# Yes means Yes, dumb idea. Women should quit lying about 'rape."
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yes-means-yes-dumb-idea-women-should-quit-lying-about-rape/699922
**Category:** The BBQ Pit
**Created:** [September 30, 2014, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yes-means-yes-dumb-idea-women-should-quit-lying-about-rape/699922 "2014-09-30T01:00:24Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 7
### Author:  [@flight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flight)
#### Post date: [October 1, 2014, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yes-means-yes-dumb-idea-women-should-quit-lying-about-rape/699922/121 "2014-10-01T14:43:13Z")
> [@Velocity](#):
>
> How exactly did she say this? In a calm matter of fact way, like, “Hey, you know, I know I wanted sex, but if you actually did it, I would have claimed rape?”
>
> I applaud your self-control. But I’m speechless that this woman was so two-faced.
I have a terrible memory and this was a while ago, but I will paraphrase. (By the way, my memory of the night itself is VERY clear.)
“Hey sweetie, you were really going last night. Didn’t want to do anything new since were a bit drunk, but does this mean you’ve rethought what you are interested in?”
[serious voice] “No, and if you had done anything I would have charged you with rape.”
[jaw hangs open]
Note that I had not pressured her for sex. I had, in fact, thought she should reconsider oral sex being OK if this was for religious reasons. She didn’t like thinking about her reasons for things, and generally wasn’t a very stable or introspective person. I think it was about a year after we broke up that she spent some time in an asylum. Smoking hot though.
---
### Author:  [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)
#### Post date: [October 1, 2014, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yes-means-yes-dumb-idea-women-should-quit-lying-about-rape/699922/122 "2014-10-01T15:11:53Z")
Here’s a good article from [Business Insider](http://www.businessinsider.com/occidental-sexual-assault-2014-9) which explores the issue of both parties being drunk. Note: it does not address the CA law, but is based on an incident in Occidental College and is about college policies of this sort generally.
From this article, as applied, the policies don’t base lack of consent on a level of incapacitation claimed by certain posters to this thread (e.g. the woman in the cental incident texted to her friends that she was about to have sex, but was still judged to have not given consent based on her intoxication), and there is also a double standard applied. Pretty explicitly in the case of Duke University.
> [@](#):
>
> During the trial two months ago, Duke’s dean of students, Sue Wasiolek, was asked whether she would characterize a situation in which two students “got drunk to the point of incapacity, and then had sex” as their having raped each other. No, she said. Rather, “Assuming it is a male and female, it is the responsibility in the case of the male to gain consent before proceeding with sex.”
Again, this does not address the CA law specifically, but I believe the most reasonable interpretation of its language - absent actual expertise asserting otherwise - is along the lines of how these terms have been used in this regard.
---
### Author:  [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)
#### Post date: [October 1, 2014, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yes-means-yes-dumb-idea-women-should-quit-lying-about-rape/699922/123 "2014-10-01T15:12:43Z")
> [@clairobscur](#):
>
> Thanks for the answer. And the campus police answers to whom exactly? The county police? Or is it purely internal, and they’re under the sole authority of the university? And if the latter, do they have all the same rights as regular police? Could they search, arrest, enquire, execute a warrant, for instance?
Campus police are uniformed officers, period (unless there’s some odd campus I don’t know about). They have the power of arrest, and can interrogate and detain, but search and executing warrants is something done by detectives and CSIs, which campus police don’t have. Any case that requires detectives and a CSU team would be turned over to the city; however, the campus police would secure the crime scene, and continue to do so until the detectives and the CSU released it. They are responsible for the campus. Some campuses have rules of their own that have the force of law (like dry dorms, for example), and campus police have the authority to arrest and detain people who violate things like that that are not actually crimes by local or state statute, and are punishable only by university sanctions. I don’t know of it specifically happening, but I suppose the city police might call the campus police if students did something off-campus that might result in a small fine if adjudicated, but also get them suspension or probation at the school if the school is involved.
Additionally, the school can call parents, and get the parents of people 18 and over involved in disciplinary measures, which the city police can’t do. That’s not always the case, but when the student’s bills are being sent to the parents, things that affect the student’s academic standing are communicated to the parents.
> [@Slithy\_Tove](#):
>
> young women are learning how much booze they can handle. They’re going to want/need booze for sex for the rest of their lives
WTF? I don’t live in your world, and I sure as hell don’t want to. I hardly ever drink, when I do, I don’t get drunk, or even buzzed (if I did, I couldn’t have sex, because I’d have a pounding headache). I have sober sex all the time.
> [@Slithy\_Tove](#):
>
> Except for Arabia and Sicily, a woman who has been raped will not be “damaged goods” by males. But if an American freshman boy is raped, he won’t have to rent a tux for his Senior prom.
I have no idea what this means.
---
### Author:  [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)
#### Post date: [October 1, 2014, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yes-means-yes-dumb-idea-women-should-quit-lying-about-rape/699922/124 "2014-10-01T16:04:33Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#):
>
> I have no idea what this means.
I’m confused, too, but I think it means no girl would want that American freshman guy at the prom, or he’d be such a laughingstock at school that he could forget about going to the prom.
---
### Author:  [@ZPG\_Zealot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZPG_Zealot)
#### Post date: [October 1, 2014, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yes-means-yes-dumb-idea-women-should-quit-lying-about-rape/699922/125 "2014-10-01T16:14:14Z")
> [@flight](#):
>
> I have a terrible memory and this was a while ago, but I will paraphrase. (By the way, my memory of the night itself is VERY clear.)
>
> “Hey sweetie, you were really going last night. Didn’t want to do anything new since were a bit drunk, but does this mean you’ve rethought what you are interested in?”
>
> [serious voice] “No, and if you had done anything I would have charged you with rape.”
>
> [jaw hangs open]
>
> Note that I had not pressured her for sex. I had, in fact, thought she should reconsider oral sex being OK if this was for religious reasons. She didn’t like thinking about her reasons for things, and generally wasn’t a very stable or introspective person. I think it was about a year after we broke up that she spent some time in an asylum. Smoking hot though.
Your shock that a woman would charge you with rape over an incident where you might have taken advantage of her mental state, is matched by the shock of many woman that you would even consider having sex with a woman whose mental capacity was temporarily diminished. Unfortunately, for too many woman life is an exhausting series of judgement calls over what men we can and cannot trust.
---
### Author:  [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)
#### Post date: [October 1, 2014, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yes-means-yes-dumb-idea-women-should-quit-lying-about-rape/699922/126 "2014-10-01T16:20:08Z")
> [@Fotheringay-Phipps](#):
>
> ISTM that your understanding of the word “incapacitated” in context is incorrect. Incapacitated doesn’t mean passed out and it doesn’t mean incapable of any sort of thought, or whatever. It simply means lacking ability of “something”, that something to be understood by context or subsequent definition. In this case, the latter is helpfully provided. So incapacitated means lacking ability to “_understand the fact, nature, or extent of the sexual activity_”. That’s a lot less than “_completely passed out, don’t even understand what hole you are in, or think you guys are playing checkers_”.
>
> But I’m willing to be corrected if people with actual expertise speak up. Can someone knowledgeable about the law confirm whether this law would only apply to women in the condition that even sven describes? And more specifically, in the context of our point, in the condition where it would be impossible for sex to occur if both parties were in that condition (which is even sven’s claim)?
I’m not sure what planet you live on where you can not understand the “fact, nature or extent” of sexual activity and not be completely blotto. Do you really think it’s ok to have sex with someone who doesn’t know they are having sex with you?
We have plenty of words for mild intoxication. In drunk driving laws, for example, they don’t use the word “incapacitated.” These words are not used in these laws. Why?
---
### Author:  [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)
#### Post date: [October 1, 2014, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yes-means-yes-dumb-idea-women-should-quit-lying-about-rape/699922/127 "2014-10-01T16:22:49Z")
> [@Maggie\_the\_Ocelot](#):
>
> Naturally, when Jack found out about this, he felt absolutely horrible about it, apologizing like crazy. He kept saying that she should have said no, he would have stopped right away if she had said no. I really believe he would have. However, as I told him afterwards, if he had sought a yes instead of waiting for a no, all this trouble would have been avoided.
Of course, if he made it general policy to ask every woman he was potentially sexually interested in if she wanted sex right at the beginning of their interaction, he would (barring the use of prostitutes) probably never get to have sex, or even a kiss, in his life. (And would offend a lot of women, get his face slapped quite a bit, and probably leave a fair few women both offended and rather disappointed.)
It sucks to be your friend. The fact that she has a lousy life, however, does not justify trying to arrange the world so that everybody else’s life sucks almost as much.
---
### Author:  [@flight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flight)
#### Post date: [October 1, 2014, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yes-means-yes-dumb-idea-women-should-quit-lying-about-rape/699922/128 "2014-10-01T16:36:33Z")
> [@ZPG\_Zealot](#):
>
> Your shock that a woman would charge you with rape over an incident where you might have taken advantage of her mental state, is matched by the shock of many woman that you would even consider having sex with a woman whose mental capacity was temporarily diminished. Unfortunately, for too many woman life is an exhausting series of judgement calls over what men we can and cannot trust.
Are you kidding? When someone has had alcohol but is in such a state that then clearly and explicitly explain their thoughts and desires and to all appearances seem to know exactly what they are talking about, I am one to take them at their word. Even the law this thread is based on would say she was clear-headed enough for consent (based on my reading and the general thread consensus). For you how diminished does someone’s mental state need to be before their opinion doesn’t matter anymore? One drink?
How is it that we have to disregard what she says just because she is a woman and I need to not only be aware of my own desires but to be able to second guess hers despite having had more to drink because I am a man? This seems to be an infantilization of women that feminism has been fighting against for years. “Sure honey, you may say you want sex, but I’m just going to say you aren’t capable of making decisions for yourself right now. Sure, I may be a bit drunk too, but I am a man so it falls on me to be the rational one.”
Thankfully I knew her well enough that I realized this was not a good idea. Had I been someone she met that night, I can see things going very differently, and I can’t say I would blame them.
---
### Author:  [@flight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flight)
#### Post date: [October 1, 2014, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yes-means-yes-dumb-idea-women-should-quit-lying-about-rape/699922/129 "2014-10-01T16:41:59Z")
> [@even\_sven](#):
>
> I’m not sure what planet you live on where you can not understand the “fact, nature or extent” of sexual activity and not be completely blotto. Do you really think it’s ok to have sex with someone who doesn’t know they are having sex with you?
>
> We have plenty of words for mild intoxication. In drunk driving laws, for example, they don’t use the word “incapacitated.” These words are not used in these laws. Why?
Apparently one half way between yours and **ZPG Zealot** ’s. Between the three of you we have a huge gulf of levels of diminished capacity and I think this shows why there is such controversy over laws like this. Everyone seems to come to this with a very different assumption of what level someone is no longer able to give consent, even working from the same (fairly explicit) language.
---
### Author:  [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)
#### Post date: [October 1, 2014, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yes-means-yes-dumb-idea-women-should-quit-lying-about-rape/699922/130 "2014-10-01T16:49:15Z")
> [@Slithy\_Tove](#):
>
> (no, I don’t especially like people.)
Or understand them.
---
### Author:  [@Doctor\_Why\_Bother](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doctor_Why_Bother)
#### Post date: [October 1, 2014, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yes-means-yes-dumb-idea-women-should-quit-lying-about-rape/699922/131 "2014-10-01T16:52:19Z")
In fairness to you, **flight** , ZPG Zealot’s definition of sexual assault is so broad that it literally encompasses handshakes. Also, whenever she takes a cab with a male driver she keeps her hand on a loaded gun in her handbag in case he tries to make a move on her. She may not be the best person to listen to on this subject.
---
### Author:  [@Fotheringay-Phipps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fotheringay-Phipps)
#### Post date: [October 1, 2014, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yes-means-yes-dumb-idea-women-should-quit-lying-about-rape/699922/132 "2014-10-01T16:53:13Z")
> [@even\_sven](#):
>
> I’m not sure what planet you live on where you can not understand the “fact, nature or extent” of sexual activity and not be completely blotto. Do you really think it’s ok to have sex with someone who doesn’t know they are having sex with you?
>
> We have plenty of words for mild intoxication. In drunk driving laws, for example, they don’t use the word “incapacitated.” These words are not used in these laws. Why?
I don’t know that saying the same things in a hyperbolic manner adds anything. Bring some actual substance, if you can.
I’ve posted earlier a link to an article about how schools view and enforce these matters as a practical matter. Here’s another source for the definition, from an [actual school](http://www.virginia.edu/sexualviolence/sexualassault/) (emphasis mine):
> [@](#):
>
> **“Incapacitation” means the physical and/or mental inability to make informed, rational judgments.** States of Incapacitation include, without limitation, sleep, blackouts, and flashbacks. Where alcohol is involved, one does not have to be intoxicated or drunk to be considered Incapacitated. Rather, Incapacitation is determined by how the alcohol consumed impacts a person’s **decision-making capacity, awareness of consequences, and ability to make informed judgments**. The question is whether the accused student knew, or a sober, reasonable person in the position of the accused student should have known, that the complainant was Incapacitated. Because Incapacitation may be difficult to discern, students are strongly encouraged to err on the side of caution; i.e., when in doubt, assume that another person is Incapacitated and therefore unable to give Effective Consent. Being intoxicated or drunk is never a defense to a complaint of Sexual Misconduct under this Policy.
---
### Author:  [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)
#### Post date: [October 1, 2014, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yes-means-yes-dumb-idea-women-should-quit-lying-about-rape/699922/133 "2014-10-01T16:54:58Z")
> [@flight](#):
>
> Apparently one half way between yours and **ZPG Zealot** ’s. Between the three of you we have a huge gulf of levels of diminished capacity and I think this shows why there is such controversy over laws like this. Everyone seems to come to this with a very different assumption of what level someone is no longer able to give consent, even working from the same (fairly explicit) language.
So how do you define not being able to understand the fact, extent or nature of sexual activity?
---
### Author:  [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)
#### Post date: [October 1, 2014, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yes-means-yes-dumb-idea-women-should-quit-lying-about-rape/699922/134 "2014-10-01T17:07:28Z")
> [@Miller](#):
>
> Or understand them.
Well, **Miller,** I’d always thought I understood you; as someone willing to compose a cogent counter-argument. But perhaps you’re right about me.
---
### Author:  [@woodstockbirdybird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/woodstockbirdybird)
#### Post date: [October 1, 2014, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yes-means-yes-dumb-idea-women-should-quit-lying-about-rape/699922/135 "2014-10-01T17:21:37Z")
> [@Slithy\_Tove](#):
>
> Like I said, it sucks. But demonizing men is not going to help anything. This is not just “men bad, women good”\*
>
> Women maintain the myth of sluttiness, because your boyfriend is your status symbol (not someone you, you know… “love,”), and other women who threaten that status do so by offering sex. Men step in to exploit slut-shaming culture (and use it to justify their actions).
>
> Men impose an equally harsh hierarchy of winners and losers on each other, and in adolescence, when their earning ability is not available for achieving status, pussy is the coin of the realm.
>
> Young men need to stop raping young women, but let’s look at the supply train to that activity too. Even if it places some part of the blame where some people don’t’ want to shoulder any.
>
> \*consider this: men don’t like being raped either. In fact, we really, really hate it. And one of many reasons is that women generally aren’t cool about it. Except for Arabia and Sicily, a woman who has been raped will not be “damaged goods” by males. But if an American freshman boy is raped, he won’t have to rent a tux for his Senior prom.
>
> (no, I don’t especially like people.)
The amount of stupidity in this post is almost awe-inspiring. But I do love these threads, only because they help keep me keep track of the MRAs and misogynists (redundant, I know) on the board.
---
### Author:  [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)
#### Post date: [October 1, 2014, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yes-means-yes-dumb-idea-women-should-quit-lying-about-rape/699922/136 "2014-10-01T17:22:30Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#):
>
> I have no idea what this means.
Of course I meant that a teenage boy who is raped will have a much more difficult time finding a girlfriend until he leaves school and starts his life somewhere else. But beyond that, let me suggest that the worst thing about being slut-shamed, or fag-bashed, or even raped, is the utter helplessness of the entire experience.
Keeping the topic to the first two, it often means that a person is no longer the proprietor of his or her identity. You’re that girl who’ll suck anybody’s dick. You’re that boy who got held down and had a stick shoved up his ass. And, as far as your school and town cares, that’s _all_ you are.
That’s kids, but it doesn’t much change in the adult, institutional world. When people are raped in the military, the victim is told " too bad. We aren’t going to change the army/navy to suit you." You become a de-humanized organic appendage to a folder of paperwork being processed out of an organization. Thank God at least colleges are getting away from this. Hopefully some day prisons will too.
Not surprising: middle-class kids go to college, working class kids join the service, and poor kids go to jail. Justice follows the money, like everything else does.
---
### Author:  [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)
#### Post date: [October 1, 2014, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yes-means-yes-dumb-idea-women-should-quit-lying-about-rape/699922/137 "2014-10-01T17:23:44Z")
> [@woodstockbirdybird](#):
>
> The amount of stupidity in this post is almost awe-inspiring. But I do love these threads, only because they help keep me keep track of the MRAs and misogynists (redundant, I know) on the board.
That would be misanthrope, thank you.
---
### Author:  [@ZPG\_Zealot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZPG_Zealot)
#### Post date: [October 1, 2014, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yes-means-yes-dumb-idea-women-should-quit-lying-about-rape/699922/138 "2014-10-01T17:27:26Z")
> [@flight](#):
>
> Are you kidding? When someone has had alcohol but is in such a state that then clearly and explicitly explain their thoughts and desires and to all appearances seem to know exactly what they are talking about, I am one to take them at their word. Even the law this thread is based on would say she was clear-headed enough for consent (based on my reading and the general thread consensus). For you how diminished does someone’s mental state need to be before their opinion doesn’t matter anymore? One drink?
>
> How is it that we have to disregard what she says just because she is a woman and I need to not only be aware of my own desires but to be able to second guess hers despite having had more to drink because I am a man? This seems to be an infantilization of women that feminism has been fighting against for years. “Sure honey, you may say you want sex, but I’m just going to say you aren’t capable of making decisions for yourself right now. Sure, I may be a bit drunk too, but I am a man so it falls on me to be the rational one.”
>
> Thankfully I knew her well enough that I realized this was not a good idea. Had I been someone she met that night, I can see things going very differently, and I can’t say I would blame them.
For some people one drink is enough to incapacite them. If they can’t legally drive a car, I would say their judgement is impaired enough that consent is irrelevent and you should avoid having sex with such a person. Of course, if you followed my adage that men who do not want to risk being accused of rape should simply avoid being alone with women, none of that would have happened. Or if she had tried something, you would have at least had witnesses to testify that you did nothing. There is also the issue of respecting friendship or at least acquaintanceship. This woman knew you. She shouldn’t have had to maintain all the vigilant guards against assault one would have with a total stranger. The fact is she probably trusted you. You’re admission the next day that you almost took advantage of her showed her that she couldn’t. Whatever good relations existed in the past, whatever companionship the two of you had shared was obviously not worth as much to you as the opportunity to get laid. That’s a really nasty feeling when a woman realizes how little her male “friends” care about her, her emotions, her reputation, or her future. I am surprised she didn’t deck you.
---
### Author:  [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)
#### Post date: [October 1, 2014, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yes-means-yes-dumb-idea-women-should-quit-lying-about-rape/699922/139 "2014-10-01T17:31:35Z")
> [@ZPG\_Zealot](#):
>
> I am surprised she didn’t deck you.
I get the impression that **ZPG Zealot** is constantly being surprised by how people react to various situations.
---
### Author:  [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)
#### Post date: [October 1, 2014, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/yes-means-yes-dumb-idea-women-should-quit-lying-about-rape/699922/140 "2014-10-01T17:37:03Z")
> [@Slithy\_Tove](#):
>
> Of course I meant that a teenage boy who is raped will have a much more difficult time finding a girlfriend until he leaves school and starts his life somewhere else. But beyond that, let me suggest that the worst thing about being slut-shamed, or fag-bashed, or even raped, is the utter helplessness of the entire experience.
When I was in high school, I didn’t have a personal policy against dating boys or men who had been raped (the threat of HIV notwithstanding-- I didn’t lose my virginity until after high school), but I did have an anti-prom agenda. My friends and I ditched it for an Ingmar Bergman film one year (it was the junior-senior prom), and the next year, I was dating a college guy who was over 21 at prom time (I was 18, it wasn’t weird), so we did something else, I don’t remember what. Maybe that was when we saw _The Wickerman_. Or maybe we just got the hell out of Dodge.
I was a virgin all through high school, but not very much longer after that.
I still don’t get the big deal about prom.
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