I could see moving it but even with an OP that initially came off goofy the thread was actually exploring the subject and the murkiness of the laws and their interpretations in a reasonable way. What legally counts as incapacitation and as consent and how does or does not context impact it (e.g. voluntarily drunk/impaired or slipped something; in a long term consensual relationship or not; cause of impairment…) I at least was having my ignorance reduced.
It did not very much resemble a Factual Questions thread, specifically, so maybe it was that.
I did kinda wonder whether people holding themselves out as experts and engaging in completely counterfactual pseudo-debate for post after post was an issue in that forum. It’s one thing to be aggressively wrong in IMHO or GD, it’s another to hold yourself out as an expert when people ask for factual responses and then do things like, for example, suggest that forehead kisses are covered by sexual assault statutes. In my humble opinion, about this message board.
It apparently got massively derailed by this post:
Again moving it would seem fine. Or some moderation maybe.
But the responses to those counterfactuals (even silly ones) were informative, such as @Jimmy_Chitwood’s and @doreen’s. It IS an area without many bright line rules, lots of state variation, lots of prosecutorial discretion, and different rules by institutions, which therefore creates disturbing circumstances like the MN case and the trial in the dementia case.
Yes the only FQ answer to the broad question is an “it depends” but the explanations of what it depends on were interesting and educational.
How was my post a massive derailment? It was an exploration of the concepts surrounding it. Maybe you disagree with what I said, but I didn’t derail the thread. I am also confused as to why the thread was closed.
You claimed that sex is presumed consensual as long as there is no blood or broken legs. Neither is remotely common in rape, let alone a part of the legal requirement. And you’re a defense attorney, so you can’t plead ignorance.
You really think making up BS about rape of all things would not at the very least start a huge hijack? On a board with multiple rape survivors?
You might as well have said that rape victims should just keep their legs closed, or that the body has a way to self-aborting when you are raped. If you don’t care enough about rape to take it seriously, I would personally suggest not talking about it.
Especially when it was a thread about laws on sexual assault.
Because you disagree with my assessment of rape laws (which I stand by) is not a reason to personally attack me or for the thread to be closed.
Well, to be fair, whatever that Op was, it was nothing whatsoever like a Factual Question.
Maybe IMHO?
INAL but it is clear that blood or broken bones are not required to legally prove lack of consent. And I personally would have been completely fine with that post being moderated with at least a note. Heck if an individual poster was so noted and continued the behavior then even thread banning them. But the thread did not completely derail. There was meaningful discussion after that, explaining and exploring the fuzzy and variable standards used legally for consent and for incapacity to give consent and in what ways context legally matters and to what degrees.
That was just shorthand for not posting a full brief about consent. The statement that it should be modded is stunning. Because you believe it was factually incorrect is a reason for it to be modded?
It trivializes any rape that didn’t involve blood and broken bones, calling it not rape. In other words, it trivializes the vast majority of rape cases.
And it wasn’t even the worst post in that thread. A distant second.
Yes, and for that it should have certainly been modded.
(Not a criticism of the mods, I don’t even know if it was flagged.)
That’s not at all what I said and this political correctness has run amuck. I did not say that it wasn’t rape. I said that consent is typically assumed without such things, not that the lack of consent cannot be overcome with other evidence.
I know that doctors and other experts can examine a person (alive or dead) for signs of rape.
Show me where that consists of “blood and broken bones”.
This is really very simple and so undisputed that it astounds me that it is even a debate or should be modded. Given a factual scenario with no obvious injury, the first inclination is that it was consensual sex. I did not say that was the end of the story. It may still be rape, but to determine rape requires extra steps. Do you disagree? If not (which I think nobody can dispute) then why should my true comment be modded?
So, without broken bones and blood, it’s assumed it wasn’t rape.
It is factual to say that if you see signs of injury, that makes it more likely that a sexual encounter was not consensual. Not only factual, but common sense. If you had said that, then nobody would have a problem with it.
You didn’t. You set the bar at an extreme. Maybe that’s not what you meant, but as I’ve said to you in another recent ATMB thread, words matter. The statement you made appeared extremely callous about a very sensitive subject, one that affects many women (including posters on this board who have spoken of their traumatic experiences). It also was factually incorrect, which is a problem in an FQ thread.
This has nothing to do with political correctness.
You are probably imagining yourself walking along a featureless platonic plane when you come across a person and need to determine if a rape occurred?
In the more realistic scenario where a girl walks into a police station, or a school counselor’s office and makes a complaint, the presumption that no rape occurred unless you see blood or broken bones (or even bruises and torn clothes) is an EXTREMELY destructive one, and this possibility contributes to the lack of reporting for sexual assaults.
Maybe that’s not what you meant, but as a lawyer, you should be familiar with the concept of Appearance of Impropriety
FQ has standards different than other fora. Posting wildly false information as a factual response is IMHO worth a note. It’s okay to be ignorant. I am and by reading the thread and searching and reading based on it was becoming less so. But that phrasing was more than ignorantly incorrect; it was also needlessly provocative.
Again however - a poor post, several poor posts, or a poster behaving badly, does not require closing a thread; it requires a response directing that poster to behave differently.
What I said was factually correct. The leap that you (and others) are making is that I would totally discount the girl’s story as you describe in the hypo. Her story should and will be taken seriously. But the fact that she is physically unharmed will be a powerful piece of evidence for the defendant that she consented. Not totally exculpatory, but powerful evidence that will possibly convince a jury.
And while that may be insensitive, are we to be modded for stating facts?