more serious. When the rules are clear, each party can easily and accurately infer what the other wants from the way he or she behaves. But what the poll shows is that there are no rules. On every issue there are women who think one way and women who think another; men who think like some women but not others; and a perplexing number of people, of both sexes, who have no opinion at all.
29. For each of the following, please tell me if you think the situation IS sexual assault, IS NOT sexual assault, or is unclear.
Sexual activity when both people have not given clear agreement
Is
Is not
Unclear
No opinion
All
47
6
46
*
Men
42
7
50
1
Women
52
6
42
–
What does it mean that half of all young men and women are “unclear” on whether clear agreement is necessary for sexual activity? Does it mean that they haven’t thought about it before? Does it mean that they would rather proceed on a case-by-case basis? Does it mean they reserve the right to sometimes proceed without explicit consent, and at other times to insist on it? Amanda Knox confounded the legal system because there was a disconnect between the way she acted and the way she felt. But this is transparency failure on steroids. When one college student meets another—even in cases where both have the best of intentions—the task of inferring sexual intent from behavior is essentially a coin flip. As legal scholar Lori Shaw asks, “How can we expect students to respect boundaries when no consensus exists as to what they are?”
There is a second, complicating element in many of these encounters, however. When you read through the details of the campus sexual-assault cases that have become so depressingly common, the remarkable fact is how many involve an almost identical scenario. A young woman and a young man meet at a party, then proceed to tragically misunderstand each other’s intentions—and they’re drunk.
3.
D: What did you drink?
Turner: I had approximately five Rolling Rock beers.
Brock Turner began drinking well before he went to the Kappa Alpha party. He had been at his friend Peter’s apartment earlier in the evening.
D: Other than the five Rolling Rock beers that you’ve mentioned, did you drink any other alcohol in Peter’s room?
Turner: Yes. I had some Fireball Whiskey.
D: And how was that consumed?…
Turner: It was just out of the bottle.
When Turner got to the party, he kept drinking. In California the legal intoxication limit for drivers is a blood-alcohol concentration of .08; anything above that and you’re considered drunk. By the end of the night Turner’s blood-alcohol level was twice that.
Emily Doe arrived at the party in a group—with her sister and her friends Colleen and Trea. Earlier that evening, Trea had consumed an entire bottle of champagne, among other things. There they were joined by their friend Julia, who had also been drinking.
P: Did you have anything to drink at dinner?
Julia: Yes.
P: What did you drink?
Julia: A full bottle of wine.
And then:
P: What did you do after dinner?
Julia: After dinner [I] Ubered to a place called Griffin Suite.…
P: And what was going on there at Griffin Suite?
Julia: A pregame.
P: What’s that?
Julia: Oh, sorry. It’s a jargon. It’s a pre-party that involves drinking.
After pregaming, Julia heads to the Kappa Alpha party, where she discovers an unopened bottle of vodka in the basement.
Julia: I opened it and we poured it into cups and took shots.
That leaves Emily Doe.
P: And so you started drinking with the shot of whiskey, and then how many—how many drinks did you have before you left your house?
Doe: Four.
P: And were they the same type of drink—a shot of whiskey—that you had the first time?
Doe: I had four shots of whiskey and one glass of champagne.
P: OK. So do you know approximately what time frame this was that you had the four shots of whiskey and one glass of champagne?
Doe: Probably between 10:00 and 10:45.
Then she and her friends go on to the party.
P: OK. And so after you guys kind of were goofing around, being the welcoming committee, what did you guys do?
Doe: Julia discovered a handle of vodka.
P: OK. And what is your description of a “handle of vodka”?
Doe: Probably, like, this big, Costco size…
P: And what happened when she presented the vodka?
Doe: I did a free pour into a red Solo cup.
P: OK. Were you measuring in any way how much vodka was in your cup?
Doe: I thought I was, but I was unsuccessfully measuring. I poured right below the second marking on the cup, which I thought was going