drunken consent

[stitch]

this is the sort of thing that really annoys me.
some silly woman gets drunk, has sex with bloke, then ruins his life by saying he raped her. i totally agree with the judge. drunken consent is still consent.
if you totally didnt want sex, then you shouldnt have got yourself so drunk that you cant remember whether you consented or not. rape is obvious as it happens. not after the fact. ask the real victims of rape.
i just feel that this sort of attitude belittles how horrific a crime it really is.
oops, should have done the link first.
here

He was a security guard, asked to escort home a drunken girl! Who then passed out! I'm sorry, that's not consent, by any means.

Particularly given he was a security guard asked to take care of her, I have no sympathy for him.

So if you drunkenly decline, is that still declining?

well, i disagree. i would say he was an idiot. but not a rapist.
she still chose to go out, get drunk, and ruin the idiotic mans life by agreeing to have sex with him. yes is still yes, even if you are pissed out of your skull.
just as no is no, no matter how much you might have been flirting with a guy.

no is no

Well we don't know that she agreed to have sex with him, do we? She doesn't know. And he's hardly going to say "she said no, your honour"

I doubt very much she consented to anything. As she said, she was just outside her own front door. Yet he did it to he when she had collapsed on the floor. And he had been charged with getting her safely home. What a truly lovely bloke.

She was passed out! How can she have consented?

I don't think his crime is as serious as the classic (very rare) grab-someone-in-the-street-and-rape-them rape. But it still wasn't a good thing to do. It's not like he didn't know she was very drunk. And he had been told, as part of his job, to take care of her. Instead he shagged her in a corridor!

if she didnt know she had full intercourse with him till two days after the fact, then it seems likely, althought the article doesnt say so, but she only found out that she had sex because he said so. if he had thought she said no, but had sex with her anyways, then he's hardly likely to tell anyone he had sex is he?

I think this is a really difficult one. It all goes to the question of consent and whether the man believed that she was consenting. OK she was drunk, but she may still have been capable of indicating that she wanted sex. She says that,if she'd wanted sex, she'd have gone into her flat. But how would she know what she would do when very drunk?

If he truly believed that she was consenting, then it wasn't rape. However, if it was obvious that she was very drunk, it could be argued that he was at the very least careless as to whether she was truly consenting.

I mixed on this one. Firstly if he was asked to escort her home and he then had sex with her, he abused his position of trust. Secondly, who asked him to escort her? He should never have been put in that position alone with a drunken woman, to cover himself in the event of such an allegation.

This is probbaly one of those cases where the full facts aren't known and whatever we say about it, we are saying based on limited info. I agree she shouldn't have put herself in a position where she could have been taken advantage of so I feel she is to blame for that. Sounds like he was stupid but that doesn't make him a rapist. Both of them are to blame to an extent.

I agree with you stitch.

She became ill and a member of staff asked him to walk her home - not walk her home and sh*g her!

He was working as a security guard and imo, abused his position of trust.

Well maybe if she was drunk she threw herself at him?

He only owned up to having had sex with her when the police got involved.

And she remembers coming to, midway through it all. Ugh.

Actually the Sexual Offences Act makes it clear that having sex with someone who is unconscious is rape - because an unconscious person cannot consent. Otherwise anyone with concussion/in a diabetic coma/who has just had an epileptic seizure etc. etc. would be fair game for any sleazeball who came along.

I wonder what his version of the events were?

Does he say she passed out?
How does he say it all came about?

How do we know she definitely did pass out, and then come round again, etc?

Is this just one story v another, or are their witnesses?

Seems like a very difficult one to judge without much more of this information. Presumably the courts and the judge heard more than that BBC article is printing in order to maake their decision.

If she was too drunk to say no how does that make it okay? Havent bothered to read the link but why would any person want to have sex with someone when they are so clearly drunk they cant stand up let along consent.

Its taking advantage in the grossest way. Yes he is daft, and probably had no malice aforethought but it doesnt make it any less a rape charge if she didnt consent or was in no fit state to.

I wish people would get away from this idea that rape is committed by a stranger who jumps out from the bushes with a knife.

Good point QV. If stranger rape is the only rape that gets convictions, that means any man you know socially can attack you without penalty. Horrifying idea.

But we have, I am sure, all seen people go out on a evening, have huge amounts to drink, and then being all over some bloke on a dance fllor and ont he way back. A flatmate of ours at uni put us all at risk by bringing back blokes when completely drunk, on more than one occasion. We didn't know who they were, where they were from or anything. And the next day she would claim to knpw very little about it, or say she hadn't wanted that to happen - but we had seen what she wa slike int he evening. We once tried to stop her - and my other flat mate got a nasty punch and cut head from her for trying to prevent it.

So, as I say, it is a tough one to call without more facts.

My view is that we are all responsible for ourselves and our safety. If you get sooooo p*ssed that you can't take care of yourself (or remember whether you wanted to have sex or not) then that is your own look-out.
In that state this woman may well have been all over the guy on the way home, may have given him clear signals (we've all seen it, haven't we?). Then in the morning she thinks "What have I done?"
Well that's not rape, thats just bl%%dy stupidity.

Easy - you said what I was trying to say so much more concisely!

snap Hula

So being vulnerable gives anyone who comes across you the right to jump on you? A diabetic coma can easily be mistaken for drunkeness...

We don't say to burgulary victims 'no crime has been committed because you don't have window locks and a burgular alarm'. If you don't take sensible precautions, it may make crime more likely, but it doesn't mean criminals are allowed to steal your property.

The poor gay bloke who was beaten to death was walking home across Clapham Common at night. He had probably had a couple of drinks too.

edam, you are missing the point. This wasn't a diabetic coma, this woman poured alcohol into herself until she was incapable. She abrogated her responsibility to look after herself.