rape. People talk about signing contracts or videotaping consent...you're crazy if you think that matters. There's guys that have been ruined, even with a text from the accuser that says basically "come over and f--- me". None of it matters.
I can see where it is going...if you lie to someone, claim that you are not in a relationship, or say you are rich, or lie about your age...is that a sexual assault because of the false pretenses? She didn't agree to sleep with you, she agreed to sleep with someone you are not.
Does affirmative consent apply in marriage? If you roll over an grab your wife's butt in the middle of the night to see if you can get some, can you be accused of sexual assault? Why not? Women can obviously be raped in a marriage, so why don't they have these same affirmative consent protections? Do you have to ask your wife permission to give her a grab, or look at her in the shower?
You can say slippery slope, but 20 years ago, what is happening now would have been dismissed the same way.
Sexual assault, campus and otherwise, is a real problem and women need more support on the issue than they have presumably gotten. But this is NOT the way to do it. It's going to, and already is backfiring on the cause, and these lawsuits are going to eventually make it HARDER, not easier for victims to get justice.
