# Is it sexual assault? (Columbia Mattress Girl Related) **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 22, 2015, 10:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-sexual-assault-columbia-mattress-girl-related/720576 "2015-05-22T10:40:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Nars\_Glinley](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nars_glinley/32/8177_2.png) [@Nars\_Glinley](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nars_Glinley)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2015, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-sexual-assault-columbia-mattress-girl-related/720576/81 "2015-05-25T15:10:28Z")
> [@even\_sven](#): > > Consent is not hard. It’s really easy to get unambiguous consent, even from women playing out rough-sex fantasies. Nobody is saying if a woman says “no” you should turn around and walk out the door without a word. Just figure out if you are about to rape her or if you are about to have consensual sex and proceed accordingly. Honestly, that is exactly what I thought “No means no” meant. ---
**Author:** ![GreasyJack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/df705f/32.png) [@GreasyJack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreasyJack)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2015, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-sexual-assault-columbia-mattress-girl-related/720576/82 "2015-05-25T18:47:32Z")
> [@bengangmo](#): > > Which is rather unfair - it’s somebody’s future you’re talking about here - > > And “more likely than not” is, in my mind, a pretty low standard for the damage that you’re inflicting. Especially for something that could be genuinely down to a poor reading of signals, or something that may not have had “the intent to rape” behind it. Damage you’re inflicting? Generally the worst a university disciplinary hearing can do is expel you. They usually don’t even reveal why you were expelled. There is absolutely nothing stopping you from continuing your education somewhere else. On the other hand the worst thing that can happen if you don’t expel a rapist is they rape someone else. Getting raped is quite a lot worse than having to change schools, so I think erring a little bit on the side of expelling people is appropriate. > [@bengangmo](#): > > Have you got an actual cite for this? Because it doesn’t square with my experience Here’s a scienc-y one: [Blaming the victim and exonerating the perpetrator in cases of rape and robbery: is there a double standard? - PubMed](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20587449) More generally: [Victim blaming - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victim_blaming) This is also the whole reason why [rape shield](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_shield_law) laws exist. Part of why so many rapes aren’t even reported is that rape victims who go public with their allegations and try to seek relief through the justice system often get a ridiculously amount of invasive attention places on their personal and sex lives. That’s also why I don’t find most of the supposed motives for purported false accusations very compelling: that someone would subject themselves to the ordeal that is being the victim in a rape trial for any reason other than that they were raped seems pretty unlikely to me. (Obviously it does rarely happen, but certainly not as commonly as some apologists would have us believe.) ---
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [May 25, 2015, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-sexual-assault-columbia-mattress-girl-related/720576/83 "2015-05-25T20:03:02Z")
> [@bump](#): > > So you’re going to tell me in all seriousness, that you got explicit consent for every ass or boob you touched? I feel that you are trivializing what happened to Sulkowicz by rephrasing it in a less serious manner. ---
**Author:** ![Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f475e1/32.png) [@Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jimmy_Chitwood)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2015, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-sexual-assault-columbia-mattress-girl-related/720576/84 "2015-05-26T19:58:51Z")
> [@bengangmo](#): > > Let’s put it this way - > > Would you accept, in the case of theft, someone saying “yeah, I gave him permission to borrow my car, but only because I was scared he’d be angry if I said no” absent any specific or clearly articulated threats? > > Yet in the case of rape, people like you are quite willing to accept things along the line of “he looked angry” as an explicit threat of force. This is a really helpful analogy but I don’t think it goes where you want it to go. Let’s stick with exactly these facts and play it out, because my opinion is this demonstrates exactly what’s fucked up about how we look at sexual assault as a society. I think you’re changing a super important part of the story but you maybe don’t even realize you’re doing it. You’ve got a dude, and another dude, let’s say it’s you and me, right? And the facts are clear - I drove your car last weekend. You tell the police, fuck, I didn’t want him driving my car, look at him, why would I let that stupid idiot anywhere near the thing? And the police say to me - why’d you take the car? And I say: **bengangmo** let me! This is the big moment here, for my purposes. The next question the police are going to say to me is: “Did he _tell_ you it was OK to drive his car?”. And, if we’re playing it straight with the analogy, what I have to say in response is: no, but he didn’t stop me when I took it. He actually said no, but I asked like four more times, and then he didn’t say anything, yes or no, and he wasn’t like punching me or nothing, so I took the keys and I did my thing. So, you know, he wanted me to drive it! He wasn’t “clear and unequivocal!” He just kinda stopped arguing with me about it. And the police are going to look at me and say you _fucking idiot, what kind of a person thinks they have permission under those circumstances_? But it’s different in sexual assault cases! In a sexual assault case, we take the victim’s failure to _prevent_ it and analogize it to “giving permission.” How is that permission in any other context? It’s not! And this is the like paint-by-number argument in favor of affirmative consent. ---
**Author:** ![Fotheringay-Phipps](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/d9b06d/32.png) [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2015, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-sexual-assault-columbia-mattress-girl-related/720576/85 "2015-05-26T21:20:45Z")
> [@Jimmy\_Chitwood](#): > > You’ve got a dude, and another dude, let’s say it’s you and me, right? And the facts are clear - I drove your car last weekend. You tell the police, fuck, I didn’t want him driving my car, look at him, why would I let that stupid idiot anywhere near the thing? And the police say to me - why’d you take the car? And I say: **bengangmo** let me! > > This is the big moment here, for my purposes. The next question the police are going to say to me is: “Did he _tell_ you it was OK to drive his car?”. And, if we’re playing it straight with the analogy, what I have to say in response is: no, but he didn’t stop me when I took it. He actually said no, but I asked like four more times, and then he didn’t say anything, yes or no, and he wasn’t like punching me or nothing, so I took the keys and I did my thing. So, you know, he wanted me to drive it! He wasn’t “clear and unequivocal!” He just kinda stopped arguing with me about it. > > And the police are going to look at me and say you _fucking idiot, what kind of a person thinks they have permission under those circumstances_? I very much doubt this. Expecially if you’re friends with the guy and the notion that he would agree to lend you the car after being pressured about it is not completely ridiculous. Can you cite to any instances of anyone ever being prosecuted for theft in such circumstances? ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2015, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-sexual-assault-columbia-mattress-girl-related/720576/86 "2015-05-26T22:36:05Z")
> [@Jimmy\_Chitwood](#): > > This is a really helpful analogy but I don’t think it goes where you want it to go. Let’s stick with exactly these facts and play it out, because my opinion is this demonstrates exactly what’s fucked up about how we look at sexual assault as a society. I think you’re changing a super important part of the story but you maybe don’t even realize you’re doing it. > > You’ve got a dude, and another dude, let’s say it’s you and me, right? And the facts are clear - I drove your car last weekend. You tell the police, fuck, I didn’t want him driving my car, look at him, why would I let that stupid idiot anywhere near the thing? And the police say to me - why’d you take the car? And I say: **bengangmo** let me! > > This is the big moment here, for my purposes. The next question the police are going to say to me is: “Did he _tell_ you it was OK to drive his car?”. And, if we’re playing it straight with the analogy, what I have to say in response is: no, but he didn’t stop me when I took it. He actually said no, but I asked like four more times, and then he didn’t say anything, yes or no, and he wasn’t like punching me or nothing, so I took the keys and I did my thing. So, you know, he wanted me to drive it! He wasn’t “clear and unequivocal!” He just kinda stopped arguing with me about it. Except in **bengangmo’s** analogy, the person didn’t actually say no. The person said"yeah, I gave him permission to borrow my car, but only because I was scared he’d be angry if I said no" . Not “I said no”, not “He grabbed the keys out of my hand”, not " He had a gun", just “I said yes because I was scared he’d be angry” for some unspecified reason. So using that scenario, when the police “Did he _tell_ you it was OK to drive his car?”, your answer is going to be “Yes”. > [@](#): > > And the police are going to look at me and say you _fucking idiot, what kind of a person thinks they have permission under those circumstances_? Actually they’re going to look at the other guy and wonder why he called them since even according to his statement, he clearly gave permission for you to borrow the car. **Bengangmo** ’s not talking about the victim failing to prevent it- he’s talking about someone saying yes and then saying they didn’t really _mean_ yes. It doesn’t have to be an explicit threat to negate consent- it can involve force or an implied threat like displaying a weapon. But it has to be something more than " I gave him permission but I didn’t want to". People don’t commonly get prosecuted for rape based on “I said yes but I didn’t want to” ( if they ever do) but it’s not unheard of people to believe they should be. ---
**Author:** ![GreasyJack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/df705f/32.png) [@GreasyJack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreasyJack)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2015, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-sexual-assault-columbia-mattress-girl-related/720576/87 "2015-05-26T23:02:42Z")
> [@doreen](#): > > **Bengangmo** ’s not talking about the victim failing to prevent it- he’s talking about someone saying yes and then saying they didn’t really _mean_ yes. Which is why the analogy is stupid. If the person said yes, and there wasn’t a pretty clear gun-to-the-head threat, that case is not going to get prosecuted. If someone has a cite where a person gave clear consent but a rape case went forward because they “felt threatened” I’d like to see it. ---
**Author:** ![Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f475e1/32.png) [@Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jimmy_Chitwood)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2015, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-sexual-assault-columbia-mattress-girl-related/720576/88 "2015-05-26T23:18:29Z")
> [@doreen](#): > > Except in **bengangmo’s** analogy, the person didn’t actually say no. The person said"yeah, I gave him permission to borrow my car, but only because I was scared he’d be angry if I said no" . Yes. In the analogy that he made up, the person says “I gave permission.” That is what my point is. That is why I said “you are changing a super important part of the story.” I certainly could’ve been clearer about whether I was really sticking with all of his facts, though – my bad on that. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-sexual-assault-columbia-mattress-girl-related/720576.md?page=4)