An inebriated female is clinically incapable of giving informed consent! One just 18 even less likely, and one feed a mickey finn while attending a comfort room break even less likely!

And he was where? In her room 3am? One assumes that was in the females only dorm?

I think your stint as Barrister for the (blame the victim) defence has a very limited life? Or just highly incompetent!

If I were the boy I'd be a man, fess up and cop it sweet! Plead reduced whatever?
Alan B.

When will people start taking responsibility for their own actions?
It is not always someone else`s fault as the legal profession would like us to believe.
If you want to get stoned or drunk it is on your own head so accept what may happen because of that.

Yes, if you want to get rohypnol slipped into your drink while you are taking a toilet break and then are incapable of getting home alone, it's clearly your fault!

When will people start taking responsibility for THEIR ACTIONS!

Solution?

Simple! Just don't ever go out or trust the, butter wouldn't melt in the mouth, generous, drink buying, (just wants to impregnate you come what may) stranger!

Wake up to yourself! It's your responsibility! Going out and having a little harmless fun is just not on! Get over it stupid!

Just being there and taking a drink with your, (got your back, mates) is asking for it!
Alan B.

maybe just maybe one day parents will be smart enough to teach their young girls not to get drunk, lead men on and then cry wolf.

Maybe one day, properly raised young men will understand, consent to protected sex is never ever implicit or explicit consent to unprotected sex!

Maybe one day, parents will raise their boys so as to understand their limits, so that they're able to understand the difference between a female dorm and a male one!

As a young boy I was raised with the following instruction. If you want to have sex with a young girl, first ask yourself three pertinent questions. Do I love her? Am I prepared to wear any and all consequences and do I want this woman to be the mother of my children?

Because women can and do get pregnant from unprotected sex. Or catch/transfer STD's!

Men who care about a partner, protect them as opposed to using them when they're at their most vulnerable, then just not respecting them, because they were too easy. And throwing them away, as easily as last week's garbage!

A young man can force unwanted attentions on a woman, Particularly when semi comatose, from way too much, plied alcohol! But hardly ever the reverse!

If it were the young men getting pregnant, going full term and having their promising careers ruined as the very first consequence, very little of this would happen!

But particularly putting the victim on trial!

If we ever get the balls to include, unbeatable space age lie detection, for both parties, in these seemingly endless sagas, maybe then, all the victim blaming or alleged false claims, will cease!

Own your own behavior!
Alan B.

I have major problems feeling sympathy for women who become very drunk, flirt with men, go back to their room with them late at night then act surprised when sex occurs.
What did they think was going to happen in that room? Tea and biscuits?
Any woman who doesn't wish to have sex with a man needs to say goodnight then go back to her own rooms alone.
Being drunk isn't a legal defence against committing a crime, neither should it be a defence against sex that is later regretted.

In the case of rape where a conviction carries a long jail term and massive consequences, normal rules of evidence should apply. The evidence of the plaintiff needs to corroborated, and where it is only the word of the accused against the plaintiff, the verdict must always be innocent.

as usual Nana you make a lot of sense. Unfortunately kids are very educated these days but display so little maturity. We blurt on about our knowledge of biology and then fight against it. Men will be men and women women despite what idiotic 'safe'schools indoctrination teaches. To many zoologist find out the hard way. A lion is a lion and a snake is a snake.

Our so called legal system and its alleged due process puts the victims on trial, for the sole purpose of winning! Not establishing guilt?

Decent blokes don't rape the girlfriend or date!

Moreover, I believe gender inappropriate visits of the other gender's dorm drunk or is forbidden on all military establishments?

And maybe ought result in a career termination for the drunk or sober transgressor? Who is all too clearly, not there to play tiddly winks!

The military succeeds or fails, whether or not hard and fast rules are followed or disobeyed! No ifs, buts or maybes!

Leadership is all about taking responsibility and owning your own behavior!

Even so, many of these cases wouldn't even get to trial, if we but used space age and unbeatable lie detectors, to establish evidence based guilt or innocence? Refusal to comply, reasonable evidence of guilt? Or, making stuff up?

And with that done? Let the chips fall where they may!
Alan B.

Alan,

Decent blokes don't rape women, and decent women don't lie on the stand, except we know that there are quite a few of each. To prove a man guilty of rape requires more than just the word of the "victim" irrespective of how convincing she is on the stand.

Consent is very simple, a person simply needs to voice consent, and inebriation from a few drinks does not void this. Inebriation needs to be at the point where a person is no longer capable of rational thought.

Corroborating evidence can be signs of assault, a witness that saw the woman being carried drunk into the room, etc. without this there is not enough evidence.

It's simple biology. Only the male is equipped to enforce sexual intercourse.

EmperorJulian, so I would have thought but a US CDC survey gives some results on the topic of Made to Penetrate that are worth considering https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/ss6308a1.htm

There is quite a bit of debate around terms, I'm not confident I've got to the truth of the way US authorities define rape but the CDC survey does not define it in a way that includes men being made to penetrate (remembering that rape can be achieved by coercion, not just physical force). Reported lifetime rate for women and men as victims of sexual violence are quite different however the reported rates for the previous 12 month period were somewhat similar between genders.

Based on the survey results there were and estimated 1,929,000 female rape victims in the previous 12 months and 1,921,000 males who were Made to penetrate.

Overall estimates of numbers of victims in the categories of Other Sexual Violence were 6,687,000 females and 5,797,000 males (women suffer sexual violence more than men but possibly not with the disparity popular narratives indicate).

It's an area I don't have a good understanding of and I don't know that there is a significant body of research on the topic but CDC carry enough clout that it should raise some questions.

R0bert

Robert rightly raises a query based on CDC figures but I would dismiss them unless their definition of rape was physically forced sexual intercourse that would be accepted as rape by a court of law. This would include intercourse imposed on a victim unable to resist by being zonked out or asleep. I would doubt that "rapes" of men by women listed in the CDC survey were events that could lead to a court conviction. Certainly men, like women, can be coerced into sex by being at a social disadvantage but I would be astounded if the person doing the coercing was able to be convicted of rape if charges were laid and the facts put to a judge or jury.

Homosexual rape is part of the penalty knowingly imposed on (usually young) men by imprisonment with only nod-nod-wink-wink "supervision" by corrupt guards, but homosexual rape doesn't seem to be in the CDC stats. Certainly it would merit severe penalties (like the perp being exposed to a taste of his own medicine in prison?).

Physical sexual assault not including sexual penetration is an indictable crime but not equated by law to rape. A man would be unlikely to lay a complaint against a woman about this because he would be humiliated in a way that a woman sexually assaulted by a man be less likely to be. Actual sexual harassment of women (as exposed in the recent survey of universities) by men does carry an underlying threat of rape but it is not the same as rape.

EmperorJulian I largely agree other than the aspect that the definitions of rape are under continual pressure to the point where physical coercion or threat does not appear to be a defining characteristic.

Hard to get a good handle on how widespread it is but from what I can see there is a lot of scope in some areas for later regret of an at the time consensual activity to be later reframed as rape. Scope for the male to be regarded as at fault if both are intoxicated beyond the point of making good decisions about and she later regrets it.

Slightly off the original topic but allied with it is that there is a growing trend to demand sanctions against males accused of sexual assault (and DV etc) regardless of any evidence or legal process. Those sanctions can cause long term harm to the accused regardless of the outcome of any subsequent legal processes.

I don't consider a single survey conclusive, given the CDC's overall status I do consider it cause to acknowledge that my own beliefs around gender disparity in sexual assault and the social narrative on the topic may not be as firmly established as I'd previously thought.

R0bert

I agree with Robert's observations especially in that there is a trend towards redefining defendants to charges of sexual offences (or DV) as perps. This is evident in the hysteria over the arrival of Cardinal Pell to face charges of pederasty. No matter what one may think of the theocratic religious cult which the Cardinal peddles (I detest it) he is a man who is innocent unless proven guilty and deserves respect as such.

Treating an accused but not convicted person as guilty could be curbed by much stronger laws against libel.

I can recall the yellow Press routinely describing David Hicks as a terrorist though he had never been convicted of anything in a proper court (even a Yank one), and I wondered why he didn't do them for libel.