No, The Washington Post-Kaiser Family Foundation Survey of Sexual Assault Is Not Bogus

nationalreivew

This is another guest post by Carla, which originally appeared on her blog Writing in Water, and appears here with her kind permission.

For more than 20 years, the idea of a crisis of sexual assault against women has been under attack; this attack has acquired new vigour in the wake of the White House’s focus on sexual assault on college campuses. When in June the Washington Post released a survey, in conjunction with the Kaiser Family Foundation, appearing to confirm the claim that one in 5 women will be sexually assaulted while at college, it was inevitable that critical articles would soon start appearing in the media. The National Review was one of the first to respond with a piece titled ‘The Post’s New Poll on Campus “Sexual Assault” is Bogus.’ While there are other surveys with larger sample sizes and more rigorous methodology that offer better evidence for the alarming levels of sexual victimisation faced by college women, the National Review article, which I will discuss here, nonetheless illustrates why we should be wary of laypeople in the media purporting to debunk sexual violence research.

Claim 1. This survey’s results resemble those of the unreliable 2007 Campus Sexual Assault Survey

The National Review begins by noting that the results of the Washington Post­ Kaiser survey are similar to the 2007 Campus Sexual Assault Survey (CSA), whose results, it is claimed, were “suspect from the start” because that survey used “an exceedingly generous definition of sexual assault and its response rate was relatively low.” This is misleading. To start with, the Washington Post­Kaiser survey is consistent with a body of research over several decades, not a single survey.1

Second, it is completely untrue that CSA used “an exceedingly generous definition of sexual assault.” CSA defined sexual assault as 1) oral, anal and vaginal sex and 2) “forced touching of a sexual nature (forced kissing, touching of private parts, grabbing, fondling, rubbing up against you in a sexual way, even if it is over your clothes)” that took place in the context of physical force/threats of physical force or incapacitation. Some critics have attempted to claim, unconvincingly, that the questions about incapacitated sexual assault in CSA are worded in such a way that they capture consensual sexual activity; I discuss this here. A smaller number of critics, including the National Review, have also attempted to argue that “forced kissing” is not really sexual assault. As Van Jones’s swift takedown of the editor of the National Review when he attempted to make this claim on ABC’s The Week shows, we need only ask the (male) proponents of this idea how they feel about being forcibly kissed by another man to underscore how thin this objection really is.

The second part of the National Review’scriticism of CSA, that “its response rate was relatively low” (around 42% of invited participants responded) is also unconvincing. There is little evidence that the survey’s results were affected by response bias. The authors of the survey actually went to some trouble to gauge if it was a problem—for example, they compared respondents who responded early with those who had to be prompted several times—and found no evidence of any. (Incidentally, the problem of bias in sexual violence surveys is more likely to work in the opposite way from which critics imagine. That is, reluctance to disclose these sensitive and traumatic events means they are more likely to undercount episodes of sexual violence.)

Claim 2. The survey’s results are much lower than those of the National Crime Victimization Survey

The National Review article next brings up that favourite of rape survey critics, the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS). Describing it as a “more comprehensive and rigorous” survey than CSA, the National Review notes that it found a sexual violence rate
of 7.6 per 1000. In reality, NCVS is widely recognised as a poor measure of sexual violence prevalence and its results are completely out of step with the collective results of 30 years of sexual violence surveys. These problems are recognised by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, which is currently contracting with researchers to improve the sexual violence portion of the survey.

NCVS primarily owes its unreliability to the wording of the question about sexual assault. In this question, respondents are first asked if anyone has “attacked or threatened you in any of these ways,” before being read a variety of violent crimes; the one asking about sexual violence is worded “Any rape, attempted rape or other type of sexual attack.” This question relies upon victims of sexual assault recognising that they have been raped and/or viewing it as an “attack,” and the context of the question makes it clear that the interviewer is asking about crimes that are on a par with being violently attacked with a weapon.

There are many reasons why victims of sexual assaults that fall within the purview of this question would not realise that they do, however. The dominant conception of ‘real’ sexual violence is that it is perpetrated by strangers with weapons who attack chaste women who actively resist. Sexual violence, including rape, that doesn’t fit this script (in other words, the vast majority), such as that perpetrated by intimate partners or in the context of heavy drinking, is routinely trivialised or not viewed criminal, and its victims are blamed or disbelieved. Unsurprisingly, therefore, it is extremely common for victims of sexual assault to blame themselves and downplay what happened (note that this does not mean that they were not traumatic events). We also know that the majority of victims of rape do not use the word “rape” to describe their experience. Moreover, the word “attack” in the NCVS sexual violence question implicitly excludes sexual violence that takes place in the context of incapacitation, or where the victim didn’t actively resist. It is, therefore, wholly unsurprising that many victims of sexual assault would not consider their experiences to align with the kinds of assaults that NCVS is asking about, even if they do.

Claim 3. The survey includes “unwanted sexual contact” in its definition of sexual assault, which is so broad that it includes legal acts and even innocent misunderstandings

The National Review‘s main criticism revolves around the fact that the survey questions asking about sexual assault include the phrase “unwanted sexual contact.” It claims that this is a much broader term than “sexual assault” and “can encompass behaviors that are not only not criminal, but may not … even constitute unlawful sexual harrassment.” In addition, the article claims, ‘“unwanted” is not the same as “without consent”’ and can “encompass a variety of circumstances, up to and including entirely legal misunderstandings and legal (though immoral) emotional manipulation.”

First, however, there is no formal definition of “sexual assault.” It is simply a term used by researchers to include a set of behaviours, usually broader than just rape; exactly what it includes depends on the researcher. Some states use the term in legislation, but its definition varies. Second, the question respondents were actually read lists possible types of “unwanted sexual contact” as 1) vaginal, oral or anal sex and 2) “Forced touching of a sexual nature,” with interviewers instructed to “read if needed” the following clarification: “forced kissing, touching of private parts, grabbing, fondling, rubbing up against you in a sexual way, even if it is over your clothes” (as can be seen, this question was modelled on CSA). Respondents were then asked if they had experienced any of these kinds of unwanted sexual contact in the context of 1) physical force or threats of physical force and 2) incapacitation. Sexual acts that take place in the context of physical force, threats of physical force and/or incapacitation do not involve ambiguity about consent.

Claim 4. The survey’s definition of sexual assault doesn’t “come close” to legal definitions of sex crimes

The National Review goes on to claim that “These definitions don’t come close to matching the legal definition of the various sex crimes prohibited by various state laws.” For example, it says, “the phrase ‘forced touching of a sexual nature’ isn’t precise enough to encompass ‘sexual battery’ under Tennessee law.” In answer to this, it should first be pointed out that legal definitions are not necessarily a good way of defining sexual assault. At one time, not always so very long ago, for example, spousal rape, rape of men, incapacitated rape and rapes where the victim did not actively resist were not criminalised. As this paper points out, legislation in some jurisdictions still reflects these outdated ideas. We surely do not believe that, say, spousal rape only exists if it is written into law. But even putting this aside, it’s hard to understand the National Review‘s quibble.

The National Review gives a link to Tennessee definitions of sexual assault and invites readers to compare the definition of “sexual battery” with the Washington Post­Kaiser survey’s definition of “forced touching of a sexual nature.” The Tennessee definition of “sexual battery” is as follows:

(a) Sexual battery is unlawful sexual contact with a victim by the defendant or the defendant by a victim accompanied by any of the following circumstances:

(1) Force or coercion is used to accomplish the act;

(2) The sexual contact is accomplished without the consent of the victim and the defendant knows or has reason to know at the time of the contact that the victim did not consent;

(3) The defendant knows or has reason to know that the victim is mentally defective, mentally incapacitated or physically helpless; or

(4)The sexual contact is accomplished by fraud.

(b) As used in this section, “coercion” means the threat of kidnapping, extortion, force or violence to be performed immediately or in the future.

Tennessee legislation defines “sexual contact” as:

the intentional touching of the victim’s, the defendant’s, or any other person’s intimate parts, or the intentional touching of the clothing covering the immediate area of the victim’s, the defendant’s, or any other person’s intimate parts, if that intentional touching can be reasonably construed as being for the purpose of sexual arousal or gratification.

“Intimate parts” are defined as “the primary genital area, groin, inner thigh, buttock or breast of a human being.”

This definition of sexual battery, which includes “sexual contact accomplished by fraud” and non- violent threats, actually includes acts that are not included in the Washington Post­-Kaiser survey’s definition of forced sexual touching. Moreover, it’s mystifying why sexual touching that takes place in the context of physical force, threats of physical force or incapacitation should be considered inconsistent with this legislation. The National Review does not elaborate. And while I am certain creative minds could come up with ways in which the Washington Post­Kaiser definition of forced sexual touching could be misconstrued, this does not translate to it being misinterpreted in practice. We are, after all, talking about ordinary people responding to a survey, not lawyers hunting out technicalities for a court case.

One final point: although the Washington Post-Kaiser survey does not ask about experiences of rape separately from experiences of forced touching, other surveys have found that victims disclosing only non­rape forms of sexual assault make up a relatively small proportion of the results. CSA, for example, upon which the Washington Post­Kaiser survey is modelled, found that only 28% of victims of physically forced and 23% of victims of incapacitated sexual assault disclosed only forced sexual touching. Since, as I mentioned earlier, it is well-known that women tend to downplay experiences of sexual assault, this is unsurprising. Respondents to surveys of sexual violence are probably less likely to disclose less serious assaults, meaning these surveys probably undercount episodes of non-rape sexual assault.

A final word

Because most people are not familiar with sexual violence research, and probably lack the inclination to even read the survey instrument, the claims in this article may seem more plausible than they are. Certainly, if the comments section is anything to go by (I did not see a single person questioning the criticism of the survey), this piece has convinced some readers. But calling the Washington Post­Kaiser survey “bogus” is an inappropriate way to characterise the work of the researchers who designed and carried it out—nor does it change the fact that, yes, it is very likely that one in five American women will be the victims of sexual assault while at college.

References

  1. For example, see Gross, A et al (2006), ‘An Examination of Sexual Violence Against College Women,’ Violence Against Women 12.3: 288­300; Smith, P et al (2003), ‘A Longitudinal Perspective on Dating Violence Among Adolescent and College­Age Women,’ American Journal of Public Health, 93.7: 1104­9; Cloutier, S et al (2002), Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health 56: 265­71; Fisher, B et al (2000), Sexual Victimization of College Women, Washington DC: National Institute of Justice; Humphry, J and White, J (2000), ‘Women’s Vulnerability to Sexual Assault from Adolescence to Young Adulthood,’ Journal of Adolescent Health, 27: 419­24; Greene, D and Navarro, R (1998), ‘Situation­Specific Assertiveness in the Epidemiology of Sexual Victimization Among University Women,’ Psychology of Women Quarterly, 22: 589­604. []
This entry posted in Rape, intimate violence, & related issues. Bookmark the permalink. 

104 Responses to No, The Washington Post-Kaiser Family Foundation Survey of Sexual Assault Is Not Bogus

  1. 1
    Sebastian H says:

    The problem, as with so many of these arguments, is that by including something on the continuum that doesn’t jibe with your average person’s understanding, you put the whole project in trouble.

    In this case they really just shouldn’t have included “forced kissing”. Not because it isn’t GREATLY inappropriate, boorish, a symptom of the fact that women are treated differently than men, and should be strongly disapproved of, but because it isn’t what we mean by “sexual assault”.

    The reason including it is problematic is because it is easy to suspect that “forced kissing” might be way more prevalent than say “forced penetration”. By rolling it all up in “sexual assault” and then trying to talk about it in a lump you open yourself up to the charge of sensationalizing the problem. (Which BTW, I suspect it doesn’t need, because if you found that you took out “forced kissing” and still found 1 in 6 women were sexually assaulted that will still be a really big deal).

    There is a desire to draw attention to a problem, and there is a desire to expand the definition of a problem. Activists might want to say something like “Forced Kissing is part of the continuum where our society allows women’s feelings about their own bodies to be ignored. Also on that continuum is sexual assault. Forced kissing is on the same continuum as rape, and I feel that we should consider it more of a sexual assault than a harmless example of pushiness because of the way that it leverages power against women in inappropriate ways”.

    That would be a totally appropriate way to talk about extending the definition of sexual assault, and I wouldn’t begrudge someone who wanted to do that.

    However if that same person also wants to publicize the very serious problem of sexual assault, I wouldn’t recommend that they try to expand the meaning of sexual assault at the same time. The problem is that most people don’t currently agree with your expanded definition, and if you smuggle it in they are going to feel manipulated. Whenever people FEEL manipulated, they push back, even if they might have normally been more open to your idea.

    I’m totally open to the idea that forced kissing is on the inappropriate sexual contact continuum, and that it might be closer to what we traditionally think of as sexual assault than we commonly give credit for. But why water down the really nasty traditional sexual assault numbers with that argument? Have that argument when you aren’t trying to publicize the sexual assault numbers. Avoid the appearance (reality?) of trying to manipulate people into it.

  2. 2
    Kate says:

    The problem, as with so many of these arguments, is that by including something on the continuum that doesn’t jibe with your average person’s understanding, you put the whole project in trouble.

    Except, the project is not in trouble. Over the past fifty years, the project has been wildly successful. Pushing the boundaries to include more non-consensual sexual contact under the rubric of “sexual assault” has worked to marginalize those behaviors and reduce their frequency.

  3. 3
    Jake Squid says:

    The reason including it is problematic is because it is easy to suspect that “forced kissing” might be way more prevalent than say “forced penetration”.

    Huh? “Because form B of a thing is a lot more prevalent than form A of a thing, it would be problematic to include form B in a survey of that thing,” doesn’t make sense to me. I suspect that’s not what you were trying to say but I can’t figure out what your point was in that sentence without going to some very dismissive places.

  4. 4
    Sebastian H says:

    Jake, what counts as “that thing” is contested. If ‘sexual assault’ means to most people something more like “forced penetration” or “forced genital contact”, including “forced kissing” will greatly inflate the amount of ‘sexual assault’ counted in a way that will make people who don’t agree that forced kissing is “sexual assault” think you are trying to trick them.

    I’m suggesting that it is dangerous to try to draw attention to the problem of sexual assault AND expand the meaning of “sexual assault” in the same process. If your goal is to raise awareness of the problems of forced penetration and forced genital contact you aren’t doing yourself a service by simultaneously trying to convince people that forced kissing should also count as sexual assault.

    That is also my response to Kate. I’m not knocking the idea of trying to reduce forced kissing. I’m not even knocking the idea of trying to suggest that it might be a form of sexual assault. But do it at different times from when you are trying to publicize the problems of what people already think of as sexual assault, or people will think you are trying to snow them.

  5. 5
    Jake Squid says:

    Thanks for the explanation, Sebastian H.

  6. 6
    AMM says:

    I’m not surprised that the National Review’s critique of the survey is itself bogus.

    First, the National Review was founded to push a certain neo-conservative agenda and has never gone to any trouble to give even the impression of being impartial. Since one article of faith of the USA conservative movement is that male-on-female rape is not a significant problem, one could have predicted beforehand that they would be looking for excuses to dismiss the survey, the only thing that might have been uncertain would have been what pretexts they would use.

    Second, even if they had wanted to understand the survey, understanding sociology and sociological data isn’t exactly the National Review’s area of expertise.

  7. 7
    Ampersand says:

    Jake, what counts as “that thing” is contested. If ‘sexual assault’ means to most people something more like “forced penetration” or “forced genital contact”, including “forced kissing” will greatly inflate the amount of ‘sexual assault’ counted in a way that will make people who don’t agree that forced kissing is “sexual assault” think you are trying to trick them.

    What is the statement that it “will greatly inflate” based on?

    It’s not like every survey includes “forced kissing” amongst the things it would catch. Yet study after study seems to find a pretty similar prevalence level. (Except for the NCVS, but the reasons for the differences there are well-established, and it isn’t about “forced kissing.”) Given the similarity, it seems very unlikely that a large proportion of the respondents to this survey are talking about “forced kissing” and nothing else.

  8. 8
    lauren says:

    I get the reason why people go to that example, but i still hate that the go-to response to men saying “That isn’t sexual assault” is “imagine if a man did it to you”.

    Yes, homophobic hetero men will react badly to that idea. But I don’t want my arguments to be built on homophobia. I really don’t think we need to use such a horrible thing to (supposedly) strengthen our argument. Why not go for a more neutral “if a person you were not sexually or romantically interested in at that point in time did…”. The reaction might not be as strong, but I still think it is the better approach.

    A lot of hetero women get raped by men, not women. Statistically, probably the majority. Turning that reality on its head and repeating the horrible stereotype of the sexually aggressive gay man who will not care if the other man is interested is not the way to go when it comes to educating people about sexual assault

    (The same is true, btw., for the “imagine if a really fat/ ugly woman tried to do this to you”)

    I actually feel that going for something extreme like that, on top of strengthening already existig harmfull stereotypes, lessens understanding of sexual assault. Because the partner who raped you- you were probabably attracted to him at least at once. The most attractive guy, the one that everybody at the party wanted – including you – would still be a rapist if he refused to let you go when you decided that you didn’t want to go “all the way” at a frat party. No matter how “hot” the substitute teacher is, if she touches her underage students sexually, she is committing sexual assault.

    What makes it sexual assault isn’t the question of wether or not a person fits in the general group of people you might be attracted to. It’s wether at that point in time you wanted that kind of sexual contact with that person. If you didn’t, the fact that your assailant is “hot” doesn’t keep it from being assault.

  9. 9
    Patrick says:

    “Getting winked at is sexual assault!”

    “No it isn’t.”

    “Just imagine if a man winked at you!”

    “Zomg that hits right in my homophobia I’d really hate that ok I agree with you now!”

    The problem with the argument isn’t that it relies on homophobia, the problem is that it doesn’t actually make sense. The emotional blackmail it relies upon works just as well even if you’re wrong.

  10. 10
    Kate says:

    Lauren and Patrick both make good points. Appeals to homophobia (or fat phobia) are also problematic because they assume that men are never unwilling or unable to consent to sex with someone who they might generally be attracted to. This also disappears many male victims of various sexual orientations raped by their partners/friends/etc..
    Nonetheless, I do think that the sympathy many people have for the discomfort straight men feel when getting hit on or assaulted by gay men (and how these are often elided) underscores the degree to which questions surrounding the reality of rates of sexual assault of women are actually about whether women are reliable witnesses and/or how much right to bodily autonomy women really should have.

  11. 11
    Kate says:

    Avoid the appearance (reality?) of trying to manipulate people into it.

    or people will think you are trying to snow them.

    You’re not calling me dishonest, you’re just saying that I’ll appear dishonest to a significant number of reasonable people arguing in good faith because – why? What is my motive supposed to be? Seriously, why in the world would I (or anyone else) want rates of sexual assault to appear to be higher than they are? After decades of anti-rape activism, rates of rape have actually decreased. Why would anti-rape activists want studies to show that all of their efforts have been fruitless?

  12. 12
    Elusis says:

    “Imagine if a man did it to you” at least invokes a more appropriate sense of threat/power (both physical and social) than “imagine if a woman you weren’t attracted to did it to you.”

  13. 13
    Sebastian H says:

    “You’re not calling me dishonest, you’re just saying that I’ll appear dishonest to a significant number of reasonable people arguing in good faith because – why?”

    Feeling manipulated and accusing someone of dishonesty are very different things. I’m not even really sure how to respond.

    People can feel unfairly manipulated without any significant idea of dishonesty coming into play.

    Maybe I don’t understand where you are coming from. Do you think that most people would include normally include forced kissing as “sexual assault”? My understanding was that you didn’t think most people would include it (see your discussion of the Tennessee law).

  14. 14
    Sebastian H says:

    I also want to push back on the homophobic kissing thing. Just because something provokes a homophobic response doesn’t make it “sexual assault”. Lots of things can provoke bad homophobic responses without being sexual assault (see for example drag queens dressing the way they want to).

  15. 15
    Kate says:

    Of course manipulation is a form of dishonesty. It’s trying to trick someone into agreeing to something that you’re pretty sure they’d refuse if you were clear and direct about it.
    But that’s just semantics. What really baffles me is why someone might think anyone would want to manipulate people into thinking rates of sexual assault are higher than they are. What is the payoff supposed to be?

  16. 16
    Sebastian H says:

    What do you think the payoff of publicizing sexual assault rates *at all* is? The payoff of inflating them is increasing whatever reaction it is that you are going for.

  17. 17
    Aapje says:

    @Kate

    Every group/person that fights against a (perceived) problem faces the issue of having to prove that the problem exists and is important enough to pour resources into. Nearly always they face people who say: “It’s not a big deal.” So there is always a strong need to prove that it is a big deal. So the clear incentive is to exaggerate the problem (often not on purpose, but due to various forms of bias).

    In my experience, this kind of embellishing happens more often than not, when advocacy groups do research or have it done for them. This is not limited to anti-assault advocates, but is just as true for anti-welfare advocates (who tend to exaggerate fraud) or any of a million other kinds of advocacy.

  18. 18
    Kate says:

    To my mind, the payoff of publishing any crime statistics is knowing how much crime is going on and whether efforts to reduce crime rates are working, or if efforts need to be put in other directions. Basically, we want to know the truth.
    I think for advocates of addressing sexual assault (or any crime), the impulse to show that the crime that they’re addressing is a problem is probably canceled out by the impulse to show that their work has actually been effective at reducing that crime.
    In contrast, anti-welfare advocates are pretty clearly motivated, at least partially, by their desire for lower taxes; and, in many cases, by a desire to see the world as a fair place in which people get what they deserve.

  19. 19
    Aapje says:

    You may consciously want the truth, but you subconsciously want a lie as well. Humans are not fully rational.

    I catch myself doing this sometimes:
    * Study 1: this confirms what I believe, lets pass it on
    * Study 2: this counters my beliefs, let’s see how it is wrong

    I think this is rather universal. The result is that groups create an echo chamber. Things that validate beliefs bounce around, what is critical gets discarded (establishing an enemy and automatically discarding their ideas aids this process too).

    If we take sexual assault advocates as an example, many have experienced sexual assault. The group of people advocating for changes on this front will have a disproportional number of victims. Those victims will probably have PTSS/severe trauma more often than victims who do not advocate for change. There are far fewer male victims among them than the actual percentage (due to gender stereotypes ‘disallowing’ men to be victims). Falsely accused men are not among them.

    So if these people talk to each other, they see a huge number of victims among the people they know, a lot of extreme trauma, no male victims and no falsely accused. It is no surprise that sexual assault advocates tend to show these exact biases. BTW, this mechanism is also why people are more afraid of crime now than in the past when the actual crime levels were way higher. Perceived crime matches the media attention for crime, not the actual statistics, as most people base their beliefs primarily on their perceptions, much more than the actual facts.

    TL;DR version: those 2 things do not cancel each other out, due to echo chamber bias and self-selection.

  20. 20
    Kate says:

    If we take sexual assault advocates as an example, many have experienced sexual assault. The group of people advocating for changes on this front will have a disproportional number of victims. Those victims will probably have PTSS/severe trauma more often than victims who do not advocate for change. There are far fewer male victims among them than the actual percentage (due to gender stereotypes ‘disallowing’ men to be victims). Falsely accused men are not among them.

    Would you kindly provide me with links showing that these were issues with the people who designed the Washington Post-Kaiser Poll, the CSA survey, and/or any of the scholars listed in note 1.

  21. 21
    Aapje says:

    Your request for proof of bias in people is rather silly, since no study has been done on any bias that the poll designers may have. However, a lack of data is not proof of absence, of course. The general mechanisms have been studied extensively in social sciences.

    As for the survey, I see a definite bias in some of the questions. An example is this question: “Do you think the share of women that have been sexually assaulted at your school is (more) than 1 in 5, (less) than 1 in 5 or about 1 in 5.” If we ignore the absurd use of parenthesis, this question is a big survey no-no since it:
    – Assumes a likely outcome of the study, based on previous studies. Questions like these often influence the outcome. Humans are highly consensus driven and often give answers that are socially acceptable (see studies on previous sex partners where men over report and women under report)
    – Selectively ‘shops’ in studies (why use 1 in 5, rather than 6 in 1000, as a BJS study found?). In itself this demonstrates preconceived notions on the part of the surveyors.
    – Reinforces the notion that only women are victims, as no similar question is asked about men. This is also likely to influence the outcome.
    Aside from bias, there is also a huge problem with the definition of assault used in the study. It defines assault as ‘forced touching of a sexual nature,’ which can be interpreted in many different ways, I can see respondents failing to report non-consensual acts with no ‘force’ or consensual acts with force.

    The WaPo presentation of the results is actually relatively good. As usual, the main spin on the survey results is by people who react to the survey. People tend to home in on the the 1 in 5 figure, which is the least credible and least interesting part of the survey, as the survey results show huge disagreement on what consent means and shows that 2/3s of the victims had been drinking (and the effect of alcohol on perception is huge). This makes the 1 in 5 outcome very unreliable. The survey does give interesting results that deserve consideration, but is not proof that the 1 in 5 figure is correct.

    PS. The full survey with results

  22. 22
    Kate says:

    Mary Koss’s 1987 survey came up with a result of 1 in 4 college-aged women as victims of sexual assault in their lifetime (see Carla’s previous post); the 2007 CSA survey, and other recent surveys, come up with results of 1 in 5. That may represent progress that we should all celebrate. What it does not represent is researchers trying to inflate statistics over time – quite the reverse.
    Aapje, you object to this question:

    “Do you think the share of women that have been sexually assaulted at your school is (more) than 1 in 5, (less) than 1 in 5 or about 1 in 5.”

    To my mind, this question just asks if the experience of respondents is in keeping with the results of previous studies. I don’t think it assumes that the result of this study will be the same, or that it is illegitimate to ask about figures which have been replicated in many studies (eight cited in the post above), instead of one outlier, which is acknowledged to be flawed by its creators, and is in the process of being redesigned.
    I think everyone here at Alas recognizes that the exclusion of men from studies of rape victims is a serious problem. But, I fail to see why it would artificially increase the number of women reporting that they had been sexually assaulted.

    as the survey results show huge disagreement on what consent means and shows that 2/3s of the victims had been drinking

    The issues you raise about the definitions of sexual assault were addressed in this post and in Carla’s previous post and nothing you’ve said on that point has introduced anything new to the discussion.
    As to your second point, I don’t see why having a few drinks is likely to make someone imagine that they’ve been sexually assaulted when they have not.

  23. 23
    Aapje says:

    That may represent progress that we should all celebrate.

    The fact that (nearly all) crime has been going down for decades is very positive indeed. Although it is rather weird that this reduction is accompanied by demands to discard human rights (like a fair trial) to (purportedly) more effectively combat crime. See Title IX for instance.

    What it does not represent is researchers trying to inflate statistics over time – quite the reverse.

    I never claimed that researchers inflate statistics over time.

    To my mind, this question just asks if the experience of respondents is in keeping with the results of previous studies. […] I fail to see why it would artificially increase the number of women reporting that they had been sexually assaulted.

    Proper application of the scientific method requires studies to be independent. Once you use the outcome of earlier studies as input to your new study, you are risking circular research, where people answer to expectations. Questions like these are a form of framing, where a certain thought pattern (1 in 5 women are assaulted in schools on average) is conveyed to the subject. The exclusion of men in the question means that a similar thought pattern about men is not conveyed (not that that would make it better). This question is just one example. Women are uniquely portrayed as victims in questions: 20, 21, 22, 24, 27, 28. All this helps enforce the general stereotype that men are rarely victims and that women very often are.

    There is also a stereotype in society that men are supposed to have a lot of sex partners, while women don’t. In studies, this results in men over reporting their female sex partners and women to under report (since the number must match up, the subjects are clearly not telling the truth). Similarly the gender stereotype is that women are ‘supposed’ to see certain encounters as sexual abuse, while men don’t (they are ‘lucky’). So why wouldn’t it cause over and under reporting as well?

    As to your second point, I don’t see why having a few drinks is likely to make someone imagine that they’ve been sexually assaulted when they have not.

    Drinking causes people to perceive reality incorrectly, remember things incorrectly, make choices they later regret (since people don’t like that, a common rationalization is then to blame others for their own choices), have gaps in their memory that they will fill in with rationalizations after the fact, etc.

    Let me give an example:

    A man and woman get drunk at a party and stumble into a room. She undresses him, he undresses her. He goes down on her. During that she suddenly remembers she has a boyfriend and tries to say ‘no, no, no,’ but due to drunkenness, it comes out as ‘mmmm, mmmm, mmmmm’. His perception is that these are sounds of enjoyment. She tries to push him away, but is too drunk too get up and softly pushes his head down. He thinks that she is trying to steer him. Then they both pass out.

    In the morning she says that he assaulted her: “I said no, no, no”. He said that she seemed to enjoy herself. Both statements are true from their respective impaired viewpoints. But objectively it boils down to a tragedy of errors where there is no real ‘bad guy/girl.’ However, gender stereotypes/norms cause this scenario to be interpreted in a very gendered way, where the man is taking advantage.

  24. 24
    Fibi says:

    A man and woman get drunk at a party and stumble into a room. She undresses him, he undresses her. He goes down on her. During that she suddenly remembers she has a boyfriend and tries to say ‘no, no, no,’ but due to drunkenness, it comes out as ‘mmmm, mmmm, mmmmm’. His perception is that these are sounds of enjoyment. She tries to push him away, but is too drunk too get up and softly pushes his head down. He thinks that she is trying to steer him. Then they both pass out.

    In the morning she says that he assaulted her: “I said no, no, no”. He said that she seemed to enjoy herself. Both statements are true from their respective impaired viewpoints. But objectively it boils down to a tragedy of errors where there is no real ‘bad guy/girl.’ However, gender stereotypes/norms cause this scenario to be interpreted in a very gendered way, where the man is taking advantage.

    There are literally dozens of disputed sexual assault allegations that have made their way into courts over the last couple of years. Each of them has a pretty substantial record of facts, testimony, allegations, etc. None of them hinge on a woman trying to push a man away and him interpreting that as her encouraging him to go down on her. Or anything remotely like that.

  25. 25
    Aapje says:

    Dozens?? In 2010 the BJS claims 270k self-reported sexual assaults and rapes against women, of which a third was reported to the police and a third of that resulted in an arrest. That means that 180k self-reported assaults and rapes were never critically examined by the police. These are most likely to involve subjective truths (remember, these are also included in that 1 in 5 figure!). About 60k cases were never brought to court because they were deemed to have insufficient evidence or no perpetrator could be found. These cases are much more likely than the court cases to involve a subjective truth and no hard evidence. Finally there is the tip of the iceberg: the 30k cases that resulted in an arrest. Do you seriously think only ‘literally dozens’ of those were disputed??? But regardless of this, these court cases are the smallest fraction of the 1 in 5 of self-reported assaults and rapes. So even if those 30k cases all involve hard, objective facts, that in no way means that a decent fraction of the other 240k cases aren’t subjective interpretations.

    Remember, my argument is that men and women judge their sexual experiences differently, not that the courts/police go along with this. So the main effect of this would be in the self-reported numbers, with no objective review of those claims.

    Besides, it was just an example. Involving he said/she said & drunkenness. The latter being present at 2/3s of the cases, according to the Kaiser survey.

    The concept of gendered narratives is really not esoteric. A classic example is how people are more likely to judge promiscuous women as sluts and promiscuous men as studs. This kind of gender-specific framing is of course not limited to judging others, but people judge themselves by gendered narratives & stereotypes as well.

    When it comes to sex, a broadly held narrative is that men always want sex and have to convince women to ‘give it up’. Women are supposed to be very selective, passive and reluctant. Intercourse is commonly seen as something a man does to a women.

    When it comes to aggressive crime (especially sexual), a widely believed narrative is that only men are perpetrators. Men can be victims, but only of violence by other men. A man who is victimized by a woman is not a real man. Women are not supposed to be aggressive, so they do not victimize others with violence.

    For sexual violence, these narratives intersect. When both people are drunk, the man is responsible as the gender norm/stereotype is that he is the one who initiates sex (even though (drunk) women can of course be very aggressive in reality). The narrative completely denies the possibility that a man can be ‘too drunk to consent’ due to alcohol or be abused in his sleep, as he is the one who ‘does sex to the woman.’ So if he really was too drunk or asleep, then sex wouldn’t have happened (as the woman isn’t considered capable of initiating anything). On the other hand, if the woman has regrets after the encounter, then this is proof (in the narrative) that she was ‘too drunk to consent.’ After all, her ‘job’ is to be selective and if she wasn’t, she was impaired. In contrast, the man isn’t supposed to feel regret, ever.

    The human mind interprets experiences based on our prior beliefs. Men who believe this narrative are likely to interpret drunken encounters as either ‘wins,’ regardless of whether they actually enjoyed it or consider themselves perpetrators, no matter if they initiated or were aggressive. I read a very powerful statement by a male victim who had this latter reaction initially, even though the facts were completely inconsistent with himself as the perpetrator (as he was raped while sleeping). I don’t have the link on this PC, but I’ll find it later for you. In contrast, women are much more likely to have the opposite reaction and see themselves as victims, even if their actions were aggressive, the man was equally impaired, the encounter was consensual at the time, etc.

    Now, my point is not to accuse women of false accusations or anything like that. But rather to point out that we cannot take self-reported values at face value as they can be heavily influenced by gender norms and stereotypes.

  26. 26
    Kate says:

    Rapists know exactly what they are doing. These are not differences in judgement, or misunderstandings.
    Lisak & Miller questioned 1882 male students. 120 admitted to acts which fit the definition of rape or attempted rape. However, since some were multiple offenders, a total of 483 rapes or attempted rapes were admitted to. The wording of the questions leaves no doubt, they knew damn well that the person they were “having sex with” was not consenting:

    (1) Have you ever been in a situation where you tried, but for various reasons did not succeed, in having sexual intercourse with an adult by using or threatening to use physical force (twisting their arm, holding them down, etc.) if they did not cooperate?
    (2) Have you ever had sexual intercourse with someone, even though they did not want to, because they were too intoxicated (on alcohol or drugs) to resist your sexual advances (e.g., removing their clothes)?
    (3) Have you ever had sexual intercourse with an adult when they didn’t want to because you used or threatened to use physical force (twisting their arm; holding them down, etc.) if they didn’t cooperate?
    (4) Have you ever had oral sex with an adult when they didn’t want to because you used or threatened to use physical force (twisting their arm; holding them down, etc.) if they didn’t cooperate?
    Lisak & Miller at 77-78.]

    These were obviously not gender specific questions, so some of those assaults were almost certainly against other men. It also does not include female rapists.
    This would puts the rate of rape and attempted rape by male rapists in the population as a whole at 12.8%. Although there is no doubt that male victims of rape are underreported, we have no indication that male on male rape is close to being as common as male on female rape outside of prisons (which is a serious problem, but not relevant to studies of college students). So, this rate is much more in keeping with the rates appearing in victim surveys, and provides further support that the very low rate in the NCVS study does not reflect reality.

  27. 27
    Sebastian H says:

    “This would puts the rate of rape and attempted rape by male rapists in the population as a whole at 12.8%.”

    Which is a very strong statistic in and of itself (about 1 in 7). So why do we need to throw in forced kissing and muddy the issue?

  28. 28
    Kate says:

    Why does someone always fixate on whatever the borderline issue is in a study on rape to the exclusion of dealing with the real problems? In the study discussed in this post, the borderline issue is forced kissing. However, there was a time – within my living memory – when all of the things listed in those questions @ 26 were legal for a man to do to his wife. Those were borderline questions as recently as the 1980’s in the U.S..
    The real problems are:
    There is a very small number of men out there repeatedly raping, primarily women.
    These same men also commit a disproportionate number of other violent crimes against, predominantly, women and children.
    That society is unable to bring all but a small percentage of these predators to justice.
    Many non-rapists males are afraid of being falsely accused, because they can’t believe that that guy who seems so great really did rape a woman, and so assume that he was falsely accused.
    Those same non-rapist males have no trouble assuming that a woman is lying about being raped, even though false accusations are really rare.
    This is rape culture.

  29. 29
    Aapje says:

    Rapists know exactly what they are doing. These are not differences in judgement, or misunderstandings.

    You are engaging in circular reasoning. You start off by assuming that all accused men actually committed rape, by calling them rapists. Since common definitions of rape requires the perpetrator to be aware that the other person doesn’t want sex, that means that no differences in judgement or misunderstandings could have clouded the issue. Ergo, rapists know what they are doing, since the definition requires them to be.

    Or another way of looking at it: if you exclude cases where there are differences in judgement or misunderstandings, then the remaining cases have no differences in judgement or misunderstandings. Amazing.

    So, this rate is much more in keeping with the rates appearing in victim surveys, and provides further support that the very low rate in the NCVS study does not reflect reality.

    The Lisak & Miller study is interesting, although it has some severe weaknesses. For starters, the study was at one, atypical school with no campus. The result is that most subjects were not college-aged, nor part of campus life. As such, the study doesn’t study the same population as other college studies. In fact, you’d expect the results of the L&M study to be higher than other studies, as older subjects will have higher lifetime stats than younger subjects. Furthermore, those older, off-campus students can be expected to often find sexual partners who are not students. So you can’t just take the those numbers as proof for a certain rate of on-campus assault/rape.

    Another major issue is that it is a lone study that has never been replicated. Having results replicated by similar studies is really a prerequisite, before you can take them seriously.

    Finally, I want to point out that the vast majority of positive responses were to the second (intoxication) question. That question is confusingly worded and subjects who thought they had consent at the time, but after the fact learned their partner was intoxicated can give a positive answer. Then those cases would really fall under ‘differences in judgement, or misunderstandings.’ Furthermore, a man who initially believes that the woman is willing, but realizes during foreplay that she is too drunk and stops himself, would be counted as an ‘attempted rape.’ Personally I think that most lay people would consider an ‘attempted rape’ to be a rape that is stopped by actions of the victims or a third party, not a situation where a man stops himself when realizing the woman is not willing. Yet this study lumps these situations together.

    However, there was a time – within my living memory – when all of the things listed in those questions @ 26 were legal for a man to do to his wife.

    They were also legal for a wife to do to her husband. When you omit that, you are demonstrating a certain bias in your thought process.

    There is a very small number of men out there repeatedly raping, primarily women.

    Yes, if we are talking about cases where the rapist sought out his victims. I think that those are only part of the cases though.

    These same men also commit a disproportionate number of other violent crimes against, predominantly, women and children.

    Men are actually the primary victims of crime in general, so no.

    That society is unable to bring all but a small percentage of these predators to justice.

    A small percentage of self-reported sexual assaults result in conviction, but you are assuming that all self-reported assaults involved a predator. This is an absurd statement, since it assumes that all women know the law perfectly and have perfect recollection, even when drunk.

    Do you seriously believe that each and every self-reported assault is actually sexual assault as defined by law? I’d like a yes or no answer, please.

    Many non-rapists males are afraid of being falsely accused, because they can’t believe that that guy who seems so great really did rape a woman, and so assume that he was falsely accused.

    False, ‘we’ are afraid because of highly public cases like ‘mattress girl’, the Rolling Stone/UVA accusations, Duke Lacrosse, etc, etc; where the objective evidence speaks for the accused, but where quite a few feminists assume guilt and excuse away all exculpatory evidence.

    The absurd ‘court cases’ at universities, where 1000 years of judicial wisdom is replaced by a bunch of amateurs with extreme bias against defendants, also plays a role.

    Those same non-rapist males have no trouble assuming that a woman is lying about being raped, even though false accusations are really rare.

    I have no trouble believing (not assuming) that any accuser of any crime may be wrong. That is because I believe that people deserve a fair trial. My personal judgement is also based on facts, not prejudice. Many a person has been wrongly accused in the history of the world, yet somehow when sexual assault of women is involved, we are supposed to believe this never happens. In your Orwellian world, having an judicial system that judges on facts is oppression and a lynch mob is justice. In that world, treating rape like other crime is ‘rape culture.’ Laughable.

    Finally, a false accusation doesn’t mean that the accuser is lying. The accuser may simply be wrong. Fact is that there is no good data on the rates of false accusations, because the police often just determine whether they have a case against the accused and simply drop the case when there are inconsistencies. At that point, the case may or may not be a false accusation, but no further investigation is done to determine if that is the case. Furthermore, the he said/she said nature of sexual crimes that make them so hard to convict, also makes false accusations very hard to prove.

    The common 2-8% figure that is often used merely counts cases where the accuser admitted to lying or their lies were so poor, that the police could easily determine that the accuser was lying. This is the absolute minimum rate of false accusations, you need to add an unknown number of lying accusers whose lies were more crafty or vague and an unknown number of accusers who were not consciously lying, but were wrong about being assaulted/raped. Your assertion that this combined rate is ‘really rare’ is merely a reflection to your bias on this subject, as there is no evidence to support that claim.

  30. 30
    Jake Squid says:

    So why do we need to throw in forced kissing and muddy the issue?

    When I think about forced kissing and imagine someone doing that to me, I have no question that it’s sexual assault. As a result, I don’t see how including forced kissing muddies the issue.

  31. 31
    LTL FTC says:

    Many non-rapists males are afraid of being falsely accused, because they can’t believe that that guy who seems so great really did rape a woman, and so assume that he was falsely accused.

    Well, if you want to strawman what men think to fit your narrative, then that’s great! Now, here’s another perspective.

    Men are afraid of false accusations not because they think it’s particularly likely, but because it’s nearly impossible to defend yourself. Murders have a body. Theft has the stolen goods. Arson, violence, they all have some evidence of some sort. Without getting into CSI-level details, nobody can accuse you of burning a house down if there’s no burned-down house.

    Yet since rape is a crime that exists exclusively in the state of mind of the victim, how do you defend yourself? Being seen interacting romantically and enthusiastically at a party beforehand doesn’t count for anything. Nor do friendly texts/emails the following day. Holes in the accuser’s story are explained away by trauma of often nebulous definition. Everything rests on what person testifies to thinking at the time.

    The best you can do is have a solid alibi that you weren’t there, assuming that’s even the case. That’s what saved the UVA frat.

    That being said, that’s the nature of the crime. We don’t want to go back to requiring four witnesses or defensive wounds or anything like that. But you can’t help but think about the nightmare of being accused of a crime for which there is no good defense. That which makes it hard to prove makes it hard to disprove, especially with the motivated reasoning of a campus kangaroo court more interested in avoiding bad publicity and trouble with the feds than hearing and weighing evidence fairly.

    It’s possible for men to both take rape seriously, get enthusiastic consent every time, not participate in victim-blaming while still having a little thought in the back of your head that it would be so easy to get railroaded. Just the nature of the beast.

  32. 32
    Sebastian H says:

    “Why does someone always fixate on whatever the borderline issue is in a study on rape to the exclusion of dealing with the real problems?”

    See this is exactly what I’m talking about. It is better to choose publicizing a problem OR trying to expand the definition of the problem, but not both at once.

    If you REALLY want to publicize the problem of rape and near rape (what is normally known to people as “sexual assault”) then you have a lot to talk about so go for it.

    If you REALLY want to expand the definition of “sexual assault” to extend from rape and near rape to other violations, go for it.

    But you can’t do both at the same time because you are going to get sucked into talking exclusively about your attempts to expand the definition while tainting your attempt to publicize the problem with a strong whiff of manipulation.

    Take yourself out of the moment and look at it from a target audience. Who are you trying to communicate to? Is this effective?

    If pro-life advocates tried a similar tactic (say trying to redefine “late term abortion” to include the 4th month so they could publicize the number of elective “late term abortions”) would that provoke a strong reaction from you?

    “When I think about forced kissing and imagine someone doing that to me, I have no question that it’s sexual assault. As a result, I don’t see how including forced kissing muddies the issue.”

    I can’t agree. I think (and I think that most people think) of forced kissing as rude, obnoxious, and perhaps even legally an assault, but not the kind of thing that ought to get you on to a Megan’s Law sexual offender list. Forced kissers not allowed with 1000 yards of a school? I’m not comfortable with that.

    And if you aren’t arguing for legal sanctions at the current “sexual assault” level, why don’t we use another term then?

  33. 33
    Kate says:

    See this is exactly what I’m talking about. It is better to choose publicizing a problem OR trying to expand the definition of the problem, but not both at once.

    As you can see from Aapje’s response @29 to the questions that I listed @26, people will consider the questions in Lisak & Miller too expansive as well.

  34. 34
    kate says:

    A small percentage of self-reported sexual assaults result in conviction, but you are assuming that all self-reported assaults involved a predator. This is an absurd statement, since it assumes that all women know the law perfectly and have perfect recollection, even when drunk.

    No, I am not. I was referring to the study in which the predators admitted to the assaults they had committed. None of the 120 men who admitted to raping people in that study had faced any consequence for their actions. Zero. And that is not an isolated, unreplicated study (as you contended). In their first paragraph they list ten studies in which 6% to 14.9% men admit to activities which fit the legal definition of rape. I specifically chose this particular study because it comes in at 6% of men, on the low side for studies of its type (so, the opposite of my supposed biases ).

  35. 35
    kate says:

    Do you seriously believe that each and every self-reported assault is actually sexual assault as defined by law? I’d like a yes or no answer, please.

    The surveys in question do not state the questions in those terms. They ask if specific things which fit the definition of sexual assault have happened to the survey participants. Again, Carla analysed criticisms of these questions and you have added nothing to the discussion on those points. But, no, I do not think that all of the people who claim to have had these things happen to them are 100% accurate. Nor do I think that those who have claimed that they have not happened to them are 100% accurate.

  36. 36
    kate says:

    In your Orwellian world, having an judicial system that judges on facts is oppression and a lynch mob is justice. In that world, treating rape like other crime is ‘rape culture.’

    I can’t agree. I think (and I think that most people think) of forced kissing as rude, obnoxious, and perhaps even legally an assault, but not the kind of thing that ought to get you on to a Megan’s Law sexual offender list. Forced kissers not allowed with 1000 yards of a school? I’m not comfortable with that.

    I have looked through all of my comments above. At no point have I (or anyone else, although I was not as thorough there) said anything about what the process for dealing with sexual assault should be. Nor have I advocated for any specific punishments. I have merely been arguing that sexual assault is a serious problem, in keeping with the studies which Carla has been defending.
    I do not believe that our brutal criminal justice system is equipt to deal with crimes in which the victims love the perpetrators, including domestic violence, and most rape. Who would turn over someone they love to such a system? I say this as the daughter and sister of men who have committed sexual assault (both admitted, on victims under the age of 10, so there is no question of ‘misunderstandings’). What I want is for those crimes to never have happened. What I want is a system which would help my father and my brother be better men.

  37. 37
    Mookie says:

    But objectively it boils down to a tragedy of errors where there is no real ‘bad guy/girl.’

    If, Aapje, you intend your anecdote (a woman asserting she was raped after verbally and physically objecting to a man’s advances; man disputes this, iterates she gave meaningful consent) to be a generalization, in which rape is more often a a result of guileless misinterpretation based on unattributed claims about female and male brains: obviously the woman in question is not “bad.” In your scenario and following your rules, she has done nothing wrong; you’ve reiterated that you are not talking about false accusations. Surely communicating-while-female is not a crime, is not unethical. Is communicating-while-male a crime if it results in a woman feeling wholeheartedly that she has been raped? Are these male-brained individuals responsible for behavior that elicits such a response, or do they have no obligation here?

    How does this work with the male victims of male perpetrators?

    Whose viewpoint should prevail? Asserting that your fictional man’s intent is more important than the woman’s is distinct from claiming that it is impossible to tell whether a rape happened or not, when examining testimony only. Asserting that the woman’s truth is not enough is not, as I’m sure you’re aware, a neutral or objective act.

    Since common definitions of rape requires the perpetrator to be aware that the other person doesn’t want sex, that means that no differences in judgement or misunderstandings could have clouded the issue. Ergo, rapists know what they are doing, since the definition requires them to be.

    No, that is not true. Enthusiastic / affirmative consent doctrines stipulate that parties have to elicit and receive consent rather than assume it exists in perpetuity unless someone states otherwise. The standard shifts away from “they didn’t say no” / “they didn’t hit me” / “they were mostly awake.” The standard is not that the accused rapist had “good” intentions; claiming ignorance is not a legitimate defense.

    False, ‘we’ are afraid because of highly public cases like ‘mattress girl’, the Rolling Stone/UVA accusations, Duke Lacrosse, etc, etc; where the objective evidence speaks for the accused

    That’s not true in the case of Emma Sulkowicz (who has a name).

    Finally, a false accusation doesn’t mean that the accuser is lying. The accuser may simply be wrong.

    This goes back to your theory that women and men experience events in equally valid but opposite ways. If truth is relative, why is it that the accuser is wrong?

    if you exclude cases where there are differences in judgement or misunderstandings, then the remaining cases have no differences in judgement or misunderstandings

    How does one determine which cases are which?

    In contrast, women are much more likely to have the opposite reaction and see themselves as victims, even if their actions were aggressive, the man was equally impaired, the encounter was consensual at the time, etc.

    I may have missed it; can you cite this, please?

    Personally I think that most lay people would consider an ‘attempted rape’ to be a rape that is stopped by actions of the victims or a third party, not a situation where a man stops himself when realizing the woman is not willing.

    You’re forgetting victims who fight, or escape, or argue their way out of an assault.

    My personal judgement is also based on facts, not prejudice.

    “You may consciously want the truth, but you subconsciously want a lie as well. Humans are not fully rational.”

  38. 38
    Sebastian H says:

    “I do not believe that our brutal criminal justice system is equipt to deal with crimes in which the victims love the perpetrators, including domestic violence, and most rape.”

    “I have merely been arguing that sexual assault is a serious problem, in keeping with the studies which Carla has been defending.”

    When coupled with a choice to expand “sexual assault” to include things like “forced kissing”, this strikes me as a very serious failure of activist strategy. Unless you VERY clearly position yourself as wanting reduced punishments for sexual assault, you are much more likely to over-criminalize behavior you don’t want criminalized than you are to decriminalize behavior.

    My experience with the criminal justice system is that expanding definitions of criminal activity is easy and almost accidental, while reducing it is almost impossible.

    I actually thank you for pointing this facet of the argument out. I think it was something that was gnawing at me under the surface of the discussion. If you accidentally got a bunch of people on a sexual predator list by your definition would you be ok with that? If your advocacy got someone 10 years in prison by expanding the definition would that be a good thing? Or maybe that is your goal and it wouldn’t be an accident at all?

  39. 39
    Ampersand says:

    Sebastian, no one is demanding that forced kissing be treated as rape by the court system. You’re attacking a straw feminist.

  40. 40
    Ampersand says:

    In your Orwellian world, having an judicial system that judges on facts is oppression and a lynch mob is justice. In that world, treating rape like other crime is ‘rape culture.’

    I want to echo Kate’s concern. You seem to be making things up and attacking strawmen. Who here has said that “a lynch mob is justice,” for example?

    Please try to turn down your rhetoric a few notches, and to respond more to what people actually write. This is intended to be a friendly space where people can disagree respectfully; I don’t think baseless accusations of supporting lynch mobs is compatible with that goal.

  41. 41
    SWA says:

    “Sebastian, no one is demanding that forced kissing be treated as rape by the court system.”

    Whenever I hear “no one is …”, I think BS is being spoken.

    Yeah, well, some people are in favor of stuff like that. A Google search revealed page after page, for instance:

    http://www.debate.org/opinions/is-a-forced-kiss-rape

    Even some posters on this website are getting close to that idea.

  42. 42
    Ampersand says:

    What is this constant denial crap?

    Please try and keep things civil.

    You’re right that my statement was hyperbolic. If you go to online forums, you can certainly find examples of people supporting all sorts of stuff. I don’t find that to be much reason to worry that it’s on track to become law, however.

    To speak more accurately, I should have said “as far as I know, no one here, and no one who is seriously involved with reforming criminal law, is arguing that forced kissing and rape should be treated identically by the court system.” Better?

  43. 43
    Sebastian H says:

    “Sebastian, no one is demanding that forced kissing be treated as rape by the court system. You’re attacking a straw feminist.”

    You aren’t understanding my position. Someone is very much trying to define forced kissing as “sexual assault”, a term which has legal consequences.

    I’m trying to understand whether or not that is the intent of redefining sexual assault. You suggest it is a straw feminist. But if that is true, what is the purpose of trying to redefine sexual assault? Maybe the pushback you get is on the implied consequences for sexual assault (Megan’s law reporting, jail time etc.). If it were clearer that you weren’t talking about such things you might get a different reaction.

  44. 44
    Kate says:

    How did you get from:

    “I do not believe that our brutal criminal justice system is equipt to deal with crimes in which the victims love the perpetrators, including domestic violence, and most rape.”

    to:

    If you accidentally got a bunch of people on a sexual predator list by your definition would you be ok with that? If your advocacy got someone 10 years in prison by expanding the definition would that be a good thing? Or maybe that is your goal and it wouldn’t be an accident at all?

    That is basically the exact opposite of what I was saying.

  45. 45
    Kate says:

    But if that is true, what is the purpose of trying to redefine sexual assault?

    To make these behaviors more socially unacceptable so people do not do these things in the first place. To make asking before you take the liberty of touching another person’s body in a sexual manner the norm. To have fewer perpetrators and fewer victims.
    To allow victims to name and process their experiences. To get victims access to the services they need. Remember the victims? Most of us do not choose to go to the police at all. Most of us do not choose to prosecute.

  46. 46
    Ampersand says:

    What Kate said. And, also, the purpose of a study is to actually understand how much sexual assault is taking place.

    And:

    You aren’t understanding my position. Someone is very much trying to define forced kissing as “sexual assault”, a term which has legal consequences.

    The term doesn’t have legal consequences, in and of itself. To use an extreme illustration, Linus can say that Schroeder’s playing piano is a form of “sexual assault,” but Linus saying that will not mean that Schroeder is in danger of being placed in prison for playing piano.

    Historically, legal change in this area has come from longterm, active engagement of scholars and activists with society and with the legislature. Spousal rape didn’t become a legally recognized form of rape because people used the term “spousal rape,” for example, and the next day the law magically changed without anyone consciously working to bring that specific change about. It required many years of deliberate efforts by feminists lobbyists.

  47. 47
    Sebastian H says:

    I guess I’m not understanding you. If you don’t want to invoke the legal penalties for sexual assault, why is it so crucial for you to call it sexual assault? Compare to the politics of the gay marriage situation. We wanted to expand the definition of ‘marriage’ to include “gay marriage” because we wanted to get the legal protections and such that come along with that expanded definition of marriage.

    If your goal is to definitely absolutely for sure not invoke the heavy handed legal sanctions of “sexual assault” why is it so important to expand it to include “forced kissing”?

    What do you think you are getting out of calling it “sexual assault” that you don’t get out of calling it something else?

  48. 48
    Kate says:

    What do you think you are getting out of calling it “sexual assault” that you don’t get out of calling it something else?

    Absolute clarity that these behaviors should be totally out of bounds.

  49. 49
    Ampersand says:

    Sebastian, I think that your most recent comment was addressed to Kate, not me. But I’ll answer even though you didn’t ask me: I don’t think it’s important that this particular term be used by a particular study.

    Different studies can have different definitions of key terms; that’s always been the case, and there’s good reasons not to want 100% of studies to define everything the same way. That’s why studies define their terms for the purposes of each study. I’m fine with this study calling it “sexual assault,” but if they had used a different term (“forced sexual interaction” or something), that also would have been fine, so long as the term was defined somewhere in the study.

    I think it’s self-evident that forced kissing is a topic worth studying and fits into research on forced and coercive sex. I wouldn’t have any objection to a study being reported in a way that made it easy to separate forced kissing from other behaviors in the report – in fact, I think that would be beneficial in some ways, and I hope future studies will do that – but given the large body of literature in which many studies of different designs (including ones that don’t say ask about kissing) find broadly similar results, I don’t see any warrant for the laser-like focus you and others have given that one aspect.

    (I agree with Kate that we want clarity that these behaviors should be out of bounds, of course. For that reason, I think it would make sense for sex ed classes and other such educational programs to very clearly say that using force to kiss someone who doesn’t consent is, unambiguously, a form of sexual assault.)

  50. 50
    Aapje says:

    @Mookie

    In your scenario and following your rules, she has done nothing wrong; you’ve reiterated that you are not talking about false accusations. Surely communicating-while-female is not a crime, is not unethical. Is communicating-while-male a crime if it results in a woman feeling wholeheartedly that she has been raped? Are these male-brained individuals responsible for behavior that elicits such a response, or do they have no obligation here?

    I don’t understand this ‘communicating-while-female/male’ thing. The issue is communicating while drunk. And yes, I think that people are responsible for drinking beyond what they can handle and the consequences of that. In a perfect world, men and women would both drink within their limits, so they don’t get into situations like this.

    Unfortunately, a very large contingent of anti-assault advocates strongly resist telling women how to protect themselves, calling it victim blaming. This seems to come from a women’s rights standpoint, where it is not acceptable to tell women that they should do some things. Instead, they want to ‘teach men not to rape.’ I don’t understand why we can’t teach both genders how to reduce the chance become accidental perpetrators and how not to become victims.

    How does this work with the male victims of male perpetrators?

    The same as male on female, female on male or female on female.

    Whose viewpoint should prevail?

    I am not biased towards any gender. So after an alleged assault/rape, the police should investigate the facts, without gender bias. The assumption of innocence until proven guilty should hold.

    Unfortunately, merely saying no rarely leaves any hard evidence for the police. That is why people should be taught to run away or fight back. I’ve heard way too many cases where the woman froze up or let the man do what he wanted. That just results in a he said/she said situations that cannot be prosecuted.

    Enthusiastic / affirmative consent doctrines stipulate that parties have to elicit and receive consent

    Those doctrines are absurd and exactly the wrong way to try and fix the problem. Should a man constantly keep saying ‘yes, yes, yes,’ while he is being fellated? Should both partners keep shouting yes at each other during intercourse?

    Those doctrines are not the legal standard anyway, so when potential victims are taught those doctrines, they are effectively being taught to resist assault/rape by staying quiet or being unenthusiastic, which results in their case being tossed in court.

    The standard is not that the accused rapist had “good” intentions; claiming ignorance is not a legitimate defense.

    The grey area just shifts. Instead of arguing about implicit consent, you end up arguing about explicit consent. Teach potential victims to shout no, run away and fight back. There is much less little grey area if they behave like that.

    That’s not true in the case of Emma Sulkowicz (who has a name).

    There is actually no evidence that she was raped. No rape kit. No witnesses who she told at the time it supposedly happened, etc. On the other hand, she texted him very friendly messages after the date of the alleged rape. She lied about many things about the case (one example is that she claimed to fear running into Nungesser, while she knew that he was abroad). She violated the rules of the university investigation.

    So all objective evidence does indeed speak for the accused.

    This goes back to your theory that women and men experience events in equally valid but opposite ways. If truth is relative, why is it that the accuser is wrong?

    Not ‘experience’, interpret. Truth is not relative, but the way we interpret reality is always subjective. Gender norms and stereotypes play a huge role in how we subjectively interpret.

  51. 51
    Ampersand says:

    There is actually no evidence that [Emma Sulkowicz] was raped.

    Of course there is – there’s her claim that she was raped. That is “evidence,” although it’s not absolute proof.

    No rape kit. No witnesses who she told at the time it supposedly happened, etc.

    None of which proves in any way that she wasn’t raped.

    On the other hand, she texted him very friendly messages after the date of the alleged rape.

    Which doesn’t prove anything, one way or the other, about if Nungesser raped her. Sometimes rape victims try and act like nothing has changed for a while after being raped. Some victims have gone on second dates with, maintained long-term relationships with, or even married, their rapists.

    She lied about many things about the case (one example is that she claimed to fear running into Nungesser, while she knew that he was abroad). She violated the rules of the university investigation.

    It’s impossible to consider these claims unless you provide links. On their face they don’t look like anything that would cause a reasonable person to conclude that Sulkowicz was lying about being raped, but maybe there’s more to the claims than your nutshell summaries here indicate.

    There isn’t enough evidence in the Sulkowicz case to say “guilty beyond a reasonable doubt” – either to say that Nungesser is guilty of rape, or to say that Sulkowicz is guilty of making a false accusation.

    I lean towards believing that Nungesser raped Sulkowicz; he’s been accused of various levels of sexual forcing and assault by several students, and to me Sulkowicz’s story seems plausible and realistic. The inconsistencies and questions you’re focusing on seem a consequence of the fact that rape victims are humans, not perfect testimony machines, and therefore sometimes say and do things that aren’t perfectly logical and consistent.

    However, although I believe that Nungesser raped Sulkowicz, I certainly can’t claim to know that as a fact; it’s entirely possible I’m wrong about that. If I were on a jury (in a hypothetical world in which Nungesser was arrested and brought to trial in a criminal court), I might vote “not guilty.”

  52. 52
    Mookie says:

    I don’t understand this ‘communicating-while-female/male’ thing.

    You introduced the concept.

    Those doctrines are not the legal standard anyway

    That’s not true.

    Teach potential victims to shout no, run away and fight back. There is much less little grey area if they behave like that.

    How so? Competing first-hand testimony remains competing first-hand testimony, irrespective if the victim has (or claimed they) yelled loud enough. Mumbling “no” is no different from screaming it. Examinations that indicate sexual contact don’t always indicate consent or the lack of consent. Injuries sustained from fighting back can be ambiguous, particularly if the accused rapist claims that the “consensual” sex was “rough.”

    I fail to see how a victim physically resisting a sexual assault has anything to do with innocent “gendered” “miscommunication,” which you insist accounts for many / most rapes.

  53. 53
    Aapje says:

    @Ampersand

    Of course there is – there’s her claim that she was raped. That is “evidence,” although it’s not absolute proof.

    I forgot to add the word ‘objective’ this time, which I used previously when making my claim, but that is what I meant. If you disregard the assertions by both Sulkowicz and Nungesser that have no objective evidence to back them up, then what remains supports his version of the events and provides very, very little backing for hers.

    None of which proves in any way that she wasn’t raped.

    I claimed that it was a case ‘where the objective evidence speaks for the accused.’ That is not a claim that she wasn’t raped.

    I take no issue with people who say they are unwilling to ‘call it.’ What I do object to, is people who claim that a victim can never be mistaken or lying and assume guilt when the facts do not support that. I’m not accusing you of that, but I see that behavior quite a bit elsewhere.

    Which doesn’t prove anything, one way or the other, about if Nungesser raped her. Sometimes rape victims try and act like nothing has changed for a while after being raped.

    If she had changed her behavior shortly after the date of the alleged rape, would you have considered that evidence against Nungesser? If so, you also have to admit that a lack of change in behavior makes it less likely that a rape has happened and so supports his version of events. It doesn’t mean that a rape cannot have happened, but it does make it less likely.

    If you are unwilling to see this as exculpatory evidence, you are just looking for evidence of his guilt IMO, which is tunnel vision and highly unfair to the accused.

    It’s impossible to consider these claims unless you provide links.

    “He spent the next semester abroad in Prague. During that time, Ms. Sulkowicz held an April 2014 press conference […] in which she said, “My rapist — a serial rapist — still remains on campus” and that, “Every day I live in fear of seeing him.”
    http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/apr/24/lawsuit-alleges-columbia-mattress-girl-made-rape-c/?page=all

    Nungessers complaint provides fairly strong support for the claim that she knew he was abroad:

    “Emma, who was still Facebook friends with Paul at the time, easily knew this information as it was posted about throughout Paul’s Facebook page. “

    and:

    “In Emma’s May 2014 Time Magazine op-ed piece, entitled “My Rapist is Still on Campus,” Emma states, amongst other things, “Every day, I am afraid to leave my room.

    However, on May 18, 2014, Emma makes is clear that she is aware Paul is in fact out of the country, and not on the Columbia campus. Emma twists that information to insinuate that Paul is a fugitive: “Sulkowicz says the assistant district attorney has contacted her about beginning an investigation, and she has been told police are currently looking for her alleged rapist, who she says is out of the country.”

    The latter is especially odious, since it shows that Sulkowicz ‘forgets’ facts when making one attack on Nungesser and suddenly remembers those facts when making another attack on him. It shows a general willingness to distort reality to get her way. A false rape accusation to get back at a scorned lover would also be an example of distorting reality to get her way. So the fact that she distorted reality in one situation, provides evidence that a false accusation is more likely.

    I strongly suggest reading the entire complaint, as it is rather well argued and supported by evidence. It is quite damning to Sulkowicz’ case.

    he’s been accused of various levels of sexual forcing and assault by several students

    If you read the complaint, he makes a reasonable defense. The two other students who filed complaints were actively sought out by Sulkowicz and may have felt that they had to embellish their experiences to support Sulkowicz. The two cases are:
    – One student who claims that Nungesser had grabbed her and tried to kiss her at a party. Even if this is true, which Nungesser completely denies, the allegation seems to be that he did back off when the student showed a lack of consent (the claim is ‘tried to kiss her,’ so apparently he backed off). Sulkowicz’ rape allegation claims a violent attack. So even if the claim by the student is true, this allegation doesn’t paint Nungesser as person who disregards a lack of consent and uses severe violence to get his (sexual way), as alleged by Sulkowicz. Columbia university also investigated and found Nungesser not guilty.
    – An ex-girlfriend who said that she had the “impression while Paul was her boyfriend, that she could only see him if she had sex with him, and thus she felt obligated to have sex with him. She never alleged physical coercion, violence, or rape.” I fail to see how Nungesser can be blamed for his ex-girlfriend having an ‘impression,’ when she never alleges any intentional coercion. ‘Sex by obligation’ is consensual sex and thus not rape. When the obligation is assumed and not explicitly demanded, I cannot consider it coercion. This claim was also dismissed by the university.

    If I were on a jury (in a hypothetical world in which Nungesser was arrested and brought to trial in a criminal court), I might vote “not guilty.”

    Given the fact that Columbia university and the police, who both have studied the case in more detail than you have, dismissed the complaints, I consider it likely that you would vote ‘not guilty’ (assuming a fair review of the case).

  54. 54
    Aapje says:

    @Mookie

    You introduced the concept.

    I did not use the term ‘communicating-while-female/male,’ which you made up. The concept I used is about perception. This obviously can affect communication, but it goes way beyond it.

    You seem to believe that I claimed that men and women see things differently, which is not what I said. I claimed that the actions and words are interpreted based on the gender of the people involved, due to gender norms & stereotypes. Since gender norms/stereotypes are believed by both men and women, both genders can very easily have the same interpretation of a situation, where they hold one gender to a different standard than the other.

    Let me give a non-sex assault example. Imagine a man hitting a man. If you tell this to people, you can expect questions like: “why did he hit him?” or “was he provoked?” Now imagine a man hitting a woman. If you tell that to people, you are much more likely to get a responses like: “no excuse for hitting a woman” or “you don’t hit women.” There is a widely held gender norm that violence by men against men can be acceptable, while violence by men against women never is. Now imagine a woman hitting a man. A very likely response is: “he probably deserved it.”

    When men get told over and over again that they cannot be victimized by women, while women continuously get told that they risk being victimized by men, the logical result is that men are much less likely to see themselves as victims than women. This is just one gender norm though, there are many more (which makes this a very complex issue).

    That’s not true.

    Your link refers to a legal requirement for CA colleges to have affirmative consent in their non-legal policies. This is distinct from affirmative consent being part of general law as used by regular courts. As far as I’m aware, no general law has such a standard for consent.

    So this is highly problematic, since students will face two different standards. The one at their college and the one outside of it. If they behave in a way that is considered rape under college policy merely due to the affirmative consent clause, they cannot go to the police and get a conviction. So if the accused was a serial rapist, the lack of protest during the act will result in the rapist staying out of jail. I find this a very undesirable outcome.

    Competing first-hand testimony remains competing first-hand testimony, irrespective if the victim has (or claimed they) yelled loud enough. Mumbling “no” is no different from screaming it.

    Yelling, fighting back & running away are much more likely to result in third party witnesses or physical evidence of violence that undermine a claim of consensual sex.

    Injuries sustained from fighting back can be ambiguous, particularly if the accused rapist claims that the “consensual” sex was “rough.”

    That is a considerably more difficult defense, though. Everything that make consensual sex less likely, makes it easier to convict. Add in a little more evidence, like the woman going to the police right after the alleged rape and the accused will probably be convicted.

    Mumbling “no” is no different from screaming it.

    Yes, it is. It is much easier for the alleged rapist to (correctly or not) claim that the mumbling was not perceived as protest.

    I fail to see how a victim physically resisting a sexual assault has anything to do with innocent “gendered” “miscommunication,” which you insist accounts for many / most rapes.

    There are two issues:
    – The miscommunication itself.
    – How this miscommunication is perceived.

    You are talking about the first, I’m talking about the second. I believe women are much more likely to interpret sexual situations that involve miscommunication as assault than a man. The gendered stereotype is that almost all sex assaults are committed by men, so male behavior is judged in this context, where malicious behavior is often considered the default explanation. Female behavior is judged in a different context, where miscommunication is the default explanation.

    This is really just a specific example of cognitive bias. Do you agree with me that cognitive biases exist?

    PS. I didn’t claim that this accounts for ‘most’ rapes!

  55. 55
    Harlequin says:

    If she had changed her behavior shortly after the date of the alleged rape, would you have considered that evidence against Nungesser? If so, you also have to admit that a lack of change in behavior makes it less likely that a rape has happened and so supports his version of events.

    This is not true. The categorization goes something like:
    – Rape victims may show strong aversion to their rapist, or they may remain friendly in an attempt to put the rape out of their minds. Both reactions are relatively common.
    – People who had a consensual sexual encounter usually remain friendly, though the amount of contact may increase or decrease. Strong aversion is a much less likely result.

    So, somebody who shows fear/aversion is more likely to have been raped; somebody who remains friendly may either have been raped or not, so it provides no information, rather than supporting the accused’s side of events. (For an analogy: an adult who’s throwing up every day and in possession of a uterus is somewhat likely to be pregnant, though there are other causes too; but it would be wrong to conclude that therefore a person who is not throwing up every morning must not be pregnant, because lots of pregnant people as well as non-pregnant people do not suffer morning sickness. Statistically speaking it’s more likely that they’re not pregnant, just because there are many more non-pregnant than pregnant people in the population at any given time, but if you think you might be pregnant, “I’m not throwing up” isn’t good evidence that you’re not. “I’ve started throwing up” isn’t a slam dunk by itself, either, but it’s evidence in favor.)

    None of which is to say that I think Nungesser is guilty–I haven’t kept up with the case enough to have a strong opinion one way or another.

  56. Pingback: Back to School Repost Post | Shortwoman.com

  57. 56
    Ampersand says:

    Aapje, the brief you rely on (which I did read shortly after it was released) was written by skilled attorneys whose goal was to make Nungesser look good and Sulkowicz look bad; meanwhile, there is no parallel brief written by a lawyer representing Sulkowicz. The idea that we can make judgements based on having read Nungesser’s lawyers’ brief, is like saying that we should hold a trial in which only one side gets to make a case.

    If you disregard the assertions by both Sulkowicz and Nungesser that have no objective evidence to back them up…

    But – as I’ll show below – you don’t disregard the evidence-free assertions made by Nungesser through his lawyers; you often accept them uncritically.

    If she had changed her behavior shortly after the date of the alleged rape, would you have considered that evidence against Nungesser? If so, you also have to admit that a lack of change in behavior makes it less likely that a rape has happened and so supports his version of events.

    Obviously, I can’t answer that question, because it would depend on what the change of behavior was.

    That aside, your logic here is terrible. You’re assuming that if I say “If A then B,” then I must also say “If not-A, then Not-B” in order to be consistent. But that’s untrue, both in this particular case and as a matter of general logic. (This logical fallacy is called “denying the antecedent“, btw).

    [ETA: I crossposted with Harlequin. Harlequin’s rebuttal to “If she had changed her behavior shortly after” is much better put than mine, and I agree with it entirely.]

    Now, let’s look at your claim that Sulkowicz lied when “claimed to fear running into Nungesser, while she knew that he was abroad.” Here’s your argument to support that accusation (some of which is in words you quoted from Nungesser’s brief, but you make it clear that you agree):

    “Emma, who was still Facebook friends with Paul at the time, easily knew this information as it was posted about throughout Paul’s Facebook page. “

    1) This refers to something Sulkowicz said on April 7th – more than a month before May 18th, when Sulkowicz referred to Nungesser being abroad. So even if the statements contradict – and they don’t, see below – it’s possible that she learned Nungesser was abroad sometime between April 7 and May 18th. Ditto for her Time piece, published May 15th, but likely written a week or more before it was published. That Nungesser (through his lawyer) doesn’t consider the incredibly obvious possibility that Sulkowicz may have learned that he was abroad after writing the Time article shows how incredibly biased and unfair the brief is.

    2) There’s no evidence that Sulkowicz read any of Nungesser’s Facebook entries in April, let alone evidence that she read particular ones in which he outlined his travel itinerary. I read only a small portion of what my FB friends post on FB – the ones near the top of my FB feed when I happen to check FB – and that’s not unusual. And there are some people I’m FB friends with whose comments I tend to skim or skip when I see them, and again, that’s not unusual.

    3) Here’s what Sulkowicz wrote in Time:

    Every day, I am afraid to leave my room. Even seeing people who look remotely like my rapist scares me. Last semester I was working in the dark room in the photography department. Though my rapist wasn’t in my class, he asked permission from his teacher to come and work in the dark room during my class time. I started crying and hyperventilating.

    This is a description of what it’s like to be on the same campus as her alleged rapist in general, not a claim about where Nungesser is physically located on the particular day the article was written.

    4) I can’t find a full transcript of what Sulkowicz said on April 7, but we know she said “My rapist—a serial rapist—still remains on campus, even though three of the women he assaulted reported him to my university’s Office of Gender-Based and Sexual Misconduct. Every day I live in fear of seeing him.” In context, “remains on campus” means that he’s still a registered student who could be on campus on any day, not a statement about where Nungesser is physically located at the moment Sulkowitc was speaking.

    5) Even if Sulkowicz knew that Nungesser was abroad before May 18th – and again, there’s no evidence that she knew – that doesn’t mean that she didn’t fear running into him every day. Any new day was a day that Nungesser might return – it’s not as if he had left NY permanently.

    6) Nor is it fair to suggest that an (alleged) rape victim’s trauma-induced fears must always be 100% logical, and if they’re not that proves she’s a liar.

    7) Nungesser (through his lawyers) says Sulkowicz “insinuated” something, not based on a direct quote, but based on a reporter’s summary of Sulkowicz’s summary of what someone told her the police told them. For all you know Sulkowicz’s actual words to the reporter were dry and just repeated the facts of what she had been told. That Nungesser makes this into a big deal shows his brief’s habit of making mountains out of evidence-free molehills.

    In short, your claim that Sulkowicz lied when “claimed to fear running into Nungesser, while she knew that he was abroad” is completely unsupported by any evidence. And yet you draw extraordinary conclusions from this total lack of evidence:

    The latter is especially odious, since it shows that Sulkowicz ‘forgets’ facts when making one attack on Nungesser and suddenly remembers those facts when making another attack on him. It shows a general willingness to distort reality to get her way. A false rape accusation to get back at a scorned lover would also be an example of distorting reality to get her way. So the fact that she distorted reality in one situation, provides evidence that a false accusation is more likely.

    This doesn’t tell us anything about Sulkowicz. It does, however, richly demonstrate how threadbare and unfair your case against Sulkowicz is.

    The two other students who filed complaints

    There were three others, not two others.

    were actively sought out by Sulkowicz and may have felt that they had to embellish their experiences to support Sulkowicz.

    This isn’t true, according to what the women you discuss have said. You’re apparently basing this claim on what it says in Nungesser’s brief (bottom of page 10, top of page 11 – by the way, Nungesser’s brief is over fifty pages long, so in future if you cite the brief please cite the page number, or use a direct quote so I can use text search to find context). But the brief gives no supporting evidence for this accusation, or for its claim that Sulkowicz approached other women. It’s apparently just what Nungesser thinks, either because he’s relying on hearsay or because he made it up. (A third possibility is that he personally witnessed Sulkowicz approaching women to solicit testimony, but that seems implausible.)

    According to reporting by the Columbia Student News, “Natalie” ran into Sulkowicz at a party, and Sulkowicz, having already heard rumors that Nungesser abused Natalie, asked Natalie. There is no evidence that Sulkowicz sought her out. (Nungesser’s brief cites this same report.)

    According to “Josie,” she was not approached by Sulkowicz. Although she had heard that Nungesser had been accused of rape, Josie didn’t know the accuser was Sulkowicz until later.

    One student who claims that Nungesser had grabbed her and tried to kiss her at a party. Even if this is true, which Nungesser completely denies, the allegation seems to be that he did back off when the student showed a lack of consent (the claim is ‘tried to kiss her,’ so apparently he backed off). Sulkowicz’ rape allegation claims a violent attack. So even if the claim by the student is true, this allegation doesn’t paint Nungesser as person who disregards a lack of consent and uses severe violence to get his (sexual way), as alleged by Sulkowicz. Columbia university also investigated and found Nungesser not guilty.

    So much wrong with your summary of Josie’s case.

    First of all, Josie claims that Nungesser grabbed her and would not stop; she had to physically push him off and flee. You claim that “that he did back off when the student showed a lack of consent” is sheer fabrication, and part of a pattern of Nungesser’s lawyers softballing what Nungesser is accused of. Here’s how Josie describes it:

    The incident happened my junior year at Columbia, when Paul followed me upstairs at a party, came into a room with me uninvited, closed the door behind us, and grabbed me. I politely said, “Hey, no, come on, let’s go back downstairs.” He didn’t listen. He held me close to him as I said no, and continued to pull me against him. I pushed him off and left the room quickly. I told a few friends and my boyfriend at the time how creepy and weird it was. I tried to find excuses for his behavior. I did a decent job of pushing it out of my mind.

    So Josie’s story does, in fact, “paint Nungesser as person who disregards a lack of consent and uses severe violence to get his (sexual way).”

    Columbia doesn’t issue findings of “not guilty” or “guilty.” However, the first hearing did find Nungesser “responsible” for breaking the sexual conduct code. Later on, Nungesser appealed, and Josie – who had graduated and was starting a new job – was not available to testify at the new hearing, so the finding that Nungesser was responsible was overturned.

    An ex-girlfriend who said that she had the “impression while Paul was her boyfriend, that she could only see him if she had sex with him, and thus she felt obligated to have sex with him. She never alleged physical coercion, violence, or rape.” I fail to see how Nungesser can be blamed for his ex-girlfriend having an ‘impression,’ when she never alleges any intentional coercion.

    Total, utter bullshit – and another example of Nungesser’s lawyers softballing what Nungesser is accused of. Here’s part of Natalie’s claims:

    Tom often forcefully pinned her arms back against the mattress during sex; Natalie would cry during and after they slept together. Not until months after their break up did Natalie recognize this as non-consensual intercourse.

    What kind of person pins his girlfriend’s arms during sex even though she’s crying both during and afterward? Oh, I know: A fucking rapist.

    By any reasonable standard, if what Natalie says is true, then Nungesser raped her.

    And that Nungesser’s brief didn’t mention this shows, again, that a brief written by the accused rapist’s lawyers is not the place to go to find a full and unvarnished account.

  58. 57
    Sebastian H says:

    I would beware of using one side’s brief as establishing a proper characterization of evidence.

  59. 58
    Aapje says:

    @Harlequin

    but it would be wrong to conclude that therefore a person who is not throwing up every morning must not be pregnant

    It is actually less likely that a person is pregnant who doesn’t throw up. Let me give an abstract example:

    Lets say that you have a group of 1000 women and are told that 10 are pregnant. When presented with a random woman from this group, there is a 1 in 100 chance that she is one of the 10 pregnant ones.

    Now you are being told that 5 of the 10 the women who are pregnant throw up and you are presented with a woman who doesn’t throw up. She can be one of the 5 pregnant women who do not throw up or 1 of the 990 non-pregnant women. So the chance that she is pregnant is 5/995, almost 1 in 200. So the chance just halved.

    In a rape case where the accuser only comes forward long after the alleged rape happened, there are four possibilities:
    A The rape happened and the victim changed her behavior at that time
    B The rape happened and the victim didn’t change her behavior
    C No rape happened and the alleged victim didn’t change her behavior
    D No rape happened, but the alleged victim changed her behavior at that time for some non-rape reason

    D seems fairly unlikely to me. A and B are both possible. In the Kaiser study, 70% of the victims report that they told someone about the incident, which is one kind of changed behavior. So my guess would be that A is way more likely than B. Since Sulkowicz didn’t tell anyone that she was raped at the time or changed her behavior, she can fall under B or C. She didn’t behave as most victims seem to do (A), which make it more likely that she is C.

    Of course, this is not proof, just a statement about the likelihood.

  60. 59
    Aapje says:

    @Sebastian & Ampersand

    I would beware of using one side’s brief as establishing a proper characterization of evidence.

    I’m not claiming that the brief is unbiased, it is an argument by one side after all. However, it is to be used in an actual court case and any clear lies would severely jeopardize his case. He also provides evidence for some of his claims.

    Unfortunately there are no briefs or findings available for the accusations by Sulkowicz and the two other students. We have news stories like this one that Ampersand quoted, but it is highly problematic in that they simply let one side state their case and didn’t seem to have verified whether the complaint made at the university actually was the same as those allegations. They also didn’t let Nungesser give his side of the story. So that article is very one-sided.

    Nungesser has a completely different account of what the actual complaint by ‘Natalie/John Doe 2’ was and if he is lying about that, the university can surely disprove it easily. So Nungesser has a strong incentive to be very accurate in his allegations, since not doing so would come out anyway and negatively affect his court case. On the other hand, there are no repercussions for ‘Natalie’ if she is not truthful (note that this doesn’t mean that she is intentionally lying, she was in an abuse relationship before getting in a relationship with Nungesser, so she may have started mixing those up later on). ‘Natalie’ has a history of depression and there is evidence that it impacts memory.

    @Ampersand: if the statements by Natalie are 100% true, then there was a lack of affirmative consent.

    PS. I will reply to to the rest of Ampersand’s post later

  61. 60
    Harlequin says:

    Aapje:

    So the chance that she is pregnant is 5/995, almost 1 in 200. So the chance just halved.

    True: a randomly selected non-vomiting woman is less likely to be pregnant than one who is vomiting. But a case where a rape has been alleged is not equivalent to a random selection.

  62. 61
    Aapje says:

    @Ampersand

    I will respond only to the things I didn’t address in my responses to Harlequin.

    I read only a small portion of what my FB friends post on FB – the ones near the top of my FB feed when I happen to check FB – and that’s not unusual.

    That would be valid for random friends, but she was accusing Nungesser at the time. Why would she remain FB friends, if not to ‘spy’ on him? I just don’t find your explanation very credible. In theory what you say is possible, it just seems very unlikely to me. The brief also points out several other instances where she either lied or was inconsistent in her claims about basic facts. All that added together makes Sulkowicz seem like a person who either lies or is very confused.

    3) Here’s what Sulkowicz wrote in Time:

    Every day, I am afraid to leave my room. […] Though my rapist wasn’t in my class, he asked permission from his teacher to come and work in the dark room during my class time. I started crying and hyperventilating.

    This is a description of what it’s like to be on the same campus as her alleged rapist in general, not a claim about where Nungesser is physically located on the particular day the article was written.

    No, she explicitly says she is afraid because he has permission to come into the dark room while she is there. That only makes sense if Nungesser is at the campus.

    I can’t find a full transcript of what Sulkowicz said on April 7, but we know she said “My rapist—a serial rapist—still remains on campus, even though three of the women he assaulted reported him to my university’s Office of Gender-Based and Sexual Misconduct. Every day I live in fear of seeing him.” In context, “remains on campus” means that he’s still a registered student who could be on campus on any day, not a statement about where Nungesser is physically located at the moment Sulkowitc was speaking.

    Come on, you are reaching and not even a little. “Every day I live in fear of seeing him” is absurd if he isn’t actually on campus.

    Even if Sulkowicz knew that Nungesser was abroad before May 18th – and again, there’s no evidence that she knew – that doesn’t mean that she didn’t fear running into him every day. Any new day was a day that Nungesser might return – it’s not as if he had left NY permanently.

    Which she could see on FB….

    Nor is it fair to suggest that an (alleged) rape victim’s trauma-induced fears must always be 100% logical, and if they’re not that proves she’s a liar.

    Trauma is the typical defense used to defend accusers, for every irrational claim, falsehood they tell, rule they break, etc. But at some point, the accusation just stops being credible, regardless of whether the accuser is malicious or extremely traumatized. If she is traumatized, that is not evidence that Nungesser caused the trauma by rape. She could also be traumatized by being scorned by Nungesser, mental illness or many other things that have nothing to do with Nungesser.

    In short, your claim that Sulkowicz lied when “claimed to fear running into Nungesser, while she knew that he was abroad” is completely unsupported by any evidence. And yet you draw extraordinary conclusions from this total lack of evidence:

    This is just one example though. She has made other false claims (that she withdrew the complaint with the police) and inconsistent ones (claiming that she told others at the time and also claiming she didn’t).

    I also agree with the brief that Sulkowicz’ account of the rape lacks credibility. The claim that she screamed loudly and no one heard, in a campus apartment seems fairly unlikely. That she didn’t need medical help after being raped anally in the violent manner that she describes and actually attended various events in the days after, seems truly absurd.

    There were three others, not two others.

    I see that someone came forward only fairly recently (a gay man).

    According to reporting by the Columbia Student News, “Natalie” ran into Sulkowicz at a party, and Sulkowicz, having already heard rumors that Nungesser abused Natalie, asked Natalie. There is no evidence that Sulkowicz sought her out.

    You are completely misquoting the article. The CSN article says: “[Sulkowicz] had heard rumors of their messy relationship. She couldn’t help but wonder about the nature of their split.”

    If she already knew about the abuse, then she didn’t have to “wonder about the nature of their split.” The article is completely consistent with Sulkowicz seeking out a former girlfriend to find dirt on Nungesser. Since ‘Natalie’ only claimed abused after being in contact with Sulkowicz, it it perfectly possible that she was coached. Your misquote makes this seem impossible.

    According to “Josie,” she was not approached by Sulkowicz. Although she had heard that Nungesser had been accused of rape, Josie didn’t know the accuser was Sulkowicz until later.

    I stand corrected (for Josie, not Natalie).

    First of all, Josie claims that Nungesser grabbed her and would not stop; she had to physically push him off and flee.

    Ok, fair enough.

    =================================

    Anyway, my claim going in was that there was no objective evidence against Nungesser. I never claimed he was innocent. I still don’t see any objective evidence for any of the individual charges. Sulkowicz and ‘Natalie’s’ accusations are problematic. Firstly due to the fact that they both claim to only understood they were raped later. Natalie’s claim is borderline and hinges on the lack of affirmative consent. If she embellished just a little, her claim falls apart. The claim by Sulkowicz itself lacks credibility in her description of the rape and immediate aftermath. She tells falsehoods and violated the rules (like the gag order from the university).

    Josie charge doesn’t have any obvious weaknesses, but it has no objective evidence. Then we have the gay student, whose claim is extremely vague (“One fall night, in the midst of an emotional conversation in Paul’s dorm room, Adam says Paul pushed him onto his bed and sexually assaulted him.”). This is so lacking in detail, that it could have been an accidental touch. The claim is meaningless without more information.

    Now, I agree that the fact that so many people lay charges against Nungesser indicates that he may be guilty of something. However, I don’t see how the charges add up to him being proven a rapist. Each individual charge falls short of proving that.

    So while I fully admit that this case is the weakest of the ones I mentioned (why did you ignore the other ones?), it is still highly problematic that he is considered a rapist on Jezebel and on many other places where anti-rape advocates roam, without solid proof and despite the fact that the charges were dropped by both the police and the university.

  63. 62
    Aapje says:

    True: a randomly selected non-vomiting woman is less likely to be pregnant than one who is vomiting. But a case where a rape has been alleged is not equivalent to a random selection.

    Any accusation will have a certain chance that it is false. From the perspective of outsiders, who do not not for certain whether the accused is guilty, it is a random selection from a pool of accusations where some are false and some are true.

    If you look at the case in detail and the find that the accusation has similarities with a minority of true accusations and the majority of false accusations, then it is more likely that the accusation is false (vs an accusation that is more typical of real accusations).

  64. 63
    kate says:

    Aapje, I’m waiting for Amp and Harlequin to respond to your latest comments. Meanwhile, I’d like to address a broader pattern in your argumentation. You repeatedly insist on a series of rules about how people who were really victimized would behave in the aftermath of their assaults. You don’t link to any studies, or otherwise indicate that your judgments are based on anything more than what you perceive to be common sense.
    Most sexual assaults take place within the contexts of relationships (ie. the perpetrators are not strangers). A lot of the patterns you object to are commonplace in cases of domestic violence, for example trying to go on as if the assault never happened, and continuing to have contact with the perpetrator. Such issues arise frequently when a victim went into an attack liking and/or loving their abuser, even if they are not domestic partners.
    I don’t know if you’ve ever been the victim of a violent crime or not. If you have, you need to accept that your experience is not universal and that responding to such trauma irrationally is very commonplace (Myca had a post with links about that here).
    For example, I cannot blow dry my hair without someone watching my back because I get the intense feeling that the person who sexually assaulted me is coming up behind me. It makes no sense at all. He never assaulted me when I was drying my hair. The effect didn’t even set in until several years after the last assault, around the time the general feeling of numbness surrounding it wore off. I haven’t seen him in over a decade. He doesn’t live anywhere near me. This is not somehow evidence that I am out of touch with reality or a liar. One can fear something very intensely while rationally recognizing that it is not really a danger at all. If you’ve never experienced a disconnect like this, I can see where it would never even occur to you that someone could both fear running into their rapist on campus very intensely and know rationally that their rapist is not even in the same country.

  65. 64
    Aapje says:

    I’m not saying that it is wrong to behave irrationally and/or erratically after an assault.

    What I am saying is that it is impossible for me or the courts to judge whether that irrational and/or erratic behavior is actually due to an assault by the accused. It may also be due mental illness, assault/abuse by another person or a vindictive false accusation.

    For instance, ‘Natalie’ says that she “was suffering from serious depression before meeting [Nungesser] and had recently ended an emotionally abusive relationship.” So it seems possible that she got traumatized in that previous relationship. I previously noted that there is scientific evidence that depression makes people correlate events wrongly.

    As you said, fairly innocent events can be triggering. It is likely that Nungesser is not a perfect boyfriend. He may have sexual preferences that are triggering for her. Neither are necessarily illegal. Perhaps he is also attracted to damaged women.

    It all comes back to these accusations being she said/he said situations where there there is a very conspicuous dearth of collaborating evidence. All the accusations are quite different in nature as well. In the Cosby case, there is a clear pattern. Nungesser is accused of:
    – violent anal rape by Sulkowicz
    – emotionally and sexually exploiting Natalie, where she says the sex was non-consensual due to a lack of affirmative consent
    – cornering Josie and restraining her in a bar, while trying to kiss her
    – unspecified ‘sexual assault’ of Adam

    So we have 4 very different accusations. There is no real pattern and each individual case has almost no evidence to back it up, aside from the accuser’s word. The most serious accusations are also the ones where the accusations are least believable. If they is no pattern and no hard evidence & the main accusers are fairly erratic, then how can we decide what the truth is?

  66. 65
    Harlequin says:

    Aapje, from a few different comments:

    If she had changed her behavior shortly after the date of the alleged rape, would you have considered that evidence against Nungesser? If so, you also have to admit that a lack of change in behavior makes it less likely that a rape has happened and so supports his version of events. (#53)

    If you look at the case in detail and the find that the accusation has similarities with a minority of true accusations and the majority of false accusations, then it is more likely that the accusation is false (vs an accusation that is more typical of real accusations). (#62)

    What I am saying is that it is impossible for me or the courts to judge whether that irrational and/or erratic behavior is actually due to an assault by the accused. (#64)

    I’m having some trouble with your logic here, I think (although I know some of these comments are replying to different things–I think they’re all in the same general area but please do tell me if I’ve gotten something wrong). In #53 you are making fairly specific claims about how rape victims commonly behave (should not remain friendly with their rapist; also some claims I didn’t quote related to how and whether Sulkowicz knew or should have known that Nungesser was abroad) while in #64 you say that you and the courts cannot determine whether irrational or erratic behavior is due to trauma or inconsistencies due to lying about events. But that seems to be contradictory, because to say that rape victims don’t often remain friendly with their rapists in the immediate aftermath of the attack, to the point that the presence of that behavior should be seen to support the defendant’s case at the expense of the victim’s, is to make a judgment on what kinds of irrationality can be expected from victims.

    I disagree with your statement @64, by the way. Although I haven’t studied it in detail myself, I am told by people who work with trauma victims that there are, at least, common irrational behaviors. Remaining friendly with the attacker is one of the more common ones, because pretending the attack didn’t happen is a common early-stage coping mechanism. So while I agree with your general principle @62, the specific thing that thread of the argument was talking about–remaining friendly with a rapist–is something that happens in at least a substantial minority of cases, rather than something that is more consistent with a false accusation than a true one. It’s also consistent with the defendant’s side, of course–I’m not claiming that it supports the victim’s side–but I consider it a data point of little information, rather than a data point that points strongly to the defendant’s side.

    To be clear: I’m not advocating that all inconsistencies or irrationalities on the part of people reporting a rape should be seen as signs of trauma and in support of the reporting victim’s case. But there are certain classes of inconsistencies that are common, including slippage in the order of events and eliding behaviors that make the victim look “less perfect” such as drug or alcohol use or prior sexual behaviors.

    (The timelines thing is common in any high-emotion situation, actually, not just for victims of trauma. I have some very specific memories of 9/11 that I know are incorrect based on the when they happened–I can remember hearing about the second tower falling on the radio in my car, but I was already in class by that time. That knowledge doesn’t change my memory at all.)

    ***

    As a more minor detail:

    Any accusation will have a certain chance that it is false. From the perspective of outsiders, who do not not for certain whether the accused is guilty, it is a random selection from a pool of accusations where some are false and some are true.

    Yes, but the accuser is a random selection from the pool of “people who were victims of rape or people who were willing to lie about being raped”, not a random selection from the pool of “all possible people.” So if you build your intuition for human behavior on the pool of “all possible people”, the actual behavior represented by possible accusers may not fit that profile. Which is why I objected to the comparison of computing the rate of pregnant people among *all* non-vomiting people, rather than people with a specific selection applied. And that’s also why–as you say elsewhere–statistics are not a good way to think about what’s happening in an individual case; I was trying to make a plausibility case with my analogy, not a strict accounting.

  67. 66
    Aapje says:

    @Mookie

    I found this rather interesting blog post about affirmative consent (AC). I agree with most of it and it provides a good viewpoint on how AC is applied in a gendered way and why it makes men afraid of false accusations.

    She also addresses how people interpret sexual encounter in a gendered way, as I’ve argued (“they wonder if this code puts the onus on the boy to get verbal consent rather than the woman.”).

  68. 67
    Aapje says:

    @Harlequin

    I think that one of the reasons we are talking past each other is that I define ‘change in behavior’ much more broadly than you. It’s not just limited to the relationship of the accuser with the accused. Telling a friend is also a change in behavior, getting a rape kit, going to the police, talking to a councilor, canceling planned events, changed behavior that friends notice, etc. These are all deviations from normal behavior.

    Since I don’t limit this definition to just ‘remain friendly with their rapist,’ your counter evidence is rather lacking. You haven’t provided any quote or proof that it is common for victims to have absolutely no observable change their behavior.

    Now, when one of these changes happen at the exact time of the alleged attack, that is evidence that something happened. Not necessarily exactly what was alleged or by the person who is implicated, but something almost certainly happened at that moment.

    In contrast, when there is absolutely no change, I find that suspicious. Especially when I would have to believe that a person is behaving irrationally in a way that is completely the same as her normal behavior (and not just in 1 way, but in all ways). Note that this suspicion doesn’t mean that I dismiss the allegation completely, just that it is evidence for the accused.

    in #64 you say that you and the courts cannot determine whether irrational or erratic behavior is due to trauma or inconsistencies due to lying about events

    That’s not what I said. It’s perfectly possible that the irrational or erratic behavior is due to trauma that is either not caused by the accused (like sexual assault/rape by another person) or caused by trauma other than sexual assault (like a breakup).

    So if a person is visibly traumatized, that is not proof that the accusation is (entirely) true. When DNA-evidence became available, quite a few people were exonerated for crimes that did happen, but where the convicted person wasn’t the perpetrator. In many cases, the accuser accused the wrong person. So we cannot just assume that if the crime happened, the accused must have done it.

    is something that happens in at least a substantial minority of cases, rather than something that is more consistent with a false accusation than a true one.

    Something can happen in ‘a substantial minority of cases’ and still be ‘more consistent with a false accusation than a true one.’ That impacts the probabilities.

    But there are certain classes of inconsistencies that are common, including slippage in the order of events and eliding behaviors that make the victim look “less perfect” such as drug or alcohol use or prior sexual behaviors.

    The problem is still that if the accused can’t tell a consistent story and you don’t have other strong evidence, then how can we (= third parties) ever judge what happened? And if we cannot judge, then how can we convict (in court or the public opinion)?

    So if you build your intuition for human behavior on the pool of “all possible people”, the actual behavior represented by possible accusers may not fit that profile.

    That is true, but in the absence of hard facts about the behavior of these groups, we cannot say who is correct and thus are stuck in our respective views.

  69. 68
    Fibi says:

    Aapje – the author of the link you provided has a misunderstanding of how colleges report sexual assault. While a college’s internal policy can use whatever language they want (such as sexual misconduct) they must make reports under the Clery Act using standardized terminology and definitions.

    Since I have been motivated now to stop lurking I will weigh in with some support for your position that the clearly established continuation of a friendship would constitute evidence that provides some support for the accused’s innocence in a sexual assault proceeding. Amp has already pointed out that the strong version of the claim (I.e., no accuser who remained friends with his or her assailant is telling the truth) would be a logical fallacy and it would also ignore the fact that (at least) a substantial minority of victims try to act like nothing happened.

    You did a pretty good job in #58 of outlining why the weak version of the claim (I.e., if determining that there was an abrupt break in the friendship should make us more confident in the truth of the accusation than we were before we learned this, then determining that there was no break in the friendship should make us at least somewhat less confident in the truth than we were before we determined this) is valid. However, there are two problems with that post.

    First, in the end you conclude that a false accusation is more likely than a true one (your words are actually ambiguous, if you only meant that a false accusation is more likely than it was before the continued friendship was established, then this whole point would not apply). However, using your own numbers, if you assume that only 30% of victims try to act like nothing happened and conservatively assume that 90% of accusations are true, then out of 1000 accusations you would have 270 victims who acted as though nothing happened, and 100 false accusers. In a criminal trial this might give reasonable doubt (indeed, it might even cause a verdict of not responsible under a clear and convincing standard), but it still means that the likelihood of a false accusation only went from 10% to 27%. If you conclude that it is more likely than not that the accusation is false then you are putting way to much weight on this evidence (of course, you may not believe that 90% of accusations are true, but that’s a different issue).

    Secondly, since your back and forth with Harlequin and Amp concerned a particular case it’s important to remember that having some evidence of a continued friendship is not the same as determining that there was a continued friendship. My understanding is that in this case the victim has provided an explanation for the text messages. You may not find the explanation convincing (I haven’t kept up with the case enough to have an opinion), but the existence of a continued friendship is itself disputed in this (and many) cases. I take as given your reference to a study that shows 70% of victims have some alteration in behavior. I’m not familiar with that study but presumably the 70% includes a large number who make some changes but don’t want everyone in their circle of friends to know so they also make some effort to act as though nothing happened.

  70. 69
    Fibi says:

    I cross posted with Aapje’s latest response. For some reason I don’t have an edit button today (probably because I am on my tablet). Still, I think my post remains responsive.

  71. 70
    Harlequin says:

    I’ll state before I begin that this is getting quite far afield from the topic of the post, and if the mods would like me to move to the open thread I’m happy to do that.

    I think that one of the reasons we are talking past each other is that I define ‘change in behavior’ much more broadly than you.

    Ah–this is a fair point; I didn’t understand that. No change in any behavior is a rather stronger statement, yes. (Again–I’m remaining agnostic about the particulars of the Sulkowicz and Nungesser case; I don’t know if this is applicable there, or whether we even have enough information to know.)

    That’s not what I said. It’s perfectly possible that the irrational or erratic behavior is due to trauma that is either not caused by the accused (like sexual assault/rape by another person) or caused by trauma other than sexual assault (like a breakup).

    Ah, sorry. That doesn’t matter much for my point, though, because:

    So if a person is visibly traumatized, that is not proof that the accusation is (entirely) true.

    And here I think you’ve misunderstood me: I’m not saying that inconsistencies consistent with the result of trauma are in themselves proof of the claim; I’m saying they’re not a reason to disregard the claim, that is, they’re neither proof for nor against. You should still be making a holistic judgment on the case based on all the evidence. Um–to be a bit more precise I’m talking about how you evaluate the evidence, not that these types of inconsistencies are themselves evidence.

    The problem is still that if the accused can’t tell a consistent story and you don’t have other strong evidence, then how can we (= third parties) ever judge what happened? And if we cannot judge, then how can we convict (in court or the public opinion)?

    If it’s too inconsistent, then you can’t. The question is how inconsistent, and how believable the victim’s story is anyway, and how believable the defendant’s story is, and what other evidence shows, and whether the witnesses are reliable, and….

    So if a person is visibly traumatized, that is not proof that the accusation is (entirely) true. When DNA-evidence became available, quite a few people were exonerated for crimes that did happen, but where the convicted person wasn’t the perpetrator. In many cases, the accuser accused the wrong person. So we cannot just assume that if the crime happened, the accused must have done it.

    In most of those cases, the accuser didn’t accuse a specific person: they made a claim of stranger rape, and either they were lying or the wrong person was arrested. (One study from 2004 found that “In 72% of the rape exonerations the victims and all other eyewitnesses who testified were strangers to the falsely convicted defendant” (source); in comparison only 11% were known to be due to perjury by the accuser–of course that’s a lower limit.) Obviously those are serious miscarriages of justice–I don’t want to make it sound like I think that doesn’t matter, just that I think it’s not really applicable here.

    Similarly, by the way, whatever you think the probability of a false accusation is, false accusations tend to be reports of stranger rape more commonly than true reports are. So if you’re trying to figure out the baseline probability that an accusation is false, you need to take into account at least:
    – What percentage of reports are false
    – Whether a specific person was accused
    – What percentage of true reports accuse a specific person (or not)
    – What percentage of false reports accuse a specific person (or not)
    – What percentage of true reports about (or not about) a specific person have the right types of evidence to make it to trial under the laws and practices of this particular location
    – What percentage of false reports about (or not about) a specific person have the right types of evidence to make it to trial under the laws and practices of this particular location

    All of that is hard to measure, especially the last two. Which is why I say that most detailed statistics–even something like a change from 20% to 40 or 50%–are really way too uncertain to actually matter on their own. And you have to ask similar questions about what gets publicized and how if we’re talking about the court of public opinion.

    ***

    Fibi, that was an interesting breakdown; thanks.

  72. 71
    Aapje says:

    @Fibi

    First, in the end you conclude that a false accusation is more likely than a true one (your words are actually ambiguous, if you only meant that a false accusation is more likely than it was before the continued friendship was established, then this whole point would not apply).

    I meant the bit between parenthesis.

    Note that I brought up this case to explain that men fear false accusations because people are quick to assume their guilt (a poster argued that only men with a bad conscience have fear of this, which I strongly disagree with). The example is valid in that the people with supposedly the most information (police & university) have decided not to pursue the case, there is some solid doubt and no hard evidence. Although I didn’t touch on this earlier, the university even took sides against him in several ways (which is why he is suing them).

    Yet despite all this, there are a lot of people who assume his guilt and leave no room for doubt (I can provide plenty of links if you doubt this, Jezebel and their comment section can provide a million examples to start with). I don’t want you to believe a ‘he must be innocent’ narrative, which is just as stupid as the ‘he must be guilty’ narrative. Instead, I want ‘you’ (= people here who don’t think that men have a legitimate fear of false accusations) to understand why men feel the deck is stacked against them.

    Perhaps I shouldn’t have used the Nungesser/Sulkowicz example, since he may very well be guilty of some form of sexual assault, although I don’t think his actual guilt or innocence is relevant to my argument. No one took issue with my other examples (Rolling Stones/UVA and Duke Lacrosse), even though the men were also assumed to be guilty in those cases. However, ‘grey’ cases require fair treatment just as much as black/white cases.

    My understanding is that in this case the victim has provided an explanation for the text messages.

    Yes, but I actually think that her explanation weakens her case. She didn’t claim that she was in denial when she sent those messages, but that she wanted to talk to Nungesser about the alleged rape, without scaring him by using a serious tone/accusing him. In the explanation, she does in fact claim a change in behavior, by saying that she confided in a girlfriend shortly after the alleged rape. However, in an earlier interview she claims: Immediately afterwards? Well, at first, I didn’t even tell my parents. It was very—I was very ashamed, I felt disgusting, and I didn’t want to talk about it at all.

    I wouldn’t forget it if a friend told me (s)he might have been sexually assaulted, but Sulkowicz doesn’t seem able to produce witness testimony by this girlfriend. This is highly suspicious. But regardless of whether she did actually tell anyone at the time, her narrative clearly changed over time. Her later statements about telling others are inconsistent with her earlier statements. If she does this about 1 factoid, then why not others (like the alleged rape itself)?

    I take as given your reference to a study that shows 70% of victims have some alteration in behavior. I’m not familiar with that study but presumably the 70% includes a large number who make some changes but don’t want everyone in their circle of friends to know so they also make some effort to act as though nothing happened.

    The Kaiser study that this blog post is about has 70+% of self-reported victims claim that they told others. This statistic is somewhat problematic, since the question didn’t ask when people told others, so people may have told others only (much) later (which doesn’t ‘count’ as changed behavior shortly after the alleged assault). On the other hand, ‘telling others’ is only 1 kind of altered behavior.

    I treat that number more as indicative that a substantial number of victims do change their behavior. Whether it is 50, 70 or 90% isn’t really that relevant to my general argument, although it may impact my judgment of guilt in individual cases.

    PS. I would be interested in surveys that study this in more detail.

  73. 72
    Aapje says:

    @Harlequin

    I agree with all the things you said before this and feel we are getting very close to agreement now, but I’m a pedantic person, so:

    In most of those cases, the accuser didn’t accuse a specific person: they made a claim of stranger rape, and either they were lying or the wrong person was arrested. […] Obviously those are serious miscarriages of justice–I don’t want to make it sound like I think that doesn’t matter, just that I think it’s not really applicable here.

    By definition, DNA exoneration happens in cases where DNA can prove other evidence wrong. However, as your report argues as well, this is only a subset of false convictions that have specific characteristics. For instance, a false conviction based on eye witness testimony, where no rape kit was done, cannot be overturned based on DNA (since no sperm will be available to test). So it is a mistake to look at the exonerations and assume that all false accusations are like that.

    I do think that it is more likely for mistaken identities to happen in stranger rape cases. However, it is perfectly possible that an accuser was abused/raped at moment X, but was in denial, then relived some of that during consensual sex with the accused at moment Y and finally mixed this all together much later. Or that there was no rape at all, but some other trauma that turned into rape in the accusers mind. An infamous example of the latter is the ‘repressed memory’ school of psychology where psychologists help their patients recover their repressed memories. It turned out that these memories were often false and that in fact, a substantial number of people can be made to believe false memories with similar techniques.

    I’m not saying that these cases are necessarily frequent in practice, but we cannot discount the possibility. When we look at the case at hand, Natalie’s accusation has several red flags that jump out to me as being consistent with a false recollection.

    Similarly, by the way, whatever you think the probability of a false accusation is, false accusations tend to be reports of stranger rape more commonly than true reports are.

    No, at most you have shown that one type of false accusation (rape happened, but the perpetrator is misidentified) is more likely for stranger rape.

    There are many other types of false accusation where no rape happened, but:
    A. the accuser wants to get back at the accused (e.g. revenge after a breakup)
    B. the accuser wants to shift blame (e.g. pregnant daughter of conservative parents doesn’t want to admit to having sex or a wife gets an STD, but doesn’t want to admit to cheating)
    C. the accuser wants to profit from her accusation (e.g. extorting a famous & rich person or trying to profit from the ‘victim status’ or to get custody)
    D. the accuser has false memories. Drugs like alcohol often play a role.
    E. the accuser is mentally ill
    F. the accuser wants to help ‘put a rapist behind bars’

    Type A would almost always happen to acquaintances. B to F could happen to strangers and acquaintances alike. Note that the categories are not exclusive, since people can have multiple motives and/or conditions.

    [list of things that can be measured about false accusations] All of that is hard to measure, especially the last two. Which is why I say that most detailed statistics–even something like a change from 20% to 40 or 50%–are really way too uncertain to actually matter on their own

    I agree. However, what I’ve heard from many anti-rape activists is that false accusations are very rare. Kate has made a claim that only makes sense if she believes that false accusations are very rare, for instance (“Many non-rapists males are afraid of being falsely accused, because they can’t believe that that guy who seems so great really did rape a woman, and so assume that he was falsely accused.”).

    There is absolutely no proof that false accusations are rare and I think a good case can be made that they happen quite often. Although that case cannot be based on solid statistics due to the unwillingness of the police to investigate false accusations and an unwillingness by the DA to drag false accusers into court (not just in rape cases). In places were the police/DA is slightly more serious about prosecuting false accusations, you immediately see anti-rape advocates fight this. This tendency by some anti-rape advocates to pick the side of women over men, rather than pick the side of the perpetrator over the victim, is what invites accusations of gender bias/misandry.

  74. 73
    Ampersand says:

    Note that I brought up this case to explain that men fear false accusations because people are quick to assume their guilt (a poster argued that only men with a bad conscience have fear of this, which I strongly disagree with).

    If you’re going to say or imply that someone on this forum has said something, please say specifically which comment you’re talking about, and ideally quote what you’re referring to. Thanks.

  75. 74
    Kate says:

    Kate has made a claim that only makes sense if she believes that false accusations are very rare, for instance (“Many non-rapists males are afraid of being falsely accused, because they can’t believe that that guy who seems so great really did rape a woman, and so assume that he was falsely accused.”).

    There is absolutely no proof that false accusations are rare and I think a good case can be made that they happen quite often.

    False reports are rare for all crimes. False accusations are generally only a small subset of false reports (because people looking for attention generally vaguely describe a stranger). You need to make the case that rape is somehow unique in its high rate of people making false accusations.
    Also “freaked out by a few sensationalized media reports” is not a rational reason to believe that large numbers of women are lying about being raped. My explanation was actually more rational than yours.

  76. 75
    Aapje says:

    @Ampersand

    The name and quote I refer to are in post 72. I decided to clarify there, although it should really be clear for people who have been following the thread. All the discussion about Nungesser/Sulkowicz & false accusations goes back to post 29, which is a response to post 28 where Kate made a remarkable claim (to me, that is).

    I have repeatedly referred back to my original claim in post 29, although people seem to prefer debating the lesser issue over the larger one. Which is fine with me, but a little strange.

    Perhaps I should abstract the issue some more. The way we look at and address sexual assault actually strengthens the separation between genders. Rape and assault are seen as something that only men do and generally to women (but in prison to men as well). This becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Men are less likely to feel victimized (different perception of their sexuality and allowed feelings), less likely to get support from friends when they do feel victimized, less likely to be believed by the police & others, less likely to seek help as fewer resources are available, etc. All of this makes sexual assault against men very invisible in society, which strengthens the gender stereotypes, which keeps it invisible, ad infinitum. On the other hand, we tell women to be afraid of men, to evaluate their relationships in terms of consent, to seek help, give them self-defense training, provide many services after becoming victims, etc. All of this makes sexual assault against women very visible in society, which strengthens the gender stereotypes, which keeps it very visible, ad infinitum.

    Result: an enormous gap between men and women on this issue, completely disproportional to actual victim statistics.

    In some ways, feminism and the strongly related anti-rape movement are combating this a little, but on the whole, they do more to keep it in place IMHO. The narrative that men take advantage/prey on drunk women, but the opposite or mutual inebriation never happens. The narrative that false accusations are so rare to be insignificant. The narrative that in a he said/she said situation, we should always side with the accuser and all problem with the accusations are due to trauma sustained in the assault (creating a situation where the accused can never be considered innocent). The narrative that men can and should police other men. Rape culture as a being part of male culture. The narrative that men can only be ‘allies’ (= shut up), rather than equal stakeholders. Etc, etc. From my perspective, most of these are the dominant narratives that are extremely gendered and get very little push back.

    I understand why. People in the anti-rape movement (and feminism) are predominantly women and so it is perfectly understandable that their experiences create a bias (which just piles onto the bias that already exists in society). You see the exact same ‘othering’ among father groups, drivers (who judge cyclists differently from other drivers), conservatives, etc, etc. They all create enemy stereotypes and judge the many by the few. However, the bias I see directly undermines the goal of feminism, to create equality.

    Now, post 28 is a very good example of these gendered narratives. The entire post paints men as perpetrators and women (and children) as their victims. Rapists are a minority of men and only men. Other men refuse to believe that the men they know could be rapists, so they are enablers. Ergo, all men are to blame. Yet she got no push back here. Is that because you all believe this? Or didn’t you think the narrative was worth opposing?

  77. 76
    Aapje says:

    @Kate

    False reports are rare for all crimes.

    That is a claim that you cannot support with evidence, since there are no accurate statistics on false reports for any crime.

    False accusations are generally only a small subset of false reports (because people looking for attention generally vaguely describe a stranger).

    Your sentence makes no sense to me, since a false report is a false accusation. Are you using a definition of ‘false accusation’ that requires intentional lying? I use this one

    You need to make the case that rape is somehow unique in its high rate of people making false accusations.

    I don’t actually, since false rape accusations happen nearly exclusively to men. So even if they are equally likely as false accusations for other crimes, they would still disproportionately target men. Which is a rational reason for men to fear them much more than women.

    Secondly, your claim that I need to prove that rape is unique only holds if I would believe that men only fear false accusations about rape. I don’t and think they also fear false accusations about things like child abuse.

    Although I will humor you: false accusations are more likely for crimes that require no hard evidence. It is inconvenient to have to produce a dead body, so false accusations of murder are undoubtedly rarer. It is rather absurd to think that intentional false accusers won’t pick crimes where it is easier to make a false accusation. As for non-intentional false accusations, the Kaiser study has a very large number of self-reported victims saying they were drunk at the time. I strongly suspect that this is lower for many other crimes. Drunkenness affects recollection, perception, reasoning, etc. So there is a logical correlation between drunkenness and unintentional false accusations.

    Pretty much all crimes that are hard to prove are easy to falsely accuse people of, since they are also hard to disprove. A typical rape accusation involves just two people, indoors where there are no camera’s or witnesses, doing something that is not a crime if similar acts are done with consent.

    Also “freaked out by a few sensationalized media reports” is not a rational reason to believe that large numbers of women are lying about being raped.

    It is perfectly rational to draw conclusions based on the the number of cases you witness.

    It may not be considered smart, since media attention is rarely proportional to the actual rates. So it is smarter to base an opinion on scientific facts (if available, which is not actually the case here).

    However, you seem to confuse smart with rational, which are not the same thing.

    My explanation was actually more rational than yours.

    No, because you seem to have assumed the real reason based on your stereotypes of men. Your explanation assumes that men base their opinion exclusively on accusations of men they know (rather than the media, the opinions of female friends, etc, etc), a claim that you have neither supported with evidence or gave any other argument for. Your explanation is based on the claim that men think that all the men they know are great…which is truly absurd. Do you seriously believe that men think that about all the men they know? Your statement can also only be true if men will generally believe that the woman is less believable than the man, which implies misogyny on the part of all men. The belief that all men are misogynist is actually misandrist.

    So your arguments don’t actually logically support your conclusion and your implicit assumptions show that you are biased against men. Verdict: not rational.

  78. 77
    Ampersand says:

    @Ampersand

    The name and quote I refer to are in post 72.

    I’m not seeing it. Where did either Kate or Harlequin (the two posters here you quoted in post 72) say “only men with a bad conscience have fear of” false accusations?

    No “I referred to it in this post” this time, please. Answer the question by directly quoting the exact words in which either Kate or Harlequin said that only men with a bad conscience have fear of false accusations.

  79. 78
    Ampersand says:

    So your explanation is not just very illogical, your implicit assumptions show that you are biased against men.

    Please don’t make personal attacks on other posters.

    Also, please don’t respond to this moderation request by attacking the moderation or saying “but [whoever] did it too!”

  80. 79
    Harlequin says:

    but I’m a pedantic person

    Oh, gee. I, um, I…have absolutely no idea what that’s like, none whatsoever…*wanders off whistling innocently* :)

    By definition, DNA exoneration happens in cases where DNA can prove other evidence wrong. (…) So it is a mistake to look at the exonerations and assume that all false accusations are like that.

    100% agreed, but you are the one who brought it up as evidence for your side. I wasn’t questioning your conclusion (sometimes people lie about being raped by a particular person–although we have very different conclusions about the frequency of that), I was pointing out that your evidence doesn’t support that conclusion.

    No, at most you have shown that one type of false accusation (rape happened, but the perpetrator is misidentified) is more likely for stranger rape.

    Sorry–that comment was not based on the paper I cited; I thought it was relatively common knowledge, as I’ve heard it in multiple locations. One source seems to be a paper by Charles McDowell, who categorized a sample of a few hundred rape allegations and looked for systematic differences between cases that were conclusively true and those that were conclusively false; here’s a paper reproducing a (false accusation) case from the 1980s and comparing its characteristics to McDowell’s descriptions, which is the closest I can get to finding McDowell’s original research with a few-minute Google search. (Amusingly, several of the links I found when looking for it were Alas posts or in response to Alas posts!) That research is now somewhat old, but I imagine the qualitative underpinnings have not changed: people making false accusations of rape know the societal narratives about rape victims as well as anybody else, and victims of violent stranger rape are the most likely to be believed and the most likely to receive sympathy, so their stories tend to hew more closely to that stereotype than real rapes, which are typically less violent and committed by people known to the victim.

    The entire post paints men as perpetrators and women (and children) as their victims. Rapists are a minority of men and only men. Other men refuse to believe that the men they know could be rapists, so they are enablers. Ergo, all men are to blame. Yet she got no push back here.

    But your summary isn’t accurate. I hope Kate doesn’t mind me explaining here a bit–she can disagree with anything I say, of course. But for example, you read the statement

    That society is unable to bring all but a small percentage of these predators to justice.
    Many non-rapists males are afraid of being falsely accused, because they can’t believe that that guy who seems so great really did rape a woman, and so assume that he was falsely accused.

    as saying that all men and only men are to blame for enabling. Whereas to me, “society is…” is acknowledging a system that comprises people of all genders–social justice folks tend to be quite fond of “systematic X” constructions, where we acknowledge (since it’s true!) that victims of a societal problem often internalize the societal messages about themselves and help perpetuate the problem. She didn’t have to specifically mention women for me or other frequent commenters here to understand that’s what she meant. And then she gives a reason that some men (explicitly not all men) disbelieve rape victims, which–in my experience–they do more frequently than women do, though again, both men and women (and people uncomfortable with a gender binary) do this all the time.

    [edit to remove a bit that I realized once I posted was based on a misreading–my apologies to anyone who had to read that, whoops]

  81. 80
    Aapje says:

    @Ampersand

    In hindsight, I agree that I went too far in characterizing the post at that point. She didn’t in fact say that the men have false conscience, but rather that they are blinded by allegiance to men they know. So I take back my mischaracterization.

    However, I disagree that calling out a bias that I see is wrong. Perhaps it is more acceptable if I say:

    That particular argument can only be true if you believe that men will take sides with men they know, rather than with women they do or do not now. This implies a very strong gender bias on the part of men, something that I regard as an attack on men as a gender (especially in the absence of any proof or further argumentation to make this credible).

    I do admit that it could be possible that Kate also thinks that women have a very similar gender bias in favor of other women, in which case you can argue that the label I used doesn’t apply, as she has a dim view of both genders. Or you can argue that she fits both that label and the opposite label.

    I any case, the label isn’t really relevant, but I do expect Kate to explain why her view on men is valid and to clarify whether she thinks that men do this far more than women. As it is, her argument is based on pretty strong beliefs about the nature of men, that can’t simply be assumed to be true. If I made my query in an offensive way, I apologize.

  82. 81
    Aapje says:

    I wasn’t questioning your conclusion (sometimes people lie about being raped by a particular person–although we have very different conclusions about the frequency of that), I was pointing out that your evidence doesn’t support that conclusion.

    I agree that all arguments involving false accusations are on shaky ground due to the lack of reliable data. Given the lack of that data, I think it is defensible to make ‘common sense’ arguments to some extent, primarily to argue for reasonable doubt (since in a just system of justice, doubt favors the accused). In practice, different people can have equally defensible variants of common sense, in the absence of hard evidence. So they can and should be taken with a grain of salt.

    So to conclude, I agree that my arguments are not ‘solid,’ but I do think that they merit consideration in some contexts.

    looked for systematic differences between cases that were conclusively true and those that were conclusively false […] people making false accusations of rape know the societal narratives about rape victims as well as anybody else, and victims of violent stranger rape are the most likely to be believed and the most likely to receive sympathy, so their stories tend to hew more closely to that stereotype than real rapes, which are typically less violent and committed by people known to the victim.

    One problem with that method that it is highly likely that some kinds of false accusations are far more likely to be proven conclusively false than others. For instance, an accusation of stranger rape can be disproved if the accused has a strong alibi, there is no evidence of intercourse during a rape kit, DNA doesn’t match, the crime scene is not as described, etc. In contrast, a false accusation where two people did have sex in private and the accuser claims lack of consent, can rarely be proven conclusively false without a voluntary admission on the part of the accuser.

    In many ways the paper you cited reminds me of the common belief by cops that criminals are stupid. It is clearly true that criminals are more likely to get caught if they make stupid mistakes and it is clearly true that stupid people make more stupid mistakes. So the criminals that are caught are more stupid than average. The police act on their perception by using methods that primarily catch stupid criminals, which results in them catching even more stupid criminals, etc. The logical result is that all police statistics are biased and show way more stupid crime than smart crime and smart crime is often not even recognized.

    I think the research you refer to has a large risk of exhibiting a bias as well, because it likely has a biased sample of ‘conclusively true/false’ cases. So it builds a model to find false accusations that is based on which false accusations are easy to detect. The cases that fit the model are in turn like the false accusations that are easy to detect.

    I also think you make a mistake by assuming that all/most false accusations involve a conscious decision to lie. You also seem to assume a single motive (“to receive sympathy”). The list I gave in post 72 offers many more possibilities that all happen in reality.

    I do agree that accusers that intentionally lie to gain sympathy (and have no other motives) are more likely to follow a stereotype. I simply disagree that this is the only or even the majority of false accusations that happen. There has been extensive research that shows we do not have accurate memory like most people think they have, but rather a reconstructive memory where we basically invent a narrative that makes most sense based on your perceptions, stereotypes, norms, emotions, etc, etc. There have been documented cases where people fully believed outlandish claims about crimes they supposedly experienced, which were disproved by objective evidence. In contrast, a false memory/rationalization about a lack of consent is just a very minor false memory that can very easily happen. Especially when alcohol is involved. A decision by the alleged victim that her experience was not completely consensual can evolve over time in a very far-reaching rape accusation, due to the distorting effect of the serial reproduction of a story. The misinformation effect can also play a role when there are other accusations, resulting in the copying of details from another accusation.

    as saying that all men and only men are to blame for enabling. Whereas to me, “society is…” is acknowledging a system that comprises people of all genders–social justice folks tend to be quite fond of “systematic X” constructions

    I admit to interpreting ‘society’ in that sentence as being intended to mean ‘male dominated society where primarily men enable the patriarchy.’ In my experience, many rape culture advocates see it this way and post 28 displays a very strong bias IMO, by painting only men as rapists, only talking about how they believe that false accusations are a major factor, claiming that they pick the side of men by default, only painting women and children as victims, etc. It’s all one-sided. I also noticed that in other posts, Kate does accept the existence of male victims, but very carefully doesn’t say that women are perpetrators. In my experience, this is a red flag that the person only believes in male rapists (although I cannot say that for sure, of course).

    To be honest, it is a little frustrating that Kate doesn’t elaborate on her beliefs, since I think that the kind of bias I notice in her posts is both very prevalent and counterproductive to achieve gender equality in general and sexual equality more specifically. I see the entire post as a very good illustration about how the genders are judged based on stereotypes, not just by non-feminists, but by (some) feminists as well. This is why I would like her to defend it in detail, so I don’t succumb to reading things into her words that she may or may not mean, since we have her own explanation.

    And then she gives a reason that some men (explicitly not all men) disbelieve rape victims, which–in my experience–they do more frequently than women do, though again, both men and women (and people uncomfortable with a gender binary) do this all the time.

    Yet she doesn’t note that women also do this all the time. You are just as guilty as me when it comes to reading things into her words that she doesn’t actually say. I would be much more willing to accept your explanation if she hadn’t ended with “This is rape culture.” When someone defines a term, I expect the (preceding) explanation of that term to be fairly complete.

    If someone offers only a partial definition, then they can never be pinned down on their definition and can just move the goal posts or claim ‘straw man’ for any counterargument. I consider that a highly unfair way to debate.

  83. 82
    Aapje says:

    I found this self-reported survey about false accusations. While the last question doesn’t separate different kinds of false accusations, the reported ~10% is very high. The respondents also say that in 3/4 of the cases, the falsely accused was a man. If you combine those two stats, it is logical to assume that the male respondents would report a considerably higher number on the last question than female respondents (unfortunately, the surveyors didn’t give split results by gender).

    While this survey doesn’t necessarily give us reliable data about the actual number of false accusations, it does demonstrates why men fear false accusations. They see men being accused more than women and feel they are falsely accused quite often.

  84. 83
    Harlequin says:

    I might have more to say later on false accusations (ah…work, taking time away from Internet debates), but quickly:

    If someone offers only a partial definition, then they can never be pinned down on their definition and can just move the goal posts or claim ‘straw man’ for any counterargument. I consider that a highly unfair way to debate.

    As opposed to accusations of bias such as

    In my experience, many rape culture advocates see it this way and post 28 displays a very strong bias IMO, by painting only men as rapists, only talking about how they believe that false accusations are a major factor, claiming that they pick the side of men by default, only painting women and children as victims, etc. It’s all one-sided. I also noticed that in other posts, Kate does accept the existence of male victims, but very carefully doesn’t say that women are perpetrators. In my experience, this is a red flag that the person only believes in male rapists (although I cannot say that for sure, of course).

    To be honest, it is a little frustrating that Kate doesn’t elaborate on her beliefs, since I think that the kind of bias I notice in her posts is both very prevalent and counterproductive to achieve gender equality in general and sexual equality more specifically. I see the entire post as a very good illustration about how the genders are judged based on stereotypes, not just by non-feminists, but by (some) feminists as well.

    which are so concrete and easy to defend against?

    (I mean–yes. I know that feeling, where there’s a genre of argument, and you hear part of it and assume the rest is there. And sometimes it is. But I have found that at least as often as it’s true, I’m in fact getting hit by confirmation bias and reading things into the conversation that are not actually there. There’s a thread on here maybe a year ago where in successive comments both I and the person I was debating accuse each other of ignoring male rape victims! And I would especially beware confirmation bias in this conversation, where there are already concrete examples of you misreading extra, more extreme arguments into my comments–and vice versa, of course; as I said I tend to do the same thing, though I try to guard against it these days.)

  85. 84
    Harlequin says:

    (To be specific: you point out some misreadings of mine in comment #67, and I point out some of yours in comment #79.)

  86. 85
    Kate says:

    It’s all one-sided. I also noticed that in other posts, Kate does accept the existence of male victims, but very carefully doesn’t say that women are perpetrators. In my experience, this is a red flag that the person only believes in male rapists (although I cannot say that for sure, of course).
    To be honest, it is a little frustrating that Kate doesn’t elaborate on her beliefs, since I think that the kind of bias I notice in her posts is both very prevalent and counterproductive to achieve gender equality in general and sexual equality more specifically. I see the entire post as a very good illustration about how the genders are judged based on stereotypes, not just by non-feminists, but by (some) feminists as well. This is why I would like her to defend it in detail, so I don’t succumb to reading things into her words that she may or may not mean, since we have her own explanation.

    Me @ 10

    Lauren and Patrick both make good points. Appeals to homophobia (or fat phobia) are also problematic because they assume that men are never unwilling or unable to consent to sex with someone who they might generally be attracted to. This also disappears many male victims of various sexual orientations raped by their partners/friends/etc..

    Me @26

    These were obviously not gender specific questions, so some of those assaults were almost certainly against other men. It also does not include female rapists.

    If you are not going to read what I am writing, I see no point in continuing to have a conversation with you. [edited to add, the specific post @28 you complain about was a follow-up on @26]

  87. 86
    Kate says:

    Harlequin
    When I wrote:

    That society is unable to bring all but a small percentage of these predators to justice.
    Many non-rapists males are afraid of being falsely accused, because they can’t believe that that guy who seems so great really did rape a woman, and so assume that he was falsely accused.

    @28 I was following up on discussion of a specific study, which I linked @26, where I acknowledged the gender bias in the study.
    I believe that both men and women tend to believe whoever they are closest to in he said/she said cases. I only mention men here because only men commonly parlay this into a fear of being falsely accused of rape. However, when friendship bias is not in play, I think both men and women tend to believe men over women. In my experience, women are considered to be less trustworthy narrators than men in general.

  88. 87
    Aapje says:

    @Kate

    This also disappears many male victims of various sexual orientations raped by their partners/friends/etc

    You didn’t actually specify the partner’s sex. So this could have been referring to male partners in gay relationships. But it actually was this part of post 26 that jumped out to me:

    Although there is no doubt that male victims of rape are underreported, we have no indication that male on male rape is close to being as common as male on female rape outside of prisons

    Here you seemed to define male victims as only victims of male on male rape (and female victims as only victims of male on female rape). I don’t understand why you would fail to include female on male rape and female on female rape, unless you had a reason to do so. Now that I reread it again and again, I still find this a very strange sentence if you do believe that female-on-male rape exists. Why do are you so specific? Why not compare all rape with male victims (regardless of the gender of the perpetrator) to all rape of female victims?

    It also does not include female rapists.

    This could have been referring to female rapists of women (using objects or fingers).

    If you are not going to read what I am writing, I see no point in continuing to have a conversation with you.

    I have analyzed your words in such detail that I think your accusation is unfair.

    Now, I fully admit that my reading of the italic quote made me question the other quoted parts, which are not problematic by themselves. However, I never accused you. I just pointed out that your posts could have been written by someone who thinks that women cannot rape men, which is a belief that some feminists have, so I would simply like some clarification.

  89. 88
    Harlequin says:

    Ah–okay. I agree with all of that, by the way, and the context does help, but I think you were clear even without that reference! (edit: this is directed at Kate at 86!)

  90. 89
    Aapje says:

    @Kate

    Thank you for the clarification. Your standpoint is much clearer to me now, although quite problematic:

    I believe that both men and women tend to believe whoever they are closest to in he said/she said cases.

    You’ve claimed that a very small minority of men are guilty of raping a much larger group of women. You’ve also claimed that false accusations are very rare. If both claims are true, only a very small number of men will ever be accused of rape. The chance that a random man will know an accused man should thus be very small, since men know only so many other men.

    Most men know quite a few women. Given the far, far larger group of female victims, they should know way more women who claim to be rape victims than men who are accused of rape. So using your logic, men would be closest to female accusers way more often than they would be closest to an accused man.

    Your explanation should then result in most men believing the female accuser by default and only a very small number of men fearing false accusations.

    PS. Note that I do not accept several of your premises.

    However, when friendship bias is not in play, I think both men and women tend to believe men over women. In my experience, women are considered to be less trustworthy narrators than men in general.

    Anecdotes are not proof though. This study disagrees with your observations:

    People perceive women to lie less than men
    The actual study

    A very interesting finding is that people expect men to lie for their own benefit, while women are expected to lie for the benefit of others. It seems to me that if you translate this to he said/she said situations, this would make people more likely to believe the men is lying.

  91. 90
    Ampersand says:

    I’m not claiming that the brief is unbiased, it is an argument by one side after all. However, it is to be used in an actual court case and any clear lies would severely jeopardize his case. He also provides evidence for some of his claims.

    I don’t think this (pdf link) is a “brief,” although I’ve been referring to it that way, so my bad. It’s a “complaint.”

    In a separate letter to the court (pdf), both sides agree that they’re not going to litigate whether or not the rapes happened; their only interest is determining if the University can be sued because of what Sulkowicz said after the University panel didn’t hold Nungesser responsible.

    So no, I don’t think we should accept what Nungesser says as absolute truth just because he said it in a complaint. Half-truths, lies by omission, and lies that can’t be proven to be deliberate lies are pretty safe to put in a complaint like this, as I understand it (although I’m not a lawyer) – especially when it’s a matter the University is unlikely to press and the judge is unlikely to care about, since it’s not the matter being litigated.

    They also didn’t let Nungesser give his side of the story. So that article is very one-sided.

    Since you cite unsupported claims from Nungesser’s one-sided complaint, your sudden disinclination to accept a one-sided account is hypocritical. (Besides, Nungesser himself treats the article as trustworthy enough to cite, so it’s fair for me to do the same.)

    By the way, I doubt the newspaper had access to the name of the accused student in January 2014, and Nungesser declined to give interviews until February 2015, so it’s not as if interviewing Nungesser for that article was an option.

    @Ampersand: if the statements by Natalie are 100% true, then there was a lack of affirmative consent.

    That’s a sort of squirrelly phrasing. Let’s repeat the claim:

    Tom often forcefully pinned her arms back against the mattress during sex; Natalie would cry during and after they slept together. Not until months after their break up did Natalie recognize this as non-consensual intercourse.

    Assuming for the sake of argument that there isn’t a major extenuating circumstance in this story that is left out – and by “major extenuating circumstance,” I mean Natalie saying “I’m fine, ignore the crying, I want you to keep on fucking me” during the crying sex – someone pinned down and crying during sex is the same as someone saying “no” during sex. Any reasonable person takes that as a sign to check in and make sure that everything is okay before continuing; ignoring the crying – especially of someone who’s being physically held down – is very similar to ignoring someone saying “no!”

    And I’d call that rape. Continuing to have sex when the person is indicating nonconsent, unless there’s a major extenuating circumstance, is rape.

    Do you disagree?

    Regarding Facebook:

    That would be valid for random friends, but she was accusing Nungesser at the time. Why would she remain FB friends, if not to ‘spy’ on him?

    Because it’s easier to ignore a problem than to deal with it? Because for all you know, Nungesser hardly ever looks at FB, and uses other social media? Because they had different posting schedules – hardly unlikely for people in different time zones – and she didn’t see him on her screen when she logged into FB? Because she thought she might someday want to look at his posts, in case it became important, but meanwhile preferred to ignore them? Because humans are weird and sometimes do things that you, in your infinite wisdom and complete lack of giving any benefit of the doubt, don’t understand?

    You’re declaring her a liar who probably committed a serious crime because you think there’s no plausible reality in which Sulkowicz wasn’t facebook “spying” on Nungesser? Do you not see how ridiculous that argument is?

    Though my rapist wasn’t in my class, he asked permission from his teacher to come and work in the dark room during my class time. I started crying and hyperventilating. […]

    No, she explicitly says she is afraid because he has permission to come into the dark room while she is there. That only makes sense if Nungesser is at the campus.

    And he was on campus, at the time she was taking that photography class; as she says, this took place “last semester,” but you conveniently failed to absorb that when you read what she said. (That seems to be a frequent problem with you.) Then, switching to the present tense, she says she still feels fear, every day.

    “Every day I live in fear of seeing him” is absurd if he isn’t actually on campus.

    This is a genuinely hateful, vicious, and also “absurd” thing to say.

    Look, for all you know Sulkowicz had no idea if Nungesser is off-campus; despite your fact-free, and incredibly biased arguments, it’s commonplace for people to not see everything their FB friends post on FB. You don’t even know if she ever checked FB during this time period. To say that there’s no plausible way that someone could not be reading whatever particular FB entries (if they even existed) where Nungesser went over his travel itinerary is beyond ridiculous.

    But even supposing that she knew he was off-campus – SO WHAT?

    People feel what they feel, and it’s not for you to say “it’s absurd” for them to feel it. You are not god. Even if you’ve been the victim of a rape, that doesn’t make you the expert on what other rape victims feel after rape, or justify you assuming they’re a liar because they feel something you think they shouldn’t feel.

    Have you never heard of PSTD? Have you never heard of trauma?

    Wait, obviously you HAVE heard of these things – when you can bring up PSTD, trauma or depression to suggest that an alleged rape victim is making a false accusation, you LEAP to that suggestion, based on a single study that is ridiculously speculative to apply to a specific (alleged) rape case.

    Yet, when an (alleged) rape victim says she feels fear every day – something that many, many rape victims have reported feeling for years after the rape took place – you mock it as “absurb” and cite it as a reason to assume she’s a liar.

    This is how rape victims are always treated as liars. If she tries to act normal, you say that’s proof she’s a liar. And if she reports feeling traumatized and feeling fear every day, you say THAT’S proof that she’s a liar.

    No matter what she does, you say it’s evidence she’s lying. Well, it’s not; it’s just evidence that you’re not ever going to give anything Sulkowicz says a fair hearing.

    The claim that she screamed loudly and no one heard, in a campus apartment seems fairly unlikely.

    Actually, you just imagined the word “loudly”; that’s not in the complaint. (You get details wrong quite a lot – and, conveniently, your mistakes always tend to support your arguments. I’m not saying you’re deliberately lying, but I think your bias is negatively effecting your reading comprehension.) The complaint doesn’t actually quote Sulkowicz; they quote this New York Times reporter, who also didn’t use the word “loudly.” Since (if the reporter’s paraphrase of Sulkowicz’s account is accurate), the scream came after the choking, I don’t see any reason to assume it was loud.

    That she didn’t need medical help after being raped anally in the violent manner that she describes and actually attended various events in the days after, seems truly absurd.

    So if a rape victim isn’t injured badly enough to go to a doctor, that means she’s lying? So if a rape victim keeps at her normal activities after the rape, that means she’s lying?

    Your arguments are far worse than “absurd.” You have imagined a “Platonic rape victim” – a scenario that is what you imagine all rape victims act like, based on no evidence at all. “After a violent rape, real rape victims see a doctor! In the days after a violent rape, real rape victims don’t participate in activities!” Then, when a woman claims to be raped, any bit of her story that doesn’t match the Platonic Rape Victim’s story is said to be “absurd” and evidence of a false rape accusation.

    (Kate also pointed out this pattern in your arguments, in comment #63, and she was right.)

    (For the record, there is nothing in what Sulkowicz describes that would necessarily lead to anything worse than bruises and small tears in her anus – all injuries that some people sustain, and go about normal activities with, and don’t see a doctor for, all the time.)

    Anyway, my claim going in was that there was no objective evidence against Nungesser

    Your claim going in was that the objective evidence “speaks for” Nungesser – who is claiming that Sulkowicz falsely accused him. You also listed Sulkowicz with two other cases that are widely accepted as false rape accusations. And in additional to your initial claim, you’ve been alleging that Sulkowicz is a constant liar, such that we can reasonably speculate she’d commit the crime of false accusation. Example:

    The latter is especially odious, since it shows that Sulkowicz ‘forgets’ facts when making one attack on Nungesser and suddenly remembers those facts when making another attack on him. It shows a general willingness to distort reality to get her way. A false rape accusation to get back at a scorned lover would also be an example of distorting reality to get her way. So the fact that she distorted reality in one situation, provides evidence that a false accusation is more likely.

    Yet your proof that she’s a liar, like your ludicrous “it’s impossible that she isn’t reading every word that Nungesser ever posted on FB” argument, just shows that you’re determined to paint her as a liar, even based on nothing but tissue-thin speculation.

    However, I don’t see how the charges add up to him being proven a rapist.

    No one here has said he’s been proven a rapist. I specifically said that I’d probably vote “not guilty” if this were a court case and I were on the jury; I don’t think I could have been clearer about that.

    (Since you’ve asked several times, I didn’t question the Rolling Stone or Duke Lacrosse examples because I agree these are examples of false accusations.)

    All the accusations are quite different in nature as well. In the Cosby case, there is a clear pattern. Nungesser is accused of:
    – violent anal rape by Sulkowicz
    – emotionally and sexually exploiting Natalie, where she says the sex was non-consensual due to a lack of affirmative consent

    Natalie also said he pinned down her arms and had sex without consent – which is exactly what Sulkowicz claims Nungesser did. It’s not exactly identical, but it’s not far different, either.

    – cornering Josie and restraining her in a bar, while trying to kiss her

    “In a bar” makes it sound like this was a public spot where no one could be violently raped because of witnesses. It was in a room with no one else there but the two of them. And she had to physically push him off to get away.

    It’s ridiculous to cite this case to say “this is very different,” as if it shows a different M.O. than the other cases. It’s completely possible that the difference is only because she got away.

    – unspecified ‘sexual assault’ of Adam

    So we have 4 very different accusations.

    Since we don’t know the details of Adam’s story, beyond “Adam says Paul pushed him onto his bed and sexually assaulted him,” you don’t know it’s “very different accusation.” Maybe Adam’s story is very different; maybe Adam’s story is that Nungesser pinned down his arms and forcibly had sex, just like Natalie and Sulkowicz say he did to them. We don’t know, and claiming it’s “very different” is claiming knowledge that you don’t have.

    But the main reason I quoted all that is to point out how far you’ve shifted the goalposts in your zeal to defend Nungesser.

    Earlier this thread, when you were telling a false story about what Josie’s claim was (to your credit, you later admitted that you were wrong – but also note, this is yet another example of you making a mistake that conveniently supported your case). you wrote:

    So even if the claim by the student is true, this allegation doesn’t paint Nungesser as person who disregards a lack of consent and uses severe violence to get his (sexual way), as alleged by Sulkowicz.

    So earlier, you claimed that the other accusations don’t form a pattern showing that Nungesser is “a person who disregards a lack of consent and uses severe violence to get his (sexual way).” But in fact, three different women have accused him of exactly this (and probably one man as well). So you shifted the goalpost; now it’s no longer enough for the accusations to paint Nungesser as someone who violently disregards consent, now the specific details of all four accusations must be identical or they don’t count.

    The goalposts shift; the goal, which is smearing all allegations as “absurd” (your favorite word?) stories to be dismissed, remains the same. You make up completely arbitrary, evidence-free rules – real rape victims don’t go to activities! real rape victims read every entry on Facebook! Real rape victims all tell similar stories! and apply these made-up rules willy-nilly, as needed. And always towards the same purpose, which is painting alleged victims as liars and deluded people.

    Attitudes like yours are why rape victims are afraid to come forward; because they know that people will go to “absurd” lengths to paint them as liars, and seize on any inconsistency – no matter how marginal, or trivial, or perhaps nonexistent – as evidence that they’ve committed the major crime of making a false accusation.

    You said that men fear being falsely accused. I think that’s true, although I also think you should stop writing as if you speak for men as a class (you don’t speak for me). But yes, obviously, some men do fear being falsely accused.

    But also obviously, many rape victims fear being treated as you and others have treated Emma Sulkowicz. And, in a lot of cases, that’s why they remain silent.

  92. 91
    Frieden says:

    My prediction: Aapje is now going to be gone (banned) within a week.

    Ampersand is going into full dick / bully mode, calling him a hypocrite etc.

    Ampersand is motivated to be on the woman’s side, but he tries to appear to be objective. His motive is opposite that of Hugo Schwyzer in my opinion. Hugo was (is) a predator, using feminism to exploit women; Ampersand is clueless with regard to women, but is a useful idiot to feminists. He still thinks being a White Knight is a possible way of losing his virginity at age 47 or however old this dipshit is.

    Yeah, ban me and then mock me when I can no longer answer. Aapje: Forewarned is forearmed.

  93. 92
    Ampersand says:

    Hmmn. Given how few posts “Frieden” ever wrote on this site, and the obvious bitterness he (or she) feels towards me, I think that Mandolin was correct to suspect that Frieden has had another name here on “Alas,” and was probably banned under a previous name. (Or banned multiple times under previous names).

    (But I don’t think Frienden and Aapje are the same person. For the record.)

    Anyway, Frieden was given a warning about personal attacks just a couple of days ago, and is now banned. Good luck to you in whatever you do, Frieden; but I’d prefer you not return to this blog, under any name. Thanks.

  94. 93
    Aapje says:

    @Ampersand

    In a separate letter to the court (pdf), both sides agree that they’re not going to litigate whether or not the rapes happened; their only interest is determining if the University can be sued because of what Sulkowicz said after the University panel didn’t hold Nungesser responsible.

    I agree that it is an issue that Sulkowicz isn’t the target of the legal case. The university doesn’t need to challenge Nungesser’s story, except for the allegations that they violated their policies and/or Title IX. So Nungesser may have felt that he had room to rehabilitate himself in a way that wouldn’t be challenged.

    On the other hand, there is/was nothing stopping Sulkowicz from writing a rebuttal for the media. She has been pretty active otherwise and I find it unfair to simply assume that Nungesser is lying, just because of her lack of rebuttal (which he didn’t know she wouldn’t write when the complaint was written).

    Blatant lies, one-sidedness, lies by omission, etc by Nungesser can very easily be made part of the court case by the university and can prejudice the judge against him, so he can’t get away with everything.

    Half-truths, lies by omission, and lies that can’t be proven to be deliberate lies are pretty safe to put in a complaint like this

    It seems to me that you are holding Nungesser to the very high standard of having to prove his innocence. But he only has prove reasonable doubt.

    Since you cite unsupported claims from Nungesser’s one-sided complaint, your sudden disinclination to accept a one-sided account is hypocritical.

    Accuser vs defendant. The first has to prove her claims, the second has to prove reasonable doubt. I didn’t claim that all Nungesser’s claims are ‘the truth,’ but as possible explanations that haven’t been shown to be false.

    Remember that I never made the claim that Nungesser is innocent. Just that I don’t see any solid evidence, so I find the certainty that some express about his guilt to be unreasonable.

    I get the (repeated) impression that you are holding me to the standard of having to prove Nungesser innocent, while that has never been my goal, as I have said before.

    By the way, I doubt the newspaper had access to the name of the accused student in January 2014

    The article says otherwise explicitly:

    “The three alleged respondents whose identities were disclosed to me over the course of research for this series did not respond to requests for comment.”

    Even if this hadn’t been said, you shouldn’t have doubted it. Sulkowicz was clearly one of the sources of the article. She knew the name of the accused. Normal fact checking would require knowing the name of the accused, so assuming that BWOG was following journalistic standards, they would know.

    And I’d call that rape. Continuing to have sex when the person is indicating nonconsent, unless there’s a major extenuating circumstance, is rape.

    Do you disagree?

    I’ve already said that I consider it rape if a person is indicating a lack of consent, so I don’t understand why you are asking me again. A debate works better if you don’t keep asking the same thing.

    Nungesser pinning her down is not that relevant though, as it can be part of consensual sex. The issue is the crying during sex. If that part of the story is a half-truth, then her rape accusation can very quickly fall apart. For example, if she cried after sex, instead of during, she wouldn’t have been indicating a lack of consent during sex. If she cried once and he stopped, but she forgot that and later thought he kept going when she cried, her accusation would be false.

    These are all fairly small errors in recollection. I’ve argued before that human memory (and thus testimony) is very fallible and untrustworthy. Do you agree?

    Because it’s easier to ignore a problem than to deal with it?

    At that time Sulkowicz was holding press conferences & sharing her story with reporters. You can’t just claim that she was ‘ignoring a problem’ when objective facts show she wasn’t.

    Because for all you know, Nungesser hardly ever looks at FB, and uses other social media?

    Look at the annotated messages, they are all clearly FB posts. So again your made up explanation does not make sense.

    Because humans are weird and sometimes do things that you, in your infinite wisdom and complete lack of giving any benefit of the doubt, don’t understand?

    I understand, but I am saying that you can’t have it both ways. You cannot use Sulkowicz testimony as reliable evidence, while also claiming that her actions and words are unreliable.

    Giving someone the benefit of the doubt is perfectly fine in other contexts, but not when deciding someone’s guilt in a he said/she said situation. When you have two conflicting accounts, they cannot both be true, so if you give both the benefit of the doubt, no one can ever be found guilty.

    So you need to choose with account is more credible and a person who does and says weird things has a non credible account of what happened.

    You’re declaring her a liar who probably committed a serious crime because you think there’s no plausible reality in which Sulkowicz wasn’t facebook “spying” on Nungesser?

    If you have to resort to attacking a straw man, that doesn’t show much confidence in your position. I never said that my position hinges on this one fact. I just find it quite unlikely that she didn’t know through FB or by other means. But there are several other parts about her accusation that I find unlikely as well. She has also said things that contradict earlier statements and objective fact.

    Individually you may be able to explain each problem I have with her accusation, using an unlikely explanation. But if you look at all the unlikely explanations you have to believe to fix the problems in her story, the probability of all these being true is very small. So I find it unreasonable to consider her accusation proven beyond reasonable doubt and very likely that (parts of) her accusation are false. I never claimed that this means that she made the entire accusation up (how can we know?) or even if she did, that she did so out of malice, rather than mental illness or memory problems.

    Remember that I started of by claiming that there was no objective evidence to prove her side of the story was true. We are not even arguing about that anymore and instead you now expect me to prove a much stronger claim that she lied. I take this as an implicit admission on your part that I make a good case for the lesser claim.

    Yet, when an (alleged) rape victim says she feels fear every day – something that many, many rape victims have reported feeling for years after the rape took place – you mock it as “absurb” and cite it as a reason to assume she’s a liar.

    I didn’t say that having fear was absurd, I said that it is absurd to “live in fear of seeing him” at a moment where it is impossible for her to see him. It would be equally absurd for me to fear getting pregnant, because I am a man. Such a fear would not be absurd for a woman.

    Context matters.

    Actually, you just imagined the word “loudly”; that’s not in the complaint.

    I think that the word ‘screaming’ implies loudness.

    Since (if the reporter’s paraphrase of Sulkowicz’s account is accurate), the scream came after the choking, I don’t see any reason to assume it was loud.

    I looked at her earlier account where she didn’t mention choking at all. In fact, you accidentally gave me another argument to doubt her story.

    In the NY Times story she claims that she was choked so hard that should could have died from it (“he could have strangled me to death”). Yet in the account she gave a few months earlier, she didn’t even mention choking at all. It is not credible for her to leave this major traumatic event out of the earlier account and then suddenly include it in a later account. This is evidence of embellishment IMO. And if she embellished her accusation in those few months, why shouldn’t she have embellished before?

    Your claim going in was that the objective evidence “speaks for” Nungesser – who is claiming that Sulkowicz falsely accused him.

    He didn’t file a complaint of false accusation, he was merely defending himself. His claim is “I didn’t do it”. As such, both a lack of objective evidence that supports the accusation, as well as objective evidence that disprove and/or undermine (parts of) the accusation speak for the accused.

    you’ve been alleging that Sulkowicz is a constant liar, such that we can reasonably speculate she’d commit the crime of false accusation

    “constant liar” is something I never claimed. I have pointed out several cases where she said different things at different times. One or two times, I have called these lies, but in general I have not claimed that she intentionally fabricated her entire accusation.

    It is perfectly possible for a false accusation to happen without any lying by the accuser (as telling a falsehood is only a lie when it is deliberate).

    ludicrous “it’s impossible that she isn’t reading every word that Nungesser ever posted on FB” argument

    Knowing that he is abroad would of course not require someone to read every word. He would probably have changed his status and almost certainly made many posts about his foreign experience, which would be normal behavior. Any of these would provide her with the information that he is abroad.

    But you are now employing snark, which generally comes down to distorting the other person’s argument to make real debate impossible. So I ask you to please refrain.

    No one here has said he’s been proven a rapist.

    But do you agree with me that many believe otherwise? And if so, do you agree that men have legitimate ground to fear false allegations because of this tendency to ‘believe the victim’?

    This was my original point, btw. All the debate about the details of the Nungesser/Sulkowicz case was me humoring the posters who wanted to debate the details of the case. In hindsight, this seems to have been a mistake, since people forgot about my main point.

    Since we don’t know the details of Adam’s story, beyond “Adam says Paul pushed him onto his bed and sexually assaulted him,” you don’t know it’s “very different accusation.

    The fact that Adam is a man makes it a very different accusation. AFAIK it is very uncommon for a rapist/sexual assaulter to target both genders. I found more detail about his accusation and the aftermath. Adam doesn’t claim being restrained, unlike the other accusers. He did claim massaging of the shoulders and crotch, which none of the others claims happened during their alleged assault/rape. The article pretty much makes mincemeat out of the accusation, detailing many ways in which it was proven false.

    It also makes a decent case for a possible group vendetta against Nungesser. Especially the part where people were trying to get him evicted from the ADP fraternity house, before any of the accusations happened. Three of the four accusers were ADP members and the fourth (Natalie) “came to a better understanding of our shared trauma” with Sulkowicz. It is not unlikely that this ‘understanding’ consisted of goading each other on, something that has happened in other false accusation cases.

    Another interesting tidbit is that an ADP officer immediately judged Nungesser to be guilty after she learned of the accusation by Sulkowicz and sent out a message to the entire ADP fraternity, biasing the fraternity against him. This ADP officer (who displayed strong bias) also pushed Josie into filing her complaint and worked with Adam to formulate his complaint.

    So the most credible part of the accusation: 4 people independently accusing Nungesser, is actually not true. All four are connected (Sulkowicz and Natalie directly, Sulkowicz, Josie and Adam through the ADP officer). This makes it a lot more likely that the case is an example of mass hysteria.

    now the specific details of all four accusations must be identical or they don’t count.

    It is perfectly logical that multiple accusations, which cannot be proven individually, only combine into a stronger combined accusation if they are somewhat similar.

    We simply have a different threshold of how similar they must be. However, accusing me of only ‘counting’ them if they are 100% identical is quite unfair.

    You make up completely arbitrary, evidence-free rules – real rape victims don’t go to activities! real rape victims read every entry on Facebook! Real rape victims all tell similar stories! and apply these made-up rules willy-nilly, as needed.

    These are not rules and I never claimed they were. I do find it unlikely that a victim of violent anal rape would be able to continue her normal pattern, both for physical and psychological reasons. I don’t claim that her accusation is false because she deviates from what I think is most common, it is just a loose brick in the wall that is her accusation. Her false claim that Nungesser is at campus, while she only a bit later claims that he is at large is another. Her false claim that she dropped the charges, even though the police dismissed the case. The fact that she cannot produce a witness who heard her scream. The fact that she has no witness who saw marks on her due to the severe violence she claims. The inconsistencies in her media ‘testimony’ on key points (Did she tell anyone immediately after the alleged assault or not? Was she choked severely or not?). Etc, etc.

    A wall can remain standing with a loose brick, even a couple, but at one point it will topple. So it is with an accusation (or defense). One unlikely element can be explained away, a couple more as well, but at a certain point you need to believe more unlikely explanations than is reasonable.

    So far, you have treated my criticisms of her accusation separately, coming up with an (in my eyes often unlikely) explanation and then dismissing them completely. This completely ignores the cumulative effect of requiring many unlikely explanations for an accusation (or defense) to be true, which is often the deciding factor in a court of law.

    Attitudes like yours are why rape victims are afraid to come forward; because they know that people will go to “absurd” lengths to paint them as liars, and seize on any inconsistency – no matter how marginal, or trivial, or perhaps nonexistent – as evidence that they’ve committed the major crime of making a false accusation.

    What I do is nothing more or less than what happens in a proper investigation: checking the viability of each part of an accusation or defense, trying to find evidence to prove or disprove those parts. If this doesn’t happen for the accusation and only for the defense, then there is no justice as the accused can only be proven wrong and the accuser cannot. The end result of such a situation is that accusers can freely tell falsehoods, while “any inconsistency – no matter how marginal, or trivial, or perhaps nonexistent” on the part of the accused becomes his undoing, as (s)he cannot balance the scale with inconsistencies by the accuser.

    I agree that this process can be hard for the accuser, but justice requires that the accuser is scrutinized just as much as the accused.

    Secondly, the end of your sentence makes little sense, as false accusations are not a crime. Only intentionally false accusations are, which has a pretty high threshold that will never be met due to “marginal, or trivial, or perhaps nonexistent” inconsistencies. This entire paragraph is the kind of hyperbole that has been used to weaken the judicial system by anti-rape advocates, both in the ‘official’ courts and by creating parallel amateur courts.

    You said that men fear being falsely accused. I think that’s true, although I also think you should stop writing as if you speak for men as a class (you don’t speak for me).

    I thought that it was pretty clear that I was talking about men in the aggregate. Some men do not fear being falsely accused and some women do. On the whole, men fear it much more than women.

    But also obviously, many rape victims fear being treated as you and others have treated Emma Sulkowicz. And, in a lot of cases, that’s why they remain silent.

    Let’s be perfectly clear: the University court system that she used requires that both the accuser and the accused do not seek publicity. She violated that by seeking publicity within the university (including before the verdict) and in the general media. The police didn’t make anything public either. It was Sulkowicz who sought publicity and ‘invited’ the public to judge her case, as she didn’t accept the decisions by the university and the police.

    I will not apologize or be shamed for decisions by rape accusers that you feel harm them (and it is very presumptuous for you to speak for Sulkowicz or other rape victims). Sulkowicz is an adult who made a decision with predictable results. You are also sending a completely false message to people on this board which may discourage them from seeking justice. Rape victims who seek justice through the official channels can generally keep their identities hidden from the general public and do not get tried in the media and/or by the public.

    If you are going to blame me for harming rape victims, it is less hypocritical if you aren’t the one actually doing so, by spreading false information.

  95. 94
    Kate says:

    Individually you may be able to explain each problem I have with her accusation, using an unlikely explanation. But if you look at all the unlikely explanations you have to believe to fix the problems in her story, the probability of all these being true is very small.

    None of Amp’s explanations are unlikely. Moreover, most of your “problems” can be sorted into two categories, both of which constitute perfectly normal behaviour.
    1.) False choices. Prime among these is – Was she able to carry on normally or was she traumatized? Ummm. Both. Yes, it is not a contradiction. A person who is traumatized and suffering can often carry on quite normally much of the time. The fact that you can come up with many examples of her acting normally and many examples of her acting traumatized does not amount to any “problems” with her account – although the way you spin them can make them look like many problems. Having a period of numbness immediately following an attack, in which one does not seek help and tries to carry on like before is normal. Having complex, irrational, sometimes contradictory feelings is normal.
    2.) Minor differences in in relating the incident. Relating an incident differently in different tellings is perfectly normal. In fact, relating an incident exactly the same way every time is not normal, and can be taken a sign that one has been coached.

  96. 95
    SWA says:

    To the people who keep trying to drill home that reactions after a trauma or rape are not always “typical”:

    Yes, I get it.

    The problem is that rape – or alleged rape or a false accusation – is something that many times lacks any objective evidence. Not like a bank robber being filmed on video by the banks cameras (and his mask slips). Not many people consent to being robbed, but lots of people consent to sexual activity.

    So if a woman makes an accusation, it comes down to her word against his. If she is believed (like the female accuser in the Gary Dotson case, for example), then a man’s life can be over. The female accuser in that case said that she had just read a rape scene in a romance novel, and she simply recited the details with a few tears. The jury ate it up.

    So yes, a woman could have all sorts of reactions after a rape. Also after a false accusation. And a jury is trying to find out what really happened, so all they can do is apply their experience of the world. That’s all anyone can do, and I am also not in favor of eliminating due process for men.

    A few “by the ways”: Sulkowicz is getting less and less sympathetic. Her porno film just shows to me that she is histrionic. Her lack of any willingness to follow rules, like bringing her dopey mattress to graduation, when there were strong “hints” that it was not desired, just shows her entitlement.

    Another issue is the high-profile rape cases. Almost every one has collapsed in one way or the other, going way back to Tawanna Brawley.

    I have a great deal of empathy for women who are raped. A “night stalker” / Richard Ramirez-type rape must be absolutely horrible. A “rape” in which a fashionable young sorority student decides two weeks later, after hearing a talk on campus, that the guy who didn’t call her back might have raped her in their one-night stand? … Not so much.

  97. 96
    LTL FTC says:

    Oof! I think SWA @95 goes a little too far with the attacks on Sulkowicz and the generalizations.

    However, the pro-Sulkowicz side of this argument just seems like a series of “heads I win, tails you lose” interpretations of what few facts we have to work on.

    Whatever she says or does that corroborates her story is the honest truth we must believe because we believe victims, while whatever she says that contradicts her narrative is the result of some nebulous trauma reaction. If those are the two categories in which facts are sorted – the ones that prove your point and the ones that are to be ignored because they are the result of trauma – then there’s really no point in going over this again and again.

    In all seriousness, for those of you who are pro-Sulkowicz, what inconsistencies in otherwise uncorroborated testimony can’t you explain away by attributing them to trauma, and where do you draw the line?

  98. 97
    Ampersand says:

    Whatever she says or does that corroborates her story is the honest truth we must believe because we believe victims,

    LTC, I haven’t once argued that anyone’s required to believe her. I’ve said, multiple times, that I think there’s a reasonable doubt about whether or not the rape took place, and that if this were a courtroom and I were a jury I’d vote not guilty. So asking me where I’d draw the line and be willing to say Nungesser isn’t guilty – as if I haven’t said, multiple times, that I think (given the facts I know) Nungesser is currently on the “not guilty” side of the reasonable doubt line – is ridiculous. You’re effectively asking me when I stopped beating my wife.

    Let me make this clear:

    I am not at all objecting to people who say that we don’t know if Sulkowicz is telling the truth or not. We don’t know. That’s obvious.

    I am not at all objecting to people saying that Nungesser could be innocent. He could be. We don’t know. That’s obvious.

    I AM objecting to people who say that it’s very likely that Sulkowicz is lying, or that there’s strong evidence indicating that she’s lying, or who just say she’s lying. (No one here has said that last outright.)

    I am objecting to unreasonable standards being used to dismiss Sulkowicz’s story. My objecting to unreasonable arguments, like calling her claim that she feels fear every day “absurd,” is not even remotely the same as saying that I think people are obliged to believe Sulkowicz’s story.

    A lot of the responses to me, which imply that I’m saying that Nungesser is definitely guilty, or that he should be found guilty in a court of law, or that it’s unacceptable not to accept every word of Sulkowicz’s account as the absolute truth, are straw man attacks. I am not saying any of those things. Period.

  99. 98
    Ampersand says:

    SWA:

    A few “by the ways”: Sulkowicz is getting less and less sympathetic. Her porno film just shows to me that she is histrionic. Her lack of any willingness to follow rules, like bringing her dopey mattress to graduation, when there were strong “hints” that it was not desired, just shows her entitlement.

    I’m not interested in hosting a discussion for people to trash Sulkowicz personally. Discussing her story is acceptable, but this is simply attacking her personally because she claims to have been raped.

    You’re banned from any further participation on this thread. Thanks in advance for respecting this rule.

  100. 99
    Kate says:

    I am also not in favor of eliminating due process for men.

    @36 I wrote

    I have looked through all of my comments above. At no point have I (or anyone else, although I was not as thorough there) said anything about what the process for dealing with sexual assault should be. Nor have I advocated for any specific punishments.

    In the interim, no one has quoted anything to contradict this. Amp flatly stated somewhere that if he were on a jury he’d probably vote to acquit Nungesser. [cross-posted w/ Amp]
    No one here thinks that we should eliminate due process for people who are accused of rape (male or female). Why do people keep setting up this straw man?
    The criminal justice system is not equipt to deal with sexual assault. I get it. That is a major part of the problem.
    Lets get back to the real topic of the post, which is just getting people to acknowledge that the problem exists. The surveys Carla has been defending suggest that somewhere around 20% of women experience some sort of sexual assault in their lives. Men have lower rates outside of prison, but some forms of female on male rape have yet to be included in any studies, so we can’t be sure of exact figures there.
    Anywhere from 6%-14.9% of men (and we don’t know how many women, because no comparable surveys have been done) admit to having committed acts which fit the legal definition of rape or attempted rape (Lisak & Miller) while facing no consequences. If we take the study on the low end (6%), because a significant number of the men surveyed are serial rapists, their victims comprise about 12% of the population.
    Frankly, I don’t know what to do about it. We are fighting here just to get people like you and Aapje to acknowledge that sexual assault of women is a serious problem.
    This Madonna-whore bull s**t:

    I have a great deal of empathy for women who are raped. A “night stalker” / Richard Ramirez-type rape must be absolutely horrible. A “rape” in which a fashionable young sorority student decides two weeks later, after hearing a talk on campus, that the guy who didn’t call her back might have raped her in their one-night stand? … Not so much.

    Indicates to me that you still really do not get it.