Promiscuous Academics and the Academics of Promiscuity

I'm finding this semester at law school a lot more intellectually stimulating and a lot less painful for my brain than the previous ones. I have always been an excellent student when I enjoy my work, and merely a good one when I am not engrossed in the subject. Fortunately, I am an academic slut - I will devour almost any topic with at least some degree of glee. As we all know and understand, though, slutty doesn't imply not having any standards, just an ability to find value in more places and people than the average joe might. Last semester, I found a few courses that my brain seemed unwilling to hop into bed with, and as a result I suffered, my ambition for a legal career suffered, and my endlessly patient boyfriend suffered.

Obviously, my courses were not the only things causing last semester's mental discomfort, and I'm sure that the depression and anxiety that I was struggling with didn't exactly provide me with the motivation to closely study articles of corporate governance. Things are more than just back on track now, though. I am loving school, searching diligently for careers that I will enjoy, and participating actively in my classroom discussions (something that is a struggle for me.) These discussions, however, can present new challenges. After a class discussion in criminal evidence on the admissibility of past sexual history in sexual assault cases, I found myself feeling a bit battered and bruised. Students had taken up the torch of "but slutty people/people into rough sex are always going to consent/are probably lying about rape!" The professor had dealt with it extremely well, but I was still left feeling queasy. I wrote the professor an email and explained that as a "queer, kinky feminist who has been the victim of sexual assault both in BDSM and vanilla contexts, I felt very angry about yesterday's discussion". We had a great conversation both over email and in person, and yesterday I contributed the following to our class blog. I thought that I would reproduce it in part here, as it's relevant to the type of content I like to discuss:

"The class discussion veered - as it often does, and should - beyond relevant legislation, into how laws are formulated, and whether or not they are formulated well. My impulse is always to avoid involvement in these discussions, because when we begin to talk about promiscuous behaviour or particular fetishes as indications of implied consent in every sexual act, my responses tend to be more defensive than measured.

These attitudes, however, contribute to low rates of reporting in incidents of sexual assault. It is for this reason that I feel the need to address them both as stereotypes and as legal issues. In the context of BDS&M, this is a community that values and discusses consent far more often than the general populace. It is rare in a vanilla context to sit down with someone before a sexual encounter to explicitly talk about what will happen and what is the best way to indicate withdrawal of consent; in BDS&M it is the norm. Similarly, the argument regarding promiscuous behaviour is faulty; if someone has engaged in consensual sexual acts in the past, what motivation is there to suddenly bring forth a fabricated assault charge? Sexual assault can take place in any situation, making my arguments just as useless as anyone else’s - which is exactly the point.

From a legal standpoint, I found two things concerning. First of all, I reject the idea that a past sexual history with the accused should be considered relevant. This is dangerously close to ideas about wives not being able to refuse sex with their husbands, and does not acknowledge that a sexual relationship requires ongoing renewal of consent with each act, or at least that consent can be withdrawn at any time. The revised law adequately address this. Secondly, I am puzzled by the distinction between divulging past sexual history for credibility and for consent. It is clearly inappropriate as a way of negating credibility, as in "X is promiscuous and thus a liar". However, if it is used to make inferences about consent - for instance,"X consented before to Y/Z, therefore they likely consented this time", this is as much an attack on credibility as the former. If the complainant says they were assaulted, and the defense argues that they must have consented because of their history, then past sexual history is still being used to undermine credibility. I am unclear on how these uses are distinct.

Finally, it seems that trials for sexual assault are the most likely to involve an attack on the complainant rather than a defense of the accused. It does not seem that the complainant in other types of cases - say, a mugging - would come under as intense scrutiny. I do understand that people fabricate charges - for revenge, or financial gain, or any number of reasons - but it feels in sexual assault cases like the default assumption lies more with the idea that the complainant is being deceitful."

While it was immensely frustrating to find myself in the position of needing to make these points clear, I feel grateful to be in a faculty where I can do so with the full support of my professors, and where this sort of discussion can take place.

I am in the middle of a major term paper right now that it is eating my life, so I may not post again for another couple of weeks. Hope that everyone's February has started off well.

With great love,
K8