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America’s New Sex Bureaucracy

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Re: America’s New Sex Bureaucracy

#61
post #38

Meh. This is the second sexual revolution. The first go around resulted in rules and around causal sex in college that favor men and encode male expectations. Women are making clear that those rules don’t work for them and are demanding a change. If you don’t push the line on consent you have nothing to worry about.

Men have always been much worse off than women in their own ways. Dying in wars/violence, outcast from society and social networks at far higher rates, less sympathized with, expected to carve out their own niche and resources independently.

Safety vs independence has been the Grand Bargain since the beginning of humanity. Women got the former regardless of what they want, men got the latter regardless of what the want (overall and relatively speaking of course).

Men and women both have had it rough. The idea that women ever were/and especially are currently the overall disadvantaged sex is a patronizing myth.

Re: America’s New Sex Bureaucracy

#62
post #38

Meh. This is the second sexual revolution. The first go around resulted in rules and around causal sex in college that favor men and encode male expectations. Women are making clear that those rules don’t work for them and are demanding a change. If you don’t push the line on consent you have nothing to worry about.

I get what you're saying. But the "second sexual revolution" actually happened in the 80s-90s. I remember it distinctly. You always paused, and clearly asked, at each stage.

But this is different. Now there is no such thing as "consent". Or rather, consent can be withdrawn retroactively.

I've never been accused of rape, as far as I know. But many years ago, one girlfriend told me that she had thought I was wealthy. With the implication that we wouldn't be having sex, if she had known that I wasn't. Today, that might well become an accusation of rape. In that I had tricked her.

Re: America’s New Sex Bureaucracy

#63
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The answer is in the article: Title IX requires them to. Specifically, the new federal guidance that was issued during the Obama administration.

I understand “why,” in that they are required to. What I don’t understand is why this is a thing to begin with. Government end-runs around standard systems of due process is odd.

From the article:

"This ideology is a successor to liberalism. It brandishes terms that superficially resemble normative liberalism—terms like diversity and inclusion—but in fact seeks to supplant it. This new regime, in which administrative power has been fashioned into a blunt instrument of deterrence, marks off a crucial distinction—between the liberal rule of law, and the punitive system of surveillance rooted in identity politics known as 'social justice.'”

Re: America’s New Sex Bureaucracy

#64
post #36

For the life of me I don’t understand why government funded institutions run their own tribunals. Send it through the proper court system, if the accused is guilty you can expel them cleanly.

Sometimes an organization needs to act with less power to punish, but also less standard of proof. For example, NFL player Ray Rice was caught on video punching his girlfriend unconscious. The NFL can’t put him in prison, but they did suspend him from the league, because he was a toxic brand even though his girlfriend did not press criminal or civil charges. These universities are government organizations, but also l…

It's one thing when there is incontrovertible proof, it's another when it's he said she said.

Re: America’s New Sex Bureaucracy

#65
post #45

This is a very difficult issue. Most sexual assaults happen in private, so there is rarely any evidence a victim can use to convict the perpetrator. Most accusations are real, but some are questionable as to whether a crime was committed, and some accusations are false. Given there is almost never any evidence, victims are at a severe disadvantage in the innocent until proven guilty paradigm. I can understand why som…

Can you at least consider yourself outside of the camp that considers it to be "rape whenever a woman has sex and feels violated”, and feels no need for standard due process measures in campus sexual assault judgments? What would be the equivalent extremities of the opposite camp? I'm not hearing from many opponents that sexual assault should be tolerated. It's more common to hear that they should be immediately esca…

> I'm not hearing from many opponents that sexual assault should be tolerated.

It wasn't that long ago that a literal parade of college students were chanting "No means yes! Yes means anal!"

Fortunately, that behavior isn't common. But it also isn't fair to insinuate that the other side doesn't exist.

Re: America’s New Sex Bureaucracy

#66
post #43
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the same time someone’s standing shouldn’t be in danger due to a malicious accusation. This is a really hard problem because you want victims to be helped and not have to go through a grueling process for something they didn’t bring upon themselves, but simultaneously you don’t want to enable false accusations which would put undue burden on someone who didn’t bring that upon themselves either.

A malicious accusation always puts ones standing in danger. If I were to accuse you of just about any crime, your odds of being wrongfully convicted of that crime go up, even if just a little. If I get this claim published widely enough, you will have a harder time finding a job, even if it the claim later proven false. The question at hand is whether or not things have gone too far.

> The question at hand is whether or not things have gone too far.

I think it's fairly clear that it has, at this point.

1. Sexual assault is defined so broadly it's virtually impossible to legal have sex. "Can I hug you?" "Yes" "Can I kiss you?" "Yes" "Can I squeeze your butt?" "Yes" etc. Did you kiss their neck without asking for and receiving positive, enthusiastic consent? That's sexual assault.

2. There's no recourse if there's an accusation. Notification of a complaint is stated in the form of expulsion. Once expelled, there's no appeals process.

There can and should be an extra judicial system to expect offenders. But this is the wrong one.

Re: America’s New Sex Bureaucracy

#67

>But after a lifetime in service of the feminist cause, she took on the case of a friend whose son she came to believe had been wrongly convicted of rape and won his acquittal on appeal. This is one of the big ways in which sexism is a much more tractable problem than racism and less potentially explosive. Women and men both have members of the opposite sex that they genuinely love. I have heard that fathers with dau…

I'm not sure the scenarios "some of my best friends are of the opposite sex" or "some of my best friends are of another race" have much bearing on sexism or racism. Loving someone from a different category doesn't automatically dissolve all antagonism or prejudice—it might just override it in a specific case. Relationships are multidimensional. You would need to provide evidence that these bonds of love/affection som…

As one potential example, though I'd want to see more data on actual relationships, regions with more immigrants tend to have warmer feelings toward immigrants, even among the non-immigrant population.

Re: America’s New Sex Bureaucracy

#68
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you at least consider yourself outside of the camp that considers it to be "rape whenever a woman has sex and feels violated”, and feels no need for standard due process measures in campus sexual assault judgments? What would be the equivalent extremities of the opposite camp? I'm not hearing from many opponents that sexual assault should be tolerated. It's more common to hear that they should be immediately esca…

> I'm not hearing from many opponents that sexual assault should be tolerated. It wasn't that long ago that a literal parade of college students were chanting "No means yes! Yes means anal!" Fortunately, that behavior isn't common. But it also isn't fair to insinuate that the other side doesn't exist.

It definitely exists, but doesn't appear to have anything like the equivalent influence. It has been successfully marginalized.

Re: America’s New Sex Bureaucracy

#69

For the life of me I don’t understand why government funded institutions run their own tribunals. Send it through the proper court system, if the accused is guilty you can expel them cleanly.

Leaving aside the hot-button topic of sexual assault, there are plenty of sub-criminal or borderline actions that can occur that the college needs to deal with. Not all violations of a code of conduct are criminal violations. They'd much rather "sentence" an underage drinker to an alcohol education session than have all such students arrested. A lot of this is mission-driven: Schools honestly believe their role is to…

"Learning Experience" vs. "Permanent, intractable and public Scarlet Letter" :|

Re: America’s New Sex Bureaucracy

#70
post #30

For the life of me I don’t understand why government funded institutions run their own tribunals. Send it through the proper court system, if the accused is guilty you can expel them cleanly.

Ideally that makes sense to me, but unfortunately courts take a long of time and don't always pursue cases thoroughly. Given that reality, I don't know how an institution is supposed to handle the following scenario without their own tribunal system: Student A and Student B have a class together. Their dorms are next door to each other. Student A rapes Student B. Is Student B expected to attend class every day with t…

Your scenario and the scenario where someone is falsely accused are indistinguishable prior to a court proceeding. In the second case the victim is the person being falsely accused. Then you would have the same problem with the victim being unable to maintain their academic performance if you kick them out of school without due process.

Let's even admit that forcing a rape victim to live in the same dorm as their rapist is untenable. So that option is off the table and one of them should leave, but in that case it would be the same burden (of leaving) on each class of victim and the tiebreaker should be innocent until proven guilty. On top of that, it may be possible to live in a different dorm or take different classes while remaining at the same school, which is a lesser burden than an innocent victim being forced out of the entire school.

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