'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.

I also question the idea that there is shame in sex.

We're living in 2010, who feels ashamed of having a fuck? So ashamed that they will go to the police and submit to an internal examination and make a false statement? Funny way to express shame.

We still seem to be considering this idea that a drunk woman is at risk of being raped and a drunk man who has sex with a woman is at risk of a rape accusation. The two do not match up.

An extremely drunk woman is at risk of rape. An extremely drunk man who has sex with a woman is at risk of raping someone.

In addition to this, an extremely drunk woman is at risk of having to report that she has been raped, and an extremely drunk man is at risk of a rape accusation.

To keep wording it (as more than one poster has done) that a drunk man is at risk of a rape accusation implies that:

1. The extremely drunk man who rapes a woman because his ability to interpret a woman's consent or capability to consent due to his drunken state has not really raped anyone and/or the accusation is false.

1. The man has raped someone, but that is insignificant to his following state of mind/moral sense/ordinary life. It doesn't matter to him if he is a rapist; it only matters if he is accused of rape.

Both of those ideas are bizarre.

It seems simple to me. If you are too drunk to drive you are also too drunk to be able to make accurate judgements about consent.

I've been dipping in and out of this thread; am intrigued by the SA 'Real Men Don't Rape' campaign. Have just found an old article from 2006 saying that the UK Home Office ran its own version of this - i.e. an ad campaign telling (young) men to take responsibility for their behaviour.

Anyone recall seeing this?

I saw one of those 'I got into a fake taxi' ads just this week and have been thinking about sending a complaint/ suggesting a better alternative to the powers that be, so I was surprised to see that they apparently did this some time ago. I wonder why it's not part of their campaign today.

Canada have it right here - their campaign is "don't be that guy":

The ?Don?t be that Guy? behavioural marketing campaign is aimed at the offender. Historically, sexual assault campaigns focused on how to prevent being assaulted. This campaign?s message is simple: Sex without consent is sexual assault. The advertisements use very graphic language and images to communicate to their intended target audience, males between the ages of 18 to 24.

Superintendent Danielle Campbell of the EPS Criminal Investigations Division says, ?A recent study out of the United Kingdom involving 18-25 year old males revealed that 48 per cent of the males didn?t consider it rape if a woman is too drunk to know what was going on. This study validates the statistics we have here in Edmonton.?

Pictures here.

I like group sex. I have had quite a lot of group sex. I am actually (despite being, you know, a woman, and one who likes to drink and have casual sex with lots of different men) quite aware of the difference between consensual sex and rape.
On one occasion at a swingers party, I was engaging in group sex and an extra bloke tried to join in, without invitation. I told him to go away. He persisted. The other men told him to go away and after his third attempt one of the men had to go and get the party organiser and have the extra bloke thrown out of the party.

And no, I am not going to ask for that post to be deleted in the morning, as I don't feel that liking group sex is anything to hide and be ashamed of.

what happened when they found out he was the party organiser?

? who said liking group sex was something to hide and be ashamed of
I think we to move away from the concept sex, and of women and sex, and onto the rapists, and what makes them rape.

'bloke [who's] probably picked up the 'wrong' message,'

Hogwash. This is why when women report rape, they are the ones put on trial. In a nutshell.

Doesn't happen for bag-snatching from drunk women who don't watch their belongings. Doesn't happen when a drunk woman's car is stolen if she drops her keys. Only in the case of rape can a man allege there was some sort of 'message' that he was somehow helpless to resist.

Sakura: the rape myth that women who report being gang-raped are ashamed of having consensual group sex and therefore claiming it was rape.

"When alcohol is involved, there is confusion and shame. The shame can often lead to a charge of rape, when in fact, the sex was as consensual as two inebriated people can gauge it .. at the time."

That is outright bullshit.

You seriously believe that it is common for women to have consensual sex, regret it in the morning, and go and report it as rape? Bollocks.

I would like to join the ranks of those who have had plenty of sex, in various altered states, with a huge variety of men, and am perfectly capable of telling the difference between sex and rape.

Some people seem to have a really odd view about sex TBH.

This is the point SGB and it drives me mad. That women are passive in their sexuality, sex is something that is "done" to them, and while it is being "done" they are incapable of communicating in any way whether they are enjoying it or not.

Someone earlier said how can men in a group sex situation know whether the woman wants a certain man to have sex with her or not unless he asks. I mean for crying out loud, women don't just lie there staring at the ceiling impassively when they're having sex do they. If a woman is doing that then the man needs to ask if she's alright, as that's a normal reaction to assault, it's not a normal reaction to consensual sex.

Same here ISNT - I have had loads of sex while drunk and the couple of times a man tried to have sex on me without my consent I was able to slap him and yell I knew the difference. There is a difference between drunken sex where you think the next morning 'oops, that wasn't the best idea - or the best sex- ever' but you don't call it rape when it wasn't - and coming out of an alcoholic stupor to find a cock inside you or spunk all over your thighs. Women do know the difference.

There is so much about this topic that confuses me.

For instance. I have been the victim of sexual assault as per previous post. Years later I stopped something similar happening to me again by being very aggressive with the guy because I was determined to never do nothing again (first time I was paralysed with shock). I screamed abuse at him and pulled a swiss army knife on him. He backed off.

My point here is I have always thought I would teach my daughter to be assertive and downright aggressive if necessary if faced with unwanted advances. And that this rested on building up her self-esteem.

On the other rape thread, everyone was furious about somebody saying that there would be fewer rapes if girls had more self esteem. So am I complicit in the assumption that girls are responsible for not being raped? Is that what I'm passing on to my daughter? I hope that this makes sense. I just don't know what I think about something that should be such a black and white issue.

I don't think so IWNCNWAG - I think there's a difference between giving people strategies to deal with situations that may be forced on them and telling them that they are responsible for preventing the situations.

It's not your dd's responsibility to make sure the people around her behave a certain way - and it doesn't sound like you're trying to teach her that it is; just how she could handle it if she finds herself in a bad situation?

Goat, I think it is what about should be the core message which is that men should not rape.

I don't personally have a problem though with teaching our daughters how to recognize danger signals or when an interaction is getting outside of what is deemed an appropriate situation.

But we have to avoid ending up with a new variation on woman blaming, which is, if a girl is raped it will be her mother's fault for not teaching her to be sufficiently assertive to prevent it happening.

goat the comment that riled the op on the other thread was

"Luckily their parents make them dress appropreately but I think if young kids were taught self respect there would be less rape cases. Being taught the difference between a prostitute/lapdancer/stripper and normal behaviour would make all the difference."

Which to me is saying that the reason women and girls get raped is because they dress inappropriately. I think that is how a lot of people read it which is why there was near universal outrage.

There is a shocking and dangerous double standard in current culture with regards to young women's behaviour.

Young women are being told that lap dancing is empowering, as is dressing as a porn star and shaking your booty whilst pretending to be a singer, restaurants like hooters are 'family fun', women's sexuality is mostly about being considered 'hot' and portrayed as sexually available to men whilst gatekeeping so that the men don't 'lose control of themselves' or 'misread cues'.

At the same time if a young girl actually behaves like this and then is the victim of sexual violence, it will be considered to be partly her responsibility for sending out 'mixed messages' or some tripe.

The inconsistency and lack of joined upness is impossible for young people to navigate coherently.

This mixture of patriarchy and consumerism is very destructive. Alcohol doesn't help but I think it is a red herring.

Having said that, I do think the UK is a nation of alcoholics and that something needs to be done about our unhealthy relationship with alcohol.

A man who tries to assault me when I'm drunk or otherwise is deliberately endagering himself and inviting an early death.

So do you think I'd get my sentence reduced or acquitted due to his incompetence as it was his fault for trying it on with a violently minded wild woman instead of a defenseless one?.

it goes both ways does it not?.

I think that anyone, male or female, who drinks so much that they are not aware of what is happening or are not in control of what they are doing is asking for trouble in all honesty.
If a woman is so drunk that she is incoherent and not responsible for her actions then a man who is equally drunk cannot be held responsible for his either - that's why we don't let drunk people drive or operate machinery.
That is in no way excusing the behaviour of a semi-sober man raping a fully intoxicated woman because she is unable to consent btw.

I disagree with that view Malificence - and for me it isn't about male or female responsibility but about the level of responsibility borne by the victim or the perpetrator.

One is passive and the other is active. For me the active person bears entire responsibility for their actions.

If we are to believe that men become sexual predators because drink messes up their ability to tell right from wrong, we either need to ban alcohol as being an extraordinary dangerous substance, or we need to lock men away from women.

I don't believe either of these things - good men do not rape. Good men do not have drunken sex with a woman they aren't sure is consenting. Good men with normal healthy values would not penetrate a drunk passive women - they wouldn't want to.

The men who do this sort of thing are men with a sense of entitlement, men who think they have rights over women's bodies, men who do not view women as human beings who have the right to bodily autonomy.

Alcohol does not turn a good man into this sort of person - it might inhibit a sexual predator however.

I wouldn't think it was ok for someone to steal or hit someone because they were drunk - the same holds for rape.

Sorry, meant uninhibit a sexual predator.

Wow- I ws raped as a teen on one of the (probably quite rare) nights I was stone cold sober. ultiamtely rape has zero to do with the victim and everything to do with the rapist by way of fault.

I acn see that being drunk amkes you more vulnerable but given that we should be able to walk down a street naked bar stockings and suspenders and be free from unwanted attention (no I am not saying we ever could, just we should be able to) then it is still rapist's fault entirely.