I haven't checked this thread in a few days, let's see what's up...
Let's start with the obvious - I was very early in stating I thought the expulsions were exactly correct, and that the team's boycott was incredibly insulting. I now don't even remember if this was the same thread, but I completely agree with having two standards in these kinds of cases: a "innocent until proven guilty" standard for criminal charges that involve jail time, and a "preponderance of evidence" standard for expulsion (or other penalties within the school). But with criminal charges, the reality is that this is the problem with sexual assault cases in general - they're incredibly hard to prove beyond a reasonable doubt, as they often come down to what was "felt" or "said", which there's no way to prove other than what the participating parties testify to.
Post 106 does not explicitly state that he does not believe force or the threat of force is required for a rape to occur. In fact, since he originally posted that it was, in fact, his opinion that for rape to occur in a criminal sense, force or the threat of force is required, there are 9 more posts by him where he either reiterates this opinion, or posts links to definitions that support that opinion. If he doesn't hold that opinion, he's done nothing to give us any indication that this isn't the case. All he did in that post was claim that people didn't understand his position (without any attempt to clarify), which he then continued to support by quoting laws.
But let's look past that since you seem to think that stating it was his opinion and then backing up that opinion by repeating it and copying and pasting legal definitions that included that language multiple times doesn't mean he actually holds that opinion. He also suggested that the men who came into the room after she supposedly said to stop sending people in could not have committed rape if they didn't know she'd said no. He suggested that by agreeing to a gangbang with several individuals, the onus was on her to make it clear that others were not entitled to sex with her as well. He suggested that unless she was incapacitated by her level of intoxication her appearing to be actively engaged in the encounters means she was capable of giving consent.
These ideas are all retrograde in that all of them put the responsibility for not being raped on the woman rather than the responsibility of not raping on the men. They are archaic and damaging concepts regardless of whether he finds the acts themselves deplorable or not. That's what I'm responding to. He's made it pretty clear he doesn't think what happened was okay. But insisting it is not rape because the legal definition of the act(s) provide a way to argue it is not since they are so terribly out of date is an exercise in embracing technicalities. The laws in any state where this situation was not legally a "rape" (sexual assault/criminal sexual misconduct/etc) need to amended or rewritten. Any focus on the legal side of this situation should be focused on that, not on whether it's technically correct to call it a rape in a legal sense.
I really think you're reading way too much into the intent behind his posts. This conversation really started from questions of "how could they not have been charged, but the University could think there's enough evidence to suspend / kick them out", and so the conversation initially went towards legal questions of why a prosecutor might not think there's enough to charge (and get a conviction), and he was trying to give perspective on that.
As a society we're moving towards "Yes means Yes" affirmative consent as the standard, and that's a great thing. But pretending that that's the standard that currently exists in a jury box is naive, and it's going to (I agree, sadly) take years before we really get to that standard in criminal cases.
Note, too, that Minnesota is explicit in stating that consent requires an overt act to establish; the default is "no consent", even absent coercion, and attempts to resist are explicitly not required ...
That's up to the jury to determine given the totality of the circumstances--it might be entering the room, putting on some Barry White, seductively undressing, and crawling into bed astraddle the partner. It might be moaning, grabbing them, and pulling them in toward her. Or not, if there's some other factor at play.
This may technically be the law in Minn, but I really struggle to see that as actually being the real-life standard that the majority of people believe, much less the one that's going to get a conviction. The problem is it's extremely hard to prove - each of those cases, you could argue are still not affirmative -
So the recruit blocked the door. The woman was afraid they'd be upset if she refused, so she tried to just get it over with. Sounds like coercion to me.
If the first (door blocking) is true, it's rape (and if they could prove that through her + other's testimony, I fully support criminal charges). But the second to me is a really really tough standard, as it means someone's actual words and actions can never be believed, because the actual standard is what they were actually thinking. How can you ever enter a sexual relationship with anyone if you could be tried for rape if they (verbally or otherwise) consented, when you have no idea if they did so because they were afraid of making you upset by rejecting? I feel like there needs to be some associated act there (whether it's blocking the door, taking away a phone to call for help, a threat of retaliation (obviously violence, or financial, or social, or whatever), etc) - something else that a normal person would say "ok, yes she technically said "Yes", but it's clear that she didn't really want to". I don't want the old standard of "we assume consent unless the woman can prove otherwise", but I don't think the opposite standard of "we assume no consent unless the man can prove otherwise" is a sustainable standard either. Something in the middle ("would an average person assume that the woman's actions indicated non-coerced consent") seems to me like a sustainable middle ground.
In this case, it's unfortunately not the easiest one to try to push that standard with. The documents seem contradictory about intoxication (even the university's), so I don't see a clear case there. The 'blocked the door' claim is probably the strongest one to sustain a serious rape charge, but the evidence there is weak.
Quite honestly, to actually get a criminal charge sustained through trial (much less convicted), this case really needs one of the men to affirm that she either a) was intoxicated (and so couldn't consent), or b) made some effort to reject consent (if one of them agreed she was pushing people off, for example), or c) back up the claim that one of them blocked the door (to back up a coercion claim). I would love to see one of those happen, but unfortunately it doesn't seem to be the case.