Students Stage Walkout From UK University's Sexual Consent Classes
Rachael Pells writes in the Independent that University of York introduced its first sexual consent talks this term in response to a nationwide clampdown on the supposed "rape culture" on campus.
But great news -- there are still a few students in the UK who aren't robo-thinkers, and they staged a walkout:
Of the students who attended the first session, around a quarter were said to have walked out in protest.One campus activist Ben Froughi, a third-year accounting student, stood outside some of the sessions handing out flyers encouraging students to boycott the sessions.
He told Nouse, York University's student media outlet: "Consent talks are patronising, If students really need lessons in how to say yes or no then they should not be at university.
"There is no correct way to negotiate getting someone into bed with you. In suggesting that there is, consent talks encourage women to interpret sexual experiences that have not been preceded by a lengthy, formal and sober contractual discussion as rape.
"Consent talks propagate the backward message that all women are potential victims and all men potential rapists."
The notion that there is a Western culture that promotes rape -- that condones and encourages rape -- is beyond ridiculous.
Think about that. Do you know anyone or have you even heard of anyone who thinks rape is nothing, that women should be raped, etc.?
There is a culture that believes this -- believes that you are rape fodder if you are a non-Muslim -- but it is certainly not a part of Western culture in any way, shape, or form.
Janet Levy writes at American Thinker of the Britain's Muslim sex grooming gang scandal in Rotterham, referencing Easy Meat: Inside Britain's Grooming Gang Scandal, by Peter McLoughlin:
The backdrop for sexual grooming and enslavement of children lies in Islamic doctrines outlined by McLoughlin. He reviews the pervasive slave-taking history of Islam from the 7th century, as well as Islamic doctrine from the Koran citing Islam's view of non-Muslims, its treatment of women and sexual slaves, and the permissibility of sex with children by Mohammed's example with his nine-year-old third wife, Aisha. McLoughlin explains how sex as rape has historically been used as a weapon of war to assert Islamic supremacy. Islamic doctrine encourages the rape and enslavement of non-Muslims, even with married infidel women as a legal and moral enterprise.Further, the required first and foremost allegiance to the Umma, or Muslim community, and the inbred obligation of enmity toward non-Muslims facilitates the pimping of non-Muslim girls and hinders any attempts at exposing its criminality and eventual prosecution. Sexual slavery has historically been used as a religious weapon to advance the domination of Islam.
via @Furedibyte
Anyone in Western cultures who thinks women should be raped or are asking to be raped have enough sense to keep their mouths shut about such ideas. They know that society at large condemns such ideas.
In Islam, no only do many NOT have enough sense to keep their mouths shut - they openly preach it as their society at large believes such crap!
How many times do we hear from Islamic preachers, Islamic followers, even Islamic women that the rape victim "was asking for it by dressing provocatively"?
charles at October 2, 2016 10:40 AM
Most sexual encounters and even dates among young people end in some sort of regret/hurt feelings. It is a tough thing to learn and easy to goof. To call "he didn't call afterwards" or "he is bad in bed" sexual assault is to make every single human into a criminal (yes, girls, you too). To get universities involved in policing dating is simply insane.
Craig Loehle at October 2, 2016 1:30 PM
It all goes back to the feminist conceit that heterosexual sex is so unpleasant that no woman in her right mind would consent to it. Therefore, any woman who does consent to it is not in her right mind and therefore, by definition, not capable of giving consent. It's a clever catch-22 to criminalize ordinary male behavior, and deny agency to women.
Cousin Dave at October 3, 2016 8:16 AM
Anyone in Western cultures who thinks women should be raped or are asking to be raped have enough sense to keep their mouths shut about such ideas. They know that society at large condemns such ideas.
___________________________________
Yes and no. Just ask anyone who's tried to file a complaint of sexual assault at Bob Jones University. (There was quite a bit of publicity about BJU's attitudes/policies, some time ago.)
From a 2014 thread:
...if you want proof that "educated" adults still have trouble believing in punishment for rapists - or watching sons for signs of dangerous mental disorders of any kind AND holding them responsible of any resulting behavior - check Google News for Boz Tchividjian (Billy Graham's grandson and the leader of a nonprofit called Godly Response to Abuse in the Christian Environment). He's been investigating how Bob Jones "University" handled sexual abuse cases.
From the Christian Post:
"Two years after the rape, Landry (former BJU student and a Mennonite) said she recognized that she needed help and sought it from BJU and was referred to Jim Berg, the dean of students at the time.
"After telling Berg her story, Landry said he asked her if she had been drinking, smoking marijuana or had been 'impure.' He then asked her about her 'root sin.'
"He goes, 'Well, there's always a sin under other sin. There's a root sin,'" Landry recalled. "And he said, 'We have to find the sin in your life that caused your rape.' And I just ran."
From the same thread, here:
Not that we shouldn't also be educating girls not to twist the law whenever it suits them, just because they can get away with it. As Dan Savage also says, along with many others, regret is not rape. That does not mean that we can presume to know what is mere regret and what isn't when she DID say no.
(end of excerpts)
And even when there's no doubt that a rape took place, as with Elizabeth Smart, plenty of people still have pretty warped attitudes. I was appalled that, when she was rescued, a bishop felt the need to spell out to his congregation that Smart had not become impure, damaged property. WHY should any adult congregation need that spelled out - unless they'd been raised by the church to believe something a little different?
From the Straight Dope forum, by Dogzilla:
"Flash forward a few years and this poor girl, Elizabeth Smart, gets kidnapped and raped at the same age I was. I cried for that kid every day, especially after they found her. Then I heard her bishop say, on CNN no less, that she was still pure in the eyes of the Lord. Apparently, the Lord plays favorites with his rape victims; some are forgiven and still considered pure and others are punished and considered dirty and broken. Shortly after that press conference with Ed Smart and his bishop, I went from merely being an inactive, nonpracticing, nonbelieving mormon to being a fully resigned apostate. I sent a letter to Salt Lake City and formally quit."
From the HuffPost, in 2013:
...The publication of the Canyon sex education documents comes months after activist Elizabeth Smart -- who was abducted from her home in 2002 at the age of 14, sexually abused by her captors and was found nine months later -- started speaking out against abstinence-only education. According to Smart, now 26, abstinence-only education makes sexually active females feel worthless. She has also said that after being sexually abused by her abductors, the abstinence-only education she had received prior to her kidnapping partially informed her decision not to run away.
“I think it goes beyond fear for so many children, especially in sex trafficking," she said in May. "It's feeling like 'who would ever want me now? I’m worthless.'”
lenona at October 3, 2016 9:46 AM
OK, I read all of that twice, and I still don't have a clue what the point is.
Cousin Dave at October 3, 2016 11:52 AM
It's lenona, the point is men are always somehow to blame no matter what
lujlp at October 3, 2016 11:56 AM
Well, one point is that "society at large" is a vaguer group than many would like to think. I.e., consciously, we may deny that twisting a woman's arm and forcing her into sex is never justified, but subconsciously, many may not quite agree, and sometimes that even gets said out loud, as I cited.
At any rate, leaving aside what the U.K. is like (and it is NOT a matriarchy compared to the U.S., from what I've heard), one can hardly blame most American colleges for wanting to hold sexual consent talks for the students, early on.
Why?
Well, for starters, one has to be pretty smart and disciplined to get into Stanford. Yet, apparently, Brock Turner (who just got released from jail) didn't have much of a clue as to why assaulting a semi-conscious human being, even only with his fingers, is a felony - or why. Neither did his parents. So someone's got to give the lecture, if only so the college is covered. Even if the young men don't listen.
As I said in a recent thread, we don't laugh at the idea of teaching young people not to lie, steal, cheat, bully, set fires, torture animals, tell racist jokes, commit hate crimes, or drive drunk - even if they already have long records in those areas. What's the difference? No one said teaching (or reforming young hoods) was easy. Plenty of these crimes can be done by women too, after all. Plus, young people are notorious for saying "well, of course, these things should be illegal and should be punished, but if *I* do it, I should NEVER be punished, because I would ALWAYS have a good reason!"
Like maybe being sick of waiting for two-three months to have sex. No, it isn't a good reason.
lenona at October 3, 2016 7:03 PM
I'm not willing to go to consent reeducation camps until one demand is met
Clear rules on what invalidates consent aside from unconsciousness and the word no.
CA colleges use the term 'under the influence' which is achieved thru no other action than imbibing.
One sip of beer ad you are under the influence.
Neither is the woman under any obligation to inform prospective partners that she has had a drink, or a pill, or a toke.
Yet somehow he, even if shit faced drunk, is responsible to determine if she downed a capful of NyQuil some time in the last 12 hours and if her yes was 'sober' and therefore valid.
Hell Amherst literally expelled a man under the theory that while passed out drunk he used mind control to compell his girlfriends friend into giving him a blow job he claimed he never wanted once her discovered what she did to him.
Seriously. This is how bad it has gotten - rape via thought control
How is anyone expected to have a reasonable conversation when one side thinks mind control is real?
lujlp at October 3, 2016 7:17 PM
Lenona, the problem is that every time Amy posts something about how men's rights are being violated in the academy (or elsewhere), you come along with one of these posts that I'm sure you think of as providing "balance". However, it very much comes across as an attempt to deflect attention from the issue with a "women always have it worse" gainsay. It makes you look like the sort of feminist propagandist that a lot of men, and some women, have gotten sick of because of that good/evil splitting thing that refuses to acknowledge the humanity of "the other". An expression of sympathy that isn't immediately followed by a "but... " statement would be appreciated at times.
Cousin Dave at October 4, 2016 7:56 AM
Well, I already have expressed sympathy in the past - and maybe even more than once with regard to the unconscious male victim mentioned by luj. I take it you didn't notice. Not to mention that male victim of statutory rape who is now on the hook for child support - we've ALL been on his side and said so. I would never claim that women ALWAYS have it worse, even as a group, never mind as individuals. Certainly not when it comes to homelessness, early deaths, etc.
In the meantime, since I'm sure we all remember Turner's father's appalling comments about his son's crime (and Amy certainly found them appalling - didn't everyone?), it may well be safe to say that the father's attitude was at least something like "women are property and that's all there is to it. So, either sexual behavior between unmarried people is ALWAYS a crime or it NEVER is! Make up your minds, people! You can't have it both ways! Consent has nothing to do with it!"
And as I was pointing out in my first post, when you're talking about communities (granted, Stanford is not likely one of them, but what difference did it make?) where there's a blatant conservative religious double standard that's supposed to benefit women, chances are it actually does anything but, so in those communities, at least, you just might say there's a rape culture, since even kidnapped virgins like Elizabeth Smart are apparently not thought of as blameless for the rape unless the local bishop says so.
From Jon Krakauer's book "Under the Banner of Heaven":
“Being brought up as (Smart) was made her especially vulnerable,” says Debbie Palmer, who is intimately acquainted with the coercive power of fundamentalist culture from her own upbringing in Bountiful. “Mitchell would never have been able to have such power over a non-Mormon girl.”
(end)
It all goes back to the ideas that a woman's body isn't really her property, it's society's property, that a non-virgin (or a rumored non-virgin) is only useless "damaged property," that all men are naturally-born rapists (hardly a fair conservative's attitude to men), that a woman's sacred job is to protect that public property, even when the cost is her own life (literally or otherwise) and that failure to do so is a crime. Which, of course, is why Shakespeare's Lucrece commits suicide afterward.
lenona at October 4, 2016 11:34 AM
BTW, to go back to the theoretical boys' question "well, what legal rights DO boys have," I can think of seven, by now.
(Granted, only two of these are actually PROTECTED by law, but so what? If something isn't illegal, it's legal, and that may well please men more than women, in some cases.)
1. Every boy and man has the right not to date a girl or a woman more than once - or even once - if she doesn't meet his "needs." What is not civilized is letting people, in general, know what his "needs" are, since chances are many women AND men will think he's a jerk for having them. In other words, if you're a man and your rule is that you don't date anyone who doesn't look like a fashion model or anyone who won't sleep with you after the first date - hell, BEFORE the first date - that is your right, but keep it to yourself. I.e., don't put it in so many words. After all, if all men had those standards, women would figure out pretty quickly what was going on without being told. How they might react is another matter.
2. A man has the right to expect to take turns paying for dates and to refuse to date women who won't do this. Since many women are not used to this idea for one reason or another, it's often best to go on a modest date first and then go on FREE dates until she either offers to pay the next dinner date or asks what's going on. If she's been on two or three free dates with you, chances are she won't dump you when you explain.
3. A man has the right to pursue a sex life without any intentions of getting married, so long as he's honest and polite about it. If we can understand why drivers get fined for speeding, we can understand why harassment is wrong.
4. It IS legal to sleep with consenting strangers. Provided, that is, it does not happen outdoors, they are not being paid for it and are not underage. No, it is not "too much wooorrrkkk" to find out that last information. Parents of teens and preteens are never going to let that law change, so accept it. Any adult get off the hook by claiming "he/she lied about his/her age" when the kid didn't actually give an age. That can't be allowed.
(Not to mention that sleeping with strangers doesn't just carry the risk of your getting infected or arrested, of course. You can also get robbed or killed. Yet, many people seem desperate enough to do it anyway.)
5. A man has the right to refuse sex from a man or a woman and invoke the law when needed.
6. A man has the right to TRY to get and use any male contraceptives available when he does not want to become a father - and to campaign for better male methods if he cares enough. (This does not mean that doctors don't get to make their own rules; doctors are understandably leery about sterilizing anyone under 30 or so or sterilizing any married patient who wants to get the operation without the spouse's knowledge. Even Warren Farrell, when he complained about that in one book, didn't try to argue that married women have it easy in that respect. So it's not just male patients.)
7. A man has the right, last I heard, to divorce a wife for "alienation of affections."
lenona at October 4, 2016 12:52 PM
problem is that every time Amy posts something about how men's rights are being violated in the academy (or elsewhere)
_______________________________________
On the contrary, there have been quite a few times when I haven't said anything at all on that particular issue simply because in those cases, there was nothing to add without sounding like an echo of Amy. Conveniently, of course, you didn't notice. (Not to mention all the posts by Amy about other, unrelated issues that I never even heard of - or issues where you have to be a legal expert to say anything worth reading. Clearly, it makes no sense for me to comment on those.)
If I think Amy and others are saying only 90% of what needs to be said, I'm happy to chime in, whether it's in sympathy of men or women.
I'd say that it's pretty important to point out that even very smart young people can still be very ignorant of the law - and being young people, they engage in wishful thinking on a daily basis. E.g., "other people have to obey every single law - *I* don't." Hence, the need for certain lectures at school that the parents often don't bother to give, just as they often never talk to their kids about all sorts of very important things that get taught in basic sex ed. Or about drunken driving, for that matter.
And as I hinted, you're probably more likely to encounter misogynist men in the U.K. than in the U.S., so it's hardly surprising they have such lectures there.
lenona at October 4, 2016 4:21 PM
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