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

Or a drugged witness who has passed out too Piffle?

dino - i did wonder about that. however, i know the police do have a lot to do with victims prior to the trial, and of course the cps will review all the statements before making a decision on whether to proceed with prosecution.

I'm not sure but I think they can talk to the witness they just can't 'coach' the witness.

MT - I didn't say that just coz I'd had sex once then he had an all day pass to rape me if he wanted! I just said that what happened to me was not rape. I never classed it as rape.... so why should he??? I felt a bit daft, but not traumatised.

I have been the victim of a nasty sexual assault. I can most certainly see the MASSIVE difference!

bossykate - sorry to be such a guardianista but I was basing it on this recent article

to make myself clear, Monkeytrousers, it is such a dangerous world we live in that it would be very wise to try to keeps ones wits about one, I don't know about anyone else but after reading about such crimes I wouldn't want to put myself in such a vulnerable posistion. You can only really count on yourself at the end of the day.

..and not the law. Yes that's obvioulsy how it should be.

thanks, dino. i wasn't sure it was possible for prosecutors to speak to witnesses beforehand here. however, from my extensive research into the us legal system - csi, l&o etc - i knew it was the norm over there. as the article says, allowing the prosecution to assess the strength of the evidence by direct contact with the witnesses could really help boost the rates.

Don't know all the details of this case, but I don't think that having sex with someone who drunkenly consents is rape - it is probably morally not right, but the man may also be very drunk and not able to make a sound judgement. I DO think 'no' is 'no', and 'unconscious' is also 'no' but I wonder if a drunken 'yes' is really a 'no' and if it should be in the eyes of the law - a rape conviction is not something to be worn lightly, and if a woman has got really drunk, and then consented I don't see why the man should then be convicted of rape. Surely that would be like taking your possessions out of your house when you were drunk and giving them to someone, then when sober charging them with burglary.

I find the case disturbing.

To prove rape, the prosecution must show that the bloke had sex with the woman without her consent.

Possible scenarios (getting behind the man's eyes):

(1) Woman is unconscious and man has sex with her - clearly rape
(2) Woman is obvously drunk and says no - again rape because there is no consent
(3) Woman is obviously drunk but not unconscious, man has sex with her and she does not say yes or no. - This is not sex without her consent ie not rape - unless you argue that being drunk negates consent. If so, what degree of drunkenness negates consent? Does the man have to breathalyse her?
(4) Woman is obviously drunk and indicates consent eg comes on to the man. Man has sex with her - whether or not the woman remembers giving consent, this is not rape, unless we go back to the argument that being drunk negates any form of consent. The law does not support his argument. This sort of situation happens all the time.

If the woman stands up in court and says she cannot remember whether or not she consented, the prosecution case falls flat because they cannot prove beyond a reasonably doubt that the case falls within (1) or (2).

Moral of the story to women: don't put yourself in vulnerable situations by getting paralytic. To men: you are taking a big risk by having sex with someone who is clearly under the influence.

The security guard acted in a way which is stupid at best, morally reprehensible most likely, and possibly criminally. But we will never know the true story because it is one person's word against another.

Sorry this has become a long post. Was thinking aloud.

No-one really knows what went on, except him and possibly her. News companies have their own angles on these stories so don't be fooled.

However woman (and men) need to be very careful "Flirting". It's not a game. As many have found out to their detriment. Some have said no verbally, but their dress and manner MAY have indicated otherwise.

Sure you'll flame me, but I said SOME NOT ALL. I'm not saying anyone deserves to ger raped. Far from it. But some folk don't exactly do all they can to prevent it.

It's shazzler husband btw.

i think there are two other points which need to be considered in this debate.

first, women have historically been blamed for being raped, e.g. dressing in a particular way constituted some kind of tacit consent.

imho, the vectors of blame have coincided with the societal concerns of the time, so e.g. when dress was considered a supremely important social marker, it was that which constituted the blame factor.

now our society is very concerned with alcohol consumption/binge drinking - so therefore the blame factor has shifted to reflect that.

the blame stays the same, but the zeitgeist changes to justify it for different reasons.

secondly, as the result of the above, women have been encouraged to assume the blame, which leads to an assumption among women (and society at large as we have seen this week with the results of that survey) that what happens to them is their own fault - pace moondog and sackache.

what is needed is a cultural shift to make having sex with someone incapably drunk unacceptable - much as drinking and driving is considered unacceptable these days - not sure that is a good example - hope ykwim.

Too true BK.

I agree its a tough one. Each incident is different and there are more grey cases than black and white its true.

I have been on the receiving end of some unfortunate circumstances which i wont go into but something that happened to me once has been reminded to me by this case.

When i was 16 i was on holiday in Spain. We were in the hotel "club" - me my older brother and friends we had met there. I wasnt drinking (too young and knew id have to face the parents later on that night). I was skimpily dressed but it was the med in the middle of summer. I fainted due to the heat and was helped outside by some of the girls. One of the guys my brother had befriended came up to me to see if i was ok. I said not really and he suggested going for a walk to get some air. I agreed. Why wouldnt i? Anyway, after a bit i had to sit down again. He tried it on. I said no. He went ballistic calling me a pr*ck tease etc and tried to grab me round the neck and into the bushes. I fought like a cat in a bag and punched him in the face and ran for my life having stunned him. Got back to the club and he followed shortly after. Saying how bad he felt to all the others that i had "spurned" him. They all thought he was some fantasticly nice guy who had helped me when i felt ill and couldnt understand why i wasnt interested.

ALOT of guys are just a*rs#holes and dont understand the concept of consent and think they are entitled to "have" what they want.

Why cant men keep willy in trousers?! I am not being flippant here.I get so angry with any of this kind of news.

I don't think flirting comes into this at ALL. She was so incredibly drunk she was clearly vulnerable. So much so, a member of staff at her university asked a sober man who they thought was in a position of responsibility to take her to her room. This was, from what I've read, a very, very short journey. He had sex with her on the floor outside her room.
I think he behaved disgustingly.

qv

i see a govt advertising campaign....

"If she can't say NO, she can't say YES..."

"having sex without consent is rape. if your partner can't give informed consent, that's rape. a criminal conviction for rape carries a penalty of x years in prison..."

after all, we all clunk, click after every trip, don't we?

With the price of Alcohol in Aberystwyth she would be extremely drunk on £5 oops i think they may have kept the University anonymous(not sure)

Flirting is not a game?

I always thought it was, actually.

In that case, I suppose I deserve to be raped by nearly all the men I've ever worked with, because about 80% of office networking consists of flirting.

Some interesting posts here. I think that rape is such an emotive issue it is difficult to judge another person's experience. I have had friends who have considered an experience to be rape, when I know that the man involved did not. Both at university, but neither involving getting paralytically drunk, rather vulnerable for all sorts of reasons, and coerced into a bad situation. It was a very damaging experience for both of my friends, but the guys involved felt no shame at all. As far as they were (publically) concerned they had sex with a willing partner. I do think that there is a fundamental misunderstanding here. Consent means saying yes, not not saying no. No-one should force themselves on someone, and having sex with someone who is not capable of saying no for whatever reason is forced sex. If you "wake up" and find someone having sex with you you cannot have consented. That has to be forced sex, even if you might not feel "raped". In this case I believe that the man was not found not guilty, rather the case was dropped. It is often a fundamental issue with rape cases that they are (except in violent cases where there may be other evidence) based on two conflicting stories, and as has been said, there has to be no reasonable doubt. Which is hard if you are a memeber of the jury.

and agree sex in a corridor outside your room is deeply sordid. Could he really not wait? Did he think she would change her mind (if he thought she was willing). The other thing that hasn't been raised is that whilst you can have sex with a very very drunk, or unconxious girl, a man in the same situation is highly unlikey to be able to perform, so it is unlikely that the degrees of being out of it are the same.

Makes me think of my mothers advice to me as a teenager, which was basically along the lines of men are animals, and short skirts insite rape. I always felt rather sorry for my father, but is this really what we are saying. If you are vulnerable you deserve to be raped? or at least you are in some way to blame.

I really hate the phrase 'crying rape'. It is hateful. It implies that all rape victims are liars until proved otherwise. Would we accuse the victim of a racially-motivated attack of 'crying racism'?

Agree with Aloha and Bossykate on this issue. I am really quite at the unsympathetic attitude predominant on this thread.

Well mts, i think, for some people, (who havent been in these kind of circumstances) misunderstand the crime and terminology of it. Rape isnt about sex. Its about taking something that is irreplaceable that isnt theirs to take. Until you have been in those circumstances its hard to comprehend and fathom the grief and emotion behind it. Its hard to explain to people why you werent able to defend/protect yourself adequately unless they have been there themselves.

The Guardian piece makes clear he was a stranger to her.

She didn't remember what had happened, so she went to the uni counselling service. Who spoke to the bloke, who admitted having sex with her. The uni counselling service called the police.

I am startled (ok, disgusted) by the unsympathetic tone here as well. What are people telling their daughters? Don't get drunk, or flirt - some bloke will shag you without consent, and it will be your fault? After all, you didn't do all you could to prevent it!

And what are people telling their sons? Drunk women are fair game? Damnit, I thought we'd gone past this rubbish.

It's funny, on another thread there's a discussion about women and the veil and on here it's been mentioned that (western) women sometimes don't do enough to protect themselves from being raped.

Flirting is a game. Rape is a crime.