Man receives sexual act while unconscious, gets accused of sexual assault

An Amherst College student blacked out, accompanied a fellow student back to her dorm room after drinking in February 2012. While he was blacked out, she performed oral sex on him.

Nearly two years later, she would accuse him of sexual assault. And under Amherst's guilty-until-proven-innocent (and even then, as we'll see, still guilty) hearing standards, the accused student was expelled.

The accused student — using the pseudonym John Doe — is suing the university for denying him due process. His lawyer had discovered text messages that prove the accused student did not initiate the encounter and in no way sexually assaulted the accuser. Despite this evidence, the university refused to reopen Doe's case.

Source - http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/man-receives-sex-act-while-blacked-out-gets-accused-of-sexual-assault/article/2565978

This is all kinds of messed up; this guy is unconscious and is sexually assaulted. Then the girl goes and complains to the college, having the guy expelled, despite evidence showing that she was the one that committed the assault.

This is not the first time it happened and it won't be the last. I remember a similar case where a woman called the cops on her boyfriend, claiming that he had physically assaulted her. They would have believed her too, if the guy hadn't videotaped it, proving that she was the aggressor.

It seems like something that is endemic of our society nowadays.

Buzz Meeks

HARD to prove.

Samaris

I don't think it's endemic, or even hugely common. That said, those are both shocking cases and they DO happen, and must be treated with due process and respect for the individual victim. Males absolutely should not be made to feel pathetic for reporting abuse any more than a female should.

Both of the women in question need the book throwing at them, most especially that first one. That was vicious and cruel, and it had an awful effect on the poor guy. The university in question should be absolutely ashamed as well.

LDN_Irish

The link isn't working. Does the article state he was unconscious? Because "black out" is often used to mean conscious but with no memory of the events. Either way, sounds pretty awful.

AnonoBoy

The writing in that article is odd.

"An Amherst College student blacked out, accompanied a fellow student back to her dorm room after drinking in February 2012"

That reads like he blacked out and then accompanied her back to her dorm room.

Do they mean he was unconscious? How did he accompany her anywhere if he was unconscious?

Also - if he blacked out at her room how did he know what she did to him? Did she admit to performing oral sex on him?

It's a bit unclear.

Riskymove

I don't agree with what happened to this guy...but....

there is clearly a difference in their term "blacked out" and the OP's term "unconscious"

I can't see how an unconscious man can accompany someone anywhere and it would be impossible to find someone unconscious of carrying out any action imo

"Blacked-out" basically means "out of it" and not being in a fit state to make conscious decisions as far as I can see

Atlantic Dawn

I always thought the car wouldn't drive without a man at the wheel?

Samaris

Atlantic Dawn wrote: »

I always thought the car wouldn't drive without a man at the wheel?

She performed oral sex on him while he was not in a state to give consent, so no car driving in question! Blackout state suggests that he was just about capable of moving, but not in a capable state to fully understand his actions. Even the college agreed that there was credible evidence for his state. He may or may not have been conscious when the actual sex act happened.

Her texts after the event showed she knew what she was doing, and that it was wrong. To bring allegations against him after two years was absolutely taking the piss. She wronged him in the first place.

Rough Sleeper

Gotta call you up on your closing remark there. You're making the mistake of basing the prevalence of an occurrence on its exposure in the media. You're invoking two cases here and extrapolating from them to suggest that this problem is endemic, a pretty serious claim. In reality, I'd imagine that you'd find only a handful of such cases if you searched around, most of them from the US, a country of more than 300 million people. This reminds me of the recent case of the young girl dying after taking drugs purported to be ecstasy, and the views I saw expressed which seemed to suggest that taking pills was akin to playing a game of Russian roulette. In reality, the chance of such an event is extremely low, and I'd say that in reality cases like the one you've mentioned are very rare. The fact that similar occurrences are unusual makes them newsworthy items by nature, which can skew perception of how much they actually happen.

For sure, based on the limited information given it sounds very unfair, but it's a bit of a stretch to label instances like it as endemic.

Special Circumstances

Samaris wrote: »

no car driving in question!

Are you familiar with the concepts of euphemisms and metaphors?

seamus

Atlantic Dawn wrote: »

I always thought the car wouldn't drive without a man at the wheel?

Nope, the car most certainly will drive on its own. Another thing that's high on the list of peoples' sexual ignorances.

There are many autonomous responses when it comes to sexual function. Arousal for both men and women can be consciously suppressed, but not necessarily at will, and clearly not if the person is heavily intoxicated or unconscious. A man having an erection has been used as a successful defence in many rape cases, which goes to show how pervasive this incorrect notion is.

Wibbs

American college was all I needed to read. Their internal "courts" run along lines that would be illegal beyond the campus gates. EG with quite a few of them the "defendant" especially in sexual assault charges has little of an avenue to defend him or herself(but overwhelmingly the former). Sometimes to the point of farce. This kinda outcome doesn't surprise me and it happens regularly enough. A quick google will throw up a few cases per year of these kangaroo courts.

However and as others have pointed out, not a large number in the grand scheme of things. Tiny in fact, but the mad ones make the headlines. The daft "speech codes" type stuff is more of a worry, because that is much more endemic in US colleges.

Though sometimes the farce can get weird even when the accused is declared innocent. There was a case last year of a woman who accused a fellow student of a sexual assault/rape. OK. Thing was they had already been doing the wild thing and more she took months to bring the case against him, in the interim texting and arsebooking him regularly in a more than friendly way. She brought it to the college authorities, who brought yer man in, wouldn't let him show their interactions after the alleged event and other well dubious procedures. In the end though, they decided that he was in the clear and considering how twitchy such campuses are about this sort of thing this likely means he is nothing short of a saint. Still they did ban him from certain areas of the campus and his reputation suffered the no smoke without fire problem. Only then did she decide to file a police report, but that got thrown out too(and why she didn't do this in the first place, but anyway). So then she hit the media. Can't go wrong there. But best of all because she was an "art" student, she decided to make her final college project a "performance piece" where she carried the mattress where the alleged event took place for the rest of the school term, even hauled it along for her graduation cap and gown ceremony. Oh and she had a lot of support for this daftness and I can't imagine the guy who was the focus of this had a happy time. You'd think that was it, but oh no. Oh heavens no. The last I heard of her she made a reconstruction full on sextape of the event as "art". I am not making this up folks.

Though again, while this was a media story, it's about one complete nutjob, it is not about the whole student body and said nutjob didn't get the guilty verdict she wanted, even in Daftown College USA.

ThinkProgress

Women can rape someone with their minds.

I've seen it happen. It's one of the least reported crimes out there!

A lot of sadist females out there, who enjoy f*cking with people's heads!

Should be doing time in prison... Little vixens!

Samaris

Special Circumstances wrote: »

Are you familiar with the concepts of euphemisms and metaphors?

I am, if you read my full sentence, you'd have gotten it was a joke on the phrase, and I was pointing out that receiving oral sex doesn't require any motor* functions.

*That was a pun too.

Grayson

Rough Sleeper wrote: »

Gotta call you up on your closing remark there. You're making the mistake of basing the prevalence of an occurrence on its exposure in the media. You're invoking two cases here and extrapolating from them to suggest that this problem is endemic, a pretty serious claim. In reality, I'd imagine that you'd find only a handful of such cases if you searched around, most of them from the US, a country of more than 300 million people. This reminds me of the recent case of the young girl dying after taking drugs purported to be ecstasy, and the views I saw expressed which seemed to suggest that taking pills was akin to playing a game of Russian roulette. In reality, the chance of such an event is extremely low, and I'd say that in reality cases like the one you've mentioned are very rare. The fact that similar occurrences are unusual makes them newsworthy items by nature, which can skew perception of how much they actually happen.

For sure, based on the limited information given it sounds very unfair, but it's a bit of a stretch to label instances like it as endemic.

False rape claims rarely occur outside of specific circumstances. It's very rare for a girl to claim it.

Never the less, it is shameful that he has no recourse at all.

osarusan

Sounds horrible on the face of it*, but I remember reading that when Harvard introduced a new university policy on sex (can't remember what exactly, but similar to the above), around 100 Harvard Law professors were objecting to it on the grounds that it conflicted significantly with the law they were actually teaching!

* on the face of it, because the Washington examiner is a complete rag and I would absolutely not argue anything with that publication as the sole source of information.

ThinkProgress

Grayson wrote: »

False rape claims rarely occur outside of specific circumstances. It's very rare for a girl to claim it.

Never the less, it is shameful that he has no recourse at all.

Actually false rape claims are very high.

I read a report once, claiming 80% of teen rape claims were shown to be false when investigated. (In western countries)

Many girls/women get drunk, have sex... And then decide they were assaulted after they realise who they had sex with. (Usually some guy they'd never be attracted to without alcohol)

Not that I'm trivialising genuine incidents of rape - real rape is not very common!

AnonoBoy

ThinkProgress wrote: »

real rape is not very common!

Define 'not very common'.

Rough Sleeper

ThinkProgress wrote: »

Actually false rape claims are very high.

I read a report once, claiming 80% of teen rape claims were shown to be false when investigated. (In western countries)

Many girls/women get drunk, have sex... And then decide they were assaulted after they realise who they had sex with. (Usually some guy they'd never be attracted to without alcohol)

Not that I'm trivialising genuine incidents of rape - real rape is not very common!

You got a source for this? AFAIK a separate trial is required to show that a rape claim is false - so what you're saying is not only that 80% of teen rape claims did not result in prosecution, but that the person who claimed to be raped was then successfully prosecuted for false allegations.

suicide_circus

Surely he was assaulted?

Wibbs

ThinkProgress wrote: »

Actually false rape claims are very high.

I read a report once, claiming 80% of teen rape claims were shown to be false when investigated. (In western countries)

Well I'd love to see a link to that.

Not that I'm trivialising genuine incidents of rape - real rape is not very common!

Or this for that matter.

Now I am the first to call bullshít on the "one in four" statistic that gets trotted out, but pulling a figure like 80% of teen rape claims are false is taking the piss IMH.

Gongoozler

Lads, endemic and epidemic are two different words.

Forest Demon

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAdqolU8ZIA

Forest Demon

Forest Demon wrote: »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAdqolU8ZIA

And that, right there, is why men would have such difficulty in coming forward about sexual assaults. Post that in a thread where it is a woman who is a victim and see what happens. *sigh*

And yes, endemic doesn't mean epidemic.

uch

If he was Blacked out, How did he get a stiffie ? or was she chewing on a 10p Jelly Snake

Forest Demon

Deleted User wrote: »

And that, right there, is why men would have such difficulty in coming forward about sexual assaults. Post that in a thread where it is a woman who is a victim and see what happens. *sigh*

And yes, endemic doesn't mean epidemic.

They don't come forward because it very rarely if ever happens. it is all to common for women unfortunately. False rape claims and physical assault yes but actual sexual assault from a woman to a man is not common. Maybe she is right and was assaulted by the man and now he claims he was asleep. He did not run to the police the next day.

Rough Sleeper

Deleted User wrote: »

And yes, endemic doesn't mean epidemic.

Gongoozler wrote: »

Lads, endemic and epidemic are two different words.

Saying something is endemic implies that it occurs at a high rate within a given sample. The responses in question suggested that these occurrences are quite rare, ie. not endemic, so I don't see any need for correction on semantics.

Conall Cernach

uch wrote: »

If he was Blacked out, How did he get a stiffie ? or was she chewing on a 10p Jelly Snake

I don't know about you but my trouser snake has a mind of its own and makes itself known at completely random times regardless of my state of consciousness.

Sonderkommando

Wibbs wrote: »

American college was all I needed to read. Their internal "courts" run along lines that would be illegal beyond the campus gates. EG with quite a few of them the "defendant" especially in sexual assault charges has little of an avenue to defend him or herself(but overwhelmingly the former). Sometimes to the point of farce. This kinda outcome doesn't surprise me and it happens regularly enough. A quick google will throw up a few cases per year of these kangaroo courts.

However and as others have pointed out, not a large number in the grand scheme of things. Tiny in fact, but the mad ones make the headlines. The daft "speech codes" type stuff is more of a worry, because that is much more endemic in US colleges.

Though sometimes the farce can get weird even when the accused is declared innocent. There was a case last year of a woman who accused a fellow student of a sexual assault/rape. OK. Thing was they had already been doing the wild thing and more she took months to bring the case against him, in the interim texting and arsebooking him regularly in a more than friendly way. She brought it to the college authorities, who brought yer man in, wouldn't let him show their interactions after the alleged event and other well dubious procedures. In the end though, they decided that he was in the clear and considering how twitchy such campuses are about this sort of thing this likely means he is nothing short of a saint. Still they did ban him from certain areas of the campus and his reputation suffered the no smoke without fire problem. Only then did she decide to file a police report, but that got thrown out too(and why she didn't do this in the first place, but anyway). So then she hit the media. Can't go wrong there. But best of all because she was an "art" student, she decided to make her final college project a "performance piece" where she carried the mattress where the alleged event took place for the rest of the school term, even hauled it along for her graduation cap and gown ceremony. Oh and she had a lot of support for this daftness and I can't imagine the guy who was the focus of this had a happy time. You'd think that was it, but oh no. Oh heavens no. The last I heard of her she made a reconstruction full on sextape of the event as "art". I am not making this up folks.

Though again, while this was a media story, it's about one complete nutjob, it is not about the whole student body and said nutjob didn't get the guilty verdict she wanted, even in Daftown College USA.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mattress_Performance_(Carry_That_Weight)

The fact that it was positivity reviewed genuinely scares me.

ElvisChrist6

Rough Sleeper wrote: »

You got a source for this? AFAIK a separate trial is required to show that a rape claim is false - so what you're saying is not only that 80% of teen rape claims did not result in prosecution, but that the person who claimed to be raped was then successfully prosecuted for false allegations.

(Was trying to multi-quote, but obviously didn't work, so I'll just respond with this one here)

Statistics regarding something like this are never going to really reflect truth, because they can't. 80% is absurd even if you only look at the fact that, as Rough Sleeper points out, there is no way 80% of cases that have gone to trial have concluded they were false and most of the time it is unlikely anyone but at least one of the parties involved will ever know the full truth. And if we could, I seriously doubt it would be near 80%. I would wager (and that's all I'm doing, is guessing) that most false claims never go through the courts or even to the police as it's a long process to go through, but instead are told to friends of theirs/the accused. I have personal experience with a situation like that in which the girl who made the accusation forgot I was there for much of the night and knew most of her facts were untrue, but she never brought it to police or courts. That's only anecdotal, but it makes sense due to the chance of being caught out that it's mostly outside the courts this happens.

However, at the same time, I'm also dubious of very low percentages claimed by statistics on false claims because they do not and cannot take into account defendants who take plea bargains, who were never charged for one reason or another and a lot of the time those who received an innocent verdict. They can't use these as they don't know if the cases were true or not. All that can be used are the cases in which it was proven, for the most part, to be false. We've had a couple of cases come up in Ireland recently; notably that girl who just wanted a lift home from the Gardaí (or it might have been up the north... I'd look it up but I have slow internet). There's another high-profile one in America concerning the singer of a band called Falling in Reverse in which the woman accusing him and his security guard went to the police, but they could prove the security guard was at the stage with the singer during one of the alleged rapes and that there were many people around them during the second time she cited. He's now suing for libel. These would both go on those lists, but if these things couldn't be proven even if the singer didn't get charged it wouldn't.

We'll never know true numbers or percentages and a lot of sources are skewed, both to show higher and lower percentages, depending on the provider of the statistics. All we really need to know is rape is bad, false accusations are bad, we should condemn both and hope their numbers decrease in time.

Overheal

I'd like to point out the entire university system is battling with systemic problems, from here to california, usually around topics regarding the greek life system, as well as the special bubble of law that occurs on campuses due to campus honor codes and such. One example is the assumption of M->F statutory rape in the presence of any amount of alcohol consumption.

A big issue in particular is under-reporting of sexual assault in addition to poor handling of sexual assault grievances. The problem is heavily contributed to publicity: universities resist disclosing reports of sexual assault because publication of such incidents can have a direct impact on enrollment; nobody wants to send their daughter to a school where she can be abducted and raped while she's out for a jog on a campus walkway, or has her drink spiked at a party. In the latter, I hear about such incidents/accusations on the regular from sororities of specific fraternities, yet those complaints never make it to the media cycle - either because they're uncorroborated or the university refuses to look into it, can't be sure which.