Sex at UNH: Consent and Bystander Intervention - Granite Grok

Sex at UNH: Consent and Bystander Intervention

Binge_Drinking_College_Students_HAPPIER_Study_Did you know that New Hampshire law forbids initiating sex with someone under the influence of drugs and alcohol? That’s what it says on the “About Alcohol” header of the UNH Consent and Bystander Intervention” page, which reads,

Alcohol or drugs are often used as a tool for sexual assault.  UNH policy and New Hampshire law forbid initiating sex with a person who is incapacitated by the use of alcohol or drugs.

The first statement is very true; the second one is a bit misleading.

The UNH web page, titled, “Consent and Bystander Intervention” does have a link embedded to RSA 632-A:2 (SEXUAL ASSAULT AND RELATED OFFENSES) but when you click you are met with a 404 Page not Found error. The problem is that they do not link to the actual statute but an internal UNH page that no longer exists.

(http://www.unh.edu/affirmativeaction/www.gencourt.state.nh.us/rsa/html/lxii/632-a/632-a-mrg.htm)

The root takes you to the UNH Affirmative Action and Equity Office page,  where you can follow various links down any number of rabbit holes to caches of pdf’s exploring relationships, discrimination, consensual amorous contact, and non-consensual contact, but no RSA 632-anything.

Lucky for us we know how to engage in “conduct” with state law without the help of the University System (alcohol or drugs optional, but recommended).

632-A:2 Aggravated Felonious Sexual Assault.
I. A person is guilty of the felony of aggravated felonious sexual assault if such person engages in sexual penetration with another person under any of the following circumstances:

f) When the actor, without the prior knowledge or consent of the victim, administers or has knowledge of another person administering to the victim any intoxicating substance which mentally incapacitates the victim.

If there is a New Hampshire law to forbid initiating sex with a person who is incapacitated by the use of alcohol or drugs, it’s not there, and I doubt such a law exists. If it did significant numbers of consenting adults in New Hampshire would be breaking that law on a daily basis.

So I think that phrase needs a little edit.

To the credit of the UNH, the “Consent and Bystander Intervention” page is clear about the illegality of using drugs or alcohol in place of consent.

Examples of non-consensual sex include but are not limited to: threatening, forcing, manipulating, intimidating, blackmailing, drugging, and causing a person to become intoxicated as a substitute for expressed consent or engaging in unwelcome sexual activity with a sleeping or incapacitated person.

This is a troublesome definition with dangerous degrees of latitude. The statute says “without the prior knowledge or consent of the victim.” The object of the affection cannot know they are being “intoxicated.” Where “causing a person to become intoxicated” may or may not begin with intent but should it end that way could easily include offering to buy a drink or handing a drink to that someone.

If you don’t think the lawyers see it that way too, you’re in for a surprise.

And while nonverbal clues are a form of expressed consent,

-…Expressed consent is mutual agreement, based on shared desire for specific sexual activities that is expressed verbally or nonverbally.

They’re not a safe means of consent.

-… keep in mind that verbal expressed consent is less likely to be misinterpreted, and the safest, least ambiguous way to seek and receive expressed consent. Do not rely on gestures, facial expressions, or vague/non-specific verbal answers.

In the new world order, where staying out of the bedroom means micromanaging the bedroom, nothing is sacred or safe. And no, you can’t videotape the sex without consent as evidence because the same likely contradictions apply, along with more than a few others we won’t explore here.

Then there is the matter of the pages and pages of documentation outlining the procedures and provisos for all pre-mating, mating, and post-mating (see accusations, litigation) rituals, whose maintenance employs a small army of people whose role, it appears, is to stay employed, without–if you take my meaning–the verbal or nonverbal consent of taxpayers back-stopping liberal bastions of social justice disguised as institutions of Higher Learning.

Put another way. No matter what UNH puts on whcih web page, or what does or doesn’t happen, someone is getting screwed.

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