My post was in response to his. If you missed his post then you missed the context of mine. And if you didn’t miss it then you ignored the context. Or you’re just a hypocrite. Or both.
Nope, we know there was a sex act. We know that because it doesn’t work to say " She’s consented to 500 people in the past and she consented to me that night" if you just got done saying " I never engaged in a sexual act with her". The “slut defense” doesn’t come up unless the sex act is conceded for whatever reason ( and that may not have been obvious to you, as I don’t think it has been explicitly mentioned) The question is whether it was consensual or not , and by extension, whether the victim is lying when he or she alleges it was not consensual. We know the victim alleges that , because otherwise there would be no trial and no question of whether evidence of the accuser’s sexual behavior is admissible.
But “consensual sex act” and “non-consensual sex act” are fundamentally different acts for the purpose at hand - they are the relevant competing scenarios that are being considered. So knowing that there was a sex act is not relevant - that’s not part of what we’re assessing the likelihood of. The likelihood of that is 100%, for our purposes. That’s off the table. What’s on the table is: was the sex act consensual (guilty) or was the sex act non-consensual (innocent)?
So if the likelihood of a consensual sex act is what’s relevant here.
To be honest, it’s hard to imagine that people seriously believe what they’re claiming here, although I guess a lot of people have difficulty with probability concepts. But one more shot: let’s take it to the extreme.
Suppose in Case A, you can somehow prove with absolute certainty that the accuser would never under any circumstances have agreed to consensual sex with anyone like this defendant (or possibly anyone at all). And in Case B, you can prove with absolute certainty that the accuser liked nothing better than to have sex with people exactly like the defendant and in those circumstances. Do you really believe that these things have no bearing - no bearing at all - on the likelihood that the sex was consensual versus non-consensual? And that the likelihood of non-consensual sex is equally likely in Case A as in Case B?
Or you’re an impossible dumbshit and I forgot what engaging with you was like. That’s always a possibility.
It’s impossible to prove “with absolute certainty” in either case.
Absolutely. Case B is, under these circumstances, much less likely to be consensual. After all, we have proof that this person has sex with people like the defendant in those circumstances and doesn’t make rape accusations. We have no such proof in Case A.
Once you establish sex, you have to figure out what accounts for the accusation of rape.
It was a hypothetical intended to illustrate a probability concept.
It would follow from the logic being put forth by Doreen that there is no difference even in this hypothetical extreme case. That is a clearly absurd result, and illustrates the general concept. Though I see that the ever-resolute LHOD is sticking to his guns even in that case.
Yes, I agree that you do seem to find it frustrating. Though we obviously differ as to the reason.
Got it.
So your position is that in the (hypothetical) case where we know with absolute certainty that the accuser would never agree to have consensual sex with the defendant, there’s a higher likelihood that she did exactly that, as compared to the other case.
That says all that needs to be said. No further comment is necessary.
You’re correct, and I amend my previous statement:
With your idiotic hypothetical, the chances that either encounter was consensual is exactly zero. Similar causes beget similar results; there’s zero chance that identical causes will produce no rape accusation one time and a rape accusation the second time.
But your hypothetical is useless because of its complete lack of relationship to the real world. In a world with absolute certainty, all rules are out the window.
That’s just more silliness from you, but not worth arguing about because the point stands in spite of it.
So your position is that in the (hypothetical) case where we know with beyond a reasonable doubt that the accuser would never agree to have consensual sex with the defendant, there’s a higher likelihood that she did exactly that, as compared to the other case.
That says all that needs to be said. No further comment is necessary.
You cannot use probability to determine (Especially not without absolute certainty!) if I will have sex with Tim, even if I had sex with his brother Tom.
And the “likelihood” of either case IS NOT EVIDENCE so why the hell would it be admissible as a matter of course? If relevance can be established, then it can be admitted, but sexual history in and of itself establishes nothing. How are you NOT getting this?
Things which have a bearing on likelihood are evidence. By definition. I’m surprised that you would try to deny that. That might be a first in this thread.
Your response may have been to him, but the post you quoted was mine.
Note that the two aren’t symmetrical; indeed, if Case B has any probability above zero (which either requires the lapse in the most basic principles of causality, or requires that the circumstances aren’t identical) it could be the same person. Molly could have had sex with a lot of people just like John in the past, or even a lot of sex with John himself, and also have no chance of agreeing to have sex with John in the future.
In case A, you describe future behavior. In case B, you describe past behavior. These are not the same sort of description.
I find it interesting that after I selected LHOD’s post #148 (though before I managed to post my reply, I think) he substantially rewrote the post, most significantly removing his implication that his position held in a case where the predilections were known “beyond reasonable doubt”. Anyway, what I quoted in post #149 is what he originally wrote.
I was a bit careless, sorry. Restate that post replacing the word “liked” with “likes”. Same logic holds.
I took up the theme post #133, responding to LN’s post #132. You joined subsequently, but the context was already in place by that time.
This is like the Lying Whore thread of a few years back, where it was explained in excruciating detail why “when you hear hoof beats, think horses, not zebras” was not valid, and there was absolutely no reason to think that Magnum was lying just because her story was improbable.
It turned out she was lying, though.
Regards,
Shodan
Super interesting. I thought more about what I’d written and changed my post accordingly. When I realize that what I said was not entirely correct, I change it. It’s a super-cool experience that I recommend.
Well, yes. Now your point is correct. If it’s certain that person A wouldn’t willingly have sex with Joe under the circumstances in question, and that person B would willingly have sex with Joe under the circumstances of the event in question, person B’s encounter is tautologically consensual. Again, absent a breakdown in causality, identical causes beget identical results.
Your example is now functionally identical to, “If we know Mary didn’t consent to sex, and Laura did consent to sex, is it likelier that Laura consented to sex?” That’s not a terribly helpful analogy.
But the point here is that the significant part you removed was not making a new point. Your revision was of what you initially claimed you “suppose [you] read it as”, (“it” referring to my post), and you were saying it as an explanation for what you meant in your own prior post.
So you were apparently revising your explanation for your own prior post and how you initially understood my post - these are things that don’t really lend themselves to revision on thinking about it more.
I don’t think that’s super-cool and I don’t recommend that. I am well aware that you have different standards.
It’s not an analogy altogether (though if it was one it would undoubtedly be a perfect one). It was an illustration of a concept. You can call it reduction ad absurdum, if you prefer.
Because the line that you (and Doreen) are pushing is that we ignore the a priori likelihood of consensual sex entirely, and focus only on the likelihood of “lying about consensual sex”, which according to you is solely about character and nothing else. The hypothetical case is an illustration of how the likelihood of consensual sex is completely relevant. In the extreme illustrative example that I used, the complete impossibility of consensual sex ruled out consensual sex entirely, in the one case. In a case where it’s marginally more likely, it would not rule it out entirely, but would make it slightly more plausible. And if it was even more likely than that, then it would be more plausible yet, and so on.
The general concept is that you’ve accepted that the a priori likelihood of consensual sex has a bearing on the plausibility of the claim that consensual sex has in fact taken place.
Yeah.
The problem is, you are calculating likelihood of sex based on a single variable, that is, x = number of sex partners Person A has previously had.
As I am almost sure you know, sex very rarely depends on a single variable. At MINIMUM, you have x and y, y being the overall acceptability of the partner in the eyes of Person A. You probably also have a - how many glasses of wine A had; b - how many glasses of wine Potential Partner had; c - whether Person A’s beloved spaniel died recently, d - how recently, e - was there a good song playing on the sound system,** f** - was there a nearby location conducive to getting it on, g - how far away, h - was it a bad week at work, i - had Person A been for a run lately, and j - had either of the potential sex participants seen the new Tarzan movie, AND the relative impact of the factors for each of those variables, since they do not all equally influence Person A’s decision.
Now, you can try to insist that you can STILL predict based on x, but for Person A’s Will I Have Sex With You equation, that particular likelihood is influenced by [chi / x]. With your remarkable background in statistics, I am certain that you understand the relevance of that.
Now, it turns out that Person B’s equation contains [chi TIMES x], but the value of chi is 0.0007.
Person C’s equation also contains [chi times x], where chi is several orders of magnitude larger than Person B’s, so in that case, yes, your prediction would be accurate except that we are not dealing with Person C, we are dealing with Person A.
However, until you have accurately transcribed an individual’s Will I Have Sex With You equation, specifically whether x is in the numerator or the denominator, and the magnitude of that specific person’s chi factor related to All the Other Variables, you know nothing.
Which is to say, you know nothing.
Possibly you’ve not read the thread or possibly you’ve not understood it.
As I’ve observed repeatedly, a factor can be relevant in determining probability without being the sole determining factor. No one is suggesting that sex history alone determines what happened or should be the only evidence admitted at trial.
No one has suggested that only evidence which single-handedly proves innocence or guilt should be admitted in trials. So perhaps you want to go for that position. It’s still available!
On the contrary: I understand your point and I am telling you that you are incorrect.
I know my post is comparatively long, but given that I slogged through this entire thread, you might have tried reading it through once or twice.
What I just told you is no. No, that factor is not relevant. Unless you know the equation for the individual in question, you cannot infer anything by that single variable. And you do not know anyone’s equation; you probably don’t even know your own.