College Women: Stop Getting Drunk

[FreedomOfTheTess]

I'm afraid to say, this is the exact title of an article on Slate.

College Women: Stop Getting Drunk

Emily Yoffe basically says, in her article, that college women who get drunk become sitting ducks to these sexual predators. (While the article is focusing on the issue of young women in college (university), I take the view an attitude such as Yoffe's can be applied to all women).

She does say, "Lets be totally clear: Perpetrators are the ones responsible for committing their crimes, and they should be brought to justice. But we are failing to let women know that when they render themselves defenceless, terrible things can be done to them."

So what Yoffe is really trying to say there is...

I'm not a rape apologist, I do think rapists are bad, but if you stupid drunken girls didn't make it so easy for them do it, well you may not have been raped in the first place*.

• Because of course, sober women don't get raped.

Oh yes, you're not rape apologist Yoffe, not at all.

I'm off to find a brick wall to bang my head against.

I've had loads of drunk sex. When I was under 25, probably more than sober sex.

But come on, the idea that women (or girls) are so hysterical, malicious and all round bad, that when we wake up with hangovers and remember the terrible sex we had last night, we all go rushing down the cop shop, is a rape myth. That's all it is. False allegations of rape are no more likely than false allegations of any other crime, we know that.

It is much more likely to be the other way round. Firstly, most of us who've had drunk bad sex (or even drunk good sex) get over it with a coffee and lots of high fat food that day as described by Elephants . The minority who actually didn't consent to that sex and were in fact raped, will also tell themselves that they made a mistake and shouldn't have given the rapist a chance to rape them and in fact won't even acknowledge that it was rape, they will put it down to bad communication, alcohol, the "grey area" and shut up about it, feeling wretched about it for a few minutes or hours but curing it with extra bacon, or for weeks, days, months or years depending on the circumstances and other factors in their lives. They will not report it, they will not tell anyone else and in most cases they will shrug and put it down to experience.

Those of you so concerned about someone else's son being accused of rape because of drunken sex, are misdirecting your worry. The statistical probability of a drunken young man being raped or beaten up by another man, is higher than the statistical probability of them being falsely (or even correctly) accused of rape by a girl or a woman. You are worrying needlessly.

I don't like the assumption that a drunk woman is not responsible for herself:
"If somebody is too pissed to realise what they are doing, then they are not capable of giving consent and therefore if someone penetrates them, that is rape."

Isn't this like treating drunk women as if they were underage i.e.: not capable of giving consent to sex, just as a 12 year old isn't capable of giving consent?

If a very drunk woman wants to have sex, does she need to be protected from her own baser instincts, like Katherine Hepburn in "The Philadelphia Story"?

Are these drunk women who are incapable of giving consent (though they are not saying "no") also not responsible for their other actions while drunk?

One thing occurs to me. If both parties in a sexual encounter are equally pissed and incapable of giving consent, who is raping whom? Could a man who had had a drunken sexual encounter allege rape against the woman he slept with?

I have told my sons that drunken sex is a bad idea, full stop. I have told them not to have sex with someone unless both parties are in possession of their faculties, and are able to give proper consent. I have reminded them that, when drunk, people often have poor judgement and make stupid decisions - for example, the decision not to use protection when having sex - and that this could lead to very real consequences for both them and the other party - principally unwanted pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases.

"Are these drunk women who are incapable of giving consent (though they are not saying "no") also not responsible for their other actions while drunk?"

Of course they are responsible for their actions.

However, they are not responsible for someone else's actions. Somebody raping them, is somebody else's actions, not their actions.

It's funny how horrified so many people are, by the idea that men should be held responsible for where they put their cocks. If you are actually putting a piece of your body into someone else's body, it isn't unreasonable to have a basic assumption that you should get their informed consent first. Even if you are drunk. If getting drunk will prevent you from ensuring informed consent, then don't get drunk. I know (or suspect) that drinking any alcohol at all will prevent me from being a careful and competent driver. So if I want to drive, I don't drink any alcohol - the onus is no men to ensure that I'm capable of driving. It's the same principle.

STDG - yes, a man who was very drunk and incapable of giving consent, could of course allege rape and/ or sexual assault. Funnily enough, 1 in 4 men aren't getting sexually assaulted by women though.

If they are both as drunk as eachother, who is raping whom?

Thanks claraschu you put it much better than me.

My problem with all this is that in our attempt to, quite rightly, stop victim blaming and putting all the onus on the woman, we end up putting all the blame on the man instead.

That is not equality.

I think I love BasilBabyEater.

And I can't believe how many people on this thread can't tell the difference between waking up the next morning thinking "god I had my beer goggles on, and the sex was a bit shit" and realising you've been raped.

My DS is only 5, and he already knows the mantra "it's only a game if everyone wants to play and everyone's smiling." Hopefully, as he gets older that can form the foundations of a discussion about enthusiastic participation (not just consent - as someone memorably said on another thread, that's setting the bar way too low).

And StarBallBunny - re. putting all the blame on the man instead - if he's raped someone, this is precisely where all the blame should go.

If they are both as drunk as each other, the person who has not got consent to what they are doing, is doing the raping/ assaulting.

Not difficult.

You don't end up putting the blame on men STDG - you put the blame on the person who is doing something to someone else's body without their informed consent.

In most cases, that will be men doing that to women; in some cases it will be men doing it to men; in far fewer cases it will be women doing it to men or women doing it to women.

I always start to find it quite funny how horrified people are by the idea that the presumption should always be that you don't do anything to anyone else's body, unless you have got their informed consent.

But what if he hasn't raped someone? What if he too was too drunk to give informed consent, or to judge whether the woman was sober enough to consent?

If both parties are too drunk to consent, and one party wakes up in the morning and believes it was rape (because they were too drunk to consent), then the other party is in the shit - even though they were equally drunk and incapable of properly assessing whether consent had been given.

Cross-posted with Basil - my question is, if both parties are equally drunk and equally incapable of consent, are they both rapists or are they both victims?

Consent means enthusiastically having sex... If you are actively penetrating someone, is say you've shown consent. If she is trashed but enjoying and actively participating id say that was consent.

If he is trashed and penetrating her while she lays there, room spinning looking like she's going to vomit and not saying anything at all...or passed out Not consent.

Id never have lost my virginity if not for drunk sex, I had way too many issues. But I was never going to cry rape, no matter how embarrassed I was. I don't think most women would, do you?

I do think consent works both ways actually it would be a sexualsssault if the guy was the one barely holding his head up while the girl was on top. So telling people not to get so drunk they can tell if the other person has consented just makes sense

I think we may be in danger of going down the blind alley that so many rape apologists would like us to (and I am not accusing people on this thread of being rape apologists, just saying that this particular piece of propaganda is so prevalent that we're in danger of losing sight of the wood for the trees). SDTG's example is an academically interesting one, but an incredibly rare case. There's an American social scientist (will post links this evening, just grabbing a moment in my lunch break to post) who's done a lot of work on rape on American campuses - and the scary thing about his work is that the mindset of the man who perpetrates date rape on a drunken woman at a frat party is for the most part exactly the same as that of the classic stranger-down-the-alley rapist - he's generally planned the assault and is a serial offender, knows exactly what he's doing (no crossed wires about "but I thought she wanted it/she didn't say no") and doesn't care. This is the form the majority of rapes take while the woman (or sometimes the man) is drunk. By constructing a hypothetical "what if they were both equally drunk and both too drunk to read the other one's signals" example, we're losing track of the form that most real cases take.

I agree with Lurcio. What I think we are getting hung up on is this area of consent whilst drunk. I don't know if it has been said on here, but sometimes there is an implication that drunk people cannot consent (to sex), because they are not fully in charge of their faculties. If I consent whilst pissed, is that a valid consent? Maybe it's a minor point, I dunno.

"If both parties are too drunk to consent, and one party wakes up in the morning and believes it was rape (because they were too drunk to consent), then the other party is in the shit -"

No, they're not in the shit.

85-90% of rape victims don't report.

Of those who do, only 10% get to court because the CPS judge that there is not enough evidence to get a 50% probability of a conviction. In a situation such as the one you describe, there's only a 10-15% chance of being called in to the police and after the interview, such a case would almost certainly be categorised into the 90% of cases which never make it to court. And then they can walk out of the police station and tell everyone that she made a false allegation against them because that's what women do, innit? And everyone will feel sorry for them and be horrified by how victimised they've been.

Really, they're so not in the shit.

Even if women believe they were raped, they know that the rape law has been set up to enable men to get away with rape, so they don't bother to report in 85-90% of cases. 85-90%. It bears repeating, because it's an incredible figure and it's being ignored in favour of the rape myth that women wake up and go down the cop shop when they've had bad sex. Most women are reasonable, sensible people who assume that the man was also too drunk to know what he was doing and they write it off as a bad experience.

Behind all these questions is the hysterical assumption that women, the weaker vessel, are just waiting to accuse innocent men of rape.

They're not. You're worrying unduly.

The vast, vast majority of rapists get away with it. It's OK. Rapists aren't going to be held accountable for their actions any time soon.

TBH Phaserstostun, I've had loads of drunk sex i wouldn't have consented to had I been sober.

That never stopped me recognising that drunk or not, I had still consented, as consent is defined by our law and our societal mores. Because I'm not a loon. Neither are most women, but the rape myth that says women habitually accuse men of rape when they've had sex they regret, rests on that assumption.

Rape is not sex that you regret, rape is sex that you do not consent to.
It doesn't matter how drunk you are you don't have sex with someone who does not what to have sex with you. It's that simple! Just only have sex with people that want sex with you.

Basil - I deliberately didn't attribute a gender to either party, when i raised the question about two drunken parties having sex and one raising an accusation of rape against the other.

There is also the question of whether, in our society, women can ever truly consent to sex with a man. Some feminists don't think it is possible. But I guess that is a whole other discussion.

So how prevalent do you think the problem is of young men going out and getting drunk and being sexually assaulted by drunken young women STDG?

Do you think we need to worry about it as much as we worry about them being falsely accused of rape?

With regards to the issue of women waking up after drunk sex, regretting it, and then "crying" rape. I don't believe such a thing exists.

When we were at university, my friend was raped while drunk, and prior to that she had had a certain number of occasions where she'd had drunk sex only to wake up and regret it the next morning. However, she said that on this morning in particular, she knew something wasn't right. I remember her saying, and I'm paraphrasing here but it's along these lines, "I just knew, when I woke up, the feeling was different. It wasn't regret I felt, I felt sick, I felt violated and I knew."

Sadly my friend didn't report what happened to her. She could only picture a potential court case, where the defence had dug up her sexual past, and use it to paint a picture of a "drunken, easy slut." (Which they could do then).

Basil - i am not trying to say that there is a big problem of drunken young men being sexually assaulted or of young women making false rape accusations - but i do worry that any young man is going to be automatically assumed to be guilty of rape, if an accusation is made, even if he is as drunk as the victim was.

However, what Lurcio said about the research done in America - showing that the mindset of the man who commits date rape on a drunken woman is the that of a deliberate predator - that makes me see that, as she said, the situation I postulated is a distraction from the real,issues, so I shall leave it.

Going back to my first point - I think it is stupid for anyone to get incapably drunk. What possible up-side is there to drinking until you cannot control yourself, have no inhibitions, sense or ability to perceive danger, and until you are vomiting everywhere and maybe losing control of your bodily functions? I cannot see how it could possibly be enjoyable or fun, and it leaves you prey to many risks and dangers - so why do it?

Maybe I am a prig or a killjoy - but I have never been that drunk, not even once. In fact I have never had a serious hangover - the occasional slight headache the next day, nothing more - and i have still had plenty of fun, so I genuinely cannot see the point.

With regards to the issue of women waking up after drunk sex, regretting it, and then "crying" rape. I don't believe such a thing exists.

Hmmm, and what is your point exactly? Do we all need to start listing the things we do or do not 'believe in'? Would it help the discussion?

I think intoxicated women sexually assaulting intoxicated men is quite prevalent (and visa versa) its just that for men its not a problem - anything but - if my male friends are anything to go by. They mostly all seem to have stories of such events.

One of them tells a tale of him being at a party years ago, where he'd been chatting and flirting with a woman there. Towards the end of the night, he bedded down and fell asleep on the ground floor. The women was sleeping in one of the bed upstairs. Sometime during the night, he was woken by her - she had straddled on top of him and put one of nipples into his mouth. She had to wake him up - with some urgency - as he was biting down hard on the nipple. Once he recovered his senses, he had to persuade the women to go back upstairs as there were others in the room who were also sleeping.

So - the actual elements of sexual assault by penetration were made out, as at no point prior to the physical act, had she made any attempt to obtain his consent.

After that they had a relationship together for about half a year. The last he had heard of her - she was a nurse - not something she could have been after being on the sexual offenders register.

He didn't regard it as a problem - so that's the point with men. If he had, he says, he'd have struggled to report it to the police - that a large breasted woman had put one of her nipples into his mouth without his consent. They'd have shown him the door.

but i do worry that any young man is going to be automatically assumed to be guilty of rape, if an accusation is made, even if he is as drunk as the victim was

I don't think you ever have to worry that a man is ever going to be automatically assumed guilty, but I see what you mean and realise you've already said you were leaving it.