Maybe Your Son's A Rapist: A Response to Time Magazine's Criminal Defense Lawyer Comment

Time Magazine’s May issue was perhaps the greatest summary of different views and realities about campus sexual violence over the past year.  Along with being one of the most awkward purchases of my life (the Barnes and Noble cashier only saw the giant “RAPE” flag on the front and was a little afraid), the “Debate” section really opened my eyes to some different opinions.

Naturally, one made me angry.  A criminal defense lawyer gave the following opinion.

“Colleges will risk sanction by the Department of Education if they don’t take action in favor of women who report sexual assault.  The school’s incentive is to set up a process that results in guilt.  One way schools accomplish this is by defining sexual assault as sex with any one who has been drinking.  But drunk sex isn’t what Joe Biden is talking about.  The ‘drunk sex=rape’ rule is systematically unfair to male students, especially when we all know drunk sex is common in college.  When my daughter leaves for college, I want her to be protected from sexual assault.  But when my son goes to college, I want him to not risk his future whenever he has sex after a party.  And based on the cases I’ve seen, I’m more concerned for my son than my daughter”

Initial rage-summary:  I’m more concerned that my son will be in trouble for fucking anything that moves without any regard for consequence than I am about my daughter being raped.

But seriously, I actually want to unpack this step by step (SO THAT WE CAN GO DEEPER).

(1) “The school’s incentive is to set up process resulting in guilt.”

           

Ugh, no it isn’t.  A school’s incentive is to do whatever is attractive to incoming students.  That is to under-report rapes and therefore to set up a process resulting in innocence.   Whenever the administration can say “oh, those crazy kids”, the school can just write it off with a relatively clear conscience. In theory, colleges have always been at risk for Department of Education sanction due to under or misreporting because doing so is a Title IX violation (and they’ve known about it since 2011 according to TIME).

Sure there is a little more drive and push after 55 schools have been publically called out for being under investigation, but we all know that only a few will actually be found “guilty” and it is really unlikely that federal funding will be pulled. 

(2) “Schools define rape as sex with anyone who has been drinking.”

First off, school’s tend to define rape as having sex with anyone who is unable to give consent.  Being drunk means you are unable to give legal consent. 

Notice how these definitions are different.  If I go out and get drunk with my girlfriend of four years, and we both agree to have sex when we get home, and then DO have sex when we get home, all else being equal, it isn’t rape.

However, if I just met a girl at a party and we are both drunk, maybe it is rape.  OR at the very least, a truly well-meaning good guy should be operating under the assumption that it might be. 

But how are guys supposed to make the kind of judgment call?  I don’t know, the same way they decide not to go on homicidal shooting sprees after a night of drinking.  Which leads me to…

(3) The whole, “systematically unfair” and “worried about my son” part.

Why is this guy so afraid for his son?  Let’s disregard the whole part about how he is more concerned for his son’s  (if history gives us any evidence) slap on the wrist for being accused of  rape than for his daughter’s potential rape.

He claims he is basing this fear off “the cases he’s seen”.  Now, as someone who makes a living defending rapists… I mean men accused of rape, I could understand how you would be more likely than others to find evidence that there are many women who lie.  But just like nurses who think full moons bring out the craziest injuries, the data just doesn’t support it.  According to One in Four and a host of other research, less than 10% of all reported sexual violence cases are unfounded.  It is important to note that this statistic in its collection is likely flawed in a way that would make the actual value even lower.  For example, police officers may dismiss a sexual violence case if the victim has a prior relationship to the assailant or if drugs or alcohol were involved. 

You could see why this would be a big problem at college.

Furthermore, David Lisak and other researchers have gone on to study perpetrators of sexual violence.  In their studies, as reported by TIME, somewhere around 6% of men report rape perpetration behaviors, and half of those (3% of men) report multiple offenses, with an average of 6 rapes each. 

Why is this important to our lawyer friend?  If drunk sex were so common in college, and it was so easy to conflate drunk sex with rape, wouldn’t we expect to see these report behaviors way higher than 6%?  Or is it possible that 94% of men out there know when something is wrong; that having sex with a woman who is too drunk to give consent is wrong.   The claim that these policies are “systematically unfair” to men is only true if we admit that men have no responsibility to be morally cognizant of the rights of those around them.

There is also the equally likely possibility is it possible that women aren’t falsifying reports (what!?!).  There is some fear out there that women love to make up rape stories.  Why?  Why would a woman’s desire to claim someone raped her be any stronger than a man’s desire to say he was the victim of a crime?  Perhaps the nature of the crime being difficult to prove and the social stigma placed on the accused…

Hmm… how is that working out for them?

What should Mr. Lawyer’s take away be?

Rape culture has created a world that has blinded you towards the truth of what is happening.  So much has been made of campus sexual violence that a sensationalized media brings you stories of men falsely accused of rape.  Because these stories are so accessible compared to the statistical reality, we cling to these and claim they are the norm, plunging us into a world where women apparently love to take time out of the best 4 years of their life to sit in front of some deans and make up stories.

Rape culture has created a world where we fear our sons will be accused of violence, but lack the courage to ask ourselves whether we have prepared them to be good men. Is it possible that they are capable of violence.  Rape culture is when we say sexual assault policies work systematically against men because we believe the only thing that separates a rape from a drunken mistake is what side of the bed the girl wakes up on the next morning, leaving good men “vulnerable”

It is time for us to face reality, as represented by what we know from data and facts.

Here’s an uncomfortable truth, Mr. Lawyer.  If your son is accused of sexual assault in college, it’s probably because he did it.