Campus Safe Houses For Sex and Videotaping Sex Coming?

These are Among the Growing Number of Recommendations for Protecting Women From Date Rape
 
WASHINGTON - July 22, 2015 - PRLog -- WASHINGTON, D.C.  (July 22, 2015) - To help reduce the incidence of date rape, colleges should to "supply a neutral space, complete with trained supervisors" where students can have completely safe sex under the supervision of experts.

        Also, students should have professors serve as witnesses - "Young couples used to get chaperones to ensure they didn’t have sex. Now we can use them to ensure they do" - sign pre-coital agreements, and videotape their sexual activities.

        These are only a few suggestions being offered tongue-in-cheek by The Federalist web site to deal with the new "yes means yes" standards for consent now mandated for all California and New York college students - provided they are only having sex with each other and not those who have graduated or never went to college - but in many ways truth is stranger than fiction, says public interest law professor John Banzhaf.

        Banzhaf reported some time ago that men were successfully using surreptitious-but-legal videotapes of their sexual activities to defend themselves from no-consent-to-sex rape charges, and recently noted that a new app called WeConsent is now available to permit both parties to videotape their consent to various sexual activities in living color and preserved for all posterity in the cloud.

        But even before the new app appeared, some men were simply surreptitiously recording the sex act itself - as recommended by some web sites - as an alternative method of proving the woman's active cooperation, says Banzhaf.

        The new app doesn't necessarily replace the advice to surreptitiously record one's own sexual activities because at least some women and even men may be understandably reluctant to have a video recording of their agreement to have sex, and perhaps even ultimately to having sex with several partners, floating around.

        Also, some lovers may find it inconvenient or simply inappropriate to interrupt a romantic session to whip our a cell phone, make sure there is enough light for a good recording, and answer questions asked by the app.

        Another unexpected and ironic result of the pressure on colleges to more aggressively find students guilty of date rape is that more male students are apparently videotaping their sex encounters, usually surreptitiously.

        Such video recordings have been used successfully to defeat allegations of rape, a number of  Internet web sites are recommending video taping to men as a defensive tactic, and the practice is reportedly not illegal in the great majority of states.

        Since only 17 states explicitly define rape as penetration without consent, and the remainder generally require either that the woman at the time be "physically helpless" - i.e., unconscious, or unable to resist or communicate -  or that the defendant use force or the threat of force, a videotape showing no apparent manifestations of force, and a female able to move even a tiny bit (i.e., perhaps drunk, but not "helpless") could at the very least create enough reasonable doubt as to require a "not guilty" finding.

        Moreover, even in those 17 states which do require consent - Alabama, DC, Florida, Kansas, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Washington - a videotape showing the female actively cooperating in any way in the sex act could be taken to signify her consent, even if there is no proof that she verbally agreed.

        News reports indicate that videotapes can often provide a successful defense to rape:
   ■ Four students at Hofstra University were accused of gang raping a fellow student, but were freed when a cell phone video indicated that the sexual encounter was consensual
.  ■  A San Francisco lawyer, charged with raping three women, had the charges regarding two women dismissed because he had videotaped those encounters.
   ■ A man was found not guilty of an alleged gang rape after a Cook County, Illinois, jury was shown a videotape arguably showing some signs of consent as pointed out by an expert witness.

        Although the Federal Wiretapping statute prohibits audio recording, it does not limit recording of video-only images. Moreover, the great majority of the states also do not criminalize videotaping.

        In any event, the few state laws which criminalize it are full of restrictions and loopholes so they may not apply where a man videotapes his own sexual activities in his own room, and not for sexual gratification, but rather as a legal defense to rape.

        Also, some men are apparently taking the view that they would rather be changed with the less serious crime of illegal videotaping than the much more serious felony of rape.

        Several Internet web sites are suggesting that men should routinely videotape their sexual encounters as a possible defense to a charge of date rape.

        This may be part of the backlash which is being spawned by federal pressure on universities to punish more students accused of rape.

        Another measure of this apparently growing backlash is the growing number of men bringing law suits against their universities after having been found guilty of date rape, sexual assault, etc. - about a dozen of which have already been successful.

        Male students have already used legal action successfully at Brown (2X), Central College, Denison,  Duke (2X) , George Washington, Holy Cross, Occidental, Saint Joseph, University of the South, UC San Diego. and Xavier.

        Meanwhile, law suits filed by male students convicted by their universities of rape and/or sexual assault are pending against Bucknell, Cincinnati, Columbia, Delaware State, Depauw, Drew, Kenyon, U of Michigan, Philadelphia U, Swarthmore, Vassar, Williams, and perhaps others.

JOHN F. BANZHAF III, B.S.E.E., J.D., Sc.D.
Professor of Public Interest Law
George Washington University Law School,
FAMRI Dr. William Cahan Distinguished Professor,
Fellow, World Technology Network,
Founder, Action on Smoking and Health (ASH)
2000 H Street, NW
Washington, DC 20052, USA
(202) 994-7229 // (703) 527-8418
http://banzhaf.net/ @profbanzhaf

Contact
GWU Law School
***@gwu.edu
End
Source: » Follow
Email:***@gwu.edu
Tags:Date Rape, Videotape, Weconsent, Safe House, Yes Means Yes
Industry:Education, Legal
Location:Washington - District of Columbia - United States
Account Email Address Verified     Account Phone Number Verified     Disclaimer     Report Abuse
Public Interest Law Professor John Banzhaf PRs
Trending News
Most Viewed
Top Daily News



Like PRLog?
9K2K1K
Click to Share