How the fuck do you commit sexual assault due to "miscommunication"? I mean, mutual drunkenness I get, because sometimes people will blame the man involved no matter what, but there should never be room for "miscommunication".
Don't be so surprised. What if a girl consents - to a point. And then suddenly she doesn't want to do it anymore. Her pants are off, but she suddenly realized its a bad idea? But he seems to be so ready, she doesn't know what to do, so she waves at the guy a bit, maybe makes some sounds, tries to look really scared? Every one of those can be misconstrued. The guy can
think she wants to keep going simply because she's communicating poorly (or he's being particularly dense).
Is it rape? Come the next morning, I can see girls rationalizing that they wanted to all along (though they didn't), and girls thinking he forced himself on her.
There's definitely grey areas, but rape can happen because of miscommunication.
Especially with younger and more naive guys who don't understand the subtleties involved.
Especially with young and naive women who may not feel comfortable being assertive,
especially in stressful situations (especially in an atmosphere of peer pressure, for both parties). If this can be considered rape, then college can be considered a pretty perfect breeding ground for it.
Now consider that a lot of sex-stuff is non-verbal, and a lot of people involved have no bloody idea what they're doing. It can be easy to assume content is given when instead the girl is just not responding, because the guy assumes that if she doesn't want it she would say something, right? After all, that's what he would do, and if a girl stuck her hand in his pants and went at it, he'd just let her do it if he consented, and say something if he didn't. Is the girl grabbing your hand because she wants you to stop, or because she doesn't want you to stop? Has she withdrawn consent by closing her eyes and freezing up, or is that just what she
does? Meanwhile, they guy doesn't say anything, not because he wants to rape her, but because HE might look like an experienced novice if he admits to not understanding the non-verbal message, and he doesn't want to look stupid in front of this girl he likes he's about to have sex with...
Is the guy definitely
wrong in some of those situations? Yes. But that doesn't make him a terrible human being, believe it or not, as much as it makes him incredibly stupid. And a girl communicating that she doesn't want sex, poorly, doesn't make her any less a victim, but I think it definitely complicates what sort of approach and response we should take to addressing the issue.
And though there's definitely a victim, its easy to see how someone who is not actually a terrible person can end up having sex with someone who doesn't actually want to have sex. There's a lot of confusion about what is, and isn't, consent, and in the heat of the moment people aren't usually thinking at their best.