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America’s New Sex Bureaucracy

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Re: America’s New Sex Bureaucracy

#291

Post by AzuraJergen »

As society reaches a point where the cost of simply being accused of rape leads more and more cases of loss of a degree, job, social relations, imprisonment and that uncertainty over whether it happened or not forces decisions that are not fair or just to either party. We will simply see more and more individuals isolate themselves from the other sex to limit the risk that they will be blamed or look down upon for something.

Folks like the current Vice-President of the US, saying that he will only meet with a woman in the presence of others may become more prevalent and "correct" to limit the risk of liability. In the long run, this may lead us to fall back into segregation of sex similar to Islamic doctrine, where segregation is needed to ensure the protection of families and society.

Most may not be thinking about it, but change can happen slowly, but sometimes it happens abruptly like the changes we have been seen lately. I encourage everyone to use their minds to help build an environment that better suits the current times, before we go back in time and all we have to blame is ourselves.

Re: America’s New Sex Bureaucracy

#292

Post by vinceguidry »

DisruptiveDave wrote: post #254

In my junior year of college (very early 2000s), a senior friend was accused of rape by a classmate. Within two days he had to hide out at my girlfriend's house because a large group of large athletes was on the hunt for him to beat him up. Within weeks he was expelled from school. I don't recall the police ever being contacted. Turns out the girl was ashamed she voluntarily slept with him. She admitted it to friends…

I think it's horrible that this happened, but to be perfectly honest, this is why society is having a massive argument around what consent means. Did she really consent to having sex with him if she felt so ashamed of it afterward that she accused him of raping her? How voluntary was it really?

If you're a kid in this position, wondering whether it's dangerous to have sex, the answer is yes, it's one of the most dangerous things you can possibly do. Wasn't that long ago that having sex could put you in an early grave with an uncurable disease.

So just add "false accusation of rape" to the ever growing list of things that can happen to you if you're not careful with your jubbly bits.

Get everything in order before you start having sex. If you're in school, make sure your grades are decent, you know how to wrap it, line up someone who you know is interested and already have a friendly rapport with.

To go about it in any other way at all is to invite grave danger. It's always been this way, there has been no point in at least the last 1000 years, probably even longer that sex couldn't royally ruin your life.

Re: America’s New Sex Bureaucracy

#293

Post by naasking »

claudiawerner wrote: post #232
BurningFrog wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can see expelling people for things that are not crimes, such as cheating on tests, or breaking any number of arbitrary rules But having a lower standard of proof means expelling people who haven't actually done what you're expelling them for. That's a whole other thing, and I'm very hesitant about it. Of course, when the expulsions almost only happen to members of one gender, on the say-so of members of the other…

There's a great paper on this, Rape Culture and Epistemology [0] which, although provocatively titled, addresses why a lower standard of proof may be appropriate. >We’ll argue that this sort of deference is mistaken, for at least two kinds of reasons. One is that, as anti-rape activists have often emphasized, law enforcement procedures themselves are deeply flawed when it comes to their practice of dealing with sexua…

> We’ll argue that this sort of deference is mistaken, for at least two kinds of reasons. One is that, as anti-rape activists have often emphasized, law enforcement procedures themselves are deeply flawed when it comes to their practice of dealing with sexual assault.

Totally agreed. That doesn't justify instituting another unjust system to somehow counterbalance the existing unjust system. This just shifts the injustice to another class of people, it doesn't eliminate it, and human nature being what it is, people will exploit it for selfish ends.

You can only eliminate injustice by specifically addressing the injustice, not by moving it around.

Re: America’s New Sex Bureaucracy

#294

Post by slimed »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #289
slimed wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The woman admitted she lied, in private, to friends. Where is the coercion? Are you saying we should only believe women when they are accusing men of rape? And disbelieve them later?

I think we should take statistics into account. I think there's a likelihood that someone will lie about being raped, and a likelihood of them identifying a named individual (two numbers that should be considered seperately, since young girls who fall pregnant may lie to avoid blame, while not trying to blame anyone in particular). I think that similarly, there's a percentage of retractions that will also be false, f…

This is exactly the problem. You want to determine guilt based on what you believe is generally true about the world. Not about the facts of the case at hand.

The negative ramifications of this mindset for the accused are hard to overstate.

Re: America’s New Sex Bureaucracy

#295

Post by ineedasername »

ANPEQ-1 wrote: post #69
ineedasername wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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" :|

Again, I said leaving aside the controversial issue of sexual assault. For something like illegal drug or alcohol usage, except in very egregious circumstances, the goal is to avoid such a "Scarlet letter" by providing the student an opportunity to deal with the issue without involving law enforcement, e.g., drug/alcohol education programs, counseling or addiction services, and so on.

Re: America’s New Sex Bureaucracy

#296

Post by scandox »

DisruptiveDave wrote: post #254

In my junior year of college (very early 2000s), a senior friend was accused of rape by a classmate. Within two days he had to hide out at my girlfriend's house because a large group of large athletes was on the hunt for him to beat him up. Within weeks he was expelled from school. I don't recall the police ever being contacted. Turns out the girl was ashamed she voluntarily slept with him. She admitted it to friends…

Well this kind of anecdata if shared really has to come with details. Even if I knew and trusted you well I would need to hear about where the information comes from. There are huge gaps of detail to be filled in.

I am not saying that false accusations do not happen. I'm saying these kind of hearsay stories are not even evidence for the people that tell them.

Re: America’s New Sex Bureaucracy

#297

Post by senorjazz »

vinceguidry wrote: post #292
DisruptiveDave wrote: post #254

In my junior year of college (very early 2000s), a senior friend was accused of rape by a classmate. Within two days he had to hide out at my girlfriend's house because a large group of large athletes was on the hunt for him to beat him up. Within weeks he was expelled from school. I don't recall the police ever being contacted. Turns out the girl was ashamed she voluntarily slept with him. She admitted it to friends…

I think it's horrible that this happened, but to be perfectly honest, this is why society is having a massive argument around what consent means. Did she really consent to having sex with him if she felt so ashamed of it afterward that she accused him of raping her? How voluntary was it really? If you're a kid in this position, wondering whether it's dangerous to have sex, the answer is yes, it's one of the most dang…

Bollox. I don't think I could disagree more with practically everything you have written.

Re: America’s New Sex Bureaucracy

#298

Post by jessaustin »

tboughen wrote: post #178
jessaustin wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an easy determination in a case of heterosex: the male is the rapist and the female is the victim. Other cases could be more difficult.

Perhaps not as easy as you think - female on male rape happens. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_by_gender

Yes occasionally I need a reminder that sarcasm is not appreciated on HN.

Re: America’s New Sex Bureaucracy

#299

Post by roenxi »

atq2119 wrote: post #285
roenxi wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Consider how women couldn't vote in the US until 1919 -- a half century after blacks. Not letting women vote is arguably not necessarily a marker of sexism. It is more a marker of the relationship between a country's military leadership and institutions. Originally originally (~400BC) voting was basically for the army to decide when and where it would fight; hence male-only because men are the physically big ones w…

> Originally originally (~400BC) voting was basically for the army to decide when and where it would fight; This simply isn't true, since other topics were definitely voted on. For example, rather famously, there were votes on whether a person should be exiled from the city in ancient Greece.

There was a lovely quote from that era that said "A city with a navy become democracy, with an army a tyranny". I can't find a reference, but what I can find is this choice quote from Wikipedia [0]:

"Only adult male Athenian citizens who had completed their military training as ephebes had the right to vote in Athens."

I was a bit vague in my original comment, but the point I'm going for is that this looks lot like the army being in charge. The criteria wasn't "men because we like men". The criteria was questions like "are you going to be lining up to fight the Persians with me?" and "Can you build ships?". And a hint of nationalism/classism. If it were feasible to field women on the battlefield in 404BC they would have been voting too.

And indeed, as soon as we reach a level of technology where it is feasible for women to be policepersons and military contributors they start getting suffrage. It was still a battle, but the timing is highly suspicious.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athenian_democracy#Participati...

Re: America’s New Sex Bureaucracy

#300

Post by rayiner »

claudiawerner wrote: post #246
manfredo wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> MacKinnon's quote is not referring to an after-the-fact change of mind. Her point is that women may, under coercive circumstances, consent but nonetheless still feel violated. She posits that women may revoke consent after the fact, but the basis for that revocation is coercive circumstances that existed at the time of the act This is injecting your own message into what was written. MacKinnion wrote that, "Politic…

This is a poor reading of MacKinnon; in this case, there's no need for anyone to read into the statement when you can read what else she's written. She's one of the most heavily cited feminists of all time in academic literature.

Agreed. I believe this is the context for the original quote: https://books.google.com/books?id=rxE8FQzjpYMC&pg=PA82&lpg=P...

MacKinnon writes right after that quote:

> I think it's fairly common, and is increasingly known to be common, for men to seek sexual access to women in ways that we find coercive and unwanted. On those occasions the amount and kind of force are only matters of degree. The problem is that rapes do not tend to be reported or prosecuted or sanctioned based on the force that was used; not based on how coercive it was and not based on how violated the woman feels; instead they are based on how intimate she is with the person who did it. This is why most women think we won't be believed in reporting the most common rapes, that is, rapes by people we know.

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