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What constitutes consent?

Iulia Neagu’s column on Monday

Consent in sexual encounters is necessary. Effective consent is informed, freely and actively given by all parties and mutually understandable in words or actions. Consent indicates an agreement to engage in mutually agreed-upon sexual activity. There are circumstances where even when consent is given, it is not valid. Consent is invalid when forced, threatened, intimidated or coerced, when given by a mentally or physically incapacitated person or when given by a minor.

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The initiator of sexual activity is responsible for gaining consent before any permissible sexual activity may occur. The person from whom the initiator wants consent, therefore, is in a position to give — if the person so chooses — effective, informed consent. This consent-based doctrine recognizes and highlights a simple principle — our personal sovereignty. We have the right not to be acted upon unless we inform the initiator of our desire to engage in sexual activity. Our silence is not our permission.

The principle of consent allows us to apply responsibilities uniformly to all parties involved. The hypothetical situation presented by Neagu takes away all responsibility from the initiating party. A murder victim has never been required to resist an attacker to prove that the attacker’s actions constituted murder. A drunk or sober driver who hits a drunk pedestrian is responsible for the accident, regardless of his or her state of inebriation. It is not common practice to refer to victims of other crimes as having “gotten themselves robbed” or “gotten themselves shot.” So why is it an acceptable practice to assume that a person is somehow responsible for being sexually assaulted?

If someone drinks to the point of an “advanced state of inebriation,” there are certainly expected consequences. These could include hospitalization, blood alcohol poisoning and a massive hangover. To give carte blanche to perpetrators to take advantage of an inebriated person, however, is unacceptable. We pose the thesis that someone should be able to walk across campus naked and not have his or her bodily integrity disturbed by violence. Yes, the naked person would be breaking lewdness laws, but that violation would not entitle others to perform sexual acts on this individual. Agreeing to drink is agreeing to drink — nothing more.

With regard to Neagu’s assumption that it is easy for women to report sexual assaults, we would like to point out that among college women, less than 5 percent of sexual assaults are reported. Moreover, only 2–3 percent of these reports are false, a percentage on par with the statistics on false reports of burglary or grand theft auto. With these numbers in mind, it is imperative to believe someone who reports a sexual assault.

With opinions like the author’s so prevalent on campus, we must hold each other accountable in our community. We are all here because we are academic leaders, and we challenge you to be leaders in your personal lives as well. We agree with Neagu’s statement that situations like this should not happen in the first place. They do occur on our campus, however, and we must therefore learn to be friends — not bystanders.

Katie Rodriguez, a psychology major, and Avital Ludomirsky, a Wilson School major, are co-presidents of SHARE. Amanda Yamasaki, a molecular biology major, is co-vice president of SHARE. Jillian Hewitt, a politics major, is president of SpeakOut. They can be reached at krodrigu@princeton.edu, aludomir@princeton.edu, yamasaki@princeton.edu and jhewitt@princeton.edu, respectively. For more information about sexual assault on campus, contact share@princeton.edu.

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