You've crossed way over the line into trolling. Since you don't appear to have a history of doing this on HN we haven't banned you, but if you don't stop, we will.

It's one thing to bring up real questions and/or complexities of the broader issues—people have been doing that a lot in these threads recently. The timing for that hasn't necessarily been good but one can at least see how it might come up in good faith. Outright denial is something different.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14692419 and marked it off-topic.

If you tell someone to leave (NOW!) after they indicate they want to sleep in your bedroom when they've been offered the couch and then they forcibly kiss you that is in fact sexual assault, in fact even if none of the former had happened it would still be sexual assault. Force => assault.

When someone has sex with another person without their permission it is rape.

I'm by no means a burly red-blooded gentleman, but I can't think of any example from my previous relationships that did not start with either myself or the other making a move which could later have been construed as assault.

Of course adding context to all those situations, it's easy to see that I or the recipient would in all probability welcome the advance, and so it is not assault, however the fine line between "assault" and "relationship" at that point is entirely down to perception, and it makes this entire area massively ugly to try and delineate.

Asking for a written legal waiver before planting a kiss on someone you're passionate about seems essentially where all this is leading, and I really can't stand the thought of that.

You're confusing the absence of explicit consent for its explicit denial. Yes means yes, no means no, and starting things up without an explicit conversation is a long and convoluted debate... And what happened here was not that. This was firmly "no means no" territory. Once somebody has asked you to leave, that's a pretty goddamned firm "no".

Yes, there are long and troubling discussions about how so much of sexual advances are silent and how it's hard to discuss consent with those, but this story was way the hell outside of that grey area.

No means no.

> I can't think of any example from my previous relationships that did not start with either myself or the other making a move which could later have been construed as assault.

That's funny, I can't think of any examples from my past which could be construed as assault. And I rather doubt you can either; implicit consent is still consent.

> Asking for a written legal waiver before planting a kiss on someone you're passionate about seems essentially where all this is leading

I think that's quite an absurd conclusion. How do we jump from "don't kiss people who don't want to be kissed" to "obtain a written legal waiver"? That's like going "you shouldn't break into someone's house...so you need a written waiver before entering, even if they're literally walking next to you and offering you a drink", because maybe you've misread the situation, and when they said "come on in, but mind the dog" they meant "go away"?

In the real world body language and conversational hints make is very clear what's going on in most cases, and in a small minority of cases when those prompts are misread, there will be a clear "no", and then you apologise and move on.

"Then I went into my own bedroom but Dave followed me there, and that’s when he first propositioned to sleep with me. I said no. I reminded Dave that he knew my then-boyfriend and that we’d just talked about him earlier that night. At this point, I led him to the door and told him he needs to leave. On the way out, he pushed himself onto me to the point where I was backed into a corner, made contact to kiss me..."

Can you honestly read that and, taking the account at face value, go "wow, Dave was just making an honest mistake; he should have been more careful and asked for a written waiver before he forcibly tried to kiss a resisting woman who had repeatedly told him no and was in the process of evicting him due to his inappropriate advances"? Really? Truly? That's your takeaway here?

The problem here, as described, isn't that he didn't get her consent in writing, its that there was no consent at all. These are not comparable things!

You seem to be identify a valid problem of defining "assault". This is a real problem, and something that policy makers will need to tackle at all levels, but it is not what is being discussed. After someone responds to your request to sleep with them by asking you to leave, you have left the realm of ambiguity.

If you are hanging out with a friend and start getting a bit handsy, then I could see the grey area. But it the cases where it is not wanted, a simple "no", or movement away, or pushing his hands off, etc would be enough to clarify where the line is, and ignoring that would turn it into unambiguous assault.

The situation and context matters. David McClure knew that the event at her apartment was a business meeting, there were many other colleagues, he followed her into her bedroom after the business meeting finished despite her objecting, he propositioned her and she objected and moved away, and THEN he finally tried and failed to kiss her after pinning her into a corner until she could no longer escape. Were your actions in your previous relationships like this? I hope not - for your own sake. Your strawman about a "written legal waiver" does not apply to this scenario.

> Asking for a written legal waiver before planting a kiss on someone you're passionate about seems essentially where all this is leading, and I really can't stand the thought of that.

You won't need a written legal waiver, you could simply ask if it is ok.

If you don't ask you're taking your chances that the other person reads the situation just like you do. Just yesterday a friend of mine ended up in an elevator with someone she ended up having dinner with because their flight got canceled. He tried to force himself on her in the elevator, I'm sure he thought it was ok and I'm also 100% sure that she did not give him any reason to think that kiss would be welcome. Now maybe there is a chance that such a kiss would be welcome, but if it is there is no harm in asking and if it isn't there is a lot of harm in assuming that it is welcome.

It's pretty clear cut to me. And I've never kissed any one of my former partners without making sure that such an attempt was welcome, but then again I haven't had that many opportunities to put this to the test.

I think the written legal waiver was mentioned because it would be the only verifiable evidence to defend yourself against someone claiming such advances were unwarranted.

That's one more reason to make sure they are. If there is ambiguity it is safer to err on the side of caution. Note that anybody that you were in a room with could make up such a story, so you're always going to have to rely on good faith to some extent and false accusations really do happen.

> and then they forcibly kiss you that is in fact sexual assault, in fact even if none of the former had happened it would still be sexual assault. Force => assault.

The US Justice Department doesn't construe a forced kiss as sexual assault: https://www.justice.gov/ovw/sexual-assault

"Sexual assault is any type of sexual contact or behavior that occurs without the explicit consent of the recipient. Falling under the definition of sexual assault are sexual activities as forced sexual intercourse, forcible sodomy, child molestation, incest, fondling, and attempted rape."

I understand this incident occurred in Malaysia, which doesn't follow US law, but I don't believe they consider it sexual assault either. Some cursory review of LEO online forums is indicated a forcible kiss would be considered the lesser "sexual battery".

"The primary difference between sexual battery and rape is that with battery there is no penetration between the sexual organs. With sexual battery, all that matters is the non-consensual touching of another person's sexual organs. Sexual assault, like the broader crime of assault, constitutes the threat of force."

Even under that definition, I'm unsure if a kiss is considered either sexual assault or sexual battery, since sex organs aren't involved.

IANAL.

Edit: Appreciate the replies! You learn new things every day.

This isn't how you evaluate whether something is criminal in the United States. Virtually all sexual assault (or sexual battery, depending on the jurisdiction) is prosecuted under state statutes. In many states, any coerced sexual touching done for the purposes of gratification constitutes sexual battery. If you search for cases, you will indeed find forced kisses on the mouth prosecuted.

Obviously, the physical coercion McClure used to trap this woman against a wall is, even without the sexual component, itself an assault

"Usually a sexual assault occurs when someone touches any part of another person's body in a sexual way, even through clothes, without that person's consent."

A forced kiss could definitely be interpreted in that way, especially after being told to get lost.

The involvement of 'sex organs' is optional.

Let's parse that statement that you quoted:

> Sexual assault is any type of sexual contact or behavior that occurs without the explicit consent of the recipient.

Lack of consent: check

Sexual contact or behavior: check

Note the 'any type'.

> Falling under the definition of sexual assault are sexual activities as forced sexual intercourse, forcible sodomy, child molestation, incest, fondling, and attempted rape

Force: check

These are things that definitely fall under the term sexual assault, and a kiss goes quite a bit further than 'fondling', especially if it has already been indicated that such a kiss - and then there are kinds of kisses - is not welcome.

If I was on the defending side I'd hate to have to try to present the McClure case in a way that it might end up in this bracket, possibly that list is exhaustive and as long as the word 'kiss' isn't in the list you might get into 'sexual battery' but frankly I think that's just terminology, if the lady felt assaulted I don't fault her for picking the wrong narrow legal term and I suspect that in plenty of places the judge would see it in the same way.

If you're going to toss out legal language you might want to learn the difference between "battery" (contact happened) and "assault" (no contact required).

Thanks! I've made a note to dive deeper into the difference between the two, although I think the confusion might be more common:

"Historically, battery and assault were considered separate crimes, with battery requiring that the aggressor physically strike or offensively touch the victim. In that way, a battery was a “completed” assault. Many modern statutes don't bother to distinguish between the two crimes, as evidenced by the fact that the phrase "assault and battery" has become as common as "salt and pepper." These days, statutes often refer to crimes of actual physical violence as assaults.

Really?! Does it matter what she was wearing, too?

From the story, she had a bunch of people over, most of them left, one stayed, propositioned her (not assault), heard no, was asked to leave, then forced her into a corner and kissed her (very clearly assault and very clearly sexual harassment IMO [1]).

There are many "grey area" situations surrounding behavior in apartments with alcohol. This, IMO, isn't one of them.

[1] - This previously said "clearly sexual assault" in the parentheses.

He didn't proposition her, he physically sexually assaulted her even when she was very firm that it was not welcome.

I get that there are cases where you can be sympathetic to the guy for misreading the situation or coming off creepy when he was just clumsy about what he thought was a respectful advance. I get that those things happen - this is an industry full of awkward nerds, mistakes are made.

But that's not what happened here, and nobody should pretend otherwise.

As a matter of law you are incorrect (at least in the United States).

"Sexual assault is any type of sexual contact or behavior that occurs without the explicit consent of the recipient. Falling under the definition of sexual assault are sexual activities as forced sexual intercourse, forcible sodomy, child molestation, incest, fondling, and attempted rape."

https://www.justice.gov/ovw/sexual-assault

That's what the DOJ says. But the standards in the individual states, where these cases are certain to be prosecuted if at all, vary wildly. In some, the assault has to involve an intimate body part. In some, the contact has to be (ugh) "penetrative". In some, any form of coerced touching done for sexual arousal will qualify.

Also interpretations of "coerced," "unwanted," "consent," etc vary, so even when standards appear similar their applied meanings may differ.

Just to state the obvious though, behavior that is legal can be nonetheless morally deplorable. Not saying that's inconsistent what with anyone in this thread is saying (I can't see what crispytx wrote). But some HN comments over the past few days seem to view the putative wrongs in exclusively legal terms, as if legality is dispositive of morality.

Did you mean to say correct? That description and those examples are very different from the story I read.

I was responding to "Sexual assault is when someone has sex with another person without their permission" which is incorrect in that it too narrowly defines sexual assault.

Replace "sex" with "sexual act" and you've got it almost word for word. I suppose you could say there's a difference there, though one just seems like a shorthand for the other.

That is incorrect by common usage, and at least if you're in a Western, english speaking country, incorrect as a matter of law.

> invite someone over to your apartment to drink scotch, and then they come on to you

That's not all she said happened. She said he ignored her saying no, and he physically touched her anyway.

When they say no and they persist, it is.

If you two were alone, you had sex, and you go to a doctor later and there are no signs of violence, how can you prove you actually said "no"? Honest question.

It's damn near impossible. Given the amount of pushback women get from the system, something should be done to help. Suffering systematic abuse then having a system that basically says, "You wanted it," must be extremely draining.

Our system is only slightly above ones that require a male relative to have witnessed the assault before accepting that it wasn't the woman who committed a crime.

The likelihood of successfully prosecuting a crime does not affect the reality of whether or not that crime occurred.

You probably can't. That affects whether or not you can reasonably pursue it, but doesn't change the objective fact of whether or not it was consensual.