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?

Help me with this one

No witnesses to the event
Witnesses prior saying both people were drunk (normally so for them) and seemed 'up for it'
Woman consents and actively participates (unzips, goes on top etc)
Man consents and actively participates (as above)
Next day, man remembers, woman doesn't remember and thinks holy shit I didn't agree to that, that was rape.

Was it rape? Is he a rapist?

Theoretically yes because her drunkeness renders her consent invalid.

Why isn't the mans consent invalid? Just because he remembered?

Now apply all of the above, but it's on video. Woman saying yes I want to have sex and clearly taking the lead.

Her drunkeness is still the same rendering her consent invalid.
But the man can be believed to have had sex from a reasonable belief that she wanted it.

Is it rape? And is he a rapist? Seeing a video like that, would you look at yourself and say "yes I was raped"?

(For the above, let's assume no drinks were spiked and no drugs were involved, because that changes the intent and therefore the crime)

Pigs - I have no idea. Perhaps whatever is too drunk to drive, is too drunk to consent.

But I just don't know. I'm not floating this as an idea btw, just thinking out loud.

The man's is the person who put his penis into the drunk woman; drunk woman is not legally able to consent, therefore it is rape.

Thanks summer.

Problem with that campaign is it says "too drunk" which has grey areas and is open to interpretation. Then again, I suppose so is just "drunk" as pigs implied.

So what is the message? You have a drink you can't consent? I just don't know.

In which example summer? The one with the video or without?

Has the man been sexually abused in those two examples?

In fact, let me simplify and say in my examples above there was no piv. Lots of oral, lots of toys, lots of kissing etc. so all equal. Both are drunk and gave consent while drunk.

Are they both sexual abusers?

That's a good example. I don't know the answer either.

Sorry, I was not referring to the campaign in my second post above, I was talking about your example.

I think the point about drunk/too drunk being open to interpretation is a good one; on the other hand, it simply muddies the waters. It is not rocket science to know when someone has had a few. Surely not impossible to either see them safely home or put them to bed with all their clothes on. Just keep sexual intimacy out of it and there is no problem. Sorry, I don't think it is impossible for a man to keep it in his pants. If he does that, and the woman insists, starts touching him etc, then she is assaulting him.

To your example at 20.35, slithy, if they decide next day that they were actually too drunk and didn't really want to do it, then yes, I would have thought.

So being drunk and deciding the next day you were ok with it = not assault

Being drunk and deciding the next day you weren't ok with it = assault

I'm not sure I'm ok with that

People merrily have consensual pissed sex all the time.

They then do not report anyone for anything.

So that's fine, isn't it. No-one has been assaulted, no-one feels that they have been assaulted, no-one has done anything wrong, no-one reports anyone for anything.

I think we need to keep grounded in real life with this rather than going around and around these hypothetical grey areas and trying to label things as rape or not-rape or assault or not-assault and who's done what to who.

The only time it matters, really, is if one or both parties feel that something had gone wrong with the encounter, as in the case of the OP. The woman said she had been raped, however she did not report the incident to anyone. So as her friend if she told me that I would try to look after her, and not start probing the theoretical possibilities of what things might be called and how drunk is too drunk and what did the other people there see and all the rest of it.

"So being drunk and deciding the next day you were ok with it = not assault

Being drunk and deciding the next day you weren't ok with it = assault"

You see this sort of thing feeds the notion that people (women) regularly have consensual drunken sex and afterwards for some reason decide that it wasn't consensual after all and "cry rape".

This is a rape myth.

When a woman says she has been raped, in the vast vast majority of cases she will be telling the truth, and not in a "grey area" type of way. Of those rapes, only a tiny proportion will get reported to the police.

So in our society as it stands I don't really understand the point of these "grey area hypothetical" conversations because to me they always seem to be skirting on the edge of, if not fully heading into, rape myth territory.

I didn't specify gender, or rape love

And actually, that's proved my point a bit.

Doing something sexual under the influence, then the next day going oh shit, I've cheated on my partner, I'm not ok with that

Doesn't mean it's sexual assult

And the point of the grey area conversations I suppose is so people can get a greater understanding, and protect themselves from being accused.

It seems the only way to do that is to not have sexual contact with anyone under the influence.

However, under the influence itself is a grey area.

I have seen videos of myself appearing fully functional, yet have no recollection of it the next day (disclaimer, in my uni years, not now) and I would not condemn someone for thinking that my enthusiastic, active sexual consent, was anything other than that.

Lovesardines, your last post just doesn't really mean anything at all. What on earth is 'skirting on the edge of rape myth territory'?

We are not talking about women who are forced into sex here- either physically or by coercion. So I don't think the 'rape myth' stuff is relevant.

I agree with posters above- you cannot decide retrospectively whether or not you consented.

If two people are drunk, and have sex, whilst both believe the other to be consenting, then that is not rape. (Or sexual assault or anything else)

A grey area only exists IMO when one is more drunk than the other, or when one has deliberately plied the other with drink/drugs with intent to sexually abuse them when inebriated.

Drunken sex happens all the time, and if a person feels violated afterwards, then I think that's a valid feeling. But sometimes that feeling is down to the person's own poor choices, it doesn't make the other party an abuser unless they didn't truly believe they had consent.

I've done things when drunk that I wouldn't have done when sober. I hold no-one else responsible for this.

"Doing something sexual under the influence, then the next day going oh shit, I've cheated on my partner, I'm not ok with that

Doesn't mean it's sexual assult"

No of course it doesn't.

The idea that people (women) have consensual sex when they are not single, and so afterwards claim that they were sexually assaulted, is a rape myth.

If a woman says she has been sexually assaulted, then it is very much more than likely that she has.

Yes, very well put strawberry. I think that's what I was (poorly) getting it

"A grey area only exists IMO when one is more drunk than the other, or when one has deliberately plied the other with drink/drugs with intent to sexually abuse them when inebriated. "

I wouldn't put these down as particularly "grey areas" personally, especially not the second one.

People have gone to prison for drugging others and then sexually abusing them. Most people I am sure would agree that is not any kind of grey area at all.

So you agree with the idea that one (any gender! You keep saying women, I'm not) can't give consent only to withdraw it after the event for any reason?

I would say in your examples love, you are talking about someone never having given consent in the first place?

If I have that correct, then that is not what I'm saying, I'm discussing something slightly different (the giving and withdrawing/forgetting consent)

No, sorry, you're right, drugging someone is not a grey area, that was wrong of me. That would of course be an offense, both legally and ethically.

But judging who was 'drunker' is a grey area.

"Drunken sex happens all the time, and if a person feels violated afterwards, then I think that's a valid feeling. But sometimes that feeling is down to the person's own poor choices, it doesn't make the other party an abuser unless they didn't truly believe they had consent. "

Erm no. Many rapists don't see what they have done as rape. They don't see that they have done anything wrong. "Oh I didn't think she meant it when she said no" "oh I thought she was into rough sex and that was why she struggled" etc.

If we say that a sexual assault has only occurred if the person who is "accused" of it thinks that they committed a crime then we're going to end up in a right mess. For example, you can groom and get "consent" from young/vulnerable people if you work at it. You can get them to agree to what you want to do. Doesn't make it OK.

"If I have that correct, then that is not what I'm saying, I'm discussing something slightly different (the giving and withdrawing/forgetting consent)"

And what I am saying is that normal people, by which I mean the vast majority of people, who have drunken sex, even drunken sex that they regret, and/or do not remember, do not "name" it as assault or rape the next day, they put it down to experience and get on with their lives.

If they do feel that they were assaulted, they might tell someone (and likely be disbelieved), they are extremely unlikely to report any crimes.

So looking at these "grey areas" - "what happens if someone can't remember and then the next morning they decide X" is playing into an idea that it is likely that a person who can't remember will take actions that cause consequences.

I think it is a bad move to de-couple these types of conversations from what our society is like, how people actually behave in real life, and the stats around reporting and so on. Because otherwise, discussing these things as if they are likely props up rape myths.

I do see that there are situations where things might not be cut and dried - but I am just wary of not being totally clear that these are thought exercises and really bear no relation to how things play out in the real world in our society if you get my drift.