New situation to talk about with my teen son...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Every case is different. I have had a range of results. Sadly, the vast majority result in conviction because so many people agree to make statements and incriminate themselves. I have been able to get many of them to misdemeanors with jail. Some clients have been convicted of felonies and that sucks. One thing to remember is that a common police tactic is to do what is called a sting call -- they have the complaining witness call the accused and start a conversation about the event. Many, many, many, many times the subject of the call apologizes or agrees with the complaining witness that they were asleep. That is harder to avoid -- you have to be pretty savvy not to fall for it. Then the police usually ask the person to come in voluntarily to "clear the air" and it rarely goes well.

It sounds like you're describing situations where the defendant has admitted to engaging in the behavior that the charge is based on. Shouldn't people be punished when they have committed a crime?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does she not like oral and he kept telling her she would like and pressuring her to do it? Then she wakes up to him performing oral sex on her? This is the only way I would see him getting arrested for this.

What if, the next morning, she had rolled over and started doing that to wake him up and he realized that he really didn't want her to do that. Maybe he suddenly remembered that he already had a girlfriend or maybe he had morning after regrets and was no longer attracted to her. He pushes her away and she stops her advances. But it still happened, she still touched him...

Is that something that he should report to police? Should the young lady be arrested? Should she be threatened with prosecution? Should her frantic parents be called and given these kinds of graphic details about their daughter's sex life? Should she be kicked out of school? Should she be made to feel like a 'rapist"?

IMO yes to the bold in your scenario. Unless in an established relationship where there's precedent that it's desired, I don't think agreeing to a sexual encounter one night [assuming what happened before they went to sleep was consensual and mutually enjoyable] is consent to future sexual encounters. The couple you describe went to sleep after finishing having sex, so to me oral sex after one or both of them wakes up is a second, separate encounter. And yes, it seems like common sense that you'd need consent each time you want to have sex, unless an understanding had been established between the couple beforehand.

- A PP, but not one quoted above. Woman, with only daughters, if it matters.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Every case is different. I have had a range of results. Sadly, the vast majority result in conviction because so many people agree to make statements and incriminate themselves. I have been able to get many of them to misdemeanors with jail. Some clients have been convicted of felonies and that sucks. One thing to remember is that a common police tactic is to do what is called a sting call -- they have the complaining witness call the accused and start a conversation about the event. Many, many, many, many times the subject of the call apologizes or agrees with the complaining witness that they were asleep. That is harder to avoid -- you have to be pretty savvy not to fall for it. Then the police usually ask the person to come in voluntarily to "clear the air" and it rarely goes well.

It sounds like you're describing situations where the defendant has admitted to engaging in the behavior that the charge is based on. Shouldn't people be punished when they have committed a crime?

Sure as long as the punishment fits the crime. In the Op's post, the facts included that interviews had completed by the school and by police.
The Op said the school called the kid in for an interview.

In Virginia, the charge for the conduct described by OP would likely be forcible sodomy which is punishable by a sentence of 5 years to life in prison. Or perhaps aggravated sexual battery, punishable by a sentence of up to 20 years in prison. I don't think those are reasonable punishment ranges for the conduct described. Sentencing guidelines for someone with no prior convictions of any kind recommend a multiple year long prison sentence. The charge can be reduced to a misdemeanor and typically a jail sentence is negotiated in exchange for the reduction to a misdemeanor, but there is no guarantee of that offer being made.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DH and I have covered sex, consent, no means no, etc. with our teen son, but now we have a new scenario to teach him about.

My friend's teen son in college was arrested for sexual assault recently. She shared with me and a few other close friends what happened so that we could use her son's mistake to educate our kids. It's honestly not a scenario I'd thought to cover with him.

He met a girl at a football game and they hit it off. They exchanged info. and went on some dates. They began exclusively dating and having a sexual relationship and things were fine. They had sex one evening and she stayed the night with him. He thought it would be "cute and romantic" to wake her up the next morning with oral sex. She was angry when she woke up and told him that was not okay with her. He apologized and she said she needed to re-evaluate their relationship. No contact happened for a little over a week and then he was called in by one of the dean's because the assault was reported by her. Interviews happened and the case was turned over to the local authorities. More interviews and investigating happened and he was arrested by the local police in his college town. He was released on bond and was told to have no contact with her until the school finished their investigation process. He got called before the disciplinary committee right before school let out for winter break and was expelled from college for violating the university's integrity code.

We had the talk with our son that if a woman gives consent and during the act says she'd like to stop, you stop. If during the act she seems like she's in pain or uncomfortable but doesn't say anything, you stop. We've told him that kissing doesn't equal permission to be handsy. Agreeing to oral sex doesn't equal permission to have sex. And now we're going to talk to him about this type of situation this weekend. I was raped, which DH knows, and so we've been a bit more explicit with our kids than maybe other people are. Stressing the importance of consent, drinking, boundaries, emotions, etc. But this scenario is honestly never one that crossed my mind.

I used to think having a teen girl was more stressful, but as my son gets older, I realize that having a teen that could possibly be (or is) sexually active is the most stressful of all, regardless of gender.

Perhaps the sexual revolution wasn't so great after all. for. anyone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"Cute and romantic" to engage in oral sex with someone who is asleep and therefore definitely not able to give consent? WTF??? I don't see how that is anything other than assault.

Really? You've never read a book, seen a movie, anything, in which it's depicted as a sexy way to interact with your mate? Have you been living on the moon?

Way to go liberal Hollywood for teaching our teens this is ok!!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does she not like oral and he kept telling her she would like and pressuring her to do it? Then she wakes up to him performing oral sex on her? This is the only way I would see him getting arrested for this.

What if, the next morning, she had rolled over and started doing that to wake him up and he realized that he really didn't want her to do that. Maybe he suddenly remembered that he already had a girlfriend or maybe he had morning after regrets and was no longer attracted to her. He pushes her away and she stops her advances. But it still happened, she still touched him...

Is that something that he should report to police? Should the young lady be arrested? Should she be threatened with prosecution? Should her frantic parents be called and given these kinds of graphic details about their daughter's sex life? Should she be kicked out of school? Should she be made to feel like a 'rapist"?

IMO yes to the bold in your scenario. Unless in an established relationship where there's precedent that it's desired, I don't think agreeing to a sexual encounter one night [assuming what happened before they went to sleep was consensual and mutually enjoyable] is consent to future sexual encounters. The couple you describe went to sleep after finishing having sex, so to me oral sex after one or both of them wakes up is a second, separate encounter. And yes, it seems like common sense that you'd need consent each time you want to have sex, unless an understanding had been established between the couple beforehand.

- A PP, but not one quoted above. Woman, with only daughters, if it matters.

Ok, then I'm sure it's only a matter of time before a male brings charges against a young woman and drags her through the mud.

When you water down what it means to be sexually assaulted to the point where two naked people laying in bed together can be arrested and punished for simply touching each other the next morning after a night of consensual sex (and immediately stopping when the other person objects), the term "sexual assault" will become meaningless. Being put on the sex offender registry will be a sick joke.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does she not like oral and he kept telling her she would like and pressuring her to do it? Then she wakes up to him performing oral sex on her? This is the only way I would see him getting arrested for this.

What if, the next morning, she had rolled over and started doing that to wake him up and he realized that he really didn't want her to do that. Maybe he suddenly remembered that he already had a girlfriend or maybe he had morning after regrets and was no longer attracted to her. He pushes her away and she stops her advances. But it still happened, she still touched him...

Is that something that he should report to police? Should the young lady be arrested? Should she be threatened with prosecution? Should her frantic parents be called and given these kinds of graphic details about their daughter's sex life? Should she be kicked out of school? Should she be made to feel like a 'rapist"?

IMO yes to the bold in your scenario. Unless in an established relationship where there's precedent that it's desired, I don't think agreeing to a sexual encounter one night [assuming what happened before they went to sleep was consensual and mutually enjoyable] is consent to future sexual encounters. The couple you describe went to sleep after finishing having sex, so to me oral sex after one or both of them wakes up is a second, separate encounter. And yes, it seems like common sense that you'd need consent each time you want to have sex, unless an understanding had been established between the couple beforehand.

- A PP, but not one quoted above. Woman, with only daughters, if it matters.

In the example that the Op gave, the young man and woman had gone out on some dates with each other, had started to date exclusively and had begun a sexual relationship. One morning, after a night of consensual sex the young man decided it would be cute to try waking her up in a sexy way. His guard was down, he felt that he knew her well enough to do this and apparently that was not the case. She got angry and broke it off with him. She waited a week and then reported him to the university for sexual assault. The university investigated and decided to turn it over to the cops. The cops arrested the guy....

Sounds crazy.

[Anonymous]

Colleges want to protect themselves so their first response now is to call the police. Thanks to the PP defense attorney who reminds us of our rights to NOT speak until we have an attorney present.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DH and I have covered sex, consent, no means no, etc. with our teen son, but now we have a new scenario to teach him about.

My friend's teen son in college was arrested for sexual assault recently. She shared with me and a few other close friends what happened so that we could use her son's mistake to educate our kids. It's honestly not a scenario I'd thought to cover with him.

He met a girl at a football game and they hit it off. They exchanged info. and went on some dates. They began exclusively dating and having a sexual relationship and things were fine. They had sex one evening and she stayed the night with him. He thought it would be "cute and romantic" to wake her up the next morning with oral sex. She was angry when she woke up and told him that was not okay with her. He apologized and she said she needed to re-evaluate their relationship. No contact happened for a little over a week and then he was called in by one of the dean's because the assault was reported by her. Interviews happened and the case was turned over to the local authorities. More interviews and investigating happened and he was arrested by the local police in his college town. He was released on bond and was told to have no contact with her until the school finished their investigation process. He got called before the disciplinary committee right before school let out for winter break and was expelled from college for violating the university's integrity code.

We had the talk with our son that if a woman gives consent and during the act says she'd like to stop, you stop. If during the act she seems like she's in pain or uncomfortable but doesn't say anything, you stop. We've told him that kissing doesn't equal permission to be handsy. Agreeing to oral sex doesn't equal permission to have sex. And now we're going to talk to him about this type of situation this weekend. I was raped, which DH knows, and so we've been a bit more explicit with our kids than maybe other people are. Stressing the importance of consent, drinking, boundaries, emotions, etc. But this scenario is honestly never one that crossed my mind.

I used to think having a teen girl was more stressful, but as my son gets older, I realize that having a teen that could possibly be (or is) sexually active is the most stressful of all, regardless of gender.

A lot going on here.

For starters, if this had happened to me very early in a relationship with someone, I would be completely freaked out and would ABSOLUTELY consider it sexual assault. When you are in a long term relationship with someone, you get an understanding of what they like and what they don't like. My husband would not be okay with me waking him up this way, despite usually liking BJs as much as the next red-blooded straight male. I wouldn't like it either. Oral? When I'm sleeping? No thanks. But we've been married for years and we know that if one of us decided to experiment with something like that, it wouldn't portent anything creepy and serious. In this case, where a young man has known a young woman for a matter of weeks and had only been in a relationship for a few weeks, I would be worried that he now thinks that because we've had sex, he can do whatever he wants to me, whether I'm conscious or not.

Additionally, depending on how this got reported and the state, it could be that she told a mandated reporter and that process got triggered. Either way, it sounds like your friend's son grossly misread what was appropriate in this situation, with the result that his girlfriend felt that she'd been assaulted. That would not have happened if he had stuck to the cardinal rule which is DO NOT HAVE SEXUAL CONTACT WITH ANYONE WHO IS UNCONSCIOUS.

+100 totally agree with this assessment. It wasn't a smart thing to do and it would've have freaked me out early in a relationship as well. Crossing all sorts of boundaries.

[Anonymous]

As a person who has worked with survivors of sexual assault and domestic violence, without knowing the girl's history, what I can say is that a response like this would be a red flag for me that she has a history of abuse. That this experience was triggering for her (I know y'all hate that word here, but this kind of thing is what the word is intended to describe, not getting upset because you read a book). That her roommate and RA were responding to the level of stress she was experiencing as a result of this experience, rather than the nuts and bolts of what happened.

The OP mentioned that these two individuals had known each other for - at most - 2 months when all this happened. For a survivor, that is almost certainly not enough time to build up a sufficient level of trust for this kid to even be given the benefit of the doubt. A survivor waking up to someone doing sexual things to her is not going to respond the same way that someone who has never experienced sexual abuse is going to respond - not with a new boyfriend, anyway. 2 months is probably not even long enough for her to trust him enough to disclose the abuse she experienced. A lot of survivors never disclose.

I get that you are all really concerned for the boy and what the rest of HIS life will look like as a result of this situation, but I would encourage you to give the girl the benefit of the doubt as well. It's possible that she got worked up over "nothing" but it's equally possible that she has a history of abuse that made this experience very different for her than you guys think it is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DH and I have covered sex, consent, no means no, etc. with our teen son, but now we have a new scenario to teach him about.

My friend's teen son in college was arrested for sexual assault recently. She shared with me and a few other close friends what happened so that we could use her son's mistake to educate our kids. It's honestly not a scenario I'd thought to cover with him.

He met a girl at a football game and they hit it off. They exchanged info. and went on some dates. They began exclusively dating and having a sexual relationship and things were fine. They had sex one evening and she stayed the night with him. He thought it would be "cute and romantic" to wake her up the next morning with oral sex. She was angry when she woke up and told him that was not okay with her. He apologized and she said she needed to re-evaluate their relationship. No contact happened for a little over a week and then he was called in by one of the dean's because the assault was reported by her. Interviews happened and the case was turned over to the local authorities. More interviews and investigating happened and he was arrested by the local police in his college town. He was released on bond and was told to have no contact with her until the school finished their investigation process. He got called before the disciplinary committee right before school let out for winter break and was expelled from college for violating the university's integrity code.

We had the talk with our son that if a woman gives consent and during the act says she'd like to stop, you stop. If during the act she seems like she's in pain or uncomfortable but doesn't say anything, you stop. We've told him that kissing doesn't equal permission to be handsy. Agreeing to oral sex doesn't equal permission to have sex. And now we're going to talk to him about this type of situation this weekend. I was raped, which DH knows, and so we've been a bit more explicit with our kids than maybe other people are. Stressing the importance of consent, drinking, boundaries, emotions, etc. But this scenario is honestly never one that crossed my mind.

I used to think having a teen girl was more stressful, but as my son gets older, I realize that having a teen that could possibly be (or is) sexually active is the most stressful of all, regardless of gender.

A lot going on here.

For starters, if this had happened to me very early in a relationship with someone, I would be completely freaked out and would ABSOLUTELY consider it sexual assault. When you are in a long term relationship with someone, you get an understanding of what they like and what they don't like. My husband would not be okay with me waking him up this way, despite usually liking BJs as much as the next red-blooded straight male. I wouldn't like it either. Oral? When I'm sleeping? No thanks. But we've been married for years and we know that if one of us decided to experiment with something like that, it wouldn't portent anything creepy and serious. In this case, where a young man has known a young woman for a matter of weeks and had only been in a relationship for a few weeks, I would be worried that he now thinks that because we've had sex, he can do whatever he wants to me, whether I'm conscious or not.

Additionally, depending on how this got reported and the state, it could be that she told a mandated reporter and that process got triggered. Either way, it sounds like your friend's son grossly misread what was appropriate in this situation, with the result that his girlfriend felt that she'd been assaulted. That would not have happened if he had stuck to the cardinal rule which is DO NOT HAVE SEXUAL CONTACT WITH ANYONE WHO IS UNCONSCIOUS.

+100 totally agree with this assessment. It wasn't a smart thing to do and it would've have freaked me out early in a relationship as well. Crossing all sorts of boundaries.

I wouldn't have necessarily wanted that early in a relationship either. But looking back at the inexperienced, awkward and sometimes klutzy guys I dated....I can see how one of them could have done something like that with absolutely no harm intended. If there was no harm intended and it was just a miscommunication that would have been good enough for me given the circumstances.

I'll never forget how one doofy guy put his slobbery wet tongue into my ear - Ick!! Skeeved me out. He was hurt and a bit offended that I didn't like it like his ex girlfriend used to like it. Should I have called the cops on him for not asking permission to do that to me? No way. The guy really thought that "women" liked that because in his own extremely limited experience women did like that.

We really need to teach our kids to respect each other. We also need to teach them to have a little empathy and compassion for each other too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does she not like oral and he kept telling her she would like and pressuring her to do it? Then she wakes up to him performing oral sex on her? This is the only way I would see him getting arrested for this.

What if, the next morning, she had rolled over and started doing that to wake him up and he realized that he really didn't want her to do that. Maybe he suddenly remembered that he already had a girlfriend or maybe he had morning after regrets and was no longer attracted to her. He pushes her away and she stops her advances. But it still happened, she still touched him...

Is that something that he should report to police? Should the young lady be arrested? Should she be threatened with prosecution? Should her frantic parents be called and given these kinds of graphic details about their daughter's sex life? Should she be kicked out of school? Should she be made to feel like a 'rapist"?

IMO yes to the bold in your scenario. Unless in an established relationship where there's precedent that it's desired, I don't think agreeing to a sexual encounter one night [assuming what happened before they went to sleep was consensual and mutually enjoyable] is consent to future sexual encounters. The couple you describe went to sleep after finishing having sex, so to me oral sex after one or both of them wakes up is a second, separate encounter. And yes, it seems like common sense that you'd need consent each time you want to have sex, unless an understanding had been established between the couple beforehand.

- A PP, but not one quoted above. Woman, with only daughters, if it matters.

Ok, then I'm sure it's only a matter of time before a male brings charges against a young woman and drags her through the mud.

When you water down what it means to be sexually assaulted to the point where two naked people laying in bed together can be arrested and punished for simply touching each other the next morning after a night of consensual sex (and immediately stopping when the other person objects), the term "sexual assault" will become meaningless. Being put on the sex offender registry will be a sick joke.

This x1000000!!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As a person who has worked with survivors of sexual assault and domestic violence, without knowing the girl's history, what I can say is that a response like this would be a red flag for me that she has a history of abuse. That this experience was triggering for her (I know y'all hate that word here, but this kind of thing is what the word is intended to describe, not getting upset because you read a book). That her roommate and RA were responding to the level of stress she was experiencing as a result of this experience, rather than the nuts and bolts of what happened.

The OP mentioned that these two individuals had known each other for - at most - 2 months when all this happened. For a survivor, that is almost certainly not enough time to build up a sufficient level of trust for this kid to even be given the benefit of the doubt. A survivor waking up to someone doing sexual things to her is not going to respond the same way that someone who has never experienced sexual abuse is going to respond - not with a new boyfriend, anyway. 2 months is probably not even long enough for her to trust him enough to disclose the abuse she experienced. A lot of survivors never disclose.

I get that you are all really concerned for the boy and what the rest of HIS life will look like as a result of this situation, but I would encourage you to give the girl the benefit of the doubt as well. It's possible that she got worked up over "nothing" but it's equally possible that she has a history of abuse that made this experience very different for her than you guys think it is.

That's all well and good, but what was essentially a well-intentioned but miguided move on his part can now literally ruin the rest of his life based on the girl's reaction. As the mother of both a boy and a girl, I find this horrifying.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does she not like oral and he kept telling her she would like and pressuring her to do it? Then she wakes up to him performing oral sex on her? This is the only way I would see him getting arrested for this.

What if, the next morning, she had rolled over and started doing that to wake him up and he realized that he really didn't want her to do that. Maybe he suddenly remembered that he already had a girlfriend or maybe he had morning after regrets and was no longer attracted to her. He pushes her away and she stops her advances. But it still happened, she still touched him...

Is that something that he should report to police? Should the young lady be arrested? Should she be threatened with prosecution? Should her frantic parents be called and given these kinds of graphic details about their daughter's sex life? Should she be kicked out of school? Should she be made to feel like a 'rapist"?

IMO yes to the bold in your scenario. Unless in an established relationship where there's precedent that it's desired, I don't think agreeing to a sexual encounter one night [assuming what happened before they went to sleep was consensual and mutually enjoyable] is consent to future sexual encounters. The couple you describe went to sleep after finishing having sex, so to me oral sex after one or both of them wakes up is a second, separate encounter. And yes, it seems like common sense that you'd need consent each time you want to have sex, unless an understanding had been established between the couple beforehand.

- A PP, but not one quoted above. Woman, with only daughters, if it matters.

You don't get how awful what you're saying is? Ruining someone's life by pursuing charges for a sex crime for the scenario you've described? Really? Really?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does she not like oral and he kept telling her she would like and pressuring her to do it? Then she wakes up to him performing oral sex on her? This is the only way I would see him getting arrested for this.

What if, the next morning, she had rolled over and started doing that to wake him up and he realized that he really didn't want her to do that. Maybe he suddenly remembered that he already had a girlfriend or maybe he had morning after regrets and was no longer attracted to her. He pushes her away and she stops her advances. But it still happened, she still touched him...

Is that something that he should report to police? Should the young lady be arrested? Should she be threatened with prosecution? Should her frantic parents be called and given these kinds of graphic details about their daughter's sex life? Should she be kicked out of school? Should she be made to feel like a 'rapist"?

IMO yes to the bold in your scenario. Unless in an established relationship where there's precedent that it's desired, I don't think agreeing to a sexual encounter one night [assuming what happened before they went to sleep was consensual and mutually enjoyable] is consent to future sexual encounters. The couple you describe went to sleep after finishing having sex, so to me oral sex after one or both of them wakes up is a second, separate encounter. And yes, it seems like common sense that you'd need consent each time you want to have sex, unless an understanding had been established between the couple beforehand.

- A PP, but not one quoted above. Woman, with only daughters, if it matters.

You don't get how awful what you're saying is? Ruining someone's life by pursuing charges for a sex crime for the scenario you've described? Really? Really?

Not the PP, but yes, in that scenario, where he has clearly asked her to stop touching him in a sexual way and she continues doing it? That is a sex crime. Why should the person committing the crime NOT be charged with the crime?