Intoxication and consent

glasswings · 2014-02-06T14:12:22+00:00

"Drunk":

http://www.health24.com/Mental-Health/Alcohol/The-6-stages-of-getting-drunk-20120721

We're talking about Stage 2 or 3, right? Poor judgement, defined as "doing shit you'll later regret," sets in around stage 1 or 2.

Analysis from a moral standpoint:

Regret sucks. Regret is the conscience's way of telling you you really fucked up, bub and nobody wants to hear that. Inflicting regret on other people is cruel. And one's own sense of regret should, as a general principle, be obeyed.

For these reasons "willing-while-drunk" doesn't count. What does is how people feel before and afterwards - it's possible to agree to drunk sex but not while drunk.

Who does wrong?

A person who becomes drunk to make themselves do things they wouldn't ordinarity do, or to avoid self-accountability, does violence against themself.
A person who fails to protect the drunk from decisions or situations which will cause them harm or later regret typically fails the "basic-fucking-human-being" standards of the Golden or Platinum rules.

Consider a sleepwalker as an illustration. You and your friend are in a hunting cabin, it's a rainy evening, you've got a wood stove burning, you're reading and your buddy has gone to sleep early. Turns out he sleep-walks. Do you a) steer him back to his cot, b) steer him out the door, or c) steer him straight into the hot metal of the stove?

One choice makes you a dick-brain, one is lame-ass white-knighetery, one is... well, let's talk about that.

Rules and shit concerning sodden sleepwalkers and/or drunkrape:

I kinda wish everyone would do the right thing so we wouldn't have to talk about rules and shit. But, so it goes.

There's no point punishing people for hurting themselves. So, people who get drunk to fuck get a free pass legally live with their conscience.

This leaves the problem of what to do with people who fuck drunks. Drunkfuckers. Nasty word innit? Well, nasty word for a nasty thing, I say.

But

and that's a big "but"

Aren't I being a little too much of a moral crusader? What about that fourth hypothetical scenario? We can imagine men and women who get drunk with the expectation of getting to fuck each other, an entire industry built around that premise, etc, and pretty soon you've got a picture of the hook-up clubbing scene. It's sad, really fucking sad, but how would sending in the cops and judges and so forth fix things? Prohibition was a joke, the War on Drugs isn't even a funny one, what would make this case different?

Let's turn back to the rain-soaked sleepwalker. Is his hypothetical hunting buddy a merry prankster or a total tool?

What if we ask the sleepwalker?

Maybe they share a sense of humor. Maybe that kind of pranking is okay. Maybe it would be really authoritarian and wrong for the Prank Police to jackboot their way up to that rainy doorway at tell the sleepwalker how he's' supposed to feel.

Maybe we should judge drunkrape by the same standard. Fuck a drunk person, it's only okay if they say its okay afterwards. And if that's too much of a risk, don't be a fucked-up drunkfucker piece of shit. (I think this accurately expresses my personal feelings, but it's not my place to judge all such interactions.)

How this actually plays out in practice.

The law doesn't actually give a shit about how the drunk-and-fucked-over person feels. Instead, it goes off on a forensic goose-hunt to determine exactly what happened physically. Privacy of neither party is respected. Rape is a felony, so the standards of proof are extremely high even though the evidence is rarely more than he-say-she-say.

Mutual drunkenness for purposes of getting fucked is quietly accepted as normal.

And sexist scripts say that men refuse sex before the act and women afterwards, so by the point the law gets involved men haven't thought to not drunkrape and women drunkrapists can't actually be prosecuted.

It's fucked up. All of it.

In conclusion...

willing sober man has sex with willing sober woman

Sexy.

willing-while-drunk man has sex with willing sober woman

Man risks hurting himself, woman fails to protect him, she should be accountable if he regrets the whole thing upon sobering up. Good luck. Cops tell man tough shit. If it's a slow day they investigate him for rape.

sober man has sex with willing-while-drunk woman

Woman risks hurting herself, man fails to protect her, he should be accountable if she regrets the whole thing upon sobering up. Good luck. Cops send woman to hospital for evidence-fishing expedition, then prosecutor likely drops the case because he has other shit to do. If it does go to trial, theres a small chance of conviction, resulting in the man getting repeatedly raped in prison. Nobody cares.

willing-while-drunk man has sex with willing-while-drunk woman

Two sad-sack human beings set out on courses of self-destruction or at least risk-taking and bump into each other. In case of regret they should be responsible for each other... but, see previous two situations for what actually happens. Or assume that nobody gives half a shit, 'cuz that's likely too.

Everything about this topic is a total shitstorm. I feel like I need a shower.

MissCherryPi · 2014-02-06T14:56:37+00:00

'willing' means that if someone were to stop time and ask them in a safe environment whether they really want to have sex with the person in question, they'd answer in the affirmative

There is no way to determine this when you are with someone who is drunk that you don't know extremely well.

ElderSign · 2014-02-06T12:16:31+00:00

Ability to consent to sex while drunk is, to me, pretty similar to being liable for contracts signed while drunk. Neither is always clear-cut, legal-or-ethics-wise. But if you meet a drunk person and buy their car/have sex with them without being absolutely 100% sure they'd want to sell it to/have sex with you while sober, you're an asshole. Intentionally getting someone drunk in order to manipulate them into selling their car/having sex with you should be illegal.

Sorry for not answering your question directly, but I do not think it can be answered. It depends on the circumstance.

alphabetmod · 2014-02-06T18:32:33+00:00

Oh God not this again lol

[deleted] · 2014-02-06T17:08:36+00:00

I take the whole "you can't give or receive consent if you or the other is drunk" to really mean if a person is so blasted out of their minds they wouldn't be able to give an answer. Like if the person. Had to be carried, had to repeat themselves several times for the other party to understand, couldn't stand on their own, couldn't do basic skills with out fucking up etc. If you are inebriated but not to the point of having lost all controll, being able to walk carry on conversations stand do basic skills and maybe some more difficult ones etc, then I think you can give consent. I think the answer to this question vary from person to person and not one answer is wrong or incorrect tbh.

Archwinger · 2014-02-06T20:16:06+00:00

The whole issue of alcohol and drunkenness is a red herring.

A woman who knows, in her heart of hearts, that she willingly had sex she regrets (maybe after impeding her own judgment using alcohol), and dishonestly cries rape is a dishonest person. Dishonest people can cry rape after willingly having sober sex with a man and regretting it. They can claim they were drunk when they weren't. They can claim they were forced when they weren't. They can claim they were intimidated when they weren't.

The issue is dishonesty. Not either party's level of drunkenness. Somebody willing to make a false rape accusation due to regret while blaming the alcohol is just a tiny, tiny step away from making the same type of allegation regarding sober sex.

"I never would have done it if I were sober" as the basis for an accusation assumes a lot of things that people really just shouldn't assume:

"I am being honest."
"The person I was with knew I was drunk enough to impair my judgment."
"The person I was with knew me well enough to know that I wouldn't have consented if sober."

deepthrill · 2014-02-07T12:46:30+00:00

Just wanted to share a quick anecdote about this past weekend.

I had a party and a bunch of people came over. One girl, who I have been friends with for a long time and who I used to hook up with, stayed the night. Her and I were both very drunk. I asked her if she wanted to sleep in my bed. She said yes. I started kissing her and she started kissing back.

She then said, "I can't do this, I'm too drunk." I said "Okay." and we both went to sleep and it was no big deal. She had enough awareness of her own level of intoxication to say no.

That was not "last minute resistance" which I'm pretty good at picking up on and plowing through (pun intended). It was a simple no that I respected.

spongegloss00 · 2014-02-08T04:13:14+00:00

I think the definition of "rape" should be defined by a woman/man who is so drunk that she/he cannot literally form coherent sentences/thoughts. Being 4 drinks in makes you drunk but you're still able to make decisions, depsite having slightly flawed judgment. Being 20 drinks deep and half asleep? Then it's bad. Obviously having sex with someone passed out is rape.

If both people are super drunk, all bets are off. Nobody raped anybody.

Generally drunk sex (IMO) sucks so I don't know why anyone seeks it out on purpose but maybe there should be some kind of breathalizer for consent. Like if you're above 1.0 then you're unable to consent regardless of gender LOL

RedPillMX · 2014-02-09T06:28:32+00:00

sober man has sex with NOTwilling-while-drunk woman

Is the only case where the law/consent gets involved in my country, the NOTwilling part has to be proven whit forensic evidence of injuries while PIV sex.

trabant00 · 2014-02-06T16:32:19+00:00

I don't know why you split the cases for women and men. We live in a world that considers both sexes to have the same rights and responsibilities.

If somebody gets willingly intoxicated but is not passed out, unable to move or speak coherently in my opinion it is absolutely ok for sex to happen even if the other partner is sober. People get drunk intentionally to lose some inhibitions, to get an emotional high and so on. In that state - that you actually aimed for - you are responsible for your choices and actions. That's not my opinion, that is the law.

But obviously specific cases can get quite complicated and hard to determine how much of the intoxication was done willingly or not - peer pressure for example, where exactly you draw the line of being present and understanding what's happening to you, etc. And that's exactly why courts, judges, juries, layers, evidence, etc exists. You can't just make blanket statements that apply in all cases.

IIHotelYorba · 2014-02-07T00:38:54+00:00

specifically, I would like to know whether you think a crime is committed in these situations

None. None of those situations.

Drunk driving is your fault, drunk sex is your fault. This is just another instance of encouraging female hypoagency.

alphabetmod · 2014-02-06T17:42:27+00:00

It's only rape in my opinion if one of the persons man or woman is so drunk that they can not reasonably be expected to be capable of objecting or resisting. You don't have to be passed out but if you can't walk or speak coherently or understand what other people are saying, then it would be rape.

It can also be rape if the circumstances are intimidating even if there are no spoken threats. If a big man starts fondling a small woman and she does nothing whatsoever to encourage him, that would be rape too whether they are drunk or not because lack of consent does not equal consent.

The only problem I would have with drunk sex is if for example an older person tricks a very young person in to getting drunk. Among adults I don't think drunk sex per se has anything directly to do with rape except that drunk people are more likely to do bad things to other people like use violence.

These are my personal moral definitions.

TRPACC · 2014-02-06T18:50:09+00:00

The whole point of it is to get more convictions of male date rapists that use alcohol and intoxication.

berryokt · 2014-02-09T03:59:09+00:00

I believe that outside of a relationship, when a woman is intoxicated and a man has sex with her, it is a scummy grey area but not rape. It is only rape if she is unconscious or cannot resist or tries in any way to resist. Women who regret drunken one night stands and cry rape are shameful and despicable, ultimately disrespectful to actual rape victims. In relationships, a man cannot rape his wife at all, and long term boyfriends cannot rape their girlfriends. I am almost always extremely high on opiates when I have sex with my husband. If I fall asleep and he takes me, or if I kick and scream, it is most certainly not rape because he is my husband. Anyone is free to disagree and consider the source, but I personally feel no pity for wives who refuse to put out for their men and get fucked by him.

Title	Intoxication and consent
Author	[deleted]
Upvotes	4
Comments	81
Date	February 6, 2014 11:40 AM UTC (12 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/PurplePillDebate
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/PurplePillDebate/comments/1x68bf/intoxication_and_consent/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/PurplePillDebate/intoxication-and-consent.286252 https://theredarchive.com/post/286252

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