To think this is a very good analogy

[Babycham1979]

www.spiked-online.com/newsite/article/consent-its-a-piece-of-cake/17594#.Vjh4hpiUR6Y

I appreciate the aims of the campaign to promote public understanding of 'consent', but I agree with the author in that this seems to be dangerously blurring the lines and criminalising behaviour that is, at worst, antisocial (ie persuasion).

Rather like the recent events with 'safe spaces' and censorship, I suspect this will ultimately backfire on its proponents.

Not convinced. Especially when it says that even if you've had plenty to drink, if you're physically able to eat cake, then you've consented.

If I've had plenty to drink, even to the point of unconsciousness, I am physically able to lie still and accomodate someone's penis in my vagina. That does not mean I want their penis in my vagina, or that I consent to them putting it there.

If you pester someone repeatedly for sex knowing full well they don't want it, then you should be criminalised. If someone says no, it means no and you shouldnt keep on at them until they finally agree and then think that's OK.
Been there. Do you know what it's like feeling like you have to do something you don't want to? Just to shut someone up? Because they make you feel guilty? The reality is they should have been feeling guilty not me. They knew I didn't want to. They still made me. and even if I didn't eventually agree then I would still have to do it anyway
I was too scared to say no, as he had done it before and would do it again so what was the point in saying no? It wouldn't change anything.
And as far as you're concerned that's me over reacting is it? Thanks for that. Just how I needed to feel today.

And you're all welcome to say what happened to me is clouding my judgement but as far as I'm concerned, bullshit like this gives rapists and abusers a get out of jail free card.
"Persuading" someone into doing what you want is wrong. It is forcing them. I don't pester until I get my own way. Would you pester your DP for a brew, repeatedly asking them for a brew, knowing they don't want to make one? And then they finally do it but are in a mood about it you're going to tell them they have no right to be grumpy because they agreed?

Sorry for rambling....I'll go now.

Another, if alcohol prevents you from being able to consent, why do we hold drunk drivers to account? Surely, extending the same logic, we would have to excuse them for being incapable of making an informed decision as to whether or not to drive home?

Incidentally, the author wasn't talking about drinking to the point of unconsciousness.

Another, if alcohol prevents you from being able to consent, why do we hold drunk drivers to account?

Simple answer ? It's the law. Which is full of contradictions and illogic. Especially when it overlaps with ephemera like social mores.

I'd say it's not necessarily a contradiction, a person drink driving has taken the action of getting into a car and driving. A person who is too drunk to consent is taking more of a passive role. For example, they may be unconscious and wake up to find a great big man on top of them.

is a better analogy

Sorry just read you about it not being to the point of unconsciousness. Still I imagine that at the level of drunkenness where you become unable to consent to sex, you'd be unable to drive as you wouldn't be able to or think to do so.

Another, if alcohol prevents you from being able to consent, why do we hold drunk drivers to account?

A drunk driver has made the decision to drink alcohol when they know full well they are going to drive. They made the decision to drink when sober.

The reason it's different is what I explained in my OP. I can be exceedingly drunk, to almost any level, and be able to lie still while somebody sticks his penis in my vagina. It doesn't require any conscious effort at all. (That's why the law is based around obvious consent. There must be no grey area. A person needs to be able to stand up and say "yes, actually, I'd like to have sex with you". If there's any doubt that they can do it, then you don't fuck them.)

Driving a car requires you to be able to stand, put key in ignition and operate the controls with some degree of success. Eating cake requires you to be able to lift a fork and get the cake into your mouth. Having someone fuck you does not require those abilities.

True incapacitation, yes. But in recent cases in the media, we've seen people who have been seen by witnesses and on CCTV as fully capable and conscious succeed in convincing a court that they're too drunk to consent. Said people could certainly manage to get in a car and drive it (albeit dangerously). Should they be held responsible for that?

Said people could certainly manage to get in a car and drive it (albeit dangerously). Should they be held responsible for that?

You have serious problems if you can not see the difference. This thread is therefore pointless.

Soupdragon, you have serious problems if you can't see the complexity of the argument. It's not black and white.

As much as it might be uncomfortable to challenge your own beliefs, shutting down anything you don't agree with as 'pointless' is lazy thinking and, frankly, intellectual cowardice.

So, if I have a friend who knows I don't want to eat cake, and that I will feel guilty and ashamed if I eat cake, but they want someone to eat cake with so they wait until I am drunk and then ask me over to theirs, just for a salad. But when I get there, there is no salad, I'm drunk and confused and my friend puts the cake in my hand and I drunkenly eat the cake.

In the morning I barely remember the cake but I know I feel fat and ashamed. But it's ok, because I was still able to physically eat the cake, and my friend didn't actually force the cake in my mouth, so that's fine, and perfectly acceptable actions of a friend?

Oh yeah. ... which "recent case" in particular did you have in mind? I think I smell an agenda here.

Totally agree with the poster who pointed out that there's a huge difference between lifting a fork to your mouth and munching a chunk of cake without someone holding your wrist to steer itor grasping your jaw, and being an 8 stone woman with a 12stone man on top of you thinking "you know if I keep saying no things are going to get nasty" and lying motionless and waiting for it to be over.

You've got to wonder what women like the author of that article get out of defending shitty behaviour from men.

The thing is, it really really isn't complicated. If you start from the fairly obvious premise that the whole bloody point of sex is that it should be enjoyable for both partners, then unless your partner is showing as much enthusiam as you - either saying stuff or kissing you back or grabbing bits of you - then you should stop. A man who is prepared to fuck a woman who's lying inert underneath him does have the mindset of a rapist. And women don't go running off to the police next morning crying rape because they feel guilty about consensual sex - the false accusation rate for rape is no different from that for burglary. The problem is quite the reverse - women who have been raped feeling they can't go to the police because they won't be believed unless they're covered in bruises.

Karaoke no, it's not acceptable behaviour but I don't think it rape. It is wrong and obviously that friend is a prick, but a rapist? I don't think so.

there is a difference between being drunk and being unconscious. It's dangerous to pressume that anyone drinking is unable to consent. I have personally been involved in a case like this a few years ago. I don't want to out myself by giving details but it's sad that although charges were never brought the suggestion that this lad raped the girl will stck with him for the rest of his life. She regretted it the next day and claimed he raped her. It was awful. In cases like that it boils down to his word against hers. No one else was actually in the room but having spent the night in their company and being at the party where this apparently occurred I was confident he did nothing wrong. The seed of doubt is immediately sown when a claim like that is made whether it is false or not. I suspect that cases like that are the reason genuine victims don't come forward.

"genuine victims"

Nice.

The drinking argument is a bit tedious to be honest. You don't have to be physically unconscious in order to be unable to consent. If you are still standing, staggering about, but have no idea what the hell is going on, and barely able to string a sentence together, then you cannot consent.

I find it pretty creepy that anyone needs that explaining to them in the year 2015.

Someone posted the "tea" cartoon thing, which is a really good analogy as well.

You might want to take an actual look at the actual conviction rates for rape cases before getting on your high horse about "fake rape claims" or "she only said it was rape because she regretted it the next day".

You are right that rape cases will very often be a case of one person's word against the others. However, from a statistical, and a societal point of view, the law and society in general overwhelmingly side with the alleged attacker over the alleged victim.

Right, so anyone who is drunk and has sex can claim they were unable to consent

And I'm not sure what your trying to say by putting genuine victims into quote marks? Are you saying that there are no cases like the one I was involved in? Perhaps it was the only 1 ever? So all men are open to this if they have drunken sex? To claim this doesn't happen in 2015 is ignorant and dangerous, I have seen it. I'm quite sure it is a small statistic but it seems no one is willing, in debates like this, to speak about it. I will because I've seen that guys life ruined by a false allegation. By mentioning it it shouldn't mean that I am automatically standing up for rapists, I'm pointing out there is another side to this that you rarely hear about because when it's memtioned straight away that point is dismissed.

I wasn't getting on my high horse about fake tape claims. I was pointing out that it happens and that saying because someone is drunk they are unable to consent is a sweeping statement!

You say it's 'tedious'!

Nice!

This seems to be one of those subjects that makes people take leave of their usual logical faculties. Of course rape is horrific, and of course some rapists get away with it.

However, infantilising women and trying to redraw habeus corpus and the basic burden of proof lead society down a slippery slope.

The idea that if two very drunk people have sex, the woman can claim rape and the man cannot is utterly bonkers. It feeds the myth that women are child-like gate-keepers of sex and that men are animalistic and dangerous. This way, an equal society does not lead.

Similarly, we have a nonsense position where two fifteen year olds can consensually have sex, leading to the boy being charged with rape, but not the girl. This just continues a ridiculous Victorian approach to sex and gender relations that holds back the achievement of real equality. Women are not all delicate snowflakes that either need, or want special child-like treatment.

The author says you should 'grow a spine' if you agree to something you feel pressurised into doing. Way to victim blame there.

Persuading someone falls into the very grey area. There's a difference between coaxing and cajoling. And as such consent then becomes less black and white. I guess my argument would be if you need to coax someone into having sex with you maybe you should just back off. If you need to cajole them it's pestering and that's not pleasant.

I think the tea is much better, if a person is to drunk to not be spilling the tea on themselves dont be telling them to drink it!
I don't like the idea that its ok to pressure and guilt someone into sex....or cake - its pretty much saying emotional abuse is fine and its on you if your not strong enough to walk away. The point of these campaigns is to move away from victim blaming. Surely it should be two fold if its meant to be along the same lines as the tea one, like "don't pressure any body to eat the cake","if you don't want to eat the cake you should feel safe enough to say no or walk away from the table"

Yes but if you have 'coaxed' someone into sex, you might be a bastard but not necessarily a rapist

a man can claim that he has been raped by another man

its is simple did you get consent yes or no

no then its rape

you started to have sex with consent but then she/he changed their mind and you carried on

that is rape too

I really can not see the complication the argument that it is so complicated gives the wrong message over yes no that's it

I don't like the cake analogy at all.
For me, the tea analogy is simple.
If you start going down the route of consent but with caveats, it complicates the whole issue and blurs lines so no-one is any closer to understanding.