The following information on sexual assault and sexual misconduct was gathered by PSO Karen Noffsinger.
What Constitutes Sexual Assault and Sexual Misconduct?
Sexual Misconduct is an umbrella term used to summarize the full range of unacceptable behaviors of a sexual nature, including sexual assault/violence. It includes sexual assault, acts of sexual violence, sexual harassment, sexual coercion, sexual exploitation, and other acts of misconduct of a sexual nature. What these acts have in common is a lack of consent.
Sexually inappropriate conduct is any unwelcome sexual conduct that may not rise to the level of sexual harassment or sexual exploitation, but that is sexual in nature. Examples include, but are not limited to, posting or showing sexually explicit or offensive material; an isolated occurrence of obscene or sexually offensive gestures and comments; lewdness; exposure of one’s self to another person without that person’s consent.
Sexual Assault is any sexual intercourse by any person upon another person, without consent. It covers a range of acts from unwanted touching and fondling, to attempted and completed rape. It includes oral, anal, and vaginal penetration, however slight, with any object. Sexual assault is a crime. It is a crime of power, not lust, and it is intended to hurt, control, and humiliate another person. Sexual assault is most often perpetrated by someone known to the victim—an acquaintance, friend, date, classmate, coworker, or intimate partner. About 90% of sexual assaults on college students are committed by someone the victim knows. Sexual Assault occurs when a person is unable to consent; when he or she is forced, threatened, intimidated or physically or mentally incapacitated. Alcohol and/or drug intoxication can produce such a state of incapacitation.
Sexual contact involves non-consensual touching of the private parts of a person, either under or above clothing, with lewd and lascivious intent. Sexual touching is contact of a sexual nature, however slight.
Sexual misconduct or sexual assault can include coercion. Coercion can take the form of pressure, threats, intimidation, or the use of physical force, either expressed or implied, which places a person in fear of immediate harm or physical injury. Coercion can also take the form of pressure to consume alcohol or other drugs prior to engaging in a sexual act.
Aggravated Coercion is defined by South Carolina Law as “the actor threatens to use force or violence of a high and aggravated nature to overcome the victim or another person, if the victim reasonably believes that the actor has the present ability to carry out the threat, or threatens to retaliate in the future by the infliction of physical harm, kidnapping, or extortion, under circumstances of aggravation, against the victim or any other person.”
Is It Sexual Assault If…
I didn’t resist physically?
People respond to an assault in different ways. Just because you didn’t resist physically doesn’t mean it wasn’t sexual assault — in fact, many victims make the good judgment that physical resistance would cause the attacker to become more violent.
I was drunk or the person who assaulted me was drunk?
Alcohol and drugs are not an excuse – or an alibi. The key question is: did you consent or not? Regardless of whether you were drunk or sober, if the act was nonconsensual, it is sexual assault. If you were so drunk or drugged that you passed out and were unable to consent, it was sexual assault. Both people must be conscious and willing participants.
I am dating or used to date the person who assaulted me?
It does not matter whether the other person is an intimate partner or an ex-partner, and it doesn’t matter if you’ve had sex in the past. If it is nonconsensual this time, it is sexual assault.
I don’t remember the assault?
Just because you don’t remember being assaulted doesn’t necessarily mean it didn’t happen and that it wasn’t sexual assault. Memory loss can result from the ingestion of “rape drugs” and from excessive alcohol consumption. If you have reason to believe that sexual activity occurred without your consent, contact the Campus Police, People Against Rape or Campus Victim Services.
I was asleep or unconscious when it happened?
If you were asleep or unconscious, then you didn’t give consent. And if you didn’t give consent, then it was sexual assault.
I thought “no” but didn’t say it?
It depends on the circumstances. If you didn’t say no because you were legitimately scared for your life or safety, then it is sexual assault.
Consent
Consent is granted when a person freely, actively, and knowingly agrees at the time to participate in a particular sexual act with another person.
A person is considered incapable of giving consent if he or she is:
(1) Under the age of consent (which is 16 in South Carolina),
(2) Mentally Defective (as defined by South Carolina Code of Laws as being “a person suffers from a mental disease or defect which renders the person temporarily or permanently incapable of appraising the nature of his or her conduct.”)
(3) Mentally Incapacitated (as defined by South Carolina Code of Laws as being “a person is rendered temporarily incapable of appraising or controlling his or her conduct whether this condition is produced by illness, defect, the influence of a substance or from some other cause.”), or
(4) Physically Helpless (as defined by South Carolina Code of Laws as ”a person is unconscious, asleep, or for any other reason physically unable to communicate unwillingness to act. “)
Consent exists when mutually understandable words and/or actions demonstrate a willingness to participate in a mutually agreed-upon activity at every stage of that sexual activity. Consent can be revoked by either party at any stage. Consent cannot be assumed from partner silence, manner of dress, or based on a previous or ongoing sexual relationship.
South Carolina Legal Definitions
The South Carolina Code of Laws defines “Sexual Battery” as “sexual intercourse, cunnilingus, fellatio, anal intercourse, or any intrusion, however slight, of any part of a person’s body or of any object into the genital or anal openings of another person’s body, except when such intrusion is accomplished for medically recognized treatment or diagnostic purposes.”
“Private parts” is defined as “the genital area or buttocks of a male or female or the breasts of a female.”
South Carolina defines “Intimate Parts” as the “primary genital area, anus, groin, inner thighs, or buttocks of a male or female human being and the breasts of a female human being. “