Joanna Schroeder explains why it’s so important to understand the link between the partying lifestyle and sexual assault.
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“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
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,… Read more »
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… Read more »
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.
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. 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… Read more »
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… Read more »
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… Read more »
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… Read more »
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… Read more »
Here are the differences – First, in Alyssa’s story, the man knew the woman was asleep and he penetrated her anyway. 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… Read more »
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: Alyssa, if this isn’t lost in the deluge of comments…do you know whether your friend *knew* the woman was sleeping when he penetrated her? Did he mention whether he thought she’d consented and only later realized his mistake, else he never would have tried it? 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): She did not say “no” and stop… Read more »
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… Read more »
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… Read more »
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.
…..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… Read more »
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… Read more »
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… Read more »
This is a rationalization, not an explanation, for publishing the piece that you did. The difference is significant.
Please, explain this significant difference.
Has anyone mentioned how many people have died from drunk-sex?
I speak of HIV/AIDS et al
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… Read more »
I’ve added my bit to the discussion: https://goodmenproject.com/ethics-values/marriage-2-giving-a-rapist-a-public-platform/
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… Read more »
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… Read more »
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… Read more »
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… Read more »
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… Read more »
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… Read more »
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… Read more »
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… Read more »
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?
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
The entire bloody topic can be reduced to MTV and Jersey Shore ethics structure: You get drunk, you nevah know what will happen.
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.
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.… Read more »
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… Read more »
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… Read more »
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… Read more »
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… Read more »
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… Read more »
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… Read more »
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… Read more »
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… Read more »
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 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… Read more »
There’s been a lot of rape-related stories on this site in recent weeks. Time for some more cheerful stuff.
@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.
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.… Read more »
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… Read more »
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… Read more »
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… Read more »
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… Read more »
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… Read more »
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,… Read more »
“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… Read more »
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… Read more »
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?
“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… Read more »
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… Read more »
“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.
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.
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… Read more »