Joanna Schroeder explains why it’s so important to understand the link between the partying lifestyle and sexual assault.
“I’d Rather Risk Rape Than Quit Partying” is an addict’s story.
If you’ve never truly known an addict, you may not know that at his or her worst, an addict doesn’t really care what happens as a consequence of their actions. As a friend, lover, or family member of the addict, it’s a dangerous and heartbreaking place to be. You wait for the call, the one that says your friend is dead or in a hospital or jail because of being drunk or high. It’s so common it’s become trite. But I’ve been to too many funerals of good men with bad problems to worry about sounding trite.
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Today I want to talk about some of the things that people do when they’re drunk, high or otherwise living a party lifestyle. Things they may never do if they were sober.
“I’d Rather Risk Rape Than Quit Partying” is the story of a man whose partying has led him to do some very bad things. He admits to having raped a woman, and fully recognizes the fact that he may have raped others. Most of the time, he doesn’t feel like a rapist, because he never intended to commit rape.
Instead, he explains how the partying lifestyle creates a scenario where the already-confusing world of sexual consent is so blurry that it’s almost indecipherable. For instance, if a woman is begging for a man to have sex with her, and he knows she has only had two drinks, is there a possibility that the sex they have is rape?
In our anonymous writer’s story, the answer is yes. Seems crazy, right? She’s coming on to the man, she’s only had two drinks. But she’s disoriented and can’t remember his name, and she doesn’t know where she is. Turns out that she was on a medication that greatly amplified the effects of alcohol. So, while he would have been having sex with a woman who was saying “yes”, she was not in a condition to give actual consent.
It’s confusing. In fact, I’d call it a mess. It’s hard to ignore the sheer number of stories about people—both men and women—who have been raped in a “party” environment. Alyssa Royse’s controversial piece, “Nice Guys Commit Rape, Too” is about a man and woman who were partying together, flirting, and passed out together.When the woman woke up, the man was penetrating her. In the piece, we recognize that this is rape. It seems like simple basic knowledge that a person cannot consent to sex while sleeping, but somehow the man in Alyssa’s story didn’t know that, and his judgement was probably clouded by the alcohol and drugs involved.
That doesn’t make him less responsible for committing the rape, but the two confounding factors—the alcohol/drugs and the lack of understanding about consent—are so common in stories about sexual assault that they cannot be ignored.
In my piece, “Why It’s Dangerous to Say Only Bad Guys Commit Rape“, I talk about how “No Means No” consent education doesn’t work. I talk about a teenage girl I called Maria, who raped a teenage boy because of a number of factors including alcohol and the confusing messages she had received about consent and men’s sexuality.
As a result, a very intense dialogue has opened up about whether or not it’s right to discuss the factors that lead to a rape. Is it victim-blaming to say that alcohol and murky messages about consent may have contributed to these rapes? Many say “yes”, that a rapist is a bad person only out for his or her own gain, and that context is irrelevant.
But the real world is a harsh, cold place full of mixed messages, drunken desire, Ecstasy-fueled touching, and the rush of cocaine. The real world is a place where “no means no” simply isn’t enough.
The anonymous man who wrote this story is deeply troubled. He recognizes that as long as he continues to party like he has been, he is running the risk of being raped, and of committing more rapes. And yet he seems committed to continuing with that lifestlye. The writer needs help, and perhaps he is on the precipice of getting it. But as of now, he seems to think that most people who live this partying lifestyle also recognize the risk to their safety, and the safety of others, that goes along with excessive inebriation.
But do they really recognize that risk?
I think most of them do not. I would venture to guess that most of them do not expect to wake up being penetrated by a man they did not give consent to. I don’t think they expect to be pushed against a wall and so violently groped that it physically hurts. I think that’s just a story that this particular addict and rapist is telling himself to make it okay for him to continue partying—and raping.
But he’s not the only one. No, he’s far from the only one. People, particularly young people, are putting themselves in dangerous situations on a regular basis because of their partying. A few hours, weeks, or years down the line, the hurt and pain caused by these scenarios might become very real to them and they will start to see the ways in which they were taken advantage of—or took advantage of others.
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We know that alcohol and drug use does not make anyone responsible for his or her sexual assault. However, we cannot continue to ignore the context in which many so-called “date rapes” and “acquaintance rapes” happen. (For the record, all rape is rape. Calling it “date rape” doesn’t make the crime any less horrific.) When you are drinking or drugging, regardless of whether you’re a man or a woman, your judgement is impaired. And for many, sexual desire is heightened.
This puts you at risk of becoming a victim, but also at the risk of becoming a perpetrator, as your inebriation may make it unclear whether the consent you feel you have is actually consent. The anonymous man who told the story we published today never set out to be a rapist, but because of his partying, he became one. As did Alyssa’s friend in “Nice Guys Commit Rape, Too” and Maria in “Why It’s Dangerous to Say Only Bad Guys Commit Rape”. Three people, who up until that one moment, had considered themselves good people, harmed others because of a mix of their own boundary issues, society’s messed-up messages about consent, and alcohol or drugs.
We cannot ignore this reality any longer. Dismissing all these folks as “bad guys” only serves to feed the problem, because the reality of rape is that most often it does not look like what we think it does—a psychopath with a weapon and intent to do harm. More often, it looks like what happened with Alyssa’s friend, or Maria, or this guy, who believes that the risk of rape is a part of the partying lifestyle.
When will we truly start to discuss the role alcohol and drugs play in sexual assault? When will we explain—without shaming or victim-blaming—to young people the risk they are taking when they over-indulge?
As long as we continue looking at people who commit rape through this black and white lens of “good” and “bad”, we won’t be able to see how close many of us are to becoming victims… or even rapists.
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My sincere hope for the author of the anonymous piece is that he seeks help. He is a risk to to himself and to others, and it must stop. I cannot say for sure whether he has an addiction that needs treatment, but I can say that for him to recognize the danger he’s putting himself and others in, and to continue with that behavior, is a sign that something has to change. Maybe everything needs to change.
But he’s not alone in that.
For more, please read Society Won’t Let Me Have the Sex I Want, but Johnnie Walker Will by Alyssa Royse
Photo: Flickr/Imagens Evangélicas
About Joanna Schroeder
…..hey @Richard Aubrey…..’Don’t Drink and Drive’ I understand…but somehow I don’t think the Billboard ‘Don’t Drink and Don’t Get Raped’ in a nightclub district would go down too well to you? Such an ultimatum is absolutely ludicrous-Julie Gillis is right. Often getting that completely ‘can’t think drunk’ as you say isn’t a conscious decision, though sometimes it is. Either way women have the right to drink as much or as little as they want without the notion that past a certain point of inebriation they are inviting, or even ASKING FOR rape…or that if it happens they are in some way responsible. I’m just pointing out the implications of your ‘simple’ statement. But thanks Richard, next time I’m at a party with a bunch of people I know and I get ‘pass out drunk’ I’ll make sure I have my rape whistle handy…or just make sure I’ve got my solid steel chastity belt on-and that it’s firmly locked. I mean after all I’ll be a ‘can’t think drunk’ silly girl…anything a guy does to me when I’m in that state…well clearly it’s my fault.
Yanno, I’d believe that the original article was about addiction if you had actually tagged it as such. But you didn’t. I think this is some after-the-fact rationalization. And it ain’t workin’ for me.
Actually, to be clear, I wrote this post the night before the rapist’s story went up. They posted at the same time.
Sorry, but Amanda Marcotte has you guys dead to rights on this. The first story, in which Alyssa Royse tried to rationalize somebody raping a sleeping woman (who might well have consented had she been awake, but plainly couldn’t while asleep) was obvious bullshit; her friend is a rapist, and very likely one of the serial predators. Your new story from an asshole who thinks that rape is just the “cost of doing business” in a party culture is equally obvious bullshit. If you can’t get drunk or high without raping, then DON’T GET DRUNK OR HIGH; if you do, and you commit rape, then we reserve the right to put you in jail for committing rape. The saddest thing in the article was his claim that it’s a “plain, awful fact: people can have more and better sex drunk than they can sober.” What utter crap. How can he possibly claim to know what sex is better or worse for “people”, in general. Furthermore, if he can barely remember the sex afterwards, I absolutely deny that it is even a _possibility_ that the sex is meaningfully “better” than what can be had sober — this is the bravado of somebody who knows his life is shit, but wants to make himself feel better about it by putting down the people who have _better_ lives. Just because he’s too repulsive a person to attract a woman who would enjoy sober sex with him, and hangs around with women who are so uptight that they can’t get naked without getting drunk first, doesn’t mean it’s not possible for ANYONE to have intense, joyous, mind-blowing sex without loading up on illegal substances first. (Personally, I tend to think of sex itself as being a mind-altering experience.)
I’ve found a number of articles in GMP interesting, and worth passing around. But what the fuck has possessed you guys in the last month? Get a grip.
I hope you also called out Amanda Marcotte for her victim blaming and rape apology, and also Jill Filipovic on her rape apology too? Apart from that I agree the rapist is all kinds of fucked up, what pisses me off the most is the unrepentant attitude and entitlement to continue. I do appreciate they posted the articles as I’ve learned quite a bit, however the wording for Alyssa’s article should have been much better. I think she was trying to suggest that people SEEN as nice guys can be rapists, and also talk about the possibility of someone mistaking signals. Some will say she was asleep, but Alyssa didn’t say he thought she was asleep either which to me suggests he wouldn’t be a serial rapist but someone who has raped but may have not meant to do it (like the woman in the feministe article). But as I haven’t seen Alyssa clarify if he knew she was asleep or thought she was awake both possibilities remain. I see an awful lot of people assuming he knew she was asleep, did I miss something in the article?
Archy. Alyssa wrote the article and as a writer she said that the woman was asleep. She did not include info that he didn’t know or didn’t think she was asleep, but it was established that she was asleep and awoke to him penetrating her. I think she noted in another place in the article that the woman woke up, froze, and didn’t really participate.
No, she didn’t write anything about what happened after the man penetrated the sleeping woman. She says everything after that point is irrelevant.
And it really is – because regardless of whether she smiled and kissed him, or whether she punched him, his penetrating her while she was asleep is non-consensual sex.
And yes, he knew she was asleep.
Nothing after him penetrating a sleeping woman matters. And that Alyssa is very clear about.
I respectfully disagree. In the Feministe story, the victim was said to exhibit signs which she mistook for being into it, which isn’t relevant to whether he felt violated after, but is very relevant to her believing she had consent and making the violation accidental (whether you want to call it a violation or the more serious term, rape). So in Alyssa’s story, if the guy didn’t know the woman was asleep, and she was capable of sleep-sexing like the boyfriend in the Feministe account, then a smile and kiss that seemed like waking consent would convey a very different message of consent than getting punched. That’s relevant, not to whether she felt violated, but to whether the violation could have been accidental, just like the one you’re willing to give the woman at Feministe a pass for.
Omg, Alyssa, if you’re reading this. Was he aware she was asleep? I’m not asking if she was asleep, it already says that, was HE AWARE. Nearly every comment on it implies he was aware she was asleep yet I see no evidence in the article of that. It’s either intended rape, or accidental rape, either way I am still unclear on whether HE was aware.
Archy, you gotta understand the differences between the story on Feministe about the woman who had sex with her boyfriend when he was asleep vs the story of Alyssa’s friend.
Here are the differences – First, in Alyssa’s story, the man knew the woman was asleep and he penetrated her anyway. He did not get consent, he did not think he had consent, he just did it. That’s rape.
In the Feministe letter, the woman WAS given consent. But it turned out that the man was basically sleepwalking. His eyes were open. He wasn’t drunk or high (as far as the letter tells), so she had no reason to believe that his consent wasn’t authentic. NOW—That does NOT mean that he can’t FEEL raped. He can feel raped, and that is understandable and he deserves compassion for having experienced that the way he did. He feels violated and that should be honored.
But it’s not a crime.
This couple in the Feministe letter is tragic, because ultimately it is not anyone’s fault (as long as the letter tells the truth, which we have to presume it does). It’s a total freak occurrence brought on by sleepwalking. Mind you, my dear friend died because he sleepwalked, eyes open, and climbed over a balcony and fell to his death. They presume, by the way he climbed, that he thought he was getting into bed. Sleepwalking can be very dangerous. But no one thinks my friend’s death was a suicide.
I wish the couple in the Feministe letter the best and hope they find a good therapist to help them through this because it’s basically a clusterfuck of terrible feelings – violation, guilt, regret, blame… But I don’t think there is a rape in that story.
I think I have it. I think what you say here has allowed me to pinpoint just what the problem some of the folks around here have with the treatment of the two different stories.
In the Feministe letter, the woman WAS given consent. But it turned out that the man was basically sleepwalking. His eyes were open. He wasn’t drunk or high (as far as the letter tells), so she had no reason to believe that his consent wasn’t authentic. NOW—That does NOT mean that he can’t FEEL raped. He can feel raped, and that is understandable and he deserves compassion for having experienced that the way he did. He feels violated and that should be honored.
I know you don’t mean what I’m about to say Joanna but I think what you are saying boils down to the following translation:
“He is free to feel and think that he was raped, but in actuality he wasn’t.”
It sounds like you (and others that agree with you) think that it is okay for him to feel whatever it is he feels about the situation, as long as you can define the scope of it. Therefore he can feel like a crime was committed against him, but it really wasn’t a crime.
And as far as “he was basically sleepwalking”, I know I’ve seen a case or two where woman have consented to sex while sleepwalking and guy they had sex with was still charged with rape.
Taking this into account this I think is what gives off the vibe of determining if something was raped is not the what happened but the whos that are involved.
(Again I am not trying to say that this is how you mean it, just offering what I think may be an interpretation of how some may take it.)
But at the end we will just have to disagree on it being called rape. No the woman in that feministe letter should not be lumped in with the worst of the worst when it comes to rapists, but I’d still say that she’s a rapist. One that I would bet would never do it again, but in this one instance a rapist nonetheless.
Fact is, there is so much grey area in the definitions of rape here in the story of the woman who had consent from a sleeping man, that we are ALL speculating, even the women at Feministe. There is no good answer. There just isn’t.
I’d like to see the cases where a woman was sleepwalking and gave consent for sex, and the man was charged. I’ve never heard of that.
You’d have to compare them side by side, as individual cases, because the details would really make a difference in each case. It’s very frustrating not to be able to slap an “it’s the same” label on each case. It’s frustrating for you guys, and it’s probably frustrating for the feminists.
But the truth is, and this is what is getting me in trouble, is that in that Feministe story and in others, there just isn’t a clear “bad guy” and “good guy”. The couple in the Feministe story is in a fucked up situation. I don’t care how the genders would be reversed, I’d have the same opinions for that story.
But for other stories, you’d have to tell me the whole story. It can’t just be, “a man penetrated a woman who seemed awake but was actually asleep.” The details matter. Marcus talked on one of these threads about a woman who may wiggle up to a man in her sleep, maybe a wife. Is that consent? I’d say it’d be better to be sure she’s awake and say, “Honey, you wanna do it?” to be clear. And that’s a lesson we can all take away from this. But each case is unique.
That’s why we have trials and varying degrees of charges. As imperfect as it is, it does allow for some discretion based on the details of the case.
Fact is, there is so much grey area in the definitions of rape here in the story of the woman who had consent from a sleeping man, that we are ALL speculating, even the women at Feministe. There is no good answer. There just isn’t.
So now we are going from everyone having a definite yes or no answer to saying its all speculation?
But the truth is, and this is what is getting me in trouble, is that in that Feministe story and in others, there just isn’t a clear “bad guy” and “good guy”. The couple in the Feministe story is in a fucked up situation. I don’t care how the genders would be reversed, I’d have the same opinions for that story.
Even if it’s not as clear as the story run here there is still a matter of the woman had sex with the guy while he was sleep. And while you don’t care about the genders, a lot of people do. Not just in this story but in many others concerning rape.
Wherever you’re getting that, it isn’t from the text of Alyssa’s story, so where are you getting that? All that’s in the text is that he (Alyssa’s friend) did not later dispute that she was asleep when he penetrated her, but he could have found that out *after the fact*, just like the woman in the Feministe story who thought her boyfriend was awake at the time, but did not dispute whether he was asleep when she later realized that was the case. Alyssa’s text does not say whether her friend knew she was asleep at the time, but that keeps being asserted as being plainly evident in the text. It’s not. I’m not saying Alyssa’s friend didn’t know she was sleeping, or even probably didn’t know, just that the text does not justify the assumption that you and so many others are making that he definitely, obviously knew. If the part of the Feministe story that persuades you that case was not rape is that the perpetrator thought the victim was awake and giving consent, then that relevant detail regarding Alyssa’s friend is absent from her telling of the story, which means you’re just assuming the worst, instead of applying the same standard to both cases.
Okay, well it may not be obviously stated in the text, she gives a lot of attention to the details all leading up to the point of what happened after penetration.
So if he didn’t know she was asleep, that would’ve been a crucial part of the story. We can easily ask her.
I’ve asked about 5 times now in comments, can someone in the GMP staff ask her? It’s an extremely important part of the story. It means the difference between an accidental rapist and someone who wilfully intended to rape and/maybe or someone who is absolutely clueless on the law and decent behaviour around people who are asleep.
I did ask. From that comment:
Her reply left me with the same uncertainty. Here’s the part of that reply that appeared to be in response to my questions (feel free to follow the link to verify I’m not quoting out of context or missing a clearer answer):
That added some interesting details, but not any that appeared to answer my questions, about *when* the guy knew she was asleep. In fact, the room full of people who “saw it all happen, as well as everything leading up to it” made it seem even more plausible to me that she was not just an inert unconscious body who had given him no indication of consent, because if she was, that would seem to make a room full of people (which I assume was mixed gender given the context of the story) accomplices who didn’t lift a finger to stop an obvious rape.
I want to be clear about something. I still take issue with the worst-case assumptions being made on the basis of ambiguous text, because it makes a meaningful difference as to the intent and potentially accidental nature of the assault, just as they did in the Feministe case. In fact, I think it’s what the titular question hinges on, about whether this guy who violated her could still be “nice” or not. However, I’m not lambasting Alyssa for writing this or GMP for posting it and subsequent articles. I think both have led to good discussions and prompted people to think deeply about what is and isn’t rape, whether “nice people” can rape, and so on. I think that’s all good. My point is that if details like when the violator knew the violee had been asleep is relevant when the violator is a woman – which I think it is – then it’s also relevant when the violator is a man. The telling of Alyssa’s story and many comments appear to me to take the view that it doesn’t f***ing matter in the latter case, since Rape Culture dogma dictates that male violators always act with full awareness and intentionality when they violate. That’s what I take issue with, not having the discussion per se. In the absence of relevant details, I feel like I’m in disagreement with you and Alyssa about what conclusions can be drawn about her friend’s case, but I have the utmost respect for the roles you’ve taken in facilitating the discussion, and sympathy for the extreme heat you’ve taken as a result.
Amen. No one has said whether HE knew she was awake or not.
Can we please just face one element of truth about these type issues? Women in general are given the benefit of the doubt, Men just aren’t. It is much easier for people in general in western culture to view women as a group as inherently honest and view men as less than honest. It colors these grey areas edging perceptions in one direction based on which sex was seen as the aggressor. Fair it is not yet it still just is..
I want to add that I consider it likely that Alyssa didn’t just omit whether her friend knew the woman was asleep at the time, but that she either either doesn’t know, or made the same assumption as so many others have that if she was sleeping “by all accounts”, that it’s the same as the guy admitting he knew at the time. I doubt she’d intentionally keeping that critical piece of information from the reader to paint a more damaging picture of her friend, given the theme of the piece. However, for comparison, consider that the woman in the Feministe story could accurately be described as giving an account that acknowledges the victim was asleep at the time, even though that same accountalso makes clear that she didn’t know it until later. So, if the damning phrase in Alyssa’s story that says “by all accounts…” is what’s leading you to the conclusion that the guy definitely knew she was asleep, that’s not enough.
Gotta love how easily some will explain away rape. Do you not comprehend that it is impossible, IMPOSSIBLE to consent when asleep? The only way this works is that it’s not seen as rape between the couple, but still legally it’s rape. The law is pretty clear that intoxicated and unconscious people cannot consent. Why is this so hard for people to understand? It makes her a rapist, but an accidental rapist. It doesn’t mean she’s evil but he’s still raped, BY HER. You may not consider it moral rape but it’s technically rape. It’s probably still a crime otherwise every rapist can just claim Oh she gave me signs, and any woman who doesn’t specifically say no and/or fight back would mean they’d be raped, but that the perpetrator wasn’t a rapist using a similar logic since they’d just say they thought there was consent. Does mens rea even apply to rape cases?
Is person asleep? Yes? No matter what they say, legally it’s rape. We may not consider it morally rape such as if I told my partner she can wake me up with a bj I wouldn’t consider it rape but technically n legally, she’s performing a sex act on an unconscious person. If anything maybe rape needs a version of manslaughter in the law? But the way you ladies are wording it opens the floodgate for a lot of rapists, even serial rapists, who genuinely believe consent is there to be let off. Hell some child abusers think children can consent, do you let them off too?
Now I dunno how you’d even begin to trial this case but I’d hope some leniency would be involved due to mens rea but still that poses a tricky situation for many other cases of rape. There have been people let off for stat rape because they were under the impression the person was of legal age (had fake id, met in an 18+club) so a jury may let this woman off too. The victim may not even press charges unless they felt she purposely tried to rape him instead of misreading signals and raping him by accident. A rape still occured, for him to be raped, she would have had to been the rapist unless some ghost came in and did the raping. If I turn around quickly and my arm hits someone in the face, I’ve still assaulted someone but by accident. She commited rape by accident.