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
All of what you write here is SO dead-on accurate and true.
And I want to puke my guts out!
Drunk Raping was very very common in colleges and universities in the 1980s…common as dirt.
The rapists would blow a gasket if you pointed out that “she was drunk!!! you had no business doing that.”
The assumed transfer of fault back then was nearly never contested. Some courts would even back-up the rapists’ rationale. Admins would disqualify the complaints where/when intoxication was involved. Victims would blame themselves.
I don’t know how much has changed and into which direction, but it was very real and very, very prevalent back when I was there. Seeing nearly zero “example-setting” cases, I fear Drunk Rape is alive and well at a minimum.
If fact, I DO see that all sex-crime rationale-based excuse dancing has become highly refined…even regarding child-rape.
Really not sure what to make of all of this.
All I can say is I’m damn glad when I’m so far gone I couldn’t consent or determine consent, I’m usually no longer enjoying myself, so I’m inclined to dial it back.
“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.”
I don’t think the answer is yes. Your responsible for what you do when your drunk including having sex. Its seems like women have managed to allude all responsibility whatsoever here. If a man is drunk and he has sex with a woman HE is responsible for obtaining consent. And he is also responsible if she comes onto him if she is drunk?! Huh?! When exactly are women responsible for their actions.
To me the problem with drunkenness is NOT that you are not in your right mind when your drunk and that you are having sex with people you wouldn’t while sober. The problem is that you are so out of it that you don’t have the energy, will or consciousness to basically do anything. That is when you can’t consent. However if you have enough energy and will to grab someone, put your hand under their shirt…then you ARE consenting. Its irrelevant that your not in your “right” mind. If you didn’t want that then don’t drink.
Just because someone flirts with you, it doesn’t mean they are consenting to have sex with you.
The point is that she wasn’t flirting with him but actively trying to have sex with him. And that if she hadn’t repeatedly called him by another name he would have had *no way* of knowing that she was in no state to give consent after just two drinks.
The guy was all kinds of right to have stopped or else it would have been a rape, but what if she hadn’t given that cue? Let’s assume that despite being way past rational thought the girl wasn’t acting otherwise that drunk, which often happens in regular drinkers. Then he would have ended up a rapist through little fault of his own? Or would he still be mostly to blame because he didn’t know the girl well enough to know when she’s consenting or not?
We don’t have an equivalent of involuntary manslaughter for “involuntary rape”, especially because it’s exceptionally rare that you really “couldn’t know” and exceptionally common that the accused claims that’s what’s happened. There are shades of grey, but it’s still mostly black. Just like when you kill someone, terrible harm has been done and you most likely didn’t do everything in your power to avoid it.
“Just because someone flirts with you, it doesn’t mean they are consenting to have sex with you.”
Put your hand under someone’s shirt is not flirting.
I think you bring up an excellent point, Joanna. Intoxication is the elephant in the room in so many of “date rape” situations as well as the gray areas where someone consents (or fails to object) to sex because they are too intoxicated, and the other person (often intoxicated as well) just forges ahead without getting real consent. I remember in college, when my friends and I went out drinking, we tried to keep an eye on each other and if one girl was getting too drunk, we would try to rescue her from any guys who tried to get her alone or take her away from the party. I know my friends saved me a couple times from ill-advised hookups by dragging me to a cab. But there were some parties where everyone got so drunk, you lost track of what was going on and that’s when bad things happened. I don’t want it to sound like only men were the perpetrators — I knew a guy who was drinking with a woman and she forced a blow job on him while he we was too drunk to get up or push her off, even though he kept telling her “no.” He felt really grossed out and violated.
Heavy drinking is so much a part of the culture that I’m not sure what the solution is. Most people don’t go put drinking with the idea that they will be the victim of, or perpetrate, a sexual assault. You can educate people about enthusiastic consent all day long, but it won’t mean much to someone who just had 6 shots of tequila.
Heavy drinking as part of the culture – I think that’s a really good point, and a good angle to come at this on. When I take a large view, I think it’s kind of amazing just how ubiquitous alcohol is. It’s synonymous with adulthood (hence, “adult beverages”) – if you are over 21 it is just assumed that you drink. Drinking, and being drunk, is just so NORMAL. And I don’t see that changing anytime soon.
There are lots of warnings around alcohol out there – about its risk to your health, to your ability to drive, legal ramifications of drinking when and where you’re not supposed to – but I don’t think there’s a lot of public discourse about the other consequences of drinking. Quite simply, it impairs your judgement. Anyone who drinks knows this, but how many take it seriously – especially young adults?
Almost none. And here’s another question. Why should men be held responsible for both their poor judgment and that of women as well?
For the record, since you replied to my comment… I am not one to place all the blame on men for anything, or to absolve women from all responsibility. I acknowledge that matters of responsibility and consent get pretty darn murky when both parties have been drinking/getting high. I think it’s possible for both parties to be at fault.
Not just possible but common, I should have said.
Ha! We can’t even handle alcohol and sex. Now we are turning children loose on pot smoking. Seattle’s little pot smoking fit the other day included pre-pubescent children getting high in public. Just groovy!
I think we are less likely to see people committing any sort of crime while high on weed then on alcohol.
As someone who cannot drink legally in the US yet, I cannot stress enough to you how much easier it is for me to buy weed, prescription meds, nitrous oxide, shrooms, acid, coke, MDMA, or pretty much any drug then alcohol. Like, it’s fairly ridiculous. Legalizing weed will prevent children from smoking it.
Also, I’m not sure it’s fair to say “we can’t handle alcohol and sex”. Most of us aren’t really trying that hard.
In my town, there were predators who lurked around the kiddie-keggers in the woods. Why? Rape. Free and clear, get-away-with-it rape. I’m sure they are still out there…kegs, kids and predators.
It seems to me that we are calling something that is often very murky a very explicit term: rape. I don’t think we can really be calling the kind of drunken confusion we’re talking about rape. It is a different case altogether if we have say a sober man actively encouraging a woman to get sloppy drunk so he can have sex with her. I’m perfectly fine calling that rape. But a situation where both parties are impaired, I don’t think that calling regret arising from that rape or even a situation where you don’t remember rape is correct.
No, if one person is too impaired to consent, it is rape.
The end.
Thank you.
But if both parties are equally impaired…..Who raped whom? Is it always the woman as the victim? If so why?
That isn’t true in any sense of the word. So we’re going to assume that every drunken encounter that happens means a man rapes a woman. You cannot possibly be serious. Two drunk people? The man just raped the woman. You cannot possibly be serious.
If it can be determined that one is too impaired to consent and the other is not then sure. But when that can’t be deduced, what then?
I agree that there are no good answers to that question. I struggle with that, too.
I think what worries a lot of people is that there seems to be a rush to try to determine that there MUST be one person who wasn’t that intoxicated. One who was still of sound mind and body. One who knew the right from wrong and chose wrong.
I wonder if this rush is based on the fear of truly not knowing. In fact I think in the overall discussion of rape I think that a fear of not knowing the truth encourages some to rush to a judgement, any judgement. a fear that if there is no clear villain that something is wrong.
And yes that rush is gendered. There is still an idea that there is a limit that a woman can cross and thus not be held responsible for her actions while men have no limit and are thus responsible for not just their own actions but for the actions of the women they are with as well (and mind you this is not all inclusive of all situations as there are times when the blame does go the other way).
The idea that only women drink themselves past the edges of consent, that some women don’t drink heavily to suppress their inhibitions and over-ride their social conditioning so they can enjoy one -nite stands etc…. Yet that the same never happens to men, removes all the agency from women in these situations and forces hyper-agency on men that have just as chemically suppressed judgement abilities. This is progress? One must know the worm will turn soon…..We will see men filing charges over these incidents also.
Most guys I’ve ever known have at some point, have woken up next to that woman you’ve said you’ll never sleep with…..after she “dragged your sorry drunken ass home” one night. Hell socially most guys drink to excess more often then women do….
Well clearly your logic would suggest both raped each other? Too impaired to consent, but both actively have sex then they both just raped each other.
If 2 people are drunk, male n female, she’s all over him, he’s all over her, but both can’t walk straight then they’re both raping each other. If one can walk/isn’t slurring speech then they’re probably the sole rapist, but then what happens if the sober one is on a couch and the drunk woman is all over him, undoing his pants n starts to give him head. Is HE taking advantage of her, is he a rapist, or is she a rapist?
Then there is a tricky situation of people who can handle their drink, they aren’t stumbling, slurring speech but their ability to judge decisions accurately might be affected. Or maybe we just set it to the drunk driving limit?
Alcohol is soooo tricky, I’m not sure we could ever know what happened in many situations unless someone films it. How do you prove with no witnesses for instance that she was more drunk than he was? Blood test during sex?(Yes it doesn’t happen), wait till the next day and see who is higher? That’d tell you nothing since their metabolisms can be different.
It’s much easier to know who is at fault if one is completely sober and one isn’t and the sober one initiated the sex but even then how many drinks, how hard those drinks hit the person, etc all fall into play. What about those who drink something just before sex? If sex takes 30 minutes then that blood alcohol level could rise considerably so the start of sex was consenting but midway the alcohol has hit. Is it obvious then that the other has now become very drunk? They might be clumsy but if they’re laying back in missionary then they aren’t going to be visibly as drunk as when they’re on top and falling over. Speech will be a giveaway but what if they aren’t speaking during sex? Eyes closing is a giveaway but they may not do that. The less drunk person may have NO IDEA that the other is now too drunk to have sex until they get up outa bed (if they do) or the drunk one passes out. Can the less drunk one be considered at fault in this case?
Alcohol + sex sounds very risky to me and makes me question if it’s even worth having sex with 1 or 3 drinks in your system especially if you’re on medication.
“No, if one person is too impaired to consent, it is rape.”
Define “too impaired”.
That’s a hard question to answer, but contract law deals with the same issue…
“but contract law deals with the same issue”
That is not a satisfactory answer. Contract law deals with this issue in the context of legal contracts. Sex is not a legal contract and has never been dealt with that way by any society. The context and situations are very different. All the case law is based on parties disputing future obligations by claiming they didn’t know what they were getting into. Sex does not entail any future obligations except on the PART of the man (possible child support). Also to the extent there are future obligations they are well understood by the average person…whereas this is most certainly not the case in contract law. And the understanding of future obligations is precisely what consent in contract law is all about. Therefore the applicability to sex is limited.
If you are going to define “too impaired” for sex it will to makes sense for sex, which is not the case if you use a standard designed by judges for civil cases involving legal contracts.
Under California law, to qualify as rape, (this is how the statute is worded), the alleged victim must be so intoxicated that their intoxication overcomes their ability to “resist.” which is a little different than consent. Consent means “I affirmatively agree to have sex with you.” Resist means “I am conveying to you in some way — verbally or physically– that I don’t want to have sex and I want you to stop.” Intoxicated people are considered legally capable of consent, up to a point. That is, they are capable of agreeing to sex. The question is, legally, if they didn’t want sex, were they too intoxicated to say “no, stop.”
As a practical matter, these cases are notoriously hard to prove, and if it is a he said/she said situation where everyone was drunk, DA’s are unlikely to file charges in most cases.
Agreed… if the man is too drunk to consent and the woman forces herself on him, a rape has occurred.
How many years do you think he’ll serve for his crime?
I suppose it would be considered victim-blaming to suggest that women not go to drunken parties. Even if they’re drinking tonic with a twist and a cute little umbrella, the guys are bigger and stronger and being sober might not help her much.
Yes. It would be victim-blaming.
How about suggesting that big, strong men NOT RAPE women? Maybe?
You’re suggesting that if a woman sleeps with a man when they’re both too drunk to consent, he rapes her. If she gets all over him but he is too drunk to consent, he rapes her. You are suggesting that there is no instance where alcohol is involved where a man isn’t raping a woman.
( Saying someone is out of their mind isn’t very nice. This has been modified from its original version to omit personal attacks. – GMP Moderator)
How about suggesting that big, strong men NOT RAPE women? Maybe?
This has been not merely suggested, but codified in LAW and RELIGION for many, many centuries. The good guys got the memo a long, long time ago.
What we are dealing with here, is a hardcore who is unreachable except by physical force. You can, however, avoid this small deviant minorty by not going to drinking parties. (See my other post).
I suppose it would be considered victim-blaming to suggest that women not go to drunken parties
Oh, without a doubt. But it also happens to be good solid common sense. These women would never leave the keys in their car, or leave their purse unattended on a park bench — yet they williingly place a far greater treasure, their own bodies, at risk in these foolish drinking parties. Why? What’s so damned important about these parties anyway? I can’t imagine any reason to go to such a party OTHER than sex — which is why I don’t go to them.
And I will sternly warn my sons, when they are older, to avoid them as well. Which is the exact same advice I would give to my daughters, if I had any.
Well they have a higher chance of being raped by their bf/gf so would you advise them not to date anyone? I think it’s an alright idea to warn people to becareful when they’re out at parties drunk, stick together with trusted friends and keep someone sober if you’re driving, look out for your mates, etc. We need to also tell rapists to stop raping, educate people on consent and do what we can to make life safer for all of us but there is danger when you’re around others when you are very drunk as you can easily be taken advantage of, male or female. We could make the same suggestion to men to not attend parties too because they are raped so no one attends these parties? I think it’d be better to educate people and try get them to drink less, drink smart and make safer parties.
I suggest parties might need chaperones? This works alright for teenage parties from what I know where you can have some sober adults to help ensure safety, maybe adult ones would do well with hiring security or keeping a few people sober. At the very very least keys should be taken and only given back when people are sober.
@anonymous-
If you don’t go to a 12 Step Meeting today I hope you aspirate vomit & die tonight.
You are as dangerous as a fool waving a gun- or more accurately as dangerous as a sniper hidden in a car trunk.
There’s been a lot of rape-related stories on this site in recent weeks. Time for some more cheerful stuff.
I’m not sure that the “addict” article is right on point for the topic at hand. I would prefer a greater focus on binge drinking as opposed to the drinking/drugs taken on by an addict as the situational backdrop. The confounding factors are: youth and inexperience, young male aggressiveness and alcohol. I get that it’s not all of it, but anyone who looks up sexual assault statistics can see that the incident frequency bulges exponentially during the late teens to mid-twenties profile / school / university days – think Mardi Gras or Spring break rather than hardcore addict consumption.
I’ve done more than my fair share of alcohol/drug fueled sexual activity and it was mainly socially driven behavior as opposed to a fix that needed scratching. One straightforward solution, not the end all by any stretch, is to legalize pot. Excessive alcohol and youth produces aggressive combustion that does not seem as present when only pot is involved, or just more involved than alcohol. I don’t think we can ignore the type of drug used by young people when looking at solutions.
I think the notion that responsibility is always entirely on the man is a very dangerous precedent. It is convenient to say that responsibility is on the initiator but initiator = man in 9/10 instances in our culture. What we are essentially saying is that it is the responsibility of the man –regardless of how intoxicated he himself is — to be able to distinguish between legitimate consent and someone so under the influence to be unable to legitimately consent. There is no talk or responsibility on the woman to manage her alcohol, or whether her actions lead to something. If I’m very drunk, and I’m with another very drunk woman and her hands are wandering all over my body and I say, “Do you want to go back to my place” and she tells me yes, how is it that I am supposed to know that she was too drunk to give consent. We are both voluntarily under the influence of alcohol or other drugs, and yet somehow the only person here with responsibility is me. A woman cannot be held accountable for her actions when drunk, but as a man I am not only responsible for MY actions when drunk but in properly interpreting HER actions as well? This doesn’t pass the smell test to me.
If a woman has sex with a man who is too impaired to consent, I consider that rape.
Here’s a way to avoid this: Don’t have sex when you’re drunk. Don’t have sex with drunk people.
That’s it.
Allow me to be clearer:
There are relationships wherein both partners feel comfortable having sex while partying. I do not judge that.
I’m talking about outside of situations where communication about boundaries and consent has already been established while both partners were sober.
We don’t live in some fantasyland where people don’t drink and have sex. You’re basically saying don’t have sex and drink. The two go together as a default. Alcohol is the default social lubricant and nearly everyone drinks. People drink to have a good time, people drink to be social, people drink for any number of reasons. Drinking and sex go hand in hand. I honestly cannot believe you actually believe what you seem to be saying.
That’s the problem, alcohol and sex going together so much is going to guarantee rape will always happen probably because it’s a drug that affects each person differently, and we all consume it at different rates. If you drink just before or during sex then that risk increases bigtime. It’s great to tell people to be aware of consent and how alcohol affects us, I think we can definitely target those who are sober n take advantage of drunk people but I think we’re going to have a much harder time with people who are mutually drinking in reducing the amount of rape there significantly unless we get people to stop drinking to excess.
How about this, then:
If you’re too drunk to drive, you’re too drunk to screw.
One involves motor skills and response time. The other, judgment and consent. Either way, if you’re too drunk to do one, you’re too drunk to do the other, and it’s time to go to bed – alone.
“If you’re too drunk to drive, you’re too drunk to screw. One involves motor skills and response time. The other, judgment and consent.”
That’s a ridiculous standard. You don’t need judgement to have sex. This is where you go completely wrong. Sex does not require judgement. Your not buying a house that will be paid off over 30 years or engaging in a legal contract. Maybe the terms of this debate have confused people about what sex is. Terms like consent have made it seem like sex is the same as agreeing to a contract. It isn’t.
All sexual consent should indicate is willingness. Not judgement, not being fully informed, not in your right mind….just willingness. You are willing to to something. That’s it. That’s all folks.
The judgement standard does not make sense. Because what is there to judge? Nothing. Your not agreeing to do hard labour for 30 years or divide your assets in case you split. That requires judgement because you have to consider future possibilities and ensure you understand what might happen. Sex doesn’t require any of this. There is nothing to be surprised about. You know what your getting into. Judgement is irrelevant. All the is relevant is willingness.
Therefore the standard should be that you are so drunk that you don’t have sufficient energy, consciousness or ability to indicate willingness. Basically this means in most cases you are either unconscious or so tired you can hardly move. Your not kissing, not grinding, not licking, not grabbing or thrusting. Your out of it. At that point consent is not possible.
I’m… a little confused at how far you extrapolated on the word “judgement”
I mean judgement as in good sense. As in, you’re able to determine (judge) whether your partner is too far gone. You can decide whether having sex with them is a good idea – if it’s a decision you’ll be able to live with in the morning. You have enough wits about you to remember to use protection. You recognize the potential consequences, good and bad, of your actions.
Alcohol impairs judgement, simple as that. It loosens inhibitions (which can be fun, but sometimes our inhibitions are what keep us safe!) and it gets in the way of your ability to clearly interpret a situation. I’ve known plenty of people who have done things while drunk that they regret as soon as they’ve sobered up (sexual or otherwise – one guy jumped off a second-story balcony and bruised his ribs because it seemed like a good idea at the time). Why “judgement” means “the serious consideration you put into buying a house” to you, assman, is beyond me. It isn’t just the big decisions in life that have consequences worth considering.
And I strongly disagree that a person has to get to the point of unconscious-drunk before his or her ability to consent is impaired. I still think “Too drunk to drive, to drunk to screw” is a pretty safe rule of thumb, if not applicable in all situations.
I think legless is definitely too far, but too drunk to drive too drunk to screw would probably be the majority of a saturday night’s sexual encounters. Does that mean millions/hundreds of millions? of men n women are raping each other?
The whole threshold of alcohol n consent is bugging me a lot, I am really now of the belief that a huge amount of rape is happening and is actually accepted by both parties in most cases, by that I mean the people having sex past the driving limit. Are we meant to condemn those who have that type of sex? I know for me personally I’d probably be fine having sex after that limit (as in I am the one past the 0.05% BAC) with a girlfriend and want the sex and be ok with it in the morning so I don’t think I should be condemning all of it, but technically it’s rape and I am against rape so how the hell am I meant to reconcile that fact? It’s easy to see who is at fault when someone rapes someone asleep, but if you’re 0.051% BAC and you have sex is your partner to be condemned even if you initiate it and the next day you’re 100% ok with it? Should it be a separate category? Do we call it mutually acceptable rape? Do we change the anti-rape campaigns to have a caveat allowing for mutual drunken sex?
Anonymous– sex does require judgement. I’m going to ignore the fact that your post seems to indicate complete misunderstanding of this entire conversation and give the benefit of the doubt that you can understand rational thought for the sake of this response.
As a man, you have the privilege of being able to ignore the consequences of sex, for the most part. You can get it on, get out, and never think about it again, if you choose. That is not true for women. Every time a woman consents to sex she is taking into account the risk of pregnancy or STDs, and many common STDs can have life-long consequences for women, such predisposition to cancer and infertility. A woman who has sex with a man puts herself at risk of violence, since men who have sexual relationships with women are more likely to physically abuse them. The decision goes beyond a simple “willingness” to let a man put his penis inside of you. There are real consequences to consider, and they do involve capable judgment of the situation to make a responsible choice.
One of the dad’s I know from picking up our Kids at school., is dying from throat cancer, HPV is the cause…..tell us again about women’s special risks from STD’s. Most men have a story or two about women who acted out badly after sex……It’s far from one sided .
Well put Joanna! What frightens me here is that we have people defending this type of behavior by taking everything to the illogical extreme. There is nothing wrong with drinking. I will withold my opinion on illegal substances as that is another can of worms. The bottom line is that if you are so trashed that you have no idea who you are with, you shouldn’t be having sex. Impaired judgement doesn’t just result in rape. It also results in unwanted pregnancy, STD’s, awkward social situations (oh dude…was that YOUR girlfriend). Engaging in intimate behavior under the influence is a disaster to waiting to happen. And when it does, being under the influence is no excuse.
Why are men catching most of the crap on this? Because unfortunately our gender is responsible for the majority of the rapes, that’s why. For every sororiety girl who hits on the drunk frat boy there are 100 case of the opposite happening. And let’s face some biological facts. Men have a much harder time performing sexually in a mentally impaired state, so there a fewer cases of women getting us drunk and using us for sex. When those statistics get closer to 50/50 we can whine a little bit more about fairness!
What if they have sex when both are too impaired to consent?
And this isn’t an unlikely scenario…
Then bad things are possible. Great things are also possible, but consent and control are not present in that setting.
I’ve had these discussions with my teen daughters, not the don’t drink because you’ll get taken advantage of talks. Instead we’ve had the there is nothing wrong with wanting sex talk, That goes that there is no reason to impair your judgement before choosing a partner, We as your parents won’t judge you negatively if when your ready / old enough you have sex…it’s normal and natural. You don’t need alcohol to have an excuse to have sex… no plausible deniability needed. Better to be aware, alert, and ready to enjoy your choices/freedoms then be trashed and risk being taken advantage of or doing the same to someone else. We started those talks at 10 after the eldest caught an episode of 2 1/2 men…..that took some explaining.
You make a very good point! I have known women in my life who, for what ever reason, felt they needed to drink in order to have sex. One female co-worker stands out in memory. When at a work related social function (usually without spouses present) she would have a beer or 2 and end up ‘Hooking Up’ with someone. Then , the next day her story would be “I was so drunk, I don’t remember what happened last night.” I knew this woman somewhat and knew she could ‘pack it away’ and ther was no way she was that drunk. It was just her way of excusing her actions!
In all honesty this is pretty solid advice. If you can’t get laid except with drunk people you’re doing something wrong – if you can’t get laid unless you get drunk yourself you’re probably also doing something wrong.
But in social situations, men typically consume much larger quantities of drugs/alcohol then the women they are with do…..
I’m old enough to remember how foreign a concept not driving while drunk was to my parents’ gen. People spoke then in outrage and “reality’s limitations,” social norms, culture of booze and “men being men.” The very concept of drunk driving as verboten was fully ridiculous.
Drunk stranger-sex ought to be socially and culturally taboo enough to be an utterly painful embarrassment to all parties and ought to be examined to eliminate rape occurrence by default.
Well said!
I get what Collin is saying – yes, everybody drinks, and it’s the social lubricant, and alcohol and sex go hand in hand, etc. etc. – but you make a really great point. Social norms CAN change. We’re raising new generations every day, we have the opportunity to set a better example or change the messaging around alcohol. I don’t see alcohol use going away anytime soon, but if we’re going to accept this vice as a social norm, then dammit, we’d better be responsible about it.
The entire bloody topic can be reduced to MTV and Jersey Shore ethics structure: You get drunk, you nevah know what will happen.
Ernest Belfort Bax nailed it:
“To men all duties and no rights, to women all rights and no duties, is the basic principle underlying Modern
Feminism”
http://www.newmenstime.com/index1035.html
I’m glad it was posted to highlight the mindset of some people. Better to know the enemy, but it’s also important to realize that even the rapist can be raped. I dislike this idea of trying to silence rapists and a view that they have nothing important to share. Fuck that, I wanna know what they think, why they think it, so I can avoid it and we can tailor make awareness campaigns to help address n reduce it. Obviously more education around consent with alcohol is needed, that article clearly shows that but also shows the entitlement he feels to continue partying without care for the consequences. It’s also a sad look into the world for some addicts.
I commend the GMP for posting it and allowing discussion on it, I hope it helps teach others how to avoid that situation and I hope for his sake that he gets past his addiction and is accountable for his crimes.
it’s also important to realize that even the rapist can be raped.
No, it’s not.
If we’re going to define rape down to mean “sex while intoxicated,” then it doesn’t particularly mean anything. I wonder why someone would want to do that.
There is a difference between someone who initiates contact without obtaining clear consent and someone who lets that happen without giving consent. I’ll stipulate that the victim can be male or female.
Sex is either mutually consented or it’s not. Unless you’re trying to say that it’s possible for two people to rape each other – that two parties can have sex that neither wants – the idea of a rapist being raped is an absurd distraction from the discussion.
Uh, hello, he admitted to being raped. It didn’t happen at the same time. Jesus christ what is with the sheer ignorance shown here by people? Soon as he admits he’s a rapist everyone loses all rational thought and act like he’s the devil and completely ignores the FACT HE WAS RAPED. How is it not important to note? It’s possible he’s under the impression that rape is a part of drinking culture and one of the acceptable risks, that he’s been on both ends being the rapist and the victim and has some delusion that it isn’t as bad as it really is. Ever think maybe a person like that might benefit from actually meeting other rape victims and learning how damaging the rape has been to them vs how he was affected?
“the idea of a rapist being raped is an absurd distraction from the discussion.
What truly sickens me, is how many people are thinking like you do, they’re glossing over and ignoring the fact he was raped. It’s not an absurd distraction, it’s VERY FUCKING RELEVANT. Abuse can trigger more abuse! He was raped by a woman for one thing, proving we need to be targetting women in out anti-rape campaigns too. If you can’t find any decent reason to understand that a rapist can be raped than quite frankly you might want to really think about it more.
And yes if alcohol removes consent then 2 people can rape each other if they’re both smashed. Ignorance to this fact doesn’t change it. trying to dismiss the implications of this is pathetic.
Even here there seems to be a disconnect on a basic level, the cultural media norm is rape is something men do to women and that “normal” regular women would never have to worry about their risk of being the rapist….as if forceful rape is anything other than the more uncommon type. Most men have I’ve known have had the experiance of waking up with or the next morning after an encounter that they was explicitly not wanted, regret, feel they’ve been taken advantage of when drunk or drugged. Men as a group drink and drug to a massively greater extent. As the consent movement calls this rape when a women feels these things……Then it’s rape all the way around. If 2 drunks screw and it’s considered rape as they both were past the point of consent then Both are rapists or neither are….not just the guy because he’s the guy.
Of course it’s important to recognise that a rapist can be raped. If a rapist exists in a world where rape ‘just happens’ as a result of being involved in the party lifestyle, then s/he clearly needs to learn that rape is actually not an acceptable by-product of alcohol/drug addiction. The rapist who is raped and continues to commit rape themselves has not learned from their negative experiences, and does not understand the impact of their actions. This kind of rapist does not know where the acceptable boundaries are in social interactions. This is an important distinction, because this kind of rapist does not plan to cause harm, s/he causes harm by accident/stupidity/whatever you want to call it, not by malicious intent. This kind of rapist can be shown the harm they cause and feel remorse. Sober people need to know the best way to jump on those feelings of remorse and convince the rapist to stop. This kind of rapist requires a different method of prevention campaign than the rapist who goes out with a gun looking for a victim.
I wanna high 5 you a hundred times. That’s what I’m trying to get at. I don’t believe every single rapist intends to rape, I do believe some do it out of sheer fuckup of judgment, lack of education of consent, drugs impairing judgment. They still rape, but at least some I believe can be stopped from doing it again. And for other forms of sexual assault they most definitely can be stopped, simply telling people it’s not right to touch others without explicit consent can help. I’ve had females grope me before, no one seemed to have told them that it really isn’t ok to grab men like that. They thought it was a joke, I wanted to punch them in the face (but didn’t).
Had I been drunk and my temper got the best of me I may very well have laid them flat out on the floor for touching me like that. It bothered me a lot, I know I’d never be allowed to touch them the same way and if I did I’d probably cop legal issues but I had situations where someone did see, did ask the cops to talk to a school about sexual assault and soooo many people treated it as a joke. It made me feel like there was no point getting the law involved (someone else did that which failed) since as a man it’s just a big fucking joke.
No, it’s not.
Really now? I thought the goal was to confront rape head on and (hopefully) end it. How can we do that if we only cheery pick certain forms of rape to talk about and ignore the others?
There is a real red light indicator here about this guy, giving him some credit here, that he says that drunken sex can be the best kind. My goodness, anyone who’s ever had good sex knows that’s a delusion or said by someone who can’t tolerate an adult consensual relationship. See Skippy, it has to do with people getting mutual benefit out of the agreement. Oh, and women orgasm, too. I’m an older man than you are, still giving you credit, and I’m no moralist. I have no problem with two conscious people doing anything they choose. And having played in rock bands in L.A. through the 70′s I’d venture to say that I’ve been more loaded more times and in more different ways than you’ve had tome experience. But I was never delusional enough to confuse the two. Yes, I’ve been about to close the deal before, and looked down at a near partner to see her nodding off and her fighting to keep her eyes open. And I stopped, but then again I had the confidence to know there was a wide awake willing woman in the immediate future, maybe her on another night. I never played air guitar either. Get the analogy? I doubt it.
People drink. Drinking makes people want to sex. Drinking makes people not think properly and do things that they may regret. Sex does not always have explicit, verbal consent (And it shouldn’t have to. We don’t need lawyers hanging out at parties to notorize sexual consent documents). This sounds like a bad combination to me. Doubly bad when you consider that some men will commit rape, and some women will lie about being raped. We shouldn’t blame the victims, but we shouldn’t assume that men are all eager rapists who just haven’t had the opportunity to commit rape.
On a different note, I’ve been super drunk and turned down girls that were groping me and wanted sex. I don’t think that I was sexually assaulted, but perhaps that is just because I was bigger than those women. I wonder how I’d feel, if given the EXACT same level of groping, but the women were much larger than me, if I’d consider it sexual assault. Hmmm. I don’t know.
I’ve added my bit to the discussion: http://goodmenproject.com/ethics-values/marriage-2-giving-a-rapist-a-public-platform/
Ok so speaking as uni student who has been overly drunk at house party due to accidental medication induced amplification not that long ago I’ll say this. Yes the girl, I mean anyone of either gender is responsible to know how to handle their drink, how it affects their body/inhibitions blahblah. But I also know that if in that state that guy I was sort of flirting with had led me off to a bedroom…well I would have protested and loudly at that-despite the fact I could barely stand up. We have to remember that drinking breaks down our inhibitions but definitely leaves our key morals and ideals intact when it comes to sex. Any form of protest-verbal/physical from either party during any stage of the, for lack of a better word ‘hook up’ which goes unheeded can very quickly lead to sexual assault, rape etc. For me consent is when I genuinely want to be doing everything I’m doing and the guy wants to be doing everything he’s doing. (note: I’d imagine what I’ve said might not apply to drugs)
Has anyone mentioned how many people have died from drunk-sex?
I speak of HIV/AIDS et al
This is a rationalization, not an explanation, for publishing the piece that you did. The difference is significant.
Please, explain this significant difference.
I recall a staff party I went to with my wife–her employer. Standing at the bar behind a young woman, small, went about a buck ten, watching the bartender going at two glasses the size of small flower vases like a mad chemist. Eventually, after Idunnomany things in the glasses, she braced herself to pick them up and off she went. I inquired of the ‘tender what those were. “Sex on The Beach”, he said. I asked him if he could make a manhattan. Said he learned in school.
So, after this GMP discussion started, I hooked myself up to a cerebral accelerator and in one afternoon got the equivalent of 437 straight hours of thinking done.
My conclusion–this is complicated–is that if a woman doesn’t get passed-out drunk, black-out drunk, can’t-think drunk, this stuff won’t happen to her.
Where’s my Nobel?
Cause women are never raped (by people they know or otherwise)while sober. Good to know. All I have to do is never get drunk.
And yeah, that was sarcastic. Look, women who go to parties and don’t get drunk get raped. Women on dates who are not impaired can get raped. It’s not so simple as to say, avoid drinking and these things won’t happen.
I think he’s suggesting women shouldn’t put themselves at risk of being unable to control their actions in public? It’s not a great idea for either gender to get plastered where you are unable to keep yourself safe in public, which is partly why I don’t get drunk in public. But it’s not easy as you say to just forgo an activity that brings pleasure for many (drinking at parties, not rape) for fear of rape, violence, etc.
I suggest people not get super drunk, try to have some control in your actions when around people you do not trust and that MAY help reduce your risk but it won’t solve the entire problem. Probably far more likely to get robbed when passed out in public or thrown in jail for the night. Friends watching out for friends is a great idea though, I usually keep a keen eye on my friends. I’ve had friends get me to hold their drink, purse, etc (as they goto the toilet at a club) and I hold my hand above the drink to do what I can to block access to it to others so it doesn’t get spiked but quite frankly next time I think I’ll tell them to never ever drink a drink you haven’t kept your eye on the whole time. I have no intention of drugging it but if they trust someone else who doesn’t have the same morals as I then there can a bad outcome there. I am a paranoid mofo when I am out too as it’s a carryover from my own history of bullying n abuse so I tend to automatically watch for trouble and keep my spidey senses keen.
I don’t want my friends to get into fights, be abused in any form, I want us all to have fun n be safe. I think if we all do that it should help quite a bit, I also keep an eye even on strangers to make sure no one is being messed with and try to remember where the bouncers are incase shit goes down. A lil bit of safety goes a long way, but the most important thing I believe is to stay with your group and keep them informed of where you are, what you are doing, if you go home with someone let them know (so they don’t think you’re lost and also to keep track incase something happens). If all else fails and you really wanna be safe, STAY around groups of people and never go off alone as that should increase your safety considerably.