'A woman who drinks to get drunk is deliberatly endagering herself and inviting rape' Oh my Gosh

[SuperTheoryofSuperEverything]

TThis is the opinion of my seemingly reasonable policeman uncle.

A lot of police officers have this opinion, which is why I wouldn't bother reporting a rape.

It is veiwed as theft of someone's wife. If it isn't someone's wife you've raped, it's more like theft by finding.

People (both men and women) who go out and get riproaring drunk are endangering themselves to get mugged/beaten/raped more than someone who is stone cold sober so I agree with him to an extent. I don't see how being drunk is inviting rape though

He has told me he lost all sympathy after a particular case he was managing where a court case didn't go ahead because the woman that had been raped arrived at court smelling of drink.

I am infuriated at his attitude.

I think you have to appear sober in court whether you are a victim, defendent or official?

You have to be sober when giving evidence in court or the defence barrister will tear you apart

The woman had been terrified about the court case, drank the night before (though to be fair she must hve had stacks to still have it on her breath) she asked to be breathylised but it wasn' possible. A new date was set but she dropped the charges in the meantime.

Gosh a police officer thinking victims are partially responsible for the fact that someone rapes them.

Imagine my surprise.

Being drunk is not inviting rape. However being drunk is to be more vulnerable or to place yourself in danger without having the cognition to know. Many many women have found this out for themselves.

Actually it's only more dangerous than being sober, if you're in the company of a rapist.

If a man has decided to rape you, how is being sober going to help you stop him? On the whole, they're bigger and stronger than you, so you can be sober as a judge and it won't make one iota of difference. You might as well be drunk.

The world is full of opportunistic rapists, who will go after a vulnerable woman (e.g. drunk).

It's not just good men and "rapists" that we have to deal with.

It's all the men who think there are just good men and rapists, and that they are good men despite the fact that they think it's perfectly OK to penetrate an unconscious woman, or keep going if a woman says stop, or spike a woman's drink to get her drunk, or carry a drunk woman out of a nightclub and have sex with her in a carpark. Those men all think they had consent.

So, I think you are way more vulnerable if you're drunk because the world doesn't divide neatly into those men who will rape you and those who will not. There's a big grey area in the middle, and given the way the law operates at the moment, they can carry on as they like because the rapes they commit are as good as legal.

How can you possibly think you have consent if you deliberately spike someone's drink in order to rape them? If you thought you had consent why would you bother with the drugs? I don't think any of the men in those scenarios 'thought' they had consent I think they just didn't care / thought that consent was utterly unnecessarily. They are rapists. They might not otherwise consider themselves to be bad, but they are just deluding themselves (and probably the rest of the world too).

Given that good men don't rape people, I think it perfectly reasonable to think there is a divide between good men and rapists.

I disagree that it's a big grey area though spi.

A man who will carry on going when you've told him to stop, or who will penetrate you when you're unconscious, is a rapist, even if he thinks he isn't.

I'd hazard a guess that they majority of rapists, don't think they are rapists. They think they're good men.

You can tell the real Good Men, because they're the ones who don't think these things are grey areas - they're categorical that they wouldn't do that, even if they're not sure it's rape. They express discomfort with the idea. The ones who think that's OK, are the ones I wouldn't go drinking alone with.

I agree with Spidooky, there are probably very few "rapists" but there are a lot of men who having had a few drinks themselves are not listening when a women says no. If a women is drunk she is vulnerable, if she is young and she is drunk, she is even more vulnerable.

There are not "rapists" and rapists. If a man rapes a woman, he is a rapist.

A woman vulnerable if she is in the presence of a rapist. Nothing more.

here is some info about rape myths

"inviting rape"

Oh no she isn't!

Rapists choose women based on their vulnerability not their physical appearance

I have just read the link. Based on vulnerability, so what is that, wrong place, wrong time, wrong company, drunk? could be any of those things. Could be that pubs and nightclubs are heaving with rapists!!

Vulnerability can mean a multitude of different things. It certainly doesn't equate drunk as then the word would be drunk

"Inviting rape" is in itself an oxymoron isn't it? If it's rape, then you actually can't invite it, by definition.

"If a man rapes a woman, he is a rapist."

Of course.

But before he rapes a woman, he's not a rapist, he's just someone who might be a rapist, or might not.

So "being in the presence of a rapist" effectively = being in the presence of most men, when you're thinking of it in terms of your own personal safety.

Saying to most women, who imbibe the rape myths you so patronisingly linked me to, that they are fine as long as they are not "in the presence of a rapist" is saying that they are fine with pretty much any man they know, as long as they think he's a good bloke.

But that's not how it works, is it?

There are lots of potential rapists, who are perfectly capable of rape, and commit low-level sexual assaults on women, that never actually rape anyone because an opportunity doesn't present itself.

So if you present them with that opportunity, you are more vulnerable.

That doesn't make it your fault, or him not a rapist, or OK for a policeman to say you were asking for it.

But TBH I"d rather not have to be in the position of fighting those losing battles and just recognise the reality of the world we live in - that being drunk makes you vulnerable, and that women, in this society at this time, are extremely vulnerable to rape because it is pretty much legal unless someone jumps out from behind a bush and attacks you with a knife and you are modestly dressed, perfectly sober, and shout "No!" very loudly.

You might as well say to someone

"being in the presence of a murder puts you at greater risk of being murdered"

Spidookly - I did not patronisingly link you to anything. I put a useful link on the thread for posters and lurkers alike from campaigners on this issue, as I am not going to argue back and forth. I would rather link to experts. If I was posting the link for you, I would have prefixed the post with your name.

bloody hell that's awful - doesn't surprise me sadly

But spi - a man who is never going to be a rapist, will not rape you because you are drunk.

And not being drunk does not protect you from rape.

I think we're saying the same thing - that rapists dn't have R's tattooed on their forehead.

They do sometimes give you clues though. If they use derogatory language about women, if they express the views that any of the situtations you mention isn't rape, if they talk about women "asking for it", then you probably shouldn't accept a lift from them (You will then be accused of being paranoid and thinkng all men are rapists, but hey ho).

"I think we're saying the same thing - that rapists dn't have R's tattooed on their forehead. "

Yes, exactly.

FWIW, in many cases rape is not as straightforward as some of the above posts suggest.

I have come across several cases that involved variations on the theme of a very drunk woman giving verbal and physical consent to sex with multiple male partners, all also very drunk. There was evidence of consent in the form of witness evidence from bystanders and in several cases from recordings of one kind and another. In all these cases the woman subsequently, for whatever reason, claimed she'd been raped, resulting in police investigations and in some cases a prosecution.

Clearly there is an argument to be had about whether the victim was too drunk to give meaningful consent, and whether the men were in any position to assess the quality of the woman's consent. Not to mention an argument about the advisability or otherwise of shagging random blokes in alleyways or car parks. And there is definitely an argument to be had about the wisdom of drinking/taking drugs to the extent that your decision-making is so impaired that you agree to things that you wouldn't if you were sober.

But in cases like those, I certainly don't see a clear divide between 'most men' and 'rapists'. I see people, male and female, with very poor judgment, very poor sense of cause and effect, and very poor impulse control. The law is an extremely blunt instrument for dealing with those kinds of complexities of real human behaviour.

I certainly wouldn't tell my dds that they are inviting rape by going out to get drunk, but I do tell them that alcohol/drugs will impair their judgment and ability to react, and hence will put them at increased risk of all sorts of adverse events, ranging from loss of personal belongings, accidental injury, traffic accident, right up to robbery and assault, whether sexual or otherwise.