Can anyone help me get my head round this alleged rape?

[StormyBrid]

A couple of years ago, there was an incident between two people I used to know but haven't really seen for years. I keep coming back to it and pondering it, because I just don't know what to make of it. I'd appreciate any thoughts.

I'll call her F and him M, for clarity. And all I know is hearsay, but confirmed by many witnesses. For some months there had been escalating flirtation between them, at social gatherings, with alcohol involved. F has a partner. On the night in question, their flirting was commented on by many people - both of them could have been described as up for it. By the time they disappeared into a bedroom, both were incredibly drunk.

No one knows what happened in that room. F says she remembers nothing, but it was clear from, ahem, the state of her trouser region that sex had happened. M says he barely remembers what happened, but that F was very enthusiastically consenting during.

Here's where my confusion comes in. M says F consented, but F was clearly too drunk for that consent to be valid. F says it was rape. So far, so good. But M was just as drunk, and so equally couldn't give valid consent. So surely if he's guilty of rape then she is too? Can two people rape each other at the same time? Wouldn't that cancel out?

OP, assuming both are telling the truth, which I think you are assuming, what you are asking is at what level of intoxication is consent invalid?

If that's the question, I don't think M's state of intoxication is relevant to F's, the point is, anyone having sex should be in a position to judge if their partner is consenting and whether that consent is valid. M being drunk to the point that he cannot judge F's state is not a defense.

The same would be true the other way round if M felt his consent was invalid.

Hmm. So one's own judgement of one's level of intoxication after the event determines whether one has been assaulted? Hypothetically, if both parties felt afterwards they'd been too drunk, then have both been assaulted, or have neither?

Both, I think.

Going back to Sardines' post at 9.02, I'm not sure how much the fact she told others is relevant. If she called it rape so as to avoid trouble with her partner, she'd be keen to get her version of events out to as many people as possible, before it got back to the partner that she'd cheated. If their different views of their own ability to consent mean she was raped, she's done the right thing by letting us know there's a rapist in our midst. So I'm not sure the fact she didn't keep it a secret has any bearing on the truth of it.

The defense would be reasonable belief in the consent.

If M was sober, would he have reasonably believed that F was consenting?

And vice versa if both were making a complaint.

If a person says that they have been assaulted then it is best to give them support.

I don't understand why there needs to be labeling over something that outsiders can't know. She says he raped her, he says he didn't. If I were her friend I would look after her.

No one is reporting anyone for anything so why the need to " judge "?

Love, I think there is a judgement issue because many people know both and they continue to work with both.

Arsenal if you put "cailin" in front of your response instead of "AskBasil" that would make it clear who you are answering.

Your inverted example doesn't make sense because women do not routinely attempt to date men "out of their league", they've been socialised to doubt their own worth. It's a very rare woman who sets her cap at a man who obviously doesn't fancy her, while men who imagine themselves as gorgeous as Brad Pitt while scratching their beer bellies, are ten a penny.

Oops, sorry, wrong thread I don't know how that happened!

But this is getting pushed in one direction now.

"If she called it rape so as to avoid trouble with her partner, she'd be keen to get her version of events out to as many people as possible, before it got back to the partner that she'd cheated."

IF IF IF.

In reality, the vast majority of the time:

• If a woman says she has been raped then she has been raped
• People generally do NOT believe women who say they have been raped unless they have very good reason to
• Women who have consensual sex they regret do not tend to decide after the event that it was rape and go and tell everyone that, that is a rape myth

You seem to be really pushing this in one direction.

Bill I seem to have missed the work thing?

I thought the OP was saying it was a social group with whom she is no longer in touch, maybe I have missed a post somewhere?

Love, I think you are right, I misread
. Sorry.

I appreciate it looks like I'm pushing it on one direction, but it's because I'm still trying to think my way through it. Exploring all possibilities, and so on. I'd be pushing it in the opposite direction had the general consensus on the thread been reversed.

I'm not quite clear about this, OP: Is F saying that she did not consent to any sexual activity that took place, ie she was either unconscious or trying to persuade him to stop - or that she would not have consented if she hadn't been drunk?

I've had sex drunk that I probably wouldn't have bothered to have if I'd been sober, but I don't consider any of those occasions to have been a violation or an overriding of my wishes.

I feel I should make it clear that my initial reaction was "this was rape", because I'm not in the habit of disbelieving people who say they've been raped. Statistically she is very unlikely to be lying, agreed. Am I making the mistake of allowing my personal knowledge of the people involved get in the way? Please do tell me if so, and also if any of my other thinking as expressed on this thread is wonky. That's sort of why I started it in the first place - I don't know if I'm unintentionally being a massive rape-apologist tool, and if I am I'd like to know so I can adjust my thoughts accordingly!

SGB, the latter, insofar as I can tell from the myriad strands of hearsay I've come across. Could you expand on the ramifications of each option, in the interests of educating me a bit more?

SGB, I think F is saying that her consent was invalid, given her state of drunkeness, which is slightly different.

Thinking aloud here, in the hopes it helps me clarify things in my own head.

F says she was raped. It's possible she was lying to cover up a drunken mistake - statistically unlikely, but given the circumstances, possible. I can't call it either way, and I'm not really interested in doing so. So I'm taking what she says at face value, and I'm assuming F genuinely feels she was indeed raped. She feels violated, and so deserves support. Am I doing okay and not thinking like a tool so far?

I know "too drunk to consent" means "rape", and I'm using rape as a shorthand for sexual assault here, because it's "too drunk to consent to sexual contact" rather than "too drunk to consent to PIV specifically". I'm assuming eyewitness accounts that F and M were equally drunk are true, which would mean that if one were too drunk to consent, the other was equally so. I concede there is an issue here, in that they each differ in how they view their own ability to consent, and I'd quite like to explore that further in a bit.

It looks to me like both parties are guilty of having sex with a person who was too drunk to give valid consent. So why is it that only one of them is viewed as having committed a sexual offence? He's done a bad thing, by having sex with a person who was too drunk. She's done a bad thing, by having sex with a person who was too drunk. I'm very uncomfortable with him being landed with the rapist stigma as a result when she isn't.

I have more disjointed thoughts, but I'm going to disappear for a cigarette while I try to put them in order?

OK, I have to say I am not keen on the idea that consent is meaningless if you're drunk. Being drunk doesn't absolve you of responsibility for your actions, whether that's consenting to sex or telling your boss exactly what you think of him/her.

But sometimes, rapists encourage their intended victims to drink more than they intended, or spike their drinks (not necessarily roofies - sticking extra vodkas into a cocktail works just as well) in order to lower their inhibitions or whatever. So I'd be inclined to think M was predatory if, for example, he had been the one buying F lots of drinks, especially if she was saying she didn't want another one or ought to get home, or whatever. Was F (or M for that matter) unusually drunk on the night in question?

I'm told that M was very drunk by his usual standards. It was his birthday, so people were providing drinks for him, rather than the other way round. I find it harder to say whether F was uncharacteristically drunk, as she's - how to put this without sounding judgemental? - prone to drinking more than she can handle. And I can't use her professed lack of memory to guide my opinion one way or another, because (at the risk of being accused of drip-feeding) she loses memory at a lower level of intoxication than her peers.

."

"I'm assuming eyewitness accounts that F and M were equally drunk are true, which would mean that if one were too drunk to consent, the other was equally so. "

No. The only time opinion comes into play is if one or both sides say there was no valid consent.

DH could have sex with me without me saying a word. If I was consenting, then there is no assault. It's not made rape by him not having checked; it's made rape if there was no valid consent.

That is why M wasn't assaulted because he has judged that he was in a position to give valid consent.

"she loses memory at a lower level of intoxication than her peers."

I assume M also knows this.

And in this I would like to thank my body (and hope that dd and any other theoretical children inherit this off of me). The fact that I get really dizzy vomity and generally feel like crap waaaay before I black out through drink. So if I am in any way capable of doing anything other than hug a toilet I am capable of giving my conset.

The down side to this is that I remember everything. Even the things I regret doing.

Bill, I don't quite follow. Do you mean others' opinion of F and M's drunkenness is only relevant because F says there was no valid consent? Because that's what I was getting at too, so your "No." is confusing me a bit.

I don't honestly know whether M knows about F's memory issues; I know because she and I were very close years ago, but it's not something she's shouted from the rooftops about, because to do so would identify her as an easier target to any potential rapists who may be around.