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

  • 11-06-2015 11:10am
    #1
    Posts: 0


    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.


Comments

  • Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 127 ✭✭Buzz Meeks


    HARD to prove.


  • Registered Users Posts: 6,544 ✭✭✭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.


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,188 ✭✭✭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.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 22,559 ✭✭✭✭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.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 10,900 ✭✭✭✭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


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 84,052 ✭✭✭✭Atlantic Dawn
    M


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


  • Registered Users Posts: 6,544 ✭✭✭Samaris


    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.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 803 ✭✭✭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.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 7,569 ✭✭✭Special Circumstances


    Samaris wrote: »
    no car driving in question!

    Are you familiar with the concepts of euphemisms and metaphors?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 68,317 ✭✭✭✭seamus


    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.


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  • Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 60,183 Mod ✭✭✭✭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.

    Rejoice in the awareness of feeling stupid, for that’s how you end up learning new things. If you’re not aware you’re stupid, you probably are.



  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,634 ✭✭✭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! :D


  • Registered Users Posts: 6,544 ✭✭✭Samaris


    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.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 16,409 ✭✭✭✭Grayson


    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.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 16,713 ✭✭✭✭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.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,634 ✭✭✭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!


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 22,559 ✭✭✭✭AnonoBoy


    real rape is not very common!

    Define 'not very common'.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 803 ✭✭✭Rough Sleeper


    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.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 19,802 ✭✭✭✭suicide_circus


    Surely he was assaulted?


  • Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 60,183 Mod ✭✭✭✭Wibbs


    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.

    Rejoice in the awareness of feeling stupid, for that’s how you end up learning new things. If you’re not aware you’re stupid, you probably are.



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  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,263 ✭✭✭Gongoozler


    Lads, endemic and epidemic are two different words.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 632 ✭✭✭Forest Demon




  • Posts: 0 [Deleted User]



    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.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,019 ✭✭✭uch


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

    21/25



  • Closed Accounts Posts: 632 ✭✭✭Forest Demon


    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.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 803 ✭✭✭Rough Sleeper


    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.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,954 ✭✭✭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.


  • Registered Users Posts: 183 ✭✭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.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 595 ✭✭✭ElvisChrist6


    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.


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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 86,323 ✭✭✭✭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.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 237 ✭✭Nucular Arms


    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.

    Literally happened to my brother about a month ago.

    He brought a friend from work and her other friend back one night after a messy friday drinking session, got absolutely s**t faced and then went and passed out alone in his bed.

    After about an hour or so the friend of the work colleague (who was an insufferable b**ch it must be said) starts whinging about how she wanted to get her hole that night and was annoyed now that she couldn't because my brother was passed out.

    After we all failed to take the bait anyway she basically just marched upstairs into his room and spent the night there.

    The next day we were asking my brother what the story was and he was absolutely shocked. Had no memory of it at all.

    We were sort of laughing about it and all at first, but then it occurred to me that, were the roles reversed this would have been considered a legitimate rape / sexual assault case.


  • Registered Users Posts: 6,544 ✭✭✭Samaris


    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.

    Pretty dangerous thing to say, that. Firstly, the male didn't neccessarily even know it had happened. Secondly, he may have become aware, but forgot it (until the chaos started). Thirdly; can you really imagine a teenage boy going to the police, even if he felt really uncomfortable and violated by the incident, to report that a girl sucked him the previous night without permission? He'd be laughed out of it by anyone who heard about it.

    And fourthly, the girl's text messages gave her away big-time.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 632 ✭✭✭Forest Demon


    Samaris wrote: »
    Pretty dangerous thing to say, that. Firstly, the male didn't neccessarily even know it had happened. Secondly, he may have become aware, but forgot it (until the chaos started). Thirdly; can you really imagine a teenage boy going to the police, even if he felt really uncomfortable and violated by the incident, to report that a girl sucked him the previous night without permission? He'd be laughed out of it by anyone who heard about it.

    And fourthly, the girl's text messages gave her away big-time.

    Fair enough but I really don't think it's a common issue. I don't know and have never heard of any blokes who ever claim to have been violated by a girl sucking him without permission except maybe when they are caught by the wife/girlfriend. As a woman how easy would all many of you accept that excuse?

    I am only talking about that aspect. False claims, drugging and physical assault yes but actual sexual assault by a woman against a man has to be very rare. How many cases in court in the last 10 years in Ireland?


  • Registered Users Posts: 6,544 ✭✭✭Samaris


    It was actually this line I was really arguing with:

    "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."

    I do agree it is rare, but that's never a reason to automatically disbelieve someone when the weight of evidence is in their favour. Female victims are finally being listened to (albeit not as much as they should be), so we should and must do the same for male victims.

    In terms of would I accept that excuse - yes, from my partner whom I love and trust. And you can bet I would be just as enraged at the woman who did it as he would be on my behalf should I be assaulted by a male.


  • Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 60,183 Mod ✭✭✭✭Wibbs


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

    The fact that it was positivity reviewed genuinely scares me.
    There aren't enough facepalm memes in the world to adequately explain my feelings on that. Talk about a nutjob noticebox. "I've been raped, so I'll wait months while chatting with and hanging out with my rapist to bring charges in an environment that will automatically believe me, then when that doesn't work I'll carry my "rape mattress" around and make a full on porno as art" said nobody ever. Well nobody who wasn't resident in a secure facility with soft bouncy walls and backwardly fastening jackets.

    "Art critic Jerry Saltz called Mattress Performance "pure radical vulnerability" and one of the best art shows of 2014." Da fuq? :eek: Is the current art world so bereft of ideas that this gets called one of the best art shows?

    This bit is laughable: "The mattress, housed since May 2015 in Sulkowicz's parents' home, became an icon of a wider civil rights debate about the effect of campus sexual assault on women's equal access to education

    Now a mattress is an icon. Like the 2001 monolith only softer. The real joke is that "women's equal access to education" in the US and Canada(and indeed here) is a stupid line to take, given that women outnumber men in colleges and that gap is widening(In Canada it's 3 to 1). Then again reality seems to be a hard concept for these kinda eejits.

    The crowning glory is shooting a porno as art about rape mind you. "Notice me!! Notice meeeee! Do these kinda thundering gobshítes live in such an echo box of nonsense that cop on and good sense bounces off them? WTF do her family and friends think? Wouldn't be surprised that they're fully supportive though, even encouraging. There is a small section of your middle class college society that are so distanced from reality that they are I think the term is "Batshít crazy" Beggars belief.

    Rejoice in the awareness of feeling stupid, for that’s how you end up learning new things. If you’re not aware you’re stupid, you probably are.



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,180 ✭✭✭DellyBelly




  • Closed Accounts Posts: 667 ✭✭✭OneOfThem


    but actual sexual assault by a woman against a man has to be very rare. How many cases in court in the last 10 years in Ireland?

    I don't think the amount of court cases is going to give you an accurate figure for how often it happens, for obvious reasons.

    As a man I can think of three instances that would certainly qualify as sexual assault if my place and the girls in question were switched. I didn't report any to the police as I basically didn't think of it as a big deal, but there's no doubt that it was sexual assault as the law would define it and if the genders were switched I'd have thought of it as such straight off.

    I can think a few different incidents male friends would have told me about happening to them over the years as well. Definitely would fall under the legal definition of sexual assault. None would have reported them to the police though.

    I don't think it's extremely common, no one in four claims here or anything ridiculous like that, but I definitely definitely don't think it's vanishingly rare like you seem to. I think you'd get some shock tbh.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 7,509 ✭✭✭tritium


    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.

    Could you provide the citation to the research your basing such a definitive statement on? Because I'm assuming your not just pulling it out of your ass and treating it as fact, right?


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 81,220 ✭✭✭✭biko


    Reminds me of a fairly recent case where a guy was accused of rape.
    As it happened he had filmed the intercourse and could use this to prove it was consensual.
    He was then convicted of taping the act without the girl's consent.

    Just can't ****ing win sometimes.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 853 ✭✭✭LadyFenghuang


    In the United States, the FBI Uniform Crime Report in 1996 and the United States Department of Justice in 1997 stated 8% of rape accusations in the United States were regarded as unfounded or false.The FBI reports consistently put the number of “unfounded” rape accusations around 8%. NOT 80 % but 8%.


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  • Posts: 0 [Deleted User]


    In the United States, the FBI Uniform Crime Report in 1996 and the United States Department of Justice in 1997 stated 8% of rape accusations in the United States were regarded as unfounded or false.The FBI reports consistently put the number of “unfounded” rape accusations around 8%. NOT 80 % but 8%.
    But so should any other numbers, such as the 8 percent figure that is commonly attributed to the FBI. When you dig into the research itself, you find it is often heavily inflected with the authors' prior beliefs about what constitutes the “real problem”: unreported cases of rape or false reports? So Kanin is frequently chided for accepting the results of a police department investigation that included offering the victims a polygraph, because this is intimidating for true victims as well as women making false reports, and it could raise the incidence of false negatives. On the other hand, if the rate of false rape reports is quite high -- much higher than that of other crimes -- then this might be a reasonable precaution. It’s possible that by encouraging police departments not to polygraph rape victims, we have fixed a cruel system in which innocent victims are bullied into recanting. It’s also possible that we’ve increased the number of false accusations that proceed to investigation and conviction.

    Source: Bloombergview.com

    That article also mentions a 41% rate. The truth is that we will never know the true number.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,005 ✭✭✭Letree


    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.

    The problem is the rules are there that allowed him be shafted so badly.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,389 ✭✭✭NachoBusiness


    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.

    Think that's what this woman was hoping for.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 632 ✭✭✭Forest Demon


    tritium wrote: »
    Could you provide the citation to the research your basing such a definitive statement on? Because I'm assuming your not just pulling it out of your ass and treating it as fact, right?

    As soon as I conclude my research into badgers not being the cause of baldness I will get right on it.


  • Registered Users Posts: 6,544 ✭✭✭Samaris


    I fear for what fury I may unleash here, but I want to call bullsh*t on how this is being reported. "Man sexually assaulted while blacked out". That so difficult, Washington Post? Not "received sex act" as if he was a consenting partner to a bit of fun, dammit, assaulted.


    Sheesh. We still have a long way to go.


  • Registered Users Posts: 641 ✭✭✭NI24


    Overheal wrote: »
    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.

    Me too. There are some colleges where sororities have lists of men to avoid at parties (they always belong to fraternities) because they are known around campus for spiking drinks. I have a theory that the reason these types of assaults go unreported is because they always seem to involve fraternity guys and guys that get into fraternities generally have some connections. So maybe it's just a class thing.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 4,116 ✭✭✭RDM_83 again


    NI24 wrote: »
    Me too. There are some colleges where sororities have lists of men to avoid at parties (they always belong to fraternities) because they are known around campus for spiking drinks. I have a theory that the reason these types of assaults go unreported is because they always seem to involve fraternity guys and guys that get into fraternities generally have some connections. So maybe it's just a class thing.

    Does spiking actually happen though or is it like Ireland and the UK where there's a perception it happens a lot but no evidence for it.
    (spiking with extra alcohol I believe probably does happen)


  • Registered Users Posts: 641 ✭✭✭NI24


    Does spiking actually happen though or is it like Ireland and the UK where there's a perception it happens a lot but no evidence for it.
    (spiking with extra alcohol I believe probably does happen)

    I believe it only because it's almost always fraternity guys. I don't want to turn this into a fraternity bashing thread, but where I went to college the fraternity guys were loathed by both men and women alike for their obnoxious and creepy behavior. The students, the staff, you name it. These guys have a lot of pull and they're untouchable in a lot of cases, especially if they're athletes. So while a girl certainly shouldn't fear getting assaulted on a jog (that can happen anywhere and rarely happens anyway), she should certainly watch herself at a party on a college campus.


  • Posts: 0 [Deleted User]


    Wasn't spiking actually found to be incredibly rare in Ireland.

    There's a few people I know that were spiked. In Galway there were rumours that a nightclub barman was purposefully spiking drinks, "for the laugh". Obviously I won't mention any names.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 4,116 ✭✭✭RDM_83 again


    There's a few people I know that were spiked. In Galway there were rumours that a nightclub barman was purposefully spiking drinks, "for the laugh". Obviously I won't mention any names.

    Its always rumours I don't think its ever actually been shown to happen, people don't have a clue how much they drink especially if they are predrinking, add to that sometimes alcohol just hits you differently for a variety of reasons, I am reasonable body weight and a pretty hardened drinker and there has been times I've been absolutely wrecked on far less than normal.
    NI24 wrote: »
    I believe it only because it's almost always fraternity guys. I don't want to turn this into a fraternity bashing thread, but where I went to college the fraternity guys were loathed by both men and women alike for their obnoxious and creepy behavior. The students, the staff, you name it. These guys have a lot of pull and they're untouchable in a lot of cases, especially if they're athletes. So while a girl certainly shouldn't fear getting assaulted on a jog (that can happen anywhere and rarely happens anyway), she should certainly watch herself at a party on a college campus.

    I don't doubt that they are creeps and probably abuse their position but my experience with american college students (in Ireland admittedly) is that spiking with drugs wouldn't even be needed they tend to be lightweights with no idea of their limits. This isn't trying to victim blame if you molest/assault somebody thats in bits its bad whether you spiked them deliberately or not


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