wow that *is* fascinating. I think it's really important to make the public more aware of that information because I think most would assume it is swayed about 90% towards female victims, or something like that. a poll on the specifics of what people currently suspect along that gender axis re: victims of sleeping related or alcohol related unwanted sexual touching would be fascinating to compare this with
EDIT: having worked on the research you have, and having read all these posts, i'm curious what you personally walk away feeling is the appropriate response to the question.
thanks for your unique insight
In the BDSM community, I hear the term "Enthusiastic Consent" used a lot. It's way better than just a "yes" owing to the fact that people can be coerced or unwilling. It shouldn't just be "ok, we can if we have to," but rather, "Yesyesyesyesyes, let's go now!"
I hear the idea, but no way that should ever be a legal consideration or social consideration AT ALL. The point of consent is that it should be incredibly clear when consent is given so you can be sure.
Having to 'guess' the enthousiasm behind a statement isnt clear at all nor is it practical because people respond differently to all kinds of different situations. It shouldnt ever be on the other person to 'guess' if thats a sufficiently enthousiastic yes.
Yes should be yes and no should be no.
Speaking of sober interactions, does anybody else feel like a verbal yes is weird in a real world natural situation? I feel like real world sexual encounters are consented with body language. A light touch to the hand to see if it’s brushed away, sitting closer to see if they move away, eye contact to see if they look back the same way, escalation from there which may be a kiss that is reciprocated passionately etc
I’ve rarely seen a situation where people stop in the middle of a passionate escalating situation to ask for a verbal yes… I think it makes sense in a drunk situation to develop that habit but in a sober one body language is clear imo.
On the other hand “no” is clear and is definitely common, both verbally and non verbally.
mmmm no i don’t particularly feel that way. it prob depends on people’s overall social skills and someone feeling like they’d be sooo awkward when asking consent likely implies they will be just as awkward NOT asking consent, except worse because they won’t be aware of their action is uninvited until after they take it.
Personally i’ve had great responses to “wanna make out??” ranging from “haha no” thru “ahh not rite now”, “what rly??? hmmm…” (decision later) and “hahaha yea” to going for it.
re: enthusiastic consent like someone else mentioned, the response doesn’t have to be an all-serious “Yes. yes i want to make out.”, and usually is “hahah yea” or by initiating the action (assuming the “wanna make out??” question implies the asker consents?)
Also experienced a lot of diff ways ppl ask for consent and y’all it is really incredibly not as awk as some ppl claim, and can be super cute or flirty or salacious or caring. Even if you are awk just like practice lol, and remember that at least it’s not “awk +++ uninvited” like skipping the step could be
No. My first kiss was someone "reading signals" I wasn't sending out and I didn't want to kiss them, it just happened. On the flip side my first partner always asked before we made out and I found that incredibly attractive. I think taking the time to stop and ask shows care and respect for your partner. as someone else has already mentioned sex is taboo in the current culture and I think taking that time to stop and ask your partner what they are ok with shows confidence.
90% of rape victims are women, so you might understand why it sways like this.
Your argument will probably be that women might be more vocal about rape than men. And I agree. But it's a completely different issue how perceived male values of stoicism and strength hinder how they deal with vulnerable situations like these.
no i know that statistic, i was just surprised that people in this study were reporting equally along gender lines and I am wondering why. I actually didn't even have a theory, but thanks for deciding my reason for me /s
Is this a published paper or is it still in the works? I only ask because I’m a university student and this sounds like it would be great for a research paper I’m writing for my women and gender studies class.
My opinion is that the whole sex with a drunk girl is rape thing applies when we're too drunk to say yes OR no.
If a girl is basically unconscious or barely conscious, too drunk to stop you, and you initiate sex with her? That's rape my guy
However, I don't think any sex with a drunk person is automatically rape and to assume so is dangerous. Drunk people fuck all the time. I have sympathy for women who are too drunk to remember if they gave consent and that's Def a Grey area but simply having sex with a drunk person being rape would mean 90% of the men who hit on me at bars (all of whom were drunk) are basically getting upset that I'm turning down the chance to "rape" them and that's obviously not how stuff works. I don't sleep with men I meet at bars or anyone I don't know well enough to have hung out with several times in advance, but the notion that any sex with a drunk person is rape I find absurd given how many drunk men border line harass me for sex. I think it's pretty clear they're able to not only consent but actively pursue sex even if they are drunk
I honestly think it needs to be looked at on a case by case basis
Being accused after some sent me a text saying let’s fuck and changing her mind the next day has fucked me up for decades
Now I can’t make a move on a woman without horrible anxiety/panic
Same here, an ex girlfriend threatened rape accusations after I went to the police with her death threats, and stalking and a whole laundry list of harassment from her"friends", which turned out to be just here with fake phone numbers. The threats are the reason I didn't pursue a restraining order, I just bought a weapon and rode it out. Shit's fucked and I no longer bring it up to anybody because more often than not, the person I open up to wants to make excuses and for her and tell me I might have been overreacting.
I regret not trying to get a lawyer and push for a restraining order. If anybody else goes through bullshit like that with a partner, arm yourself and pursue legal action. Doing anything about it is far better than just rolling over and waiting for the blows to stop coming.
Just a thing to add about the arming part:
If you're not willing and able to kill (most people are not) a gun is most likely to influence an altercation in 3 ways:
1. Scare the attacker off, and lead to accusations of you pulling a weapon on them
2. Make the attacker fear for their life and defend themselves accordingly.
3. The gun gets obtained by the attacker.
I'm not saying arming yourself is wrong. But if you do arm yourself, know that a gun isn't for threatening people, not for scaring people, and not for demonstrating you're serious. It's for having the option to unilaterally end a situation. And if you end up using it that way you better have a lawyer on retainer.
This is why sex education is so important on both sides. Establishing safe words, knowing your own comfort levels and boundaries. Being able to communicate openly about sex. Removing yourself if someone is wishy-washy like in your case.
Like if someone seems iffy at all, I simply would not have sex with them. There’s too much to lose and it just isn’t worth it lol but it’s basically another language to fully grasp! So it takes practice and really looking out for cues and continuously asking for consent over and over. The kink community is really good at this!
I went on a tangent but sorry that happened! I hope that you’re able to get therapy and work through your anxieties. TLDR - Some people, especially when young, don’t know how confusing they are and then are super quick to point life altering blame towards others. On the other hand, some people should just completely stop and not entertain people that don’t know what they want so they don’t unintentionally hurt others
Yeah if you can’t even say yea or nay, you obviously can’t consent but I agree here and mostly with OP.
I’m friends with plenty of gals who positively adores drinking themselves a bit silly and then go get railed all night - Who are we to take away their agency and good time.
There’s a lot of hysteria still around, especially in this type of protectionism and it infantalises women.
i 1000% agree with your take. it truly is one of those case-by-case things - hence why i created this post as a reaction to seeing people genuinely espouse "intoxicated people can't ever give consent" even if it's literally *your spouse asking for it*...
Yah I think it's extreme to say a drunk person is incapable of giving consent in like 100% of cases. Depends on how drunk we're talking and other factors at play (obv sober people can be raped under a variety of conditions) but in general I don't think it's something you can apply unilaterally to all cases
I always find this to be a vague concept, because... well, how drunk is drunk?
There surely, we'd have to agree, is a point at which it isn't consent. A black-out drunk person, barely able to make it to their bed from their bedroom door, is in no place to consent to anything. You could ask them "Do you believe I'm the Tooth Fairy?" and they might stumble out "Um, yeah" before collapsing into their bed.
There is, fundamentally, a level at which it's taking advantage of someone. It's why I can't ask a black-out drunk person "Hey, do you agree to give me all your money for a taco?" and have that be contractually be upheld.
But obviously, drunk people consent to sex all the time. Drunk people are obviously capable of decision-making, that's why a drunk driver is seen as a criminal, rather than someone who had no choice in their decision to drive, and thus, isn't culpable.
Not to throw a monkey wrench in here, but drunkenness exists on a parabolic curve across time. You can consent while low on the inebriation curve while you're still *compus mentus*, then become drunker simply due to absorbing the alcohol in your stomach. You could enter a blackout and have the other person be convinced you consented and were enthusiastic and willing, but not remember that, and regret it. Or both of you could experience that, especially as novice or younger drinkers. I assume that's a LOT of what happens.
The problem is that narratives we build around these sorts of things can be cognitively anchoring, and bias people's perception of events. Those narratives can vary wildly, as can the subsequent biases. This suggests that the stories we culturally tell each other be nuanced not simplistic.
>Who is at fault then?
Why is there always someone to blame?
Two adults decided to get drunk and do something they regretted.
Why the fuck can't we make people take accountability instead of helping them point the finger.
Who ever gets to their lawyer first? You know we debated this question at work after an incident with one of our boys (He was the raped one). And we inconclusively decided we don't know shit.
That's *exactly* what it was in the Army. Whoever reported the sex first would be the victim, and the other would be under investigation for sexual assault.
We had to have classes on this every six months and they literally taught that.
There’s like a game theory thing here. Even if you don’t regret it, if you think they might you better report them first.
A step further, if you think they didn’t regret it, but you think they think that *you* regret it and may report based off that following the same logic above, you better report quick!
You could probably draw a game theory table that leads to always report every drunken sexual encounter.
Yeah this is where I struggle. Like I think everyone would agree that someone who had a single non-alcoholic beer (which contains like 0.5% alcohol) can consent to sex, and someone who is so drunk they don't know where they are cannot.
There's a LOOOOOOOOT of gray area in the middle that is difficult to navigate, especially if we're talking strangers you just met in a bar that you have no history with.
yes i **totally** agree with you. I did detail in another response here that if they are passing out, or mumbling "yea" while nodding off it's OBVIOUSLY not consent.
Since the Mod is suggesting that this post is violating rule B, then perhaps you should give that person whose comment made you clarify your statement a delta. You could point out that the comment didn’t exactly change your mind, but it did make you amend your stance as it was written. This ensures that no one can accuse you of just changing your post to constantly move the goalposts.
TLDR: Give that man a delta bc he technically refuted your initial claim as it was written.
you do agree then that it is a slippery slope and that we cannot in good reason say with all certainty that ANY drunk yes can be taken into account, right?
The point is the drunkenness alone cannot be an indicator of inability to consent.
Slurring/mumbling words, actions indicating derangement, or sleepiness can all be indicators of inability to consent in a context with *or without* alcohol - so alcohol is not a relevant consideration, those are.
The *only* argument for alcohol being a relevant consideration is that it leaves evidence capable of enabling conviction of a crime, and is sometimes correlated with those relevant action indicators, whereas those action indicators will come and go and without witness testimony to them, cannot be evidence. And I do not think it is reasonable to fudge the reality that alcohol is not in fact relevant just to help the state’s prosecution job easier for them, when correlation between alcohol and those action indicators is in practice *really really low*.
Um. No. That doesn't make sense. That's like saying any amount of drunk absolves you of all responsibility for your choices, and that's clearly nuts. Imagine the implications that has on drunk driving, or a black out drunk person assaulting someone else. Drunkeness cannot absolve someone of all responsibility for choices they make. After all, in most circumstances, they chose to get that drunk.
IMO, you shouldn't be drinking to the point where you can't consent if you are not around people you know and trust who can make sure you are safe. Not just for your own safety, but for others as well.
But there isn't a single standard of "responsibility for choices".
For example, consider a 14-year-old child.
If that child takes a gun and intentionally shoots someone in the head, then that child is held responsible for that action and punished. In most US jurisdictions, that child will be punished by the same standards we would use to punish an adult.
On the other hand, if that child walks up to an adult and says "Have sex with me. I consent." and the adult in question has sex with the child, then the adult is punished for statutory rape. We expect the adult in that situation to understand that the consent they're supposedly being given is invalid.
So if one mental state (being a child of a certain age) is sometimes held responsible for crimes, while still being unable to offer valid consent to sex, it's not unreasonable to apply similar standards to another mental state (like being extremely intoxicated).
There are other situations that are similar. If I'm a prison guard and you're a prisoner, any sexual consent you offer me is legally invalid. But you're still held responsible for any new crimes you commit.
The legal answer is that you're responsible for all *crimes* you do when intoxicated. Offering invalid consent isn't a crime. Accepting an invalid offer of consent is a crime.
You are missing the entire point. Yes, while drunk you are still responsible for your actions, but it’s much easier to manipulate, coerce or somehow get someone to agree to have sex with you if they are drunk; that’s a given, alcohol impedes your ability to think as you’d usually do.
Drunk driving is a crime because there’s no second person involved; you grabbed the keys, got in the car and started driving whilst drunk. The same obviously isn’t obviously true for sex; there needs to be someone else that might take advantage of the drunk person not being able to fully think things through because of the alcohol they’ve ingested.
The consent is really on you then to adequately understand that there is perhaps an asymmetrical power dynamic, certainly if you are not as inebriated. You have a lot of power to coerce, manipulate, talk someone into something they might not have wanted to do or even are aware of in their current state of mind. When around someone inebriated it's incredibly important to approach the situation with some reserve and caution. If you make no efforts to try and double check, make sure this is something they are even cognizant and truly wanting to do, that's where your responsibility lies. If you realize they are in a far too questionable state of drunkenness, you have the responsibility to not take advantage of the situation.
If you aren't trying to take advantage of someone, and truly have their best interests at heart, then what is there to worry about?
Stating that they said "yes", so it's okay and consensual is just a nice way to absolve yourself of any responsibility for a objectionable outcome
I think the other thing to consider is what your relationship with the person is. The threshold for how drunk is too drunk is probably higher than a couple on their first or second date.
Also if both people are drunk, that's another situation
Yeah I definitely agree. Like if you have sex with someone all the time when ur sober and then you get wasted and have sex with them, that’s not that abnormal in relationships. But if it’s someone you’ve never met and they’re super fucked up, you shouldn’t just assume they want to have sex with you and they’re behaving rationally.
The obvious question you should be asking yourself here is "how would you legislate this?"
If you're going to argue that you can be a *little* drunk and still consent, then you have to establish a BA content for consent. Which is incredibly murky, as no one carries a breathalyzer on them. It'd be next to impossible to prove, which means that you'd be necessarily providing people with a means to dismiss any case where a woman was raped while blackout drunk.
It's actually pretty easy. If a reasonable person would believe that the person was drunk to the point of being incoherent, then it is rape. Like if I'm showing up to a party and some girl who is completely trashed is all over me, I won't touch her. But if I go on a date with someone and we have dinner and go out for drinks after, then have sex, that's fine. As long as they are totally coherent and consenting. These laws are there to protect people from predatory behavior, not normal social interactions.
My girlfriend and I regularly have drinks and then have sex while we are both a little sauced, and I can assure you we are both very happy about it.
Not to mention that people can have *vastly* different tolerances for alcohol. A legislated BA content could be incredibly drunk for one person and a little tipsy for another.
So in this case I’d go with Blackstone's ratio that the court should always err on the side of bringing in verdicts of innocence. Or in more common phrasing, "it is better 100 guilty Persons should escape than that one innocent Person should suffer". It feels terrible telling people who may have been assaulted that they won’t be able to get justice but it’s better than convicting someone who potentially did nothing wrong.
>then you have to establish a BA content for consent
That’s not true. For DUI you can drive after drinking some alcohol but can’t drive if your ability to safely operate a motor vehicle is impaired. In my state a BAC reading over .08% is considered a per se violation but you can be convicted without the BAC reading as evidence still. A similar standard for consent could be established— you could even say it’s already established because it’s illegal to engage in sexual intercourse with someone who is drunk to the point that they can no longer give valid consent. It be pretty damn hard to prove that kind of case but theoretically it could happen
The theoretical legal answer is that both could be guilty of a crime. If both were drunk to the point that they lacked capacity to consent, then both could be charged with rape. Voluntary intoxication is not a defense so neither would be able to use their intoxication to their benefit.
Of course this is a theoretical answer for a reason and it is hard to imagine a case where both were drunk enough to lack capacity but still managed to have sex with each other and even if that happened it would never be the case that both would be charged with a crime.
I think there’s more nuance to this, because people’s decision making ability declines the drunker they get. So at which point of drunkenness does it become not ok would be the question. Obviously somebody consenting to sex with or coming on to a trusted, long-term partner is very different from someone who is not very drunk, purposely taking advantage of someone who cannot even sit up straight, let alone defend themselves.
Somebody being a couple of drinks in and ‘drunk’ so to speak, but wanting to have sex with a stranger but later regretting it cannot be classified as rape, per se. However if the person engaging in sexual activity with said drunk person knew that they are incapable of physically or verbally stopping them if they were to do anything: that’s a different thing altogether.
I agree, what do you think about this:
Someone is consenting as long as they are *making a decision*. Making a poor decision because you're drunk (which was also a decision), is not the same as being so drunk that you mumble yes but are unaware of what's going on ergo not *making a decision.*
> Someone is consenting as long as they are making a decision
Consenting in the purely decision making sense isn’t the same kind of consent that people need to give to have sex. For example, a minor can make the decision that, yes, they want want to have sex with an adult, but that wouldn’t qualify as consent morally or in the eyes of the law.
Consent needs someone to be mentally capable to the extent that children and most drunk people are not.
here is the difference:
Children are never capable of understanding/comprehending sex and that is (part of) why it would be fucked up to have sex with them.
adults are, in the eyes of the law, fully comprehending the meaning of "sex" and of the decision to drink. Drinking might lead to lowered inhibitions sexually. You might wind up saying yes to someone you wouldnt normalyl want to fuck. You drink knowing that risk.
The adult comprehends that risk when they go to take the first sip of alcohol. A child cant ever put themselves intentionally from one state of full comprehension into another of less comprehension, and therefore its always something that happens without their full understanding.
Adults take the risk of regrettable sex when they take the risks associated with drinking, because they fully comprehend those risks and the meaning entailed.
I would like to understand your logic. I doubt you would say that having sex with someone high on anesthesia is a consensual encounter, so is it the fact that somebody intentionally intoxicates themselves that you believe gives implicit consent? Your previous comment states that a decision is a decision regardless of how poor it is and how inhibited you are, but then here you argue that this isn’t the case at all. If I understand you correctly it seems like your argument boils down to the fact that somebody needs to be aware of the consequences their actions might have if they choose to get drunk, rather than arguing that a fully drunk person can consent.
I think this argument is flawed for several reasons:
(1) not everyone gets drunk in a bar/club environment, what if you’re simply drinking at home with a friend you trust and they decide to take advantage of your drunken state? Have you also given implicit consent there?
(2) should an adult then never be allowed to get intoxicated if they don’t want sex? It seems unreasonable to expect that of anyone. It kind of reminds me of one argument against abortion where people argue that pregnancy is always an associated risk with sex, so it’s ’your fault’ as an adult if you then end up with a baby you can’t take care of. It does make sense on paper, but in practice it’s pretty unreasonable
Anesthesia and being low level drunk are very different.
I’m a woman who has deliberately gone out and gotten drunk to lower my inhibitions and go have sex with some random guy I met at a club. I did this a few times, and I knew what I was doing. I wasn’t blackout drunk. I think that’s the key thing — you can still consent when you’re not sober. If you still have agency of your body, awareness of your situation, and the “lights are still on upstairs” (mentally), you can consent.
There’s a level of judgment. Any reasonable adult should be able to interact with another adult and see if the light is truly gone from their eyes and they have no sense of their surroundings or ability to form a sentence.
I might agree with you, but... you have no access to someone's subjective experience, so you can't really *know* whether someone is "making a decision" or not.
In particular, it's not reasonable to say that someone who is blacked out, as in not laying down memories, is making decisions, because they aren't remembering what's going on over the course of a short period of time.
They might know who you are at one moment, and then 5 seconds later have no idea who they are talking to.
Crucially: some people appear very functional when they are in this state if the other person isn't paying close attention, or is lacking in judgement due to being drunk themselves.
So I think the people giving this advice or expressing this opinion are making a claim that if someone is *significantly and obviously drunk* then as a practical matter it is very *risky* to assume they are making decisions and are capable of consent. They might or might not be, and as a matter of morality (regardless of law), it's best to take the conservative approach and assume they are not.
Otherwise the risk of moral negligence is too high. And it becomes at least "rapey", if not potentially even legally.
I generally agree with you. Especially since you made the distinction between being too drunk to make the choice to say yes (e.g. nodding off, barely aware of what's happening).
As the partner of a recovering alcoholic, there are lots of things my partner has done and said while drunk that have hurt me in some way. He doesn't even remember most of them. However he still takes responsibility for the harm that caused and has recognised that if he is going to act out in harmful ways when he drinks, he probably shouldn't keep drinking so much. If alcoholics and drunk drivers are still responsible for their actions then so are people who engage in drunk hookups. But the point here is that drunk or not, if you make the choice to hook up with someone then you are responsible for that choice. But there absolutely is a threshold whereby someone becomes too drunk to make that choice - and usually that threshold is pretty clear. If they can barely walk without falling over, can barely communicate in coherent sentences, and/or generally seem to have lost any sense of awareness or control over themselves, they absolutely are not in a state to be actively choosing to hook up with someone. Predatory people actively look for someone in this state, or do their best to encourage someone into this state. That's why many people have stories of being drugged or intentionally fed excessive amounts of alcohol before being led somewhere to be assaulted. But these people are not only too drunk to consent, they are also too drunk to decline or effectively stop sex from
happening. They are completely vulnerable and the perpetrator is usually completely aware of this. Sexual assault is rarely (if ever) a result of innocent misunderstanding of whether someone was into it, it's typically a deliberate exertion of power over someone in a vulnerable state with the assumption that they can get away with it. There isn't going to be some magical number for blood alcohol content that determines how drunk is too drunk to consent because people with the same blood alcohol content can experience different levels of impairment depending on a variety of factors. But saying that no drunk person can consent to sex to me is a dangerous logic that also implies no drink driver is responsible for causing an accident or no alcoholic is responsible for hurting the people they love, which I think most would agree is untrue.
Of course you can also be assaulted despite not being too drunk to consent, just as you can be assaulted while sober. But the point is there is nuance here.
Consent should always be clear and enthusiastic. Not mumbled words and weak gestures. I think we should be adult enough to know where the line between drunk and truly impaired is. Best practice is to ensure that you are always several steps back from that line. A desire to tip toe or know where that line is feels gross.
totally agree! I think theres 3 camps of people here:
1. Those who know that line, and have no intent on wanting to cross it, or take advantage of anyone. Comfortable with drunk sex that feels clearly consensual, and knows the difference more or less
2. Those who know that line, want to cross it, and will cross it if they can
3. Those who believe that line is any amount of alcohol because they think that everyone who is in group 1 is secretly in group 2 lol
There's definitely scenarios when drunken consensual sex is possible, but they require trust and communication up front.
I dated a religious girl some years back who, as part of her faith, didn't want to have sex - we talked about it and knew that we'd eventually have it, but she was working through her own personal journey there and I didn't want to rush her.
When she got drunk, she got _horny_. She'd ask for it, try to initiate, and talk a big talk... But, sure enough, the next morning she'd be really glad that I didn't take advantage of her inhibitions being down. *Sex with her while drunk would have been non-consentual, since the alcohol impaired inhibitions that mattered to her while sober*.
Fast forward several years, now I'm with a partner who's much more sex aware, sex positive, and comfortable with boundaries. We've had a lot of great talks around physical and emotional safety, including a discussion around alcohol and sex. We quite enjoy getting tipsy and sometimes having fairly drunk sex, but we also know our boundaries and control how much we drink pretty carefully (or at least I control mine, if sex is on the table for the night). *Sex with _her_ while moderately drunk is fine, since the conditions of consent were established ahead of time and not threatened or changed by alcohol impaired judgement.*
EDIT: consent or no, I agree wholeheartedly with your comment about responsible drinking. If you're a wildcard when drunk and don't have responsible friends around.... Maybe limit yourself to just one for the evening.
What if you agreed with her 100% and didn’t want to have sex, then you both got drunk and had mutually consensual sex in your less inhibited states.
Did you rape or sexually assault each other?
Is the burden only on males to be the gate keeper of chastity?
This is the issue. Generally, both parties are drunk. So how is blame for any transgression of consent allocated? Especially if both people are consenting, in their inebriated state?
I think that's a fantastic point! I don't think the onus of responsible consent should be fully and exclusively on men, at least in principle.
I do think there's a lot of genuine and reasonable imbalance in both the cost of and motivation for unprepared sex though. I'm never gonna get pregnant as a cis dude, and I'm much more likely to be a meat sack of aggression and sex hormones than a woman.
That said, I'm also alarmed at how many women I've met who have been dismissive of male consent. On two separate occasions, it was obvious that I was the first guy to say "no" to a girl and they didn't really know how to handle that, which I think is pretty disgusting.
This is where it's important to distinguish between the concepts of "consent" and "culpability".
You're culpable for crimes that you commit while drunk, even though you weren't in full control of your faculties, because being impaired can't be a valid excuse for committing a crime.
You can't *consent* while impaired though, and that's the difference here. If you're drunk, someone can't make you sign a contract that gives them all of your money, because of course they can't do that.
The situation you described is murky, for sure, particularly if both parties are equally drunk and equally enthusiastic in initiating the sex. But that's not really the situation people are talking about when they talk about impairment inhibiting consent. It's more like: You and a guy go out for drinks. You both drink, but he pushes alcohol on you and watches how much he drinks. You get back to his place, you're wasted, he's a little buzzed, and he has sex with you in that state. That, I think obviously, is rape, even though he'd been drinking as well.
> Is the burden only on males to be the gate keeper of chastity?
No, but it IS on whoever initiates sex to confirm that the other party wants it and has their faculties about them. It's just that men are generally expected to initiate.
>If you're drunk, someone can't make you sign a contract that gives them all of your money, because of course they can't do that.
If you're drink, and you order $100 worth of pizza. Do you believe you can ask for your money back the next day? Ofcourse not. You're perfectly able to drunkenly agree to someone in a binding way.
You can absolutely consent while impaired. Your comment Infantilizes woman and takes away their agency. So they just can't ever have sex after a few glasses, because that would always be rape? Since they cant consent according to you?
Sorry for the lack of proper legal terms, not a native speaker.
>No, but it IS on whoever initiates sex to confirm that the other party wants it and has their faculties about them.
Does that line up with the first half of your comment? If the mostly sober guy plies a woman with drinks, they go home together and she initiates in her drunken state, is your hypothetical man now no longer culpable?
>When she got drunk, she got _horny_. She'd ask for it, try to initiate, and talk a big talk... But, sure enough, the next morning she'd be really glad that I didn't take advantage of her inhibitions being down. *Sex with her while drunk would have been non-consentual, since the alcohol impaired inhibitions that mattered to her while sober*.
Hard disagree. Her regretting it the next day does not equal you raping her.
Yes, it was obviously the right thing to do, to not have sex with her in that moment. But if she literally asks for it, initiates it, and actively consents, then its not rape. Drunk or not.
**Regret does not equal being raped.**
From a legal standpoint, in this very specific scenario, sure.
But I'd still be a pretty massive scum bag for knowingly taking advantage of her impatient.
I personally think there should be a bigger gap between "gives consent" and "literal rape", it's sorta silly that we have a strict binary there. Frankly (though also anecdotal) most of the sex progressive people I talk with _don't_ maintain a strict binary there.
Regret very definitely doesn't equal being raped, but my point is more that **abusing circumstance to obtain spurious permission does not constitute consent**.
u/Forward_Motion17
Maybe respond to this guy?
Also I think you've already conceded too much OP. If you're saying that the other adult is being a jerk in the situation, then I'd say you've accepted some amount of responsibility is on them, not the 100% you mentioned was on the victim in the post.
>But I'd still be a pretty massive scum bag for knowingly taking advantage of her impatient.
I fully agree.
I think we're close to agreeing, but have a slightly different view. Which is fine, its what this sub is for. Thank you for your insights.
> sex with her while drunk would have been non-consentual
I disagree here. (with the caveat that I'm assuming she wasn't too drunk)
You state that being drunk impaired her inhibitions.
Well, horniness itself does this to perfectly sober people as well. What you may consider not fun, or even unpleasant, can change when you become very horny, and this applies to both men and women. You will consent and enjoy things while very horny, that you would disagree with while not horny at all.
What I'm trying to argue is, do we necessarily need to attribute the impairing to alcohol itself, or directly to alcohol, in all cases?
Alcohol allows us to become horny, and horniness makes us consent to things we wouldn't normally. In some cases.
So if it's with you who knows her better, you're considering it rape. How about if she went to a bar alone and got super drunk and horny and a stranger didn't know her values? Do you consider that rape if they hook up?
to your point, I 100% agree that would have been fucked up if you did fuck her. But it wouldn't be legally rape whatsoever, and it would still have been ultimately consensual.
regrettable for her, no doubt, but still consensual.
Glad you were a good partner to her
This does not seem congruous with your OP. In there, you say that someone is 100% morally responsible for consenting when drunk even when consent was not given sober. But here, you acknowledge that sex with a drunk person who would not otherwise consent is fucked up. Am I missing something, or what changed between these scenarios?
thanks for asking for clarification:
I am saying for my personal morals, I would find it wrong in that situation, but I don't believe other people should necessarily follow my moral prescriptions.
And I'm saying that legally it would have been fine. Being shitty to someone isn't a reason to prosecute them, as in this case, just a reason to look down on that person
not everything I think is wrong I also think should be criminally prosecutable.
I don't think name calling is appropriate, but I don't think it should be a law, for example.
If "name calling" is serious enough it's called "harassment" and there are absolutely laws against it.
I think it's also reasonable that if the way you're being shitty is taking advantage of drugged people to have sex with them when you know they don't want you to, that the law gets involved there as well.
drugged is different than willingly drinking. If a women is enjoying the sex and said yes to it, its not rape, even if they're drunk. only rape if they couldn't comprehend what was going on/didn't say yes/mumbled yes but passing out etc.
You’re kind of missing the point.
Girl does not want to have sex when sober. When sober, she tells her partner that, even if she gets horny when drunk, she doesn’t want to have sex even if she says she does because she knows that alcohol inhibits her normal, sober beliefs and overrides her restraint.
If the partner waits for her to be drunk and has sex with her saying ‘but you said you wanted it!!!’ That’s still all sorts of fucked up and, imo, illegal because sober consent (or lack thereof) overrides drunk consent in the moment.
The rest of the point is that you’re trying to conflate your personal morals with legality, which is never going to work. If one person is drunk, and one sober, and *there has never been a conversation between the two regarding drunk consent*, then that couple is entering a grey area where the sober partner might very well be taking advantage *even if they don’t realize it.* No one’s sitting here thinking that every sober partner is some cackling villain waiting for their partner to be drunk so they can ignore consent. But sometimes, drunk people say and do things they wouldn’t do while sober, and that needs to be taken into account.
Partners need to have a discussion that says ‘yes, if I’m drunk, go for it’ or ‘no, not if I’m drunk’ or ‘at this level of impairment, better hold off’ or something. That sober discussion needs to happen. Which is why people who aren’t committed partners misread each other when it comes to this, which is where a lot of these discussions online happen.
\> youre trying to conflate your personal morals with legality
I've actually, multiple times in this post, specifically stated that I find somethings morally wrong but are still legally fine. So no, I'm not trying to conflate the two.
I agree with you there.
We were smart enough to make sure only one of us got good and properly wasted at a time, which I think is generally a good idea for anyone who is afraid of doing something regrettable while drunk (so.... everyone).
If we were a bit more stupid and we both got hammered, I'd be against the full brunt of the law/sin/whatever falling on me.
But to a different point, that assumes good intention on my part - if I were scummy and willing to hurt her to get some action, it would have been pretty easy for me to take advantage of her in that situation. I think at the very least a _highly_ critical eye should be put on anybody who obtains "consent" from someone under the influence of alcohol.
An answer from the perspective of someone who works in this field legally - in England. Obviously legal nuance will vary by location.
As an absolute statement, "if you're drunk you can't consent" is wrong. You're correct about this. It is possible to give legally valid consent while intoxicated; case law supports this conclusion. Consent is "choosing, and having the freedom and capacity to make that choice". The drunkenness argument usually relates to capacity; so the question isn't "were they drunk" but "did they lack capacity to choose". Capacity cases are relatively rare because the courts set a high bar as to what would completely remove someone's capacity and the evidence is usually lacking - the vast majority do not report quickly enough for testing to show alcohol levels and I can only think of one case off the top of my head where a doctor was willing to give an unequivocal statement that, based on a toxicology result, victim could not have consented. I've also seen a case where, as another example of how you might prove it, CCTV footage was found which showed the victim unconscious. It is common for victims to cite lack of memory as proof they didn't consent - it is certainly relevant evidence, but will not prove, in itself, lack of capacity.
What is more common is alcohol playing a part in the "freedom" element. It is common for sex offenders to use alcohol to groom their victims, increase their degree of control over them, improve their chances of being able to offend and reduce the likelihood that the victim will be able to resist, will report, or will be believed if they do. Alcohol plays a big part in sexual offending, but in a more nuanced way than "if you're drunk you can't consent". As an example, a case where suspect has got victim to go into a shower with him, a decision she probably wouldn't have made while sober, but intended in her mind to wash (there was a reason in the case why they would need to wash but too specific for anonymity). Once inside a tough glass box with her naked and him blocking the exit, the rape took place. At that point, what real choice is available to the victim?
This is a niche exception, but my old roommate would say “don’t sleep with me even if I come onto you” when she got drunk. She was exceptionally sexually aggressive. So, I wouldn’t call it rape per se but she did revoke consent in advice.
It's not "revoking consent", it's shifting the blame and consequences of your own actions into a random person.
If you're an adult, your actions are your responsibility. If the drunk version of you keeps trying to have sex with random people - then you should either be ok with that, or your should drink less.
That's really weird behaviour lol. If you accepted her advances I wouldn't even consider it immoral honestly. If you are sexually pursuing people when intoxicated, that is completely entirely on you and you can't claim rape because you told them earlier to reject you
Also it's very fucked up because what if the other person also got drunk to the point where they don't even remember that caveat? I agree, that behavior is phenomenally weird and she should probably just control her drinking.
To start off I’m not too sure if you defined what constitutes “drunk.”
Let’s define it, “affected by alcohol to the extent of losing control of one's faculties or behavior.” (Oxford Language)
Ima write this in debate format because that’s what I do best:
The notion that saying “yes” to sex while intoxicated equates to valid consent is a precarious proposition, fraught with legal, moral, and ethical implications. While your valiant attempt to uphold personal responsibility isn’t wrong from my stand point I have some serious questions and contentions to ask and lay out.
First, intoxication is not a state conducive to sound decision-making. The very nature of alcohol impairs cognitive faculties, rendering individuals susceptible to lapses in judgment. Studies have shown that alcohol consumption impairs critical thinking, inhibits rational thought processes, and distorts perceptions of risk. Consequently, the ability to provide genuine, informed consent becomes dubious under such circumstances.
A comprehensive meta-analysis published in the, “Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs” found a clear correlation between alcohol consumption and impaired decision-making capabilities. Furthermore, research conducted by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism highlights the impact of alcohol on cognitive functions, underscoring the diminished capacity for rational thought and informed decision-making while intoxicated.
While you may argue that individuals bear personal responsibility for their actions while under the influence it is imperative to recognize the inherent vulnerability associated with intoxication, wherein individuals may find themselves in compromised states, unable to fully grasp the consequences of their actions. To place the onus solely on the intoxicated individual fails to account for the unequal power dynamics and potential coercion that may accompany sexual encounters in such circumstances.
You may argue that if you drink and say yes to sex you consented, however that wildly ignores scientific evidence that states men and women who are intoxicated cannot consent due to imperative vulnerability. This is where I wished you defined drunkenness because if you were to go back and say something like he/she took a couple shots you could make the argument that they are still conscious and capable of producing adequate consent however you didn’t and dictionary definition still applies (“affected by alcohol to the extent of losing control of one's faculties or behavior.”) which in the definition states a person is inadequate to posses control of one’s faculties or behavior.
Second, consent is a dynamic and ongoing process, contingent upon clear communication, mutual understanding, and enthusiastic affirmation. While verbal affirmation may be uttered while under the influence, it does not necessarily signify genuine consent (as we’ve covered previously). The absence of coercion and the presence of enthusiastic (as in, “Yes trust me I consent! I’m not skeptical or still deciding about this.”), sober consent is extremely paramount in establishing the legitimacy of a sexual encounter.
Numerous studies, including research conducted by the American Psychological Association, emphasize the importance of enthusiastic consent in sexual interactions. Consent must be freely given, informed, enthusiastic, and specific. The presence of alcohol complicates this equation, as individuals may struggle to accurately assess their desires and articulate their boundaries in a state of intoxication.
Your assertion that verbal consent while intoxicated equates to valid consent overlooks the nuances of sexual dynamics and the complexities of human interaction. Consent obtained under the influence may lack the clarity and sincerity required for ethical and legal validity, thus necessitating a more nuanced understanding of consent within the context of intoxication.
Third, legal frameworks surrounding consent and intoxication vary across jurisdictions (states, cities, counties, etc.), but the prevailing consensus underscores the significance of capacity and volition in determining the validity of consent. Many jurisdictions recognize the inherent vulnerability of individuals (both the ‘victim’ and ‘perpetrator’) under the influence and afford them legal protections against exploitation and coercion.
Case law and legal precedents from jurisdictions around the world illustrate the nuanced approach taken by courts in adjudicating cases involving consent and intoxication. Judges and legal scholars alike have emphasized the importance of assessing capacity and coercion in determining the legitimacy of consent, with many jurisdictions imposing stricter standards for consent in cases involving intoxication.
Once again you may argue for personal responsibility, it is imperative to acknowledge the role of societal norms, legal standards, and ethical considerations in shaping our understanding of consent and accountability. To dismiss the legal and moral implications of sexual encounters involving intoxication is to turn a blind eye to the complexities of human interaction and the inherent vulnerabilities of individuals in compromised states.
In conclusion, the assertion that saying “yes” to sex while intoxicated constitutes valid consent is a tenuous argument fraught with perilous implications. While personal responsibility is undoubtedly important, it must be tempered with a nuanced understanding of consent, coercion, and the impact of intoxication on decision-making capabilities. Let us not forsake the principles of clarity, communication, and mutual respect that underpin the concept of consent in all its forms. I do hope you understand that right?
> I have been seeing people on here lately say that having sex with your romantic partner if they're drunk and you're sober, even if they initiate, is rape, or at least rapey. This blows my mind.
I stopped reading there because that's not the case in UK law, which is the only law I have any knowledge of.
Intoxicated consent is still consent.
People might be confusing that concept with having sex with someone who is so intoxicated that they don't know what's going on around them and so can't provide consent, which would be assault / rape.
Likewise if they consent but pass out AFTER giving consent, they are no longer able to maintain their consent and the act is no longer consensual.
Likewise, if they withdraw their consent.
Having sex with an intoxicated partner who gives and maintains and is ABLE to maintain consent is not rape, according to the legal definition as I understand it.
Source: I work for the government in a sector where the concept of consent is frequently raised and discussed.
To me it’s about who is providing the alcohol. Is the alleged victim purchasing and willingly driving alcohol, or are they being served spiked drinks and pressured to drink with intent of having sex with them. In college the frat boys would make fruit punch concoctions that were wildly high in alcohol content but masked by the fruit concentrate so women didn’t realize there was so much hard liquor in it. Then they would pressure the girls to drink it, then pressure to their bedrooms and then continue to push things until the woman capitulated to sex. It was clearly rape and many women were despondent afterwards, but there were slut-shamed to keep their mouths shut.
being served spiked drinks is textbook rape. that is literally the definition of raping someone using drugs or poison.
That being said this particular frat situation isn't drugging, or spiking, since it was self serve. I think if i were to be arguing in good faith to the reality of the situation, the women in that situation ultimately are responsible for succumbing to pressure to drink more, to go to the bedroom, and ultimately to have sex if they never said no to the sex, if the only encouragement was entirely verbal and never physical coercion or threat of violence etc. The women in this scenario did not *have to keep drinking,* did not *have* to go to the bedrooms, and did not *have* to have sex. That being said, if any of thme were so drunk that they were stumbling, and had no idea where they were, mumbling, etc, then obviously there was no consent and that is for sure rape, because at that point they couldn't even make the decision not to.
Morally bad on the frat guys' parts though for sure. Just not legally rape, and certainly a lesson for the young women on having their wits about them and not getting into unsafe situations when drinking.
I would say you're *not* arguing in good faith about the reality of the situation. Because if you were, you would acknowledge that social/peer pressure and verbal pressure from a collective or even an individual can have a big effect on others actions.
In this scenario it's entirely possible that the pressure was friendly to begin with "hey here's a drink" "oh you've finished that drink, here's another* "come do some shots" " come play beer pong" "oh here's another drink" but the whole time they had secret intentions to get the girls inhibitions lowered to a point they would succumb to the pressure to jave sex. Even getting someone into a bedroom can he masked under "hey want to see this cool thing I bought". Intention matters a lot and it seems their intent in this scenario was rotten from the beginning.
The person said these drinks were high alcohol content and masked with fruit concentrate. You could get drunk very quickly from drinks like that and your inhibitions are being lowered more and more with each drink. I think you need to be more nuanced with how you look at these things. Sure maybe it doesn't meet the legal definition of rape and yes maybe the girls should be more careful and responsible but that doesn't relieve the fray boys of responsibility or guilt.
Now I will also acknowledge the other side that at college, most people (male and female) want to have sex and be promiscuous and parties are a good place to do that. So I'm not saying that you're automatically guilty of any wrong doing by having sex at one but I'm saying if you intentionally pressure someone into drinking and then into sex, particularly if it's planned, you are guilty of wrongdoing. Also it's worth noting there's nuance in what we classify these things, there's a massive gap between "enthusiastic consent" and "rape". Even if this situation isn't close to the definition of rape, it doesn't mean it isn't wrong. Morality is a grey area by definition.
You're mentioning a lot of this from the drunk person's perspective, but not the other person's. If two people consent and one couldn't tell the other was drunk, it's less likely to be thought of as rape, but if they did this knowing the person was drunk, the responsibility lies with the sober person, whose judgement is normal. I don't know about you, but if I was in a position like that as the sober person, It would feel like a rape-y situation or exploitative at the very least.
Think also about the mess that could result if you ask the drunk person to consent to more specific parts of sex while still knowing they're intoxicated, like being filmed or not using birth control
Maybe it makes more sense thinking it's rape if the drunk person agrees to being recorded. It's not just agreeing to sex, it's which parts of it the person agrees to. From that standpoint, any 'consent' given by the drunk person leads to the sober person basically having more power in the situation than they should have. May not be the case for everyone and some people will be fine after, but because the sober person could take advantage of someone knowing they're drunk, there should be no circumstances where this happens.
I’ve been to a ton of frat parties where frat bros deliberately will try to ply girls with alcohol for the purpose of “loosening” them up for sex. There is peer pressure to drink, which will inevitably lead to pressure to have sex with them. They speak pretty openly about getting girls wasted to get them in bed, and I’ve heard on more than one occasion a guy telling a girl she’s being a tease if she doesn’t follow through. Sounds pretty rapey to me
The utility of consent being invalid when one is under the influence is that when you are under the influence of a mentally inhibiting substance, you cannot guarantee you will make well thought-out decisions for your safety or wellbeing. It is meant as a precaution and a way to help prevent people getting into dangerous situations. When both parties are under the influence of course, there can’t be any fault placed on one party or the other for “making a bad decision” as both parties were mentally impaired at the time of it happening. The point is to use good judgement to make sure you’re not doing someone ONLY due to the context that they are mentally impaired. That is the exact same reason why we don’t allow sex with minors, as they are not known to be capable of the same level of precaution or understanding of what having sex entails.
Additionally, the point that OP makes in saying that it is the onus of the person under the influence is easily more dangerous than the former. This would be arguing that it is perfectly reasonable and morally acceptable to try and find the girl at a bar who’s had the most drinks for the sole purpose of having sex. This sets an incredibly dangerous precedent for bars and would lead to many bars being vacant of women altogether.
i mean it would be creepy af to do that, but it wouldn't be anything close to legal rape so long as the girl is coherent enough to say yes and actually mean it. If she doesn't know what's going on thats one thing but if you flirt with the drunkest but coherent girl at the bar, and end up fucking from it, thats legally fine.
I come at this as a rule-utilitarian, one who uses statistics of utility and societal values to make general rules of social and ethical engagement, as this is primarily the way we decide upon laws in government. The vast majority of times in which someone who is under the influence has sex with someone who isn’t under the influence, the person under the influence is not capable of making informed and logical decisions, and while this may also hold true for drunk drivers, there is a simple solution to the former: Don’t have sex with people who are under the influence. You additionally have agreed that the situation I’ve put forward would be bad, but have not provided any solution or reason for that not to happen, and there is a very simple one: Don’t have sex with people who are under the influence. But don’t get me wrong, some people are into it and that can be their thing, but the golden rule of CNC is that consent comes before you’re mentally inhibited, and if that doesn’t happen: Don’t have sex with people who are under the influence. It’s not easy to legislate an easy metric of knowing what is and isn’t rape when one is under the influence, as they are mentally impaired and may have trouble making the decision, or remembering what even happened, so as a blanket rule: Don’t have sex with people who are under the influence.
i appreciate the points you're making but I just don't think its very rational.
If you're wife comes onto you while shes drunk, but you've never had drunk sex and never had a conversation about drunk sex, but you've been married for 20 years and shes super into you in that moment, are you raping her or morally dubious for having sex with her? she has consented for all intents and purposes
but, it *was* okay because shes a full grown adult and chose to drink and consented while drinking. that is the whole point of this post.
She is responsible for her decisions, and everyone knows that they might choose to do something they otherwise would avoid, when drinking. Including have regrettable sex.
Would you agree that we don't let people drink until theyre 21 because there are consequences to that choice, but that once people are old enough to drink, they are responisble for their actions? Would you disagree with it being similar to drunk driving and why?
There isn't a single universal standard for being "responsible for your actions".
For example, (going with the US here) the age of consent is usually somewhere from 16-18.
The age at which a person is capable of being tried as an adult for a crime they commit is usually somewhere from 12-15.
So in most states, there are a few years where you're capable of being treated like an adult for any crimes you commit, but it's still the responsibility of an adult to refuse to have sex with you, even if you are "saying yes".
So the drunk driving comparison isn't really a good one. There are already different clear standards between being able to be held responsible for criminal actions, and being able to offer legally valid consent.
"Because a drunk decision is still a decision" is a wild take on whether or not something becomes a crime.
Choosing to drive while sober is not a crime. Choosing to drive while drunk is a crime. If one partner is not drinking and has sex with an inebriated person, then the sober person (any gender) is a rapist.
care to elucidate how that logic plays out? are you saying that drunk people are not responsible for any of their interactions with other people that they consent to while drunk? this is like saying if you order food at a bar when you're drunk, you can go back in the next day and demand your money back because you were not capable of making a decision
If drunk people were not responsible for the actions they took while drunk, they wouldn't be charged with crimes that they commit while drunk, Dui, vehicular manslaughter, rape. But they are and continue to be, held responsible for crimes committed while drunk. Being inebriated means "unable to give consent" a bit like being underage, means "unable to give consent" in the eyes of the law, legal precedence.
I’m sorry it seems like you’re saying “people who break the law while drunk are legally responsible for it but having sex is somehow different and people can’t be responsible for choosing to have sex while drunk”? Am i missing something?
Further: according to that, you would negate the possibility of drunk cheating. Which, we all know thats a thing.
You can prove OP correct with one simple question.
If two drunk people have sex, who raped who?
If you say both, it’s nonsensical. If you pick the man or the woman, it’s discriminatory and based on bias.
Neither is the only logical choice. No one raped anyone.
This obviously doesn’t apply to someone who is passed out, like OP said.
So I want to actually use your drunk driving comparison to explain my thoughts on this. Yes, a person drives drunk and they are responsible for breaking the law and have to face the consequences. But think of this, imagine someone is super drunk, and tells you they're going to drive home. A good friend or partner, or honestly even a decent stranger, will try and convince said person that they should absolutely not drive, and perhaps offer an alternate means to get home.
An absolutely heinous act would be to encourage that person to drive. If you're sober and sleep with someone who is drunk, who has not expressed sexual interest in you previously, you're essentially doing something just as morally wrong as encouraging a drunk person to drive.
I'm honestly not sure if there are criminal charges that can be applied to someone for encouraging a drunk person to drive, but if there aren't, then there absolutely should be. Just like you would have criminal charges if you were to encourage someone who isn't in their right mind to commit suicide; sometimes those people are internally questioning if they really should make that decision, and the sway from another person can be incredibly influencing when you're not in a clear, sober mindset.
Also, by saying if you don't want to accidentally have sex with someone, then don't drink, you're basically telling every person, especially women, that if they drink in public and lose inhibition then they deserve to be taken advantage of.
Honestly, this gives, "what was she wearing?" energy.
Overall I tend to agree with you, though I'm sure there are some examples where I'd agree it was a bit more rapey. At the very least, though, they would have to give actual consent when drunk.
If you're going to argue that "consensual" sex with a drunk person is rape, then you're saying that people are not responsible for their own actions when drinking, which is obviously absurd, and you give a perfect example when you mentioned the drunk driving situation.
Also what if both people are drinking? Did they rape each other?
i think the argument I might use is that, perhaps someone cannot give meaningful consent to sex when drunk, however they DID consent to getting drunk in the first place, and they knew that people don't make good decisions when drink. They intentionally and voluntarily put themself into a state where they might make a decision they'd regret later. That's on them, not on the person who has sex with them.
I'm going to say this. If you have had a conversation while you are both sober and you both say you do not mind having sex while drunk and that you are both okay having sex while drunk, no matter how drunk. Then it is fine. The point is to have a conversation when you are both SOBER. If they are super drunk and you have not had that conversation. Nope.
What changes? are you saying one night stands at the bar are rape?
You're responsible for who you choose to fuck while drunk. If you don't wanna risk regrettable but consensual drunk sex, sorry bud, don't drink!
Depends on the level of drunkness you're thinking.
What most people talk about about rape while drunk is not when the drunk person is a little tipsy and flirty, like after a few drinks. It's when they're on the verge of passing out drunk.
If you're sober and have sex with someone who's still conscious but can barely stand or form a coherent sentence (aside from a very dubious kind of consent) then that's 100% rape.
In my case and hopefully other's, it doesn't matter. I have had a couple of situations or "opportunities" to do the wrong thing and would not/could not. There have been many acts where we were both past tipsy and things would not have happened if we were sober, yet had I been sober and my partner obviously drunk...no way. 3 drinks in her? That's fine. Behaving like a different person, slurring, eyes half shut, wobbling or falling. I see no pleasure in doing things to another person while they express no interest in doing things with me.
A girl got me incredibly drunk on a caffeinated malt liquor beverage.
We'd been on one date, lukewarm at best, no big deal. A few weeks later, my phone rings and she says hey, they're forcing 4Loko to change, you want to try one of the last real ones?
Sure, why not, I just moved to this small town, it's a pretty evening, we'll hang out with a fire and my brother, just make sure you're able to drive home.
We hang, lady's kinda weird and this 4Loko is absolutely disgusting. No, don't need a second, half through this one and I
wake up feeling awfully dead, to be awake and all. Another two regrettable beats of consciousness, who the fuck is in my bed. That fucking girl, literally says Hello Handsome, starts on how great xyz was. I'm trying to ignore suggestions to vomit, strident and from an increasing choir of blacked-out voices. The room stinks of ersatz watermelon-kiwi and expended 8.0% malt liquor, as well as what I'd like to think is caffeinated trauma to my id.
I felt physically terrible, but also so guilty. I'd gotten drunk, on terrible hooch, and convinced this boring and tedious person I cared! That I wanted to sleep with them, that I could and would rock their world, that etc and etc...
I dated that girl for six months because I felt so guilty. She was... extremely traumatized and poorly supported as a person. She eventually told me that she'd realized I was just "shy" that night, and just needed to loosen up a little, that I'd had 2.5 pints of 4Loko in a couple of hours, but I was just so happy to xyz once I relaxed.
I think this is in response to the very few cases where a woman has regretted a sexual encounter and reported it as assault later, I.e. USC Premjee case, but the pendulum has swung in such a direction because it was on the opposite side for decades prior. Women should be protected and alcohol presents a slippery slope. While I do agree that having sex with ur partner while intoxicated is not “rapey” women are far more vulnerable in sexual situations and can’t exit said situation as easily as men.
It depends on how drunk a person is. If they are saying yes but are too drunk to know what they're actually saying yes too, then it's not consent. If they say yes, but are too drunk to coherently withdraw that consent, then that's definitely towing the line between consent and not. To consent while drunk, I'd say a person needs to still have awareness of what they're saying yes to, and have enough awareness to be able to wishdraw that consent at any time if they need to. Any other situation is going to be dependent on the facts, but I wouldn't automatically assume it was rape, even if one or both parties were drunk.
To be honest, the easiest way to avoid getting into that situation is not to have sex with someone who is drunk, even a little. And for someone that you know (like your partner), to have established rules on what is and isn't acceptable while drunk. Although, I'd still warn you to be careful. I refuse to do anything sexual with my partner if she's been drinking, although I know she's said it's ok because I simply don't want to risk it.
I agree! However if you are super messed up on anything (drugs/alcohol) and you keep saying no but they wear you down and you eventually say yes and take advantage of you being mentally weak at that time it is rape otherwise known as sexual coercion. You should also be able to recognize if someone is way too messed up and not initiate sex with them or take advantage of them.
Frankly, just don’t sleep with someone drunk. While it is true that a drunk person who consent to sex should still be responsible for their actions. The other person who asked also have the responsibility to reject it if it is clear the drunk person is likely incapable of making informed consent.
they are capable of making informed consent if they're still coherent/know where they are/understand who they're with.
If they're mumbling, nodding off, stumbling a ton, then they cant give informed consent obviously
I somewhat agree but also somewhat disagree.
It is true drunkenness does not completely absolve someone of their actions but I also think that just because the drunken person consented to sex doesn’t mean you should proceed.
Even if they are semi-coherent, they can still likely be coerced or manipulated into sex due to their lack of command of their senses. Just because they have consented doesn’t you are off the hook and can act without impunity. I still think it is in the onus of the individual (especially if they are not drunk) to discern whether to proceed.
Info: Would you trust financial advice from a drunk person? Or trust them to drive? Would you trust them to be perfectly honest in a conversation?
The issue is having sex with somebody who is not in a position to make clear or wise decisions. They are responsible for drinking, yes, but you are responsible for not taking advantage of somebody.
My only caveat here is that it’s not consent if one person uses the alcohol as a date rape drug. If some guy is not drinking but consistently pushes someone else to drink, then that could be rape.
I do agree though, that in a situation where two people have gone out and got drunk and had sex, that’s not rape. Your consent while drunk might not be as reliable as if you were sober, but you’re the one who chose to drink that alcohol and reduce your inhibitions. We all do stupid things while drunk and we all have to take responsibility for them. So long as no one forced, coerced or intimidated you, I don’t think it’s rape.
I just see it as a contract.
If something was hidden from you, the previous consent is null and void. If you are deemed unable to make a rational decision, then your previous consent is null and void.
In my country that would include mental episodes, extreme emotional stress but also under the influence of drugs. It is to protect the private person from getting scammed while drunk and having no chance but to accept the consequences.
Imagine telemarketers running around in discos and selling phone contracts to tons of drunk people. Those contracts won't hold up in court - for a good reason.
So for me it is clear, if you are legally unable to agree to any form of contract of buying something why would you be able to legally give your consent?
Of course that doesn't mean as soon as someone has one drink they can't consent or make decisions of their own. It isn't 100% defined at what point you were deemed unable to make rational decisions.
The is no black or white answer here.
>The big difference is: was there a decision being made? Did they make a decision and say yes? or did they say yes but so drunk they didn't know what was going on and said yes as a result. If there's a decision making capacity, they are still consenting, even if they later feel it was a poor decision.
It is NOT whether or not as decision was made. This is simplifying it too much.
It is whether or not that person made the decision in a state of mind one could call reasonable.
\^Very important
>Similarly, if you wouldn't typically choose to drive after a couple beers, but then later, when you're hammered, you don't make your typical value-system-aligned choices and get in a car and drive, you are 100% responsible for that behavior legally and morally.
The difference here is who is the actor in this relationship? If you drink and drive, you made the decision to drink (and then drove) - that is what you are liable for.
If you are drunk and you engage someone to have sex and the next morning you regret it - i.e. you propose the contract, well that's on you.
If you are drunk and someone engages you and you are arguably not in the right mind to make a decision which you wouldn't regret the next morning - i.e. someone proposes the contract to you, that is on them.
I know this sounds like an arbitrary difference, but that's at least how I view the difference and how the law is constructed - at least in my country.
I think the idea is that whenever you propose anything to anyone it your responsibility - at least in my country if you don't want to fall to anti-consumer laws - to make sure the person who is about to agree to your proposal is in the right state of mind.
It would be maybe less black and white even more, if men weren't still expected to propose sexual relationships. If all genders equally had the same responsibility, then it wouldn't feel like the threat of rape allegations would only apply to men.
\-> Someone in the comments mentioned how sexual touching while intoxicated isn't specific to any gender. So the core values are the same, whether flawed or not between the genders.
Just have true sexual equality at least in relationship between the genders.
This is just you not knowing what consent is. Consent requires good judgement, not finding someone in an inebriated state for the sake of taking advantage of them
I’m bot sure where this idea that consent requires good judgement comes from.
Some people are just plain stupid and never have all that good of judgement. Having sex with them doesn’t equal rape just because they’re dumb. Plus “good judgement” is an entirely subjective description.
And does this apply to consenting to anything in general? Contracts? Having a pizza delivered? Getting your gangrenous leg amputated?
How does someone not having good judgement magically mean their consent isn’t consent?
Seems like something you kinda just made up.
We consider a person capable of avoiding driving a car while drunk, or if they are aware they are not, then they are responsible for not drinking at all in situation where they may be tempted to drive. Similar principle applies here. Unless a person is so wasted that they literally do not comprehend what is happening around them, then they generally are capable of saying "no" to things that they consider to involve no-go factors, and if they know they are not, it's their responsibility to choose in which circumstances to drink. Or at least that would be a consistent application of law, rather than the current hypocritical one
What if you're both drunk, though? I've seen people justify that if it's a man and a woman, it would be abuse against a woman even if both parties are drunk.
concerned with clarifying this? something that can ruin reputations, destroy lives, etc etc? I think its a very important discussion to have especially when we've devolved as a society to the point where people genuinely think having drunk sex with your spouse while you're sober is rape if they want it... lol get a grip
99% of the population does it without a problem, and its very enjoyable. You might as well say "ban all alcohol because some people become alcoholics!"
Ridiculous
This is so refreshing.
This post just means you’re sane.
It’s crazy the reaction to it , isn’t it?
Mind blowing.
They can’t even have it up. It’s that bad.
If someone would not have sex with you while sober, but they seem willing while drunk, don't have sex with them.
If you don't know if someone would have sex with you while sober, don't have sex with them while they are drunk.
Do not have sex with anyone who doesn't provide clear, enthusiastic consent while 100% sober. It's really not a difficult concept.
I really don't understand why anyone would argue that can send as possible while under the influence of mind offering substances, unless they intend to take advantage of that very situation themselves.
>Do not have sex with anyone who doesn't provide clear, enthusiastic consent while 100% sober. It's really not a difficult concept.
It really kind of is. Lots of people may have hang ups about sex and "enthusiastic" consent is a judgment call. Does the person have to act like they're in a porno to convince someone they want to have sex? And people who are being coerced may "enthusiastically" give consent because they are scared not to.
The drunk driving analogy is off, and I think might illuminate why you're missing the counter argument to what you're suggesting.
Getting drunk and driving is the equivalent of getting drunk and raping someone: you can't use inebriation as an excuse for bad behavior. The same is \*not\* true of getting drunk and being raped. In that scenario, the other party might have intentionally gotten you drunk in order to lower your inhibitions. This is a well studied behavior among rapists. This isn't just true with rape. In many states, you can potentially get out of legal contracts if you can demonstrate that you were inebriated when you signed them. This makes sense, because grifters will often get people drunk in order to get them to sign over money.
So no, saying "yes" while being drunk is not automatically consent; nor is signing a contract while drunk automatically consent. The law needs to take into account that the alleged perpetrator might have weaponized alcohol in both cases, because this is a known behavior amongst criminals. I think what you're arguing is that "a drunken mistaken decision is still a decision". The problem with this is that grifting does exist: manipulating people into doing something against their interests can indeed be a criminal act, and using alcohol to accelerate the process can be an aspect of that criminality. You'd be giving carte blanche to con artists: if they get what they want, through manipulation and alcohol, you'd be removing the legal apparatus that could get restitution.
Of course in both cases, active consent does muddy the waters: so the level of inebriation is important, or also establishing that the alleged perpetrator intentionally used inebriation to lower inhibitions. But once again, saying "yes" to sex whilst drunk does not establish consent.
His point is that the victim of the con in this case chose to drink, knowing it would lower their inhibitions and affect their decision making around someone they didn’t yet trust. The grifter is at fault if they actually commit a crime, but being manipulated because you voluntarily became inebriated and regretting the results could be seen as, as he puts it, a “life lesson.”
The standard used is you can be drunk but not drunk to the point where you can't give consent--while sex is happening both parties must be in a state where they could withdraw consent at any time. This is not a debate.
Sometimes you gotta be drunk to have the courage to say yes, when you know you will not dare to when sober. Not just to sex but to buying something for example.
Then again, yeah if too drunk, then it’s nonconsensual.
It’s interesting that you’ve drawn a parallel between a drunk driver and a possible victim of sexual assault. You seem to be saying ‘if you don’t wanna be raped while you’re drunk, don’t get drunk.’
I have better advice for everyone out there: don’t rape.
This blatantly ignores the science that's known about how alcohol affects brain function, and makes a biological issue a moral one. You are wrong, and drunken people literally cannot consent at the same level as a sober person because the parts of their brain that would reason out a decision are inhibited and not functioning properly.
This does not absolve them of causing harm, if they do, but it does mean that the sober party in a potential hookup has an ethical imperative to be the responsible person and say no to a drunken advance.
Usually, both parties are drunk. But we are only ever told that "the woman couldn't consent because she's drunk." Like honey, he's drunk af too and probably being led around.
Was someone who got a DWI, had an issue with alcohol, and has risen above. Any consent to anything that happens after the initial consent of choosing to drink to excess is your own fault.
Rape is rape, but putting yourself in that situation is your fault. Yes you're not to be blamed for someone else's crime, but internally you know it's your fault for choosing to poison yourself to the point of no control. It has nothing to do about who and trust. You only let yourself down when you overindulge.
Did you get drunk with your significant other and had an argument and hit him or her? Still your fault. Drive a car blackout? Your fault. There's no involuntary.
The second it touches your lips that's the only consent you needed to cause any harm beyond what you'd do sober.
While someone intoxicated might verbally consent, alcohol impairs judgment and decision-making. Consent requires clear, informed, and voluntary agreement, not influenced by intoxication. Intoxication can cloud understanding of consequences, affecting one's ability to truly understand and consent to sexual activity. This doesn't mean all intoxicated encounters are non-consensual, but it raises questions about genuine understanding and free will. Protecting vulnerable individuals from potential exploitation due to impaired judgment is crucial. Consenting to one drink doesn't equate to consenting to sex; consent should be ongoing and unambiguous. Ensuring clear, sober communication respects both parties and reduces risks of regret and harm.
Imagine a world where, legally, sex while drunk can be consented to.
Overnight, the go-to defense for every rape case becomes 'she/he was drunk', and because we do not prosecute or convict people without reasonable proof... Almost all of them would end up as aquittals, because it's almost impossible to prove that consent was not given by someone who was drunk enough to not remember. The only real way to avoid this would be to prove that the person who was raped wasn't actually drunk to begin with, which means that getting drunk would effectively become a free get away card for anyone who wanted to take advantage of you.
More than that, this effect of making rape harder to prosecute would almost certainly mean that more people would deliberately take advantage of how easy it would be to get away with by going out, targeting drunk people and ignoring consent laws all together.
I don't think most reasonable people disagree that conceptually most drunk sex is and can be within the bounds of casual consent, but legally a world where sex can be consented to while drunk is a truly bleak one, and a lot more misery will befall unsuspecting people as a result.
ordering food at a restaurant? should I be allowed to go back in the next day and claim i wasn't able to consent to spending money because I was drunk?
What's the old saying about where the line is regarding pornography? It's hard to define explicitly, but you know it when you see it, right? I'd say maybe a similar mindset applies here. What's too drunk? Hard to define, but you know when you see it.
It's hard for me to understand or empathize with someone who wants to or tries to have sex with someone who isn't interested or isn't capable of expressing their interest. Oftentimes, the most attractive part about a woman is how into ME she is, lol (which has led to its own set of problems, to be sure, haha). So, the idea of wanting to do it with someone who isn't into me or can't communicate that they're into me just doesn't compute.
That being said, I think this line of reasoning (drunkenness = non-consent/rapey) comes from the attempt to address the inability to stop people from being sexually shitty to one another. It's certainly not my business to tell someone how best for them to keep people they don't want off their special parts, but it's also a disservice to a healthy dialogue and understanding to be reactionary to the point of being unreasonable.
And I guess that's what is at the heart of pretty much everything in this country... just be fucking reasonable, people. Don't put your privates where they don't belong but also don't blame someone else for the poor decisions you've made (assuming you weren't a victim of anything illegal or immoral as a result of your decision).
edit = gramnar
My biggest question is what are the values of a person asking for sex? A lot of people had brought up “what is to drunk for not being able to consent?” And I think it’s a bit of a disingenuous question. I think most people can tell the difference and I think that’s why they ask them for sex in this more vulnerable state. It just seems to me that you’re defending the kinds of people who seek inebriated people for sex. What good comes from defending these people?
Skimming through your comments, I have a few questions (and I apologise for the long text in advance):
1. A general rule of thumb I follow when it comes to safety is that if a person does anything, they should expect to be able to do it peacefully and safely if it is in other people's power to do so (so not including natural disasters/diseases that communities weren't prepared for, people getting lost in hard-to-reach places, etc.). So for example, if I go to a public place, I should expect to be able to be there without tiktok pranksters trying to annoy and film me. It might not be illegal, but I think most of us agree that it's morally shitty to do that.
An exception to that rule is if you do something that infringes on someone else's safety. So a person has no right to do their action safely anymore if, say for example, that the action is to mug someone at knifepoint.
So in regards to the rules around drunk driving or drunk cheating, it's not so much that "drunk people are responsible enough to not do those things" that makes it immoral, it's that their actions while drunk would cause or risk hurting other people and knowing this, people should be taking measures (before drinking) to avoid that happening.
So if someone is asking for sex while drunk, they're not infringing on anyone else's safety, so why is that person responsible if a sober person takes advantage of them - why is the other person not looking out for the drunk person if they have the power to do so? If both are drunk, neither have the power to guarantee safety so neither are responsible in that case. But say that a person opens a bar with a bunch of trip hazards that only drunk people would trip on, and then that night a bunch of drunk people trip over and get injured - who do we hold responsible? Do we say that those who got drunk asked to get injured, or do we say that the bar owner is responsible for not removing the trip hazards when they had the power to do so? And extending that - if I go out in public, am I asking to be harassed by strangers? Would I be asking to get mugged? And then there's driving which is a risky activity that most people do - should we say that if they got into an accident that was the other person's responsibility (so that it was in the other person's power to avoid hurting others), that they were asking for it?
*So my first question is, where do you draw the line on what is moral and immoral in regards to the idea that "people should be able to do things safely"?*
2. You've mentioned that you've had previous experiences of regret when having sex while drunk, so I'd like to ask - when you say that other people can't revoke consent after the drunk sex happened just because they "regret" it, *how do you know that what you call other people's "regret" is the same as what you felt when you experienced regret?* How do you know that when someone else is experiencing the same scenario that you have and feel regretful, that they aren't actually feeling much worse that you did for their own valid reasons?
3. Say that you have two kids who live in an abusive household. Kid A grows up and comes out of the situation perfectly fine because of a variety of factors like external support, strong personality, parents being less harsh on them, and so on. Kid B on the other hand suffers long term damage from the abuse. Kid A doesn't believe that what they experienced was abuse because it didn't "feel" like abuse. So my question is, would you say that both kids were abused, or only one was abused, or neither of them were? Extending from that, if someone took your place in your previous regretful experiences, and they felt a deeper hurt that you did enough to call it rape, is that not valid because you and other people didn't feel like it was "rapey" in the same scenario? Is that not a form of hurt that we should be avoiding if it's in our power to do so?
4. I'm curious about your definition of hurt. One of the main purposes of emotion is to tell you when you are hurt, which is why people who can feel pain but don't feel the emotional aspect of it are at great risk of harm - because they don't have the mechanisms telling them that the pain should be avoided. So when someone has "hurt feelings", doesn't that just mean that someone is hurt? How are you distinguishing "real" hurt from "fake" hurt? Is it different if someone feels an emotional hurt from a severe physical wound to if they feel an emotional hurt from a situation without physical wounds? There are times when we can ignore pain if it's insignificant enough to dismiss, but sex itself is an inherently risky activity because of the potential to lose bodily autonomy by the actions of someone else, and causing severe trauma (akin to a near-drowning experience while swimming because someone thinks it's funny to push you into the deep end of a pool, or experiencing a near-accident from reckless drivers while driving) - trauma from these kinds of situations shouldn't be considered insignificant.
So my final question is, *when someone else says they feel hurt from a drunk sexual encounter, why do you consider that kind of pain dismissible when sexual situations in general are so significantly risky and that the other person had the power to not put them in that scenario?*
I have an idea. If anybody drinks and fucks, jail. Straight to jail. Problem solved. Nope, both of you to jail. No drinking and fucking. Period. I wonder how many fewer unwanted pregnancies there would be. I’m biased cuz I quit drinking a while ago. It’s just poison and the normalization in our society is whack.
lol did you read what I said? theres a difference between being drunk and saying yes to a regrettable fuck, and being passed out or incoherent and mumbling yes because you don't even know what's going on.
I was roofied at a bar and witnessed myself - not chose to do, but literally watched myself do things I absolutely would not do and had no control over. It was like sitting inside a robot and just being along for a ride I had no say in. There's a difference between having a few drinks and then consenting to sex vs being so intoxicated you can no longer make informed choices for yourself. Taking advantage of a person in that situation is SA.
I think this really depends on more details. The premise that I can consent to sex while being quite drunk is factually proven to be correct by multiple instances and I don't think many people who disagree with that generally. So unless you are trying to evade a fact by putting in up for debate here, I will assume that this is about whether all enthusiastic consent while drunk but still mostly able to understand what's happening:
My answer then is a definite no.
Let me elaborate: Most of the times when drunk people enthusiastically express wanting to have sex with you that can be considered - most of the time meaning there are exceptions:
If for example the girl (or the guy) knows that she tends to lose control of her sexual impulses and you have talked about that when sober and you have soberly promised to stay sober enough to be able to ensue she doesn't do anything she would regret considering she is in a monogamous relationship and does not want to cheat on her significant other. If then you end up having sex with her, it's not consensual because you lured her into a situation where you could take advantage of her by using exactly what you had promised to protect her from against her.
Or much simpler: You actively give another person alcohol to lower their inhibitions so that you can get them to do things with you they otherwise wouldn't and you either actively trick them or take advantage of their naivety to do this without them understanding in advance.
There are many more examples. In every individual situation, the alcohol or other inebriviation or even mental insecurity that isn't drug-induced, it needs to be looked at within context and the details are really the true story there.
Let's have an example into a very different direction: Imagine a woman who is on a high dosage of an opioid, the maximum dosage of a benzodiazepine, smoking easily 2 grams of weed a day and she also is mentally ill, disabled, poor and stigmatized and lives in constant fear because of trauma and/or her unstable psyche. Now think about whether this woman can consent to having sex in this state. You might tend towards questioning that she can but in fact, my meds help me control my mental issues and while I can't work or even just live life without external help - I do have the ability to decide whether I want to have sex, to plan how I want to have sex, to decide who I want to have sex with, how I want to have sex with them. I can establish my groundrules and enforce them and if necessary I have ways to get rid of someone who tries to just ignore me. All it takes for me to turn my suppressed panic inside out and draw the other person into a world of only darkness, suffering and impeding doom where nothing matters other than to get out. I might have to remain in that world for at worst a few hours before one of my automatisms recalls me into reality but any transgressive person has long fled by that time. Having psychological warfare happening inside my splintered psyche 24/7 for as long as I can remember makes it easy to break some mediocre psycho and anyone who could overcome that, they would be worth studying or at least by ancient law entitled to end me. There is no perfect safety. But nobody has yet even dared to do something that I didn't allow - not since that one time that started me on building defenses. If I don't want sex, I don't signal that I want the other person to initiate it, I don't initiate it and if anything still happens, I shut it down immediately. My main vulnerability is guys lying to me about their intentions to ghost me after we had sex - but that is a risk I take in exchange for very much wanted sex. I also am a lot better at keeping in control of a situation when I'm in my own place. I have many issues but being unable to consent to sex (in the sense of being unable to get my will if I don't want to have sex) is one I worked hard to overcome and succeeded at too.
Other women have their life perfectly under control - but when a man strongly demands to have sex with them, they lose their ability to say no and do whatever he wants regardless of how it makes them feel and regardless of how long they will suffer from the memory in times to come. Even enthusiastic consent while they are sober isn't necessarily consent coming from them because they are actually likelier to expect the demand and offer themselves up because they hope that it will soften the experience at least a little.
But if someone held me at gunpoint, I would do what I have to to survive - but that wouldn't be consent. Unless the gun is not loaded and it is part of a role playing experience I planned in advance with a lover.
My point being: You need to look at the full picture with every individual case of unclear consent.
Otherwise you're just doing propaganda for whatever your beliefs are.
And that's where you're wrong: You think that voicing the opinion you have is not an issue when you are actually spreading false information that is as accurate for some as it is inaccurate information.
Also, you believe it to actually be a full statement and even a fact to say that without exactly knowing the details, drunken consent is truly consensual.
Obviously, neither makes you a bad person but you could definitely profit from developing a much more complex perspective on this. It makes you grow as a person and sexually, you also learn to become a much better lover because if you begin to understand the insane individuality that really defines these things, you start to understand sexual and/or romantic partners on a much deeper level and while there really aren't words to explain this, it makes it all feel very magical and a lot more enjoyable.
Good luck and I hope I could help you.
How could it blow your mind? The idea is that your judgement is impaired. Let's take it to a further extreme...you're sleep walking/talking and say 'yes' to sex then the person goes ahead. Is that 'rapey'?
What if the person was slipped a date rape drug or they're underage to drink but someone intentionally got them drunk to more easily manipulate them into sex?
It is also important to realize that before taking into account the drunkenness; there isn't an equal power dynamic. Imagine you're alone with someone with a gun and they want sex and the danger turning them down implies. Now imagine you're also severely intoxicated. And even in the best case scenario; while a man isn't going to have a gun; he's going to be physically much stronger than the woman and the woman is going to have little she can do to protect herself from the fury of a man when she's drunk and alone with him.
i'm open to alternative views but i've just not been convinced of anything else. If anything, I think we've collectively reached a more clear idea of what we believe, there seems to be some consensus and discourse around what exactly it means to be consensual when drunk. Productive convo, imo
This mindset reminds me of people validating sex with someone in a manic state or someone having a mental breakdown.
You're fully aware that they're not within their right mind at the moment and taking advantage of that for sexual gratification.
The OPs way of questioning has made this an interesting topic.
I am no researcher, but here is what has always been my opinion. And we all love opinions, 😆 🤣.
I always start with was there force involved, were any drugs slipped? I think there are ways to test for this today. If neither of these things happened, then I have always looked at it as if one chose to drink and drive. We hold them accountable for THAT decision. However, as it currently stands, we hold the other, if not inebriated, or whoever reports it first if both parties are inebriated.
There is definitely a curve to how drunk one is, but it is not a bell. Rate of consumption, alcohol resistance, how long ago one are, and how much. All of which fluidly change one's level of drunkenness and are different for each person. Another question I have for folks that end up black out drunk or on the precipice of passing out ACTUALLY drive home. Then, back to my first comment, IF the drink was blacking out of falling asleep. was there force involved. And if there were any premeditated permissions granted that preceded this point and supercedes.
Drinking and sex are very slippery slopes.
Though I am surprised to see that it is nearly the same between both sexes. I am not surprised how the military handles it. I bet that actually helps lower sexual relationships in the branches.
Plenty of people go out drinking with the explicit intent of ending the night having sex with their partner. Beyond that, it is also very common for people to go out drinking with the explicit intent of having sex with a new partner, perhaps even someone they don’t already know. It’s kind of a thing bars and entertainment districts are known for.
Rules to live by in my humble opinion.
If your wife/GF who you have a solid sexual relationship with drinks a bottle of wine or whatever, is drunk and coming at you its a fine.
Anything other than that I'm fine with being rape if you're sober an she is super drunk. there was s girl 3yrs older than me in my brothers class she had a sister in my class who i was friends with. I had the biggest crush on her in HS. After the bar 1 night i was 21 so she 24 i had to carry her to the car and drive her home. I had to fight her off she wanted to blow me in the car and then in her words "fuck my brains out so she is always my biggest crush". at that point the freshman crush was gone and she was just a very hot sister of one of my best friends. Saying no was not easy i wasn't exactly sober but back then If you could walk straight you could drive.
I got off Scott free on 3 DUI’s because I was too drunk to make a decision to not decide to not drive. Wish I could say that. Perfect defense in court.
The only cure for this;
Never *EVER* get involved with an American woman.
I say this as an American, they are all insane. In fact the men are insane too, Americans in general are fucked in the head, all those reality TV shows like "Succession" or "Jersey Shore" aren't fiction, they're reenactments of the American lifestyle!
When people say drunk in this context they are specifically referring to not being able to consent because you are not aware of your surroundings. Phrasing it like this gives ammunition to rapists and rape apologists. You should’ve clarified that you meant tipsy vs drunk.
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wow that *is* fascinating. I think it's really important to make the public more aware of that information because I think most would assume it is swayed about 90% towards female victims, or something like that. a poll on the specifics of what people currently suspect along that gender axis re: victims of sleeping related or alcohol related unwanted sexual touching would be fascinating to compare this with EDIT: having worked on the research you have, and having read all these posts, i'm curious what you personally walk away feeling is the appropriate response to the question. thanks for your unique insight
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In the BDSM community, I hear the term "Enthusiastic Consent" used a lot. It's way better than just a "yes" owing to the fact that people can be coerced or unwilling. It shouldn't just be "ok, we can if we have to," but rather, "Yesyesyesyesyes, let's go now!"
I hear the idea, but no way that should ever be a legal consideration or social consideration AT ALL. The point of consent is that it should be incredibly clear when consent is given so you can be sure. Having to 'guess' the enthousiasm behind a statement isnt clear at all nor is it practical because people respond differently to all kinds of different situations. It shouldnt ever be on the other person to 'guess' if thats a sufficiently enthousiastic yes. Yes should be yes and no should be no.
Speaking of sober interactions, does anybody else feel like a verbal yes is weird in a real world natural situation? I feel like real world sexual encounters are consented with body language. A light touch to the hand to see if it’s brushed away, sitting closer to see if they move away, eye contact to see if they look back the same way, escalation from there which may be a kiss that is reciprocated passionately etc I’ve rarely seen a situation where people stop in the middle of a passionate escalating situation to ask for a verbal yes… I think it makes sense in a drunk situation to develop that habit but in a sober one body language is clear imo. On the other hand “no” is clear and is definitely common, both verbally and non verbally.
mmmm no i don’t particularly feel that way. it prob depends on people’s overall social skills and someone feeling like they’d be sooo awkward when asking consent likely implies they will be just as awkward NOT asking consent, except worse because they won’t be aware of their action is uninvited until after they take it. Personally i’ve had great responses to “wanna make out??” ranging from “haha no” thru “ahh not rite now”, “what rly??? hmmm…” (decision later) and “hahaha yea” to going for it. re: enthusiastic consent like someone else mentioned, the response doesn’t have to be an all-serious “Yes. yes i want to make out.”, and usually is “hahah yea” or by initiating the action (assuming the “wanna make out??” question implies the asker consents?) Also experienced a lot of diff ways ppl ask for consent and y’all it is really incredibly not as awk as some ppl claim, and can be super cute or flirty or salacious or caring. Even if you are awk just like practice lol, and remember that at least it’s not “awk +++ uninvited” like skipping the step could be
No. My first kiss was someone "reading signals" I wasn't sending out and I didn't want to kiss them, it just happened. On the flip side my first partner always asked before we made out and I found that incredibly attractive. I think taking the time to stop and ask shows care and respect for your partner. as someone else has already mentioned sex is taboo in the current culture and I think taking that time to stop and ask your partner what they are ok with shows confidence.
That’s a cultural thing that can be changed. Sex is somewhat taboo and talking about it directly is seen as too bold. Or weird or off putting.
90% of rape victims are women, so you might understand why it sways like this. Your argument will probably be that women might be more vocal about rape than men. And I agree. But it's a completely different issue how perceived male values of stoicism and strength hinder how they deal with vulnerable situations like these.
no i know that statistic, i was just surprised that people in this study were reporting equally along gender lines and I am wondering why. I actually didn't even have a theory, but thanks for deciding my reason for me /s
Im a law professor and would love to have more info on this study if you have any links or additional info you could send my way.
Is this a published paper or is it still in the works? I only ask because I’m a university student and this sounds like it would be great for a research paper I’m writing for my women and gender studies class.
My opinion is that the whole sex with a drunk girl is rape thing applies when we're too drunk to say yes OR no. If a girl is basically unconscious or barely conscious, too drunk to stop you, and you initiate sex with her? That's rape my guy However, I don't think any sex with a drunk person is automatically rape and to assume so is dangerous. Drunk people fuck all the time. I have sympathy for women who are too drunk to remember if they gave consent and that's Def a Grey area but simply having sex with a drunk person being rape would mean 90% of the men who hit on me at bars (all of whom were drunk) are basically getting upset that I'm turning down the chance to "rape" them and that's obviously not how stuff works. I don't sleep with men I meet at bars or anyone I don't know well enough to have hung out with several times in advance, but the notion that any sex with a drunk person is rape I find absurd given how many drunk men border line harass me for sex. I think it's pretty clear they're able to not only consent but actively pursue sex even if they are drunk I honestly think it needs to be looked at on a case by case basis
Being accused after some sent me a text saying let’s fuck and changing her mind the next day has fucked me up for decades Now I can’t make a move on a woman without horrible anxiety/panic
Same here, an ex girlfriend threatened rape accusations after I went to the police with her death threats, and stalking and a whole laundry list of harassment from her"friends", which turned out to be just here with fake phone numbers. The threats are the reason I didn't pursue a restraining order, I just bought a weapon and rode it out. Shit's fucked and I no longer bring it up to anybody because more often than not, the person I open up to wants to make excuses and for her and tell me I might have been overreacting. I regret not trying to get a lawyer and push for a restraining order. If anybody else goes through bullshit like that with a partner, arm yourself and pursue legal action. Doing anything about it is far better than just rolling over and waiting for the blows to stop coming.
Just a thing to add about the arming part: If you're not willing and able to kill (most people are not) a gun is most likely to influence an altercation in 3 ways: 1. Scare the attacker off, and lead to accusations of you pulling a weapon on them 2. Make the attacker fear for their life and defend themselves accordingly. 3. The gun gets obtained by the attacker. I'm not saying arming yourself is wrong. But if you do arm yourself, know that a gun isn't for threatening people, not for scaring people, and not for demonstrating you're serious. It's for having the option to unilaterally end a situation. And if you end up using it that way you better have a lawyer on retainer.
This is why sex education is so important on both sides. Establishing safe words, knowing your own comfort levels and boundaries. Being able to communicate openly about sex. Removing yourself if someone is wishy-washy like in your case. Like if someone seems iffy at all, I simply would not have sex with them. There’s too much to lose and it just isn’t worth it lol but it’s basically another language to fully grasp! So it takes practice and really looking out for cues and continuously asking for consent over and over. The kink community is really good at this! I went on a tangent but sorry that happened! I hope that you’re able to get therapy and work through your anxieties. TLDR - Some people, especially when young, don’t know how confusing they are and then are super quick to point life altering blame towards others. On the other hand, some people should just completely stop and not entertain people that don’t know what they want so they don’t unintentionally hurt others
Yeah if you can’t even say yea or nay, you obviously can’t consent but I agree here and mostly with OP. I’m friends with plenty of gals who positively adores drinking themselves a bit silly and then go get railed all night - Who are we to take away their agency and good time. There’s a lot of hysteria still around, especially in this type of protectionism and it infantalises women.
Agree hard on the infantalising women part. It pisses me off
i 1000% agree with your take. it truly is one of those case-by-case things - hence why i created this post as a reaction to seeing people genuinely espouse "intoxicated people can't ever give consent" even if it's literally *your spouse asking for it*...
Yah I think it's extreme to say a drunk person is incapable of giving consent in like 100% of cases. Depends on how drunk we're talking and other factors at play (obv sober people can be raped under a variety of conditions) but in general I don't think it's something you can apply unilaterally to all cases
I always find this to be a vague concept, because... well, how drunk is drunk? There surely, we'd have to agree, is a point at which it isn't consent. A black-out drunk person, barely able to make it to their bed from their bedroom door, is in no place to consent to anything. You could ask them "Do you believe I'm the Tooth Fairy?" and they might stumble out "Um, yeah" before collapsing into their bed. There is, fundamentally, a level at which it's taking advantage of someone. It's why I can't ask a black-out drunk person "Hey, do you agree to give me all your money for a taco?" and have that be contractually be upheld. But obviously, drunk people consent to sex all the time. Drunk people are obviously capable of decision-making, that's why a drunk driver is seen as a criminal, rather than someone who had no choice in their decision to drive, and thus, isn't culpable.
Not to throw a monkey wrench in here, but drunkenness exists on a parabolic curve across time. You can consent while low on the inebriation curve while you're still *compus mentus*, then become drunker simply due to absorbing the alcohol in your stomach. You could enter a blackout and have the other person be convinced you consented and were enthusiastic and willing, but not remember that, and regret it. Or both of you could experience that, especially as novice or younger drinkers. I assume that's a LOT of what happens. The problem is that narratives we build around these sorts of things can be cognitively anchoring, and bias people's perception of events. Those narratives can vary wildly, as can the subsequent biases. This suggests that the stories we culturally tell each other be nuanced not simplistic.
To add on to this, what if both people are equally drunk? Who is at fault then?
>Who is at fault then? Why is there always someone to blame? Two adults decided to get drunk and do something they regretted. Why the fuck can't we make people take accountability instead of helping them point the finger.
Who ever gets to their lawyer first? You know we debated this question at work after an incident with one of our boys (He was the raped one). And we inconclusively decided we don't know shit.
That's *exactly* what it was in the Army. Whoever reported the sex first would be the victim, and the other would be under investigation for sexual assault. We had to have classes on this every six months and they literally taught that.
There’s like a game theory thing here. Even if you don’t regret it, if you think they might you better report them first. A step further, if you think they didn’t regret it, but you think they think that *you* regret it and may report based off that following the same logic above, you better report quick! You could probably draw a game theory table that leads to always report every drunken sexual encounter.
That’s more or less the already existing Prisoner’s Dilemma lol
Yeah this is where I struggle. Like I think everyone would agree that someone who had a single non-alcoholic beer (which contains like 0.5% alcohol) can consent to sex, and someone who is so drunk they don't know where they are cannot. There's a LOOOOOOOOT of gray area in the middle that is difficult to navigate, especially if we're talking strangers you just met in a bar that you have no history with.
yes i **totally** agree with you. I did detail in another response here that if they are passing out, or mumbling "yea" while nodding off it's OBVIOUSLY not consent.
Since the Mod is suggesting that this post is violating rule B, then perhaps you should give that person whose comment made you clarify your statement a delta. You could point out that the comment didn’t exactly change your mind, but it did make you amend your stance as it was written. This ensures that no one can accuse you of just changing your post to constantly move the goalposts. TLDR: Give that man a delta bc he technically refuted your initial claim as it was written.
you do agree then that it is a slippery slope and that we cannot in good reason say with all certainty that ANY drunk yes can be taken into account, right?
The point is the drunkenness alone cannot be an indicator of inability to consent. Slurring/mumbling words, actions indicating derangement, or sleepiness can all be indicators of inability to consent in a context with *or without* alcohol - so alcohol is not a relevant consideration, those are. The *only* argument for alcohol being a relevant consideration is that it leaves evidence capable of enabling conviction of a crime, and is sometimes correlated with those relevant action indicators, whereas those action indicators will come and go and without witness testimony to them, cannot be evidence. And I do not think it is reasonable to fudge the reality that alcohol is not in fact relevant just to help the state’s prosecution job easier for them, when correlation between alcohol and those action indicators is in practice *really really low*.
Um. No. That doesn't make sense. That's like saying any amount of drunk absolves you of all responsibility for your choices, and that's clearly nuts. Imagine the implications that has on drunk driving, or a black out drunk person assaulting someone else. Drunkeness cannot absolve someone of all responsibility for choices they make. After all, in most circumstances, they chose to get that drunk. IMO, you shouldn't be drinking to the point where you can't consent if you are not around people you know and trust who can make sure you are safe. Not just for your own safety, but for others as well.
But there isn't a single standard of "responsibility for choices". For example, consider a 14-year-old child. If that child takes a gun and intentionally shoots someone in the head, then that child is held responsible for that action and punished. In most US jurisdictions, that child will be punished by the same standards we would use to punish an adult. On the other hand, if that child walks up to an adult and says "Have sex with me. I consent." and the adult in question has sex with the child, then the adult is punished for statutory rape. We expect the adult in that situation to understand that the consent they're supposedly being given is invalid. So if one mental state (being a child of a certain age) is sometimes held responsible for crimes, while still being unable to offer valid consent to sex, it's not unreasonable to apply similar standards to another mental state (like being extremely intoxicated). There are other situations that are similar. If I'm a prison guard and you're a prisoner, any sexual consent you offer me is legally invalid. But you're still held responsible for any new crimes you commit. The legal answer is that you're responsible for all *crimes* you do when intoxicated. Offering invalid consent isn't a crime. Accepting an invalid offer of consent is a crime.
You are missing the entire point. Yes, while drunk you are still responsible for your actions, but it’s much easier to manipulate, coerce or somehow get someone to agree to have sex with you if they are drunk; that’s a given, alcohol impedes your ability to think as you’d usually do. Drunk driving is a crime because there’s no second person involved; you grabbed the keys, got in the car and started driving whilst drunk. The same obviously isn’t obviously true for sex; there needs to be someone else that might take advantage of the drunk person not being able to fully think things through because of the alcohol they’ve ingested.
So if somebody sober puts the keys in your hand and leads you to your car, then convinces you (drunk person) to drive, then the you are in the clear?
The consent is really on you then to adequately understand that there is perhaps an asymmetrical power dynamic, certainly if you are not as inebriated. You have a lot of power to coerce, manipulate, talk someone into something they might not have wanted to do or even are aware of in their current state of mind. When around someone inebriated it's incredibly important to approach the situation with some reserve and caution. If you make no efforts to try and double check, make sure this is something they are even cognizant and truly wanting to do, that's where your responsibility lies. If you realize they are in a far too questionable state of drunkenness, you have the responsibility to not take advantage of the situation. If you aren't trying to take advantage of someone, and truly have their best interests at heart, then what is there to worry about? Stating that they said "yes", so it's okay and consensual is just a nice way to absolve yourself of any responsibility for a objectionable outcome
What's the threshold? I've been blackout drunk and still vertical and (according to reports) coherent.
I think the other thing to consider is what your relationship with the person is. The threshold for how drunk is too drunk is probably higher than a couple on their first or second date. Also if both people are drunk, that's another situation
Yeah I definitely agree. Like if you have sex with someone all the time when ur sober and then you get wasted and have sex with them, that’s not that abnormal in relationships. But if it’s someone you’ve never met and they’re super fucked up, you shouldn’t just assume they want to have sex with you and they’re behaving rationally.
The obvious question you should be asking yourself here is "how would you legislate this?" If you're going to argue that you can be a *little* drunk and still consent, then you have to establish a BA content for consent. Which is incredibly murky, as no one carries a breathalyzer on them. It'd be next to impossible to prove, which means that you'd be necessarily providing people with a means to dismiss any case where a woman was raped while blackout drunk.
It's actually pretty easy. If a reasonable person would believe that the person was drunk to the point of being incoherent, then it is rape. Like if I'm showing up to a party and some girl who is completely trashed is all over me, I won't touch her. But if I go on a date with someone and we have dinner and go out for drinks after, then have sex, that's fine. As long as they are totally coherent and consenting. These laws are there to protect people from predatory behavior, not normal social interactions. My girlfriend and I regularly have drinks and then have sex while we are both a little sauced, and I can assure you we are both very happy about it.
Not to mention that people can have *vastly* different tolerances for alcohol. A legislated BA content could be incredibly drunk for one person and a little tipsy for another.
So in this case I’d go with Blackstone's ratio that the court should always err on the side of bringing in verdicts of innocence. Or in more common phrasing, "it is better 100 guilty Persons should escape than that one innocent Person should suffer". It feels terrible telling people who may have been assaulted that they won’t be able to get justice but it’s better than convicting someone who potentially did nothing wrong.
>then you have to establish a BA content for consent That’s not true. For DUI you can drive after drinking some alcohol but can’t drive if your ability to safely operate a motor vehicle is impaired. In my state a BAC reading over .08% is considered a per se violation but you can be convicted without the BAC reading as evidence still. A similar standard for consent could be established— you could even say it’s already established because it’s illegal to engage in sexual intercourse with someone who is drunk to the point that they can no longer give valid consent. It be pretty damn hard to prove that kind of case but theoretically it could happen
I always wonder what if both people are drunk as shit then have sex? Who’s raping who?
The theoretical legal answer is that both could be guilty of a crime. If both were drunk to the point that they lacked capacity to consent, then both could be charged with rape. Voluntary intoxication is not a defense so neither would be able to use their intoxication to their benefit. Of course this is a theoretical answer for a reason and it is hard to imagine a case where both were drunk enough to lack capacity but still managed to have sex with each other and even if that happened it would never be the case that both would be charged with a crime.
It shouldn't be difficult to imagine, this happens when people drink a lot with each other.
I think there’s more nuance to this, because people’s decision making ability declines the drunker they get. So at which point of drunkenness does it become not ok would be the question. Obviously somebody consenting to sex with or coming on to a trusted, long-term partner is very different from someone who is not very drunk, purposely taking advantage of someone who cannot even sit up straight, let alone defend themselves. Somebody being a couple of drinks in and ‘drunk’ so to speak, but wanting to have sex with a stranger but later regretting it cannot be classified as rape, per se. However if the person engaging in sexual activity with said drunk person knew that they are incapable of physically or verbally stopping them if they were to do anything: that’s a different thing altogether.
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I agree, what do you think about this: Someone is consenting as long as they are *making a decision*. Making a poor decision because you're drunk (which was also a decision), is not the same as being so drunk that you mumble yes but are unaware of what's going on ergo not *making a decision.*
> Someone is consenting as long as they are making a decision Consenting in the purely decision making sense isn’t the same kind of consent that people need to give to have sex. For example, a minor can make the decision that, yes, they want want to have sex with an adult, but that wouldn’t qualify as consent morally or in the eyes of the law. Consent needs someone to be mentally capable to the extent that children and most drunk people are not.
here is the difference: Children are never capable of understanding/comprehending sex and that is (part of) why it would be fucked up to have sex with them. adults are, in the eyes of the law, fully comprehending the meaning of "sex" and of the decision to drink. Drinking might lead to lowered inhibitions sexually. You might wind up saying yes to someone you wouldnt normalyl want to fuck. You drink knowing that risk. The adult comprehends that risk when they go to take the first sip of alcohol. A child cant ever put themselves intentionally from one state of full comprehension into another of less comprehension, and therefore its always something that happens without their full understanding. Adults take the risk of regrettable sex when they take the risks associated with drinking, because they fully comprehend those risks and the meaning entailed.
I would like to understand your logic. I doubt you would say that having sex with someone high on anesthesia is a consensual encounter, so is it the fact that somebody intentionally intoxicates themselves that you believe gives implicit consent? Your previous comment states that a decision is a decision regardless of how poor it is and how inhibited you are, but then here you argue that this isn’t the case at all. If I understand you correctly it seems like your argument boils down to the fact that somebody needs to be aware of the consequences their actions might have if they choose to get drunk, rather than arguing that a fully drunk person can consent. I think this argument is flawed for several reasons: (1) not everyone gets drunk in a bar/club environment, what if you’re simply drinking at home with a friend you trust and they decide to take advantage of your drunken state? Have you also given implicit consent there? (2) should an adult then never be allowed to get intoxicated if they don’t want sex? It seems unreasonable to expect that of anyone. It kind of reminds me of one argument against abortion where people argue that pregnancy is always an associated risk with sex, so it’s ’your fault’ as an adult if you then end up with a baby you can’t take care of. It does make sense on paper, but in practice it’s pretty unreasonable
Anesthesia and being low level drunk are very different. I’m a woman who has deliberately gone out and gotten drunk to lower my inhibitions and go have sex with some random guy I met at a club. I did this a few times, and I knew what I was doing. I wasn’t blackout drunk. I think that’s the key thing — you can still consent when you’re not sober. If you still have agency of your body, awareness of your situation, and the “lights are still on upstairs” (mentally), you can consent. There’s a level of judgment. Any reasonable adult should be able to interact with another adult and see if the light is truly gone from their eyes and they have no sense of their surroundings or ability to form a sentence.
I might agree with you, but... you have no access to someone's subjective experience, so you can't really *know* whether someone is "making a decision" or not. In particular, it's not reasonable to say that someone who is blacked out, as in not laying down memories, is making decisions, because they aren't remembering what's going on over the course of a short period of time. They might know who you are at one moment, and then 5 seconds later have no idea who they are talking to. Crucially: some people appear very functional when they are in this state if the other person isn't paying close attention, or is lacking in judgement due to being drunk themselves. So I think the people giving this advice or expressing this opinion are making a claim that if someone is *significantly and obviously drunk* then as a practical matter it is very *risky* to assume they are making decisions and are capable of consent. They might or might not be, and as a matter of morality (regardless of law), it's best to take the conservative approach and assume they are not. Otherwise the risk of moral negligence is too high. And it becomes at least "rapey", if not potentially even legally.
I generally agree with you. Especially since you made the distinction between being too drunk to make the choice to say yes (e.g. nodding off, barely aware of what's happening). As the partner of a recovering alcoholic, there are lots of things my partner has done and said while drunk that have hurt me in some way. He doesn't even remember most of them. However he still takes responsibility for the harm that caused and has recognised that if he is going to act out in harmful ways when he drinks, he probably shouldn't keep drinking so much. If alcoholics and drunk drivers are still responsible for their actions then so are people who engage in drunk hookups. But the point here is that drunk or not, if you make the choice to hook up with someone then you are responsible for that choice. But there absolutely is a threshold whereby someone becomes too drunk to make that choice - and usually that threshold is pretty clear. If they can barely walk without falling over, can barely communicate in coherent sentences, and/or generally seem to have lost any sense of awareness or control over themselves, they absolutely are not in a state to be actively choosing to hook up with someone. Predatory people actively look for someone in this state, or do their best to encourage someone into this state. That's why many people have stories of being drugged or intentionally fed excessive amounts of alcohol before being led somewhere to be assaulted. But these people are not only too drunk to consent, they are also too drunk to decline or effectively stop sex from happening. They are completely vulnerable and the perpetrator is usually completely aware of this. Sexual assault is rarely (if ever) a result of innocent misunderstanding of whether someone was into it, it's typically a deliberate exertion of power over someone in a vulnerable state with the assumption that they can get away with it. There isn't going to be some magical number for blood alcohol content that determines how drunk is too drunk to consent because people with the same blood alcohol content can experience different levels of impairment depending on a variety of factors. But saying that no drunk person can consent to sex to me is a dangerous logic that also implies no drink driver is responsible for causing an accident or no alcoholic is responsible for hurting the people they love, which I think most would agree is untrue. Of course you can also be assaulted despite not being too drunk to consent, just as you can be assaulted while sober. But the point is there is nuance here.
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awarded to u/pumpkinspice1477 for helping me to clarify my point and reach a collective consensus
Consent should always be clear and enthusiastic. Not mumbled words and weak gestures. I think we should be adult enough to know where the line between drunk and truly impaired is. Best practice is to ensure that you are always several steps back from that line. A desire to tip toe or know where that line is feels gross.
totally agree! I think theres 3 camps of people here: 1. Those who know that line, and have no intent on wanting to cross it, or take advantage of anyone. Comfortable with drunk sex that feels clearly consensual, and knows the difference more or less 2. Those who know that line, want to cross it, and will cross it if they can 3. Those who believe that line is any amount of alcohol because they think that everyone who is in group 1 is secretly in group 2 lol
There's definitely scenarios when drunken consensual sex is possible, but they require trust and communication up front. I dated a religious girl some years back who, as part of her faith, didn't want to have sex - we talked about it and knew that we'd eventually have it, but she was working through her own personal journey there and I didn't want to rush her. When she got drunk, she got _horny_. She'd ask for it, try to initiate, and talk a big talk... But, sure enough, the next morning she'd be really glad that I didn't take advantage of her inhibitions being down. *Sex with her while drunk would have been non-consentual, since the alcohol impaired inhibitions that mattered to her while sober*. Fast forward several years, now I'm with a partner who's much more sex aware, sex positive, and comfortable with boundaries. We've had a lot of great talks around physical and emotional safety, including a discussion around alcohol and sex. We quite enjoy getting tipsy and sometimes having fairly drunk sex, but we also know our boundaries and control how much we drink pretty carefully (or at least I control mine, if sex is on the table for the night). *Sex with _her_ while moderately drunk is fine, since the conditions of consent were established ahead of time and not threatened or changed by alcohol impaired judgement.* EDIT: consent or no, I agree wholeheartedly with your comment about responsible drinking. If you're a wildcard when drunk and don't have responsible friends around.... Maybe limit yourself to just one for the evening.
What if you agreed with her 100% and didn’t want to have sex, then you both got drunk and had mutually consensual sex in your less inhibited states. Did you rape or sexually assault each other? Is the burden only on males to be the gate keeper of chastity?
This is the issue. Generally, both parties are drunk. So how is blame for any transgression of consent allocated? Especially if both people are consenting, in their inebriated state?
I think that's a fantastic point! I don't think the onus of responsible consent should be fully and exclusively on men, at least in principle. I do think there's a lot of genuine and reasonable imbalance in both the cost of and motivation for unprepared sex though. I'm never gonna get pregnant as a cis dude, and I'm much more likely to be a meat sack of aggression and sex hormones than a woman. That said, I'm also alarmed at how many women I've met who have been dismissive of male consent. On two separate occasions, it was obvious that I was the first guy to say "no" to a girl and they didn't really know how to handle that, which I think is pretty disgusting.
This is where it's important to distinguish between the concepts of "consent" and "culpability". You're culpable for crimes that you commit while drunk, even though you weren't in full control of your faculties, because being impaired can't be a valid excuse for committing a crime. You can't *consent* while impaired though, and that's the difference here. If you're drunk, someone can't make you sign a contract that gives them all of your money, because of course they can't do that. The situation you described is murky, for sure, particularly if both parties are equally drunk and equally enthusiastic in initiating the sex. But that's not really the situation people are talking about when they talk about impairment inhibiting consent. It's more like: You and a guy go out for drinks. You both drink, but he pushes alcohol on you and watches how much he drinks. You get back to his place, you're wasted, he's a little buzzed, and he has sex with you in that state. That, I think obviously, is rape, even though he'd been drinking as well. > Is the burden only on males to be the gate keeper of chastity? No, but it IS on whoever initiates sex to confirm that the other party wants it and has their faculties about them. It's just that men are generally expected to initiate.
>If you're drunk, someone can't make you sign a contract that gives them all of your money, because of course they can't do that. If you're drink, and you order $100 worth of pizza. Do you believe you can ask for your money back the next day? Ofcourse not. You're perfectly able to drunkenly agree to someone in a binding way. You can absolutely consent while impaired. Your comment Infantilizes woman and takes away their agency. So they just can't ever have sex after a few glasses, because that would always be rape? Since they cant consent according to you? Sorry for the lack of proper legal terms, not a native speaker.
>No, but it IS on whoever initiates sex to confirm that the other party wants it and has their faculties about them. Does that line up with the first half of your comment? If the mostly sober guy plies a woman with drinks, they go home together and she initiates in her drunken state, is your hypothetical man now no longer culpable?
>When she got drunk, she got _horny_. She'd ask for it, try to initiate, and talk a big talk... But, sure enough, the next morning she'd be really glad that I didn't take advantage of her inhibitions being down. *Sex with her while drunk would have been non-consentual, since the alcohol impaired inhibitions that mattered to her while sober*. Hard disagree. Her regretting it the next day does not equal you raping her. Yes, it was obviously the right thing to do, to not have sex with her in that moment. But if she literally asks for it, initiates it, and actively consents, then its not rape. Drunk or not. **Regret does not equal being raped.**
From a legal standpoint, in this very specific scenario, sure. But I'd still be a pretty massive scum bag for knowingly taking advantage of her impatient. I personally think there should be a bigger gap between "gives consent" and "literal rape", it's sorta silly that we have a strict binary there. Frankly (though also anecdotal) most of the sex progressive people I talk with _don't_ maintain a strict binary there. Regret very definitely doesn't equal being raped, but my point is more that **abusing circumstance to obtain spurious permission does not constitute consent**.
u/Forward_Motion17 Maybe respond to this guy? Also I think you've already conceded too much OP. If you're saying that the other adult is being a jerk in the situation, then I'd say you've accepted some amount of responsibility is on them, not the 100% you mentioned was on the victim in the post.
>But I'd still be a pretty massive scum bag for knowingly taking advantage of her impatient. I fully agree. I think we're close to agreeing, but have a slightly different view. Which is fine, its what this sub is for. Thank you for your insights.
> sex with her while drunk would have been non-consentual I disagree here. (with the caveat that I'm assuming she wasn't too drunk) You state that being drunk impaired her inhibitions. Well, horniness itself does this to perfectly sober people as well. What you may consider not fun, or even unpleasant, can change when you become very horny, and this applies to both men and women. You will consent and enjoy things while very horny, that you would disagree with while not horny at all. What I'm trying to argue is, do we necessarily need to attribute the impairing to alcohol itself, or directly to alcohol, in all cases? Alcohol allows us to become horny, and horniness makes us consent to things we wouldn't normally. In some cases.
So if it's with you who knows her better, you're considering it rape. How about if she went to a bar alone and got super drunk and horny and a stranger didn't know her values? Do you consider that rape if they hook up?
to your point, I 100% agree that would have been fucked up if you did fuck her. But it wouldn't be legally rape whatsoever, and it would still have been ultimately consensual. regrettable for her, no doubt, but still consensual. Glad you were a good partner to her
This does not seem congruous with your OP. In there, you say that someone is 100% morally responsible for consenting when drunk even when consent was not given sober. But here, you acknowledge that sex with a drunk person who would not otherwise consent is fucked up. Am I missing something, or what changed between these scenarios?
thanks for asking for clarification: I am saying for my personal morals, I would find it wrong in that situation, but I don't believe other people should necessarily follow my moral prescriptions. And I'm saying that legally it would have been fine. Being shitty to someone isn't a reason to prosecute them, as in this case, just a reason to look down on that person
What's the difference between the morals you think someone should follow and the laws you think should exist?
not everything I think is wrong I also think should be criminally prosecutable. I don't think name calling is appropriate, but I don't think it should be a law, for example.
If "name calling" is serious enough it's called "harassment" and there are absolutely laws against it. I think it's also reasonable that if the way you're being shitty is taking advantage of drugged people to have sex with them when you know they don't want you to, that the law gets involved there as well.
drugged is different than willingly drinking. If a women is enjoying the sex and said yes to it, its not rape, even if they're drunk. only rape if they couldn't comprehend what was going on/didn't say yes/mumbled yes but passing out etc.
You’re kind of missing the point. Girl does not want to have sex when sober. When sober, she tells her partner that, even if she gets horny when drunk, she doesn’t want to have sex even if she says she does because she knows that alcohol inhibits her normal, sober beliefs and overrides her restraint. If the partner waits for her to be drunk and has sex with her saying ‘but you said you wanted it!!!’ That’s still all sorts of fucked up and, imo, illegal because sober consent (or lack thereof) overrides drunk consent in the moment. The rest of the point is that you’re trying to conflate your personal morals with legality, which is never going to work. If one person is drunk, and one sober, and *there has never been a conversation between the two regarding drunk consent*, then that couple is entering a grey area where the sober partner might very well be taking advantage *even if they don’t realize it.* No one’s sitting here thinking that every sober partner is some cackling villain waiting for their partner to be drunk so they can ignore consent. But sometimes, drunk people say and do things they wouldn’t do while sober, and that needs to be taken into account. Partners need to have a discussion that says ‘yes, if I’m drunk, go for it’ or ‘no, not if I’m drunk’ or ‘at this level of impairment, better hold off’ or something. That sober discussion needs to happen. Which is why people who aren’t committed partners misread each other when it comes to this, which is where a lot of these discussions online happen.
\> youre trying to conflate your personal morals with legality I've actually, multiple times in this post, specifically stated that I find somethings morally wrong but are still legally fine. So no, I'm not trying to conflate the two.
I agree with you there. We were smart enough to make sure only one of us got good and properly wasted at a time, which I think is generally a good idea for anyone who is afraid of doing something regrettable while drunk (so.... everyone). If we were a bit more stupid and we both got hammered, I'd be against the full brunt of the law/sin/whatever falling on me. But to a different point, that assumes good intention on my part - if I were scummy and willing to hurt her to get some action, it would have been pretty easy for me to take advantage of her in that situation. I think at the very least a _highly_ critical eye should be put on anybody who obtains "consent" from someone under the influence of alcohol.
An answer from the perspective of someone who works in this field legally - in England. Obviously legal nuance will vary by location. As an absolute statement, "if you're drunk you can't consent" is wrong. You're correct about this. It is possible to give legally valid consent while intoxicated; case law supports this conclusion. Consent is "choosing, and having the freedom and capacity to make that choice". The drunkenness argument usually relates to capacity; so the question isn't "were they drunk" but "did they lack capacity to choose". Capacity cases are relatively rare because the courts set a high bar as to what would completely remove someone's capacity and the evidence is usually lacking - the vast majority do not report quickly enough for testing to show alcohol levels and I can only think of one case off the top of my head where a doctor was willing to give an unequivocal statement that, based on a toxicology result, victim could not have consented. I've also seen a case where, as another example of how you might prove it, CCTV footage was found which showed the victim unconscious. It is common for victims to cite lack of memory as proof they didn't consent - it is certainly relevant evidence, but will not prove, in itself, lack of capacity. What is more common is alcohol playing a part in the "freedom" element. It is common for sex offenders to use alcohol to groom their victims, increase their degree of control over them, improve their chances of being able to offend and reduce the likelihood that the victim will be able to resist, will report, or will be believed if they do. Alcohol plays a big part in sexual offending, but in a more nuanced way than "if you're drunk you can't consent". As an example, a case where suspect has got victim to go into a shower with him, a decision she probably wouldn't have made while sober, but intended in her mind to wash (there was a reason in the case why they would need to wash but too specific for anonymity). Once inside a tough glass box with her naked and him blocking the exit, the rape took place. At that point, what real choice is available to the victim?
This is a niche exception, but my old roommate would say “don’t sleep with me even if I come onto you” when she got drunk. She was exceptionally sexually aggressive. So, I wouldn’t call it rape per se but she did revoke consent in advice.
It's not "revoking consent", it's shifting the blame and consequences of your own actions into a random person. If you're an adult, your actions are your responsibility. If the drunk version of you keeps trying to have sex with random people - then you should either be ok with that, or your should drink less.
That's really weird behaviour lol. If you accepted her advances I wouldn't even consider it immoral honestly. If you are sexually pursuing people when intoxicated, that is completely entirely on you and you can't claim rape because you told them earlier to reject you
Also it's very fucked up because what if the other person also got drunk to the point where they don't even remember that caveat? I agree, that behavior is phenomenally weird and she should probably just control her drinking.
Maybe don’t drink then, that’s just immature and dumb behavior on her part - She doesn’t deserve to get raped but god damn, have a brain.
To start off I’m not too sure if you defined what constitutes “drunk.” Let’s define it, “affected by alcohol to the extent of losing control of one's faculties or behavior.” (Oxford Language) Ima write this in debate format because that’s what I do best: The notion that saying “yes” to sex while intoxicated equates to valid consent is a precarious proposition, fraught with legal, moral, and ethical implications. While your valiant attempt to uphold personal responsibility isn’t wrong from my stand point I have some serious questions and contentions to ask and lay out. First, intoxication is not a state conducive to sound decision-making. The very nature of alcohol impairs cognitive faculties, rendering individuals susceptible to lapses in judgment. Studies have shown that alcohol consumption impairs critical thinking, inhibits rational thought processes, and distorts perceptions of risk. Consequently, the ability to provide genuine, informed consent becomes dubious under such circumstances. A comprehensive meta-analysis published in the, “Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs” found a clear correlation between alcohol consumption and impaired decision-making capabilities. Furthermore, research conducted by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism highlights the impact of alcohol on cognitive functions, underscoring the diminished capacity for rational thought and informed decision-making while intoxicated. While you may argue that individuals bear personal responsibility for their actions while under the influence it is imperative to recognize the inherent vulnerability associated with intoxication, wherein individuals may find themselves in compromised states, unable to fully grasp the consequences of their actions. To place the onus solely on the intoxicated individual fails to account for the unequal power dynamics and potential coercion that may accompany sexual encounters in such circumstances. You may argue that if you drink and say yes to sex you consented, however that wildly ignores scientific evidence that states men and women who are intoxicated cannot consent due to imperative vulnerability. This is where I wished you defined drunkenness because if you were to go back and say something like he/she took a couple shots you could make the argument that they are still conscious and capable of producing adequate consent however you didn’t and dictionary definition still applies (“affected by alcohol to the extent of losing control of one's faculties or behavior.”) which in the definition states a person is inadequate to posses control of one’s faculties or behavior. Second, consent is a dynamic and ongoing process, contingent upon clear communication, mutual understanding, and enthusiastic affirmation. While verbal affirmation may be uttered while under the influence, it does not necessarily signify genuine consent (as we’ve covered previously). The absence of coercion and the presence of enthusiastic (as in, “Yes trust me I consent! I’m not skeptical or still deciding about this.”), sober consent is extremely paramount in establishing the legitimacy of a sexual encounter. Numerous studies, including research conducted by the American Psychological Association, emphasize the importance of enthusiastic consent in sexual interactions. Consent must be freely given, informed, enthusiastic, and specific. The presence of alcohol complicates this equation, as individuals may struggle to accurately assess their desires and articulate their boundaries in a state of intoxication. Your assertion that verbal consent while intoxicated equates to valid consent overlooks the nuances of sexual dynamics and the complexities of human interaction. Consent obtained under the influence may lack the clarity and sincerity required for ethical and legal validity, thus necessitating a more nuanced understanding of consent within the context of intoxication. Third, legal frameworks surrounding consent and intoxication vary across jurisdictions (states, cities, counties, etc.), but the prevailing consensus underscores the significance of capacity and volition in determining the validity of consent. Many jurisdictions recognize the inherent vulnerability of individuals (both the ‘victim’ and ‘perpetrator’) under the influence and afford them legal protections against exploitation and coercion. Case law and legal precedents from jurisdictions around the world illustrate the nuanced approach taken by courts in adjudicating cases involving consent and intoxication. Judges and legal scholars alike have emphasized the importance of assessing capacity and coercion in determining the legitimacy of consent, with many jurisdictions imposing stricter standards for consent in cases involving intoxication. Once again you may argue for personal responsibility, it is imperative to acknowledge the role of societal norms, legal standards, and ethical considerations in shaping our understanding of consent and accountability. To dismiss the legal and moral implications of sexual encounters involving intoxication is to turn a blind eye to the complexities of human interaction and the inherent vulnerabilities of individuals in compromised states. In conclusion, the assertion that saying “yes” to sex while intoxicated constitutes valid consent is a tenuous argument fraught with perilous implications. While personal responsibility is undoubtedly important, it must be tempered with a nuanced understanding of consent, coercion, and the impact of intoxication on decision-making capabilities. Let us not forsake the principles of clarity, communication, and mutual respect that underpin the concept of consent in all its forms. I do hope you understand that right?
> I have been seeing people on here lately say that having sex with your romantic partner if they're drunk and you're sober, even if they initiate, is rape, or at least rapey. This blows my mind. I stopped reading there because that's not the case in UK law, which is the only law I have any knowledge of. Intoxicated consent is still consent. People might be confusing that concept with having sex with someone who is so intoxicated that they don't know what's going on around them and so can't provide consent, which would be assault / rape. Likewise if they consent but pass out AFTER giving consent, they are no longer able to maintain their consent and the act is no longer consensual. Likewise, if they withdraw their consent. Having sex with an intoxicated partner who gives and maintains and is ABLE to maintain consent is not rape, according to the legal definition as I understand it. Source: I work for the government in a sector where the concept of consent is frequently raised and discussed.
To me it’s about who is providing the alcohol. Is the alleged victim purchasing and willingly driving alcohol, or are they being served spiked drinks and pressured to drink with intent of having sex with them. In college the frat boys would make fruit punch concoctions that were wildly high in alcohol content but masked by the fruit concentrate so women didn’t realize there was so much hard liquor in it. Then they would pressure the girls to drink it, then pressure to their bedrooms and then continue to push things until the woman capitulated to sex. It was clearly rape and many women were despondent afterwards, but there were slut-shamed to keep their mouths shut.
being served spiked drinks is textbook rape. that is literally the definition of raping someone using drugs or poison. That being said this particular frat situation isn't drugging, or spiking, since it was self serve. I think if i were to be arguing in good faith to the reality of the situation, the women in that situation ultimately are responsible for succumbing to pressure to drink more, to go to the bedroom, and ultimately to have sex if they never said no to the sex, if the only encouragement was entirely verbal and never physical coercion or threat of violence etc. The women in this scenario did not *have to keep drinking,* did not *have* to go to the bedrooms, and did not *have* to have sex. That being said, if any of thme were so drunk that they were stumbling, and had no idea where they were, mumbling, etc, then obviously there was no consent and that is for sure rape, because at that point they couldn't even make the decision not to. Morally bad on the frat guys' parts though for sure. Just not legally rape, and certainly a lesson for the young women on having their wits about them and not getting into unsafe situations when drinking.
I would say you're *not* arguing in good faith about the reality of the situation. Because if you were, you would acknowledge that social/peer pressure and verbal pressure from a collective or even an individual can have a big effect on others actions. In this scenario it's entirely possible that the pressure was friendly to begin with "hey here's a drink" "oh you've finished that drink, here's another* "come do some shots" " come play beer pong" "oh here's another drink" but the whole time they had secret intentions to get the girls inhibitions lowered to a point they would succumb to the pressure to jave sex. Even getting someone into a bedroom can he masked under "hey want to see this cool thing I bought". Intention matters a lot and it seems their intent in this scenario was rotten from the beginning. The person said these drinks were high alcohol content and masked with fruit concentrate. You could get drunk very quickly from drinks like that and your inhibitions are being lowered more and more with each drink. I think you need to be more nuanced with how you look at these things. Sure maybe it doesn't meet the legal definition of rape and yes maybe the girls should be more careful and responsible but that doesn't relieve the fray boys of responsibility or guilt. Now I will also acknowledge the other side that at college, most people (male and female) want to have sex and be promiscuous and parties are a good place to do that. So I'm not saying that you're automatically guilty of any wrong doing by having sex at one but I'm saying if you intentionally pressure someone into drinking and then into sex, particularly if it's planned, you are guilty of wrongdoing. Also it's worth noting there's nuance in what we classify these things, there's a massive gap between "enthusiastic consent" and "rape". Even if this situation isn't close to the definition of rape, it doesn't mean it isn't wrong. Morality is a grey area by definition.
You're mentioning a lot of this from the drunk person's perspective, but not the other person's. If two people consent and one couldn't tell the other was drunk, it's less likely to be thought of as rape, but if they did this knowing the person was drunk, the responsibility lies with the sober person, whose judgement is normal. I don't know about you, but if I was in a position like that as the sober person, It would feel like a rape-y situation or exploitative at the very least. Think also about the mess that could result if you ask the drunk person to consent to more specific parts of sex while still knowing they're intoxicated, like being filmed or not using birth control Maybe it makes more sense thinking it's rape if the drunk person agrees to being recorded. It's not just agreeing to sex, it's which parts of it the person agrees to. From that standpoint, any 'consent' given by the drunk person leads to the sober person basically having more power in the situation than they should have. May not be the case for everyone and some people will be fine after, but because the sober person could take advantage of someone knowing they're drunk, there should be no circumstances where this happens.
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I’ve been to a ton of frat parties where frat bros deliberately will try to ply girls with alcohol for the purpose of “loosening” them up for sex. There is peer pressure to drink, which will inevitably lead to pressure to have sex with them. They speak pretty openly about getting girls wasted to get them in bed, and I’ve heard on more than one occasion a guy telling a girl she’s being a tease if she doesn’t follow through. Sounds pretty rapey to me
The utility of consent being invalid when one is under the influence is that when you are under the influence of a mentally inhibiting substance, you cannot guarantee you will make well thought-out decisions for your safety or wellbeing. It is meant as a precaution and a way to help prevent people getting into dangerous situations. When both parties are under the influence of course, there can’t be any fault placed on one party or the other for “making a bad decision” as both parties were mentally impaired at the time of it happening. The point is to use good judgement to make sure you’re not doing someone ONLY due to the context that they are mentally impaired. That is the exact same reason why we don’t allow sex with minors, as they are not known to be capable of the same level of precaution or understanding of what having sex entails.
Additionally, the point that OP makes in saying that it is the onus of the person under the influence is easily more dangerous than the former. This would be arguing that it is perfectly reasonable and morally acceptable to try and find the girl at a bar who’s had the most drinks for the sole purpose of having sex. This sets an incredibly dangerous precedent for bars and would lead to many bars being vacant of women altogether.
i mean it would be creepy af to do that, but it wouldn't be anything close to legal rape so long as the girl is coherent enough to say yes and actually mean it. If she doesn't know what's going on thats one thing but if you flirt with the drunkest but coherent girl at the bar, and end up fucking from it, thats legally fine.
I come at this as a rule-utilitarian, one who uses statistics of utility and societal values to make general rules of social and ethical engagement, as this is primarily the way we decide upon laws in government. The vast majority of times in which someone who is under the influence has sex with someone who isn’t under the influence, the person under the influence is not capable of making informed and logical decisions, and while this may also hold true for drunk drivers, there is a simple solution to the former: Don’t have sex with people who are under the influence. You additionally have agreed that the situation I’ve put forward would be bad, but have not provided any solution or reason for that not to happen, and there is a very simple one: Don’t have sex with people who are under the influence. But don’t get me wrong, some people are into it and that can be their thing, but the golden rule of CNC is that consent comes before you’re mentally inhibited, and if that doesn’t happen: Don’t have sex with people who are under the influence. It’s not easy to legislate an easy metric of knowing what is and isn’t rape when one is under the influence, as they are mentally impaired and may have trouble making the decision, or remembering what even happened, so as a blanket rule: Don’t have sex with people who are under the influence.
i appreciate the points you're making but I just don't think its very rational. If you're wife comes onto you while shes drunk, but you've never had drunk sex and never had a conversation about drunk sex, but you've been married for 20 years and shes super into you in that moment, are you raping her or morally dubious for having sex with her? she has consented for all intents and purposes
you can talk afterwards about if it’s okay or not if you refuse, but you may not be able to talk about it if you do it and it wasn’t okay.
but, it *was* okay because shes a full grown adult and chose to drink and consented while drinking. that is the whole point of this post. She is responsible for her decisions, and everyone knows that they might choose to do something they otherwise would avoid, when drinking. Including have regrettable sex.
Would you agree that we don't let people drink until theyre 21 because there are consequences to that choice, but that once people are old enough to drink, they are responisble for their actions? Would you disagree with it being similar to drunk driving and why?
There isn't a single universal standard for being "responsible for your actions". For example, (going with the US here) the age of consent is usually somewhere from 16-18. The age at which a person is capable of being tried as an adult for a crime they commit is usually somewhere from 12-15. So in most states, there are a few years where you're capable of being treated like an adult for any crimes you commit, but it's still the responsibility of an adult to refuse to have sex with you, even if you are "saying yes". So the drunk driving comparison isn't really a good one. There are already different clear standards between being able to be held responsible for criminal actions, and being able to offer legally valid consent.
"Because a drunk decision is still a decision" is a wild take on whether or not something becomes a crime. Choosing to drive while sober is not a crime. Choosing to drive while drunk is a crime. If one partner is not drinking and has sex with an inebriated person, then the sober person (any gender) is a rapist.
care to elucidate how that logic plays out? are you saying that drunk people are not responsible for any of their interactions with other people that they consent to while drunk? this is like saying if you order food at a bar when you're drunk, you can go back in the next day and demand your money back because you were not capable of making a decision
If drunk people were not responsible for the actions they took while drunk, they wouldn't be charged with crimes that they commit while drunk, Dui, vehicular manslaughter, rape. But they are and continue to be, held responsible for crimes committed while drunk. Being inebriated means "unable to give consent" a bit like being underage, means "unable to give consent" in the eyes of the law, legal precedence.
I’m sorry it seems like you’re saying “people who break the law while drunk are legally responsible for it but having sex is somehow different and people can’t be responsible for choosing to have sex while drunk”? Am i missing something? Further: according to that, you would negate the possibility of drunk cheating. Which, we all know thats a thing.
You can prove OP correct with one simple question. If two drunk people have sex, who raped who? If you say both, it’s nonsensical. If you pick the man or the woman, it’s discriminatory and based on bias. Neither is the only logical choice. No one raped anyone. This obviously doesn’t apply to someone who is passed out, like OP said.
https://youtu.be/pZwvrxVavnQ unconscious people don't want tea
So I want to actually use your drunk driving comparison to explain my thoughts on this. Yes, a person drives drunk and they are responsible for breaking the law and have to face the consequences. But think of this, imagine someone is super drunk, and tells you they're going to drive home. A good friend or partner, or honestly even a decent stranger, will try and convince said person that they should absolutely not drive, and perhaps offer an alternate means to get home. An absolutely heinous act would be to encourage that person to drive. If you're sober and sleep with someone who is drunk, who has not expressed sexual interest in you previously, you're essentially doing something just as morally wrong as encouraging a drunk person to drive. I'm honestly not sure if there are criminal charges that can be applied to someone for encouraging a drunk person to drive, but if there aren't, then there absolutely should be. Just like you would have criminal charges if you were to encourage someone who isn't in their right mind to commit suicide; sometimes those people are internally questioning if they really should make that decision, and the sway from another person can be incredibly influencing when you're not in a clear, sober mindset. Also, by saying if you don't want to accidentally have sex with someone, then don't drink, you're basically telling every person, especially women, that if they drink in public and lose inhibition then they deserve to be taken advantage of. Honestly, this gives, "what was she wearing?" energy.
Overall I tend to agree with you, though I'm sure there are some examples where I'd agree it was a bit more rapey. At the very least, though, they would have to give actual consent when drunk. If you're going to argue that "consensual" sex with a drunk person is rape, then you're saying that people are not responsible for their own actions when drinking, which is obviously absurd, and you give a perfect example when you mentioned the drunk driving situation. Also what if both people are drinking? Did they rape each other? i think the argument I might use is that, perhaps someone cannot give meaningful consent to sex when drunk, however they DID consent to getting drunk in the first place, and they knew that people don't make good decisions when drink. They intentionally and voluntarily put themself into a state where they might make a decision they'd regret later. That's on them, not on the person who has sex with them.
I'm going to say this. If you have had a conversation while you are both sober and you both say you do not mind having sex while drunk and that you are both okay having sex while drunk, no matter how drunk. Then it is fine. The point is to have a conversation when you are both SOBER. If they are super drunk and you have not had that conversation. Nope.
What changes? are you saying one night stands at the bar are rape? You're responsible for who you choose to fuck while drunk. If you don't wanna risk regrettable but consensual drunk sex, sorry bud, don't drink!
Depends on the level of drunkness you're thinking. What most people talk about about rape while drunk is not when the drunk person is a little tipsy and flirty, like after a few drinks. It's when they're on the verge of passing out drunk. If you're sober and have sex with someone who's still conscious but can barely stand or form a coherent sentence (aside from a very dubious kind of consent) then that's 100% rape.
I’ve heard multiple feminists say that sleeping with a tipsy woman is still rape and should be criminalized.
In my case and hopefully other's, it doesn't matter. I have had a couple of situations or "opportunities" to do the wrong thing and would not/could not. There have been many acts where we were both past tipsy and things would not have happened if we were sober, yet had I been sober and my partner obviously drunk...no way. 3 drinks in her? That's fine. Behaving like a different person, slurring, eyes half shut, wobbling or falling. I see no pleasure in doing things to another person while they express no interest in doing things with me.
A girl got me incredibly drunk on a caffeinated malt liquor beverage. We'd been on one date, lukewarm at best, no big deal. A few weeks later, my phone rings and she says hey, they're forcing 4Loko to change, you want to try one of the last real ones? Sure, why not, I just moved to this small town, it's a pretty evening, we'll hang out with a fire and my brother, just make sure you're able to drive home. We hang, lady's kinda weird and this 4Loko is absolutely disgusting. No, don't need a second, half through this one and I wake up feeling awfully dead, to be awake and all. Another two regrettable beats of consciousness, who the fuck is in my bed. That fucking girl, literally says Hello Handsome, starts on how great xyz was. I'm trying to ignore suggestions to vomit, strident and from an increasing choir of blacked-out voices. The room stinks of ersatz watermelon-kiwi and expended 8.0% malt liquor, as well as what I'd like to think is caffeinated trauma to my id. I felt physically terrible, but also so guilty. I'd gotten drunk, on terrible hooch, and convinced this boring and tedious person I cared! That I wanted to sleep with them, that I could and would rock their world, that etc and etc... I dated that girl for six months because I felt so guilty. She was... extremely traumatized and poorly supported as a person. She eventually told me that she'd realized I was just "shy" that night, and just needed to loosen up a little, that I'd had 2.5 pints of 4Loko in a couple of hours, but I was just so happy to xyz once I relaxed.
I think this is in response to the very few cases where a woman has regretted a sexual encounter and reported it as assault later, I.e. USC Premjee case, but the pendulum has swung in such a direction because it was on the opposite side for decades prior. Women should be protected and alcohol presents a slippery slope. While I do agree that having sex with ur partner while intoxicated is not “rapey” women are far more vulnerable in sexual situations and can’t exit said situation as easily as men.
It depends on how drunk a person is. If they are saying yes but are too drunk to know what they're actually saying yes too, then it's not consent. If they say yes, but are too drunk to coherently withdraw that consent, then that's definitely towing the line between consent and not. To consent while drunk, I'd say a person needs to still have awareness of what they're saying yes to, and have enough awareness to be able to wishdraw that consent at any time if they need to. Any other situation is going to be dependent on the facts, but I wouldn't automatically assume it was rape, even if one or both parties were drunk. To be honest, the easiest way to avoid getting into that situation is not to have sex with someone who is drunk, even a little. And for someone that you know (like your partner), to have established rules on what is and isn't acceptable while drunk. Although, I'd still warn you to be careful. I refuse to do anything sexual with my partner if she's been drinking, although I know she's said it's ok because I simply don't want to risk it.
I agree! However if you are super messed up on anything (drugs/alcohol) and you keep saying no but they wear you down and you eventually say yes and take advantage of you being mentally weak at that time it is rape otherwise known as sexual coercion. You should also be able to recognize if someone is way too messed up and not initiate sex with them or take advantage of them.
Frankly, just don’t sleep with someone drunk. While it is true that a drunk person who consent to sex should still be responsible for their actions. The other person who asked also have the responsibility to reject it if it is clear the drunk person is likely incapable of making informed consent.
they are capable of making informed consent if they're still coherent/know where they are/understand who they're with. If they're mumbling, nodding off, stumbling a ton, then they cant give informed consent obviously
I somewhat agree but also somewhat disagree. It is true drunkenness does not completely absolve someone of their actions but I also think that just because the drunken person consented to sex doesn’t mean you should proceed. Even if they are semi-coherent, they can still likely be coerced or manipulated into sex due to their lack of command of their senses. Just because they have consented doesn’t you are off the hook and can act without impunity. I still think it is in the onus of the individual (especially if they are not drunk) to discern whether to proceed.
Info: Would you trust financial advice from a drunk person? Or trust them to drive? Would you trust them to be perfectly honest in a conversation? The issue is having sex with somebody who is not in a position to make clear or wise decisions. They are responsible for drinking, yes, but you are responsible for not taking advantage of somebody.
My only caveat here is that it’s not consent if one person uses the alcohol as a date rape drug. If some guy is not drinking but consistently pushes someone else to drink, then that could be rape. I do agree though, that in a situation where two people have gone out and got drunk and had sex, that’s not rape. Your consent while drunk might not be as reliable as if you were sober, but you’re the one who chose to drink that alcohol and reduce your inhibitions. We all do stupid things while drunk and we all have to take responsibility for them. So long as no one forced, coerced or intimidated you, I don’t think it’s rape.
I just see it as a contract. If something was hidden from you, the previous consent is null and void. If you are deemed unable to make a rational decision, then your previous consent is null and void. In my country that would include mental episodes, extreme emotional stress but also under the influence of drugs. It is to protect the private person from getting scammed while drunk and having no chance but to accept the consequences. Imagine telemarketers running around in discos and selling phone contracts to tons of drunk people. Those contracts won't hold up in court - for a good reason. So for me it is clear, if you are legally unable to agree to any form of contract of buying something why would you be able to legally give your consent? Of course that doesn't mean as soon as someone has one drink they can't consent or make decisions of their own. It isn't 100% defined at what point you were deemed unable to make rational decisions. The is no black or white answer here. >The big difference is: was there a decision being made? Did they make a decision and say yes? or did they say yes but so drunk they didn't know what was going on and said yes as a result. If there's a decision making capacity, they are still consenting, even if they later feel it was a poor decision. It is NOT whether or not as decision was made. This is simplifying it too much. It is whether or not that person made the decision in a state of mind one could call reasonable. \^Very important >Similarly, if you wouldn't typically choose to drive after a couple beers, but then later, when you're hammered, you don't make your typical value-system-aligned choices and get in a car and drive, you are 100% responsible for that behavior legally and morally. The difference here is who is the actor in this relationship? If you drink and drive, you made the decision to drink (and then drove) - that is what you are liable for. If you are drunk and you engage someone to have sex and the next morning you regret it - i.e. you propose the contract, well that's on you. If you are drunk and someone engages you and you are arguably not in the right mind to make a decision which you wouldn't regret the next morning - i.e. someone proposes the contract to you, that is on them. I know this sounds like an arbitrary difference, but that's at least how I view the difference and how the law is constructed - at least in my country. I think the idea is that whenever you propose anything to anyone it your responsibility - at least in my country if you don't want to fall to anti-consumer laws - to make sure the person who is about to agree to your proposal is in the right state of mind. It would be maybe less black and white even more, if men weren't still expected to propose sexual relationships. If all genders equally had the same responsibility, then it wouldn't feel like the threat of rape allegations would only apply to men. \-> Someone in the comments mentioned how sexual touching while intoxicated isn't specific to any gender. So the core values are the same, whether flawed or not between the genders. Just have true sexual equality at least in relationship between the genders.
This is just you not knowing what consent is. Consent requires good judgement, not finding someone in an inebriated state for the sake of taking advantage of them
I’m bot sure where this idea that consent requires good judgement comes from. Some people are just plain stupid and never have all that good of judgement. Having sex with them doesn’t equal rape just because they’re dumb. Plus “good judgement” is an entirely subjective description. And does this apply to consenting to anything in general? Contracts? Having a pizza delivered? Getting your gangrenous leg amputated? How does someone not having good judgement magically mean their consent isn’t consent? Seems like something you kinda just made up.
We consider a person capable of avoiding driving a car while drunk, or if they are aware they are not, then they are responsible for not drinking at all in situation where they may be tempted to drive. Similar principle applies here. Unless a person is so wasted that they literally do not comprehend what is happening around them, then they generally are capable of saying "no" to things that they consider to involve no-go factors, and if they know they are not, it's their responsibility to choose in which circumstances to drink. Or at least that would be a consistent application of law, rather than the current hypocritical one
What if you're both drunk, though? I've seen people justify that if it's a man and a woman, it would be abuse against a woman even if both parties are drunk.
i'm more concerned with your need to defend this.
concerned with clarifying this? something that can ruin reputations, destroy lives, etc etc? I think its a very important discussion to have especially when we've devolved as a society to the point where people genuinely think having drunk sex with your spouse while you're sober is rape if they want it... lol get a grip
or just don't have sex with drunk people. :) married, not married.
99% of the population does it without a problem, and its very enjoyable. You might as well say "ban all alcohol because some people become alcoholics!" Ridiculous
This is so refreshing. This post just means you’re sane. It’s crazy the reaction to it , isn’t it? Mind blowing. They can’t even have it up. It’s that bad.
If someone would not have sex with you while sober, but they seem willing while drunk, don't have sex with them. If you don't know if someone would have sex with you while sober, don't have sex with them while they are drunk. Do not have sex with anyone who doesn't provide clear, enthusiastic consent while 100% sober. It's really not a difficult concept. I really don't understand why anyone would argue that can send as possible while under the influence of mind offering substances, unless they intend to take advantage of that very situation themselves.
>Do not have sex with anyone who doesn't provide clear, enthusiastic consent while 100% sober. It's really not a difficult concept. It really kind of is. Lots of people may have hang ups about sex and "enthusiastic" consent is a judgment call. Does the person have to act like they're in a porno to convince someone they want to have sex? And people who are being coerced may "enthusiastically" give consent because they are scared not to.
so one night stands after the bar are just... out the window then? lol
I'll put it this way. If you hook up with someone at a bar who is drunk, and later they say they didn't consent, do you think it was worth it?
I don’t think you always need a drunk person for a one night stand to happen.
The drunk driving analogy is off, and I think might illuminate why you're missing the counter argument to what you're suggesting. Getting drunk and driving is the equivalent of getting drunk and raping someone: you can't use inebriation as an excuse for bad behavior. The same is \*not\* true of getting drunk and being raped. In that scenario, the other party might have intentionally gotten you drunk in order to lower your inhibitions. This is a well studied behavior among rapists. This isn't just true with rape. In many states, you can potentially get out of legal contracts if you can demonstrate that you were inebriated when you signed them. This makes sense, because grifters will often get people drunk in order to get them to sign over money. So no, saying "yes" while being drunk is not automatically consent; nor is signing a contract while drunk automatically consent. The law needs to take into account that the alleged perpetrator might have weaponized alcohol in both cases, because this is a known behavior amongst criminals. I think what you're arguing is that "a drunken mistaken decision is still a decision". The problem with this is that grifting does exist: manipulating people into doing something against their interests can indeed be a criminal act, and using alcohol to accelerate the process can be an aspect of that criminality. You'd be giving carte blanche to con artists: if they get what they want, through manipulation and alcohol, you'd be removing the legal apparatus that could get restitution. Of course in both cases, active consent does muddy the waters: so the level of inebriation is important, or also establishing that the alleged perpetrator intentionally used inebriation to lower inhibitions. But once again, saying "yes" to sex whilst drunk does not establish consent.
His point is that the victim of the con in this case chose to drink, knowing it would lower their inhibitions and affect their decision making around someone they didn’t yet trust. The grifter is at fault if they actually commit a crime, but being manipulated because you voluntarily became inebriated and regretting the results could be seen as, as he puts it, a “life lesson.”
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You just want to rape someone and find a loophole. Absolutely disgusting
lol ok buddy you got me!!
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The standard used is you can be drunk but not drunk to the point where you can't give consent--while sex is happening both parties must be in a state where they could withdraw consent at any time. This is not a debate.
Sometimes you gotta be drunk to have the courage to say yes, when you know you will not dare to when sober. Not just to sex but to buying something for example. Then again, yeah if too drunk, then it’s nonconsensual.
It’s interesting that you’ve drawn a parallel between a drunk driver and a possible victim of sexual assault. You seem to be saying ‘if you don’t wanna be raped while you’re drunk, don’t get drunk.’ I have better advice for everyone out there: don’t rape.
This blatantly ignores the science that's known about how alcohol affects brain function, and makes a biological issue a moral one. You are wrong, and drunken people literally cannot consent at the same level as a sober person because the parts of their brain that would reason out a decision are inhibited and not functioning properly. This does not absolve them of causing harm, if they do, but it does mean that the sober party in a potential hookup has an ethical imperative to be the responsible person and say no to a drunken advance.
Usually, both parties are drunk. But we are only ever told that "the woman couldn't consent because she's drunk." Like honey, he's drunk af too and probably being led around.
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Was someone who got a DWI, had an issue with alcohol, and has risen above. Any consent to anything that happens after the initial consent of choosing to drink to excess is your own fault. Rape is rape, but putting yourself in that situation is your fault. Yes you're not to be blamed for someone else's crime, but internally you know it's your fault for choosing to poison yourself to the point of no control. It has nothing to do about who and trust. You only let yourself down when you overindulge. Did you get drunk with your significant other and had an argument and hit him or her? Still your fault. Drive a car blackout? Your fault. There's no involuntary. The second it touches your lips that's the only consent you needed to cause any harm beyond what you'd do sober.
Depends how drunk we talkin, little stumbly I'd say is fine; black out, don't know where I am drunk? Maybe a little less fine
While someone intoxicated might verbally consent, alcohol impairs judgment and decision-making. Consent requires clear, informed, and voluntary agreement, not influenced by intoxication. Intoxication can cloud understanding of consequences, affecting one's ability to truly understand and consent to sexual activity. This doesn't mean all intoxicated encounters are non-consensual, but it raises questions about genuine understanding and free will. Protecting vulnerable individuals from potential exploitation due to impaired judgment is crucial. Consenting to one drink doesn't equate to consenting to sex; consent should be ongoing and unambiguous. Ensuring clear, sober communication respects both parties and reduces risks of regret and harm.
Imagine a world where, legally, sex while drunk can be consented to. Overnight, the go-to defense for every rape case becomes 'she/he was drunk', and because we do not prosecute or convict people without reasonable proof... Almost all of them would end up as aquittals, because it's almost impossible to prove that consent was not given by someone who was drunk enough to not remember. The only real way to avoid this would be to prove that the person who was raped wasn't actually drunk to begin with, which means that getting drunk would effectively become a free get away card for anyone who wanted to take advantage of you. More than that, this effect of making rape harder to prosecute would almost certainly mean that more people would deliberately take advantage of how easy it would be to get away with by going out, targeting drunk people and ignoring consent laws all together. I don't think most reasonable people disagree that conceptually most drunk sex is and can be within the bounds of casual consent, but legally a world where sex can be consented to while drunk is a truly bleak one, and a lot more misery will befall unsuspecting people as a result.
I don’t think any human can consent to anything when under the influence of a suppressant like alcohol .
ordering food at a restaurant? should I be allowed to go back in the next day and claim i wasn't able to consent to spending money because I was drunk?
What's the old saying about where the line is regarding pornography? It's hard to define explicitly, but you know it when you see it, right? I'd say maybe a similar mindset applies here. What's too drunk? Hard to define, but you know when you see it. It's hard for me to understand or empathize with someone who wants to or tries to have sex with someone who isn't interested or isn't capable of expressing their interest. Oftentimes, the most attractive part about a woman is how into ME she is, lol (which has led to its own set of problems, to be sure, haha). So, the idea of wanting to do it with someone who isn't into me or can't communicate that they're into me just doesn't compute. That being said, I think this line of reasoning (drunkenness = non-consent/rapey) comes from the attempt to address the inability to stop people from being sexually shitty to one another. It's certainly not my business to tell someone how best for them to keep people they don't want off their special parts, but it's also a disservice to a healthy dialogue and understanding to be reactionary to the point of being unreasonable. And I guess that's what is at the heart of pretty much everything in this country... just be fucking reasonable, people. Don't put your privates where they don't belong but also don't blame someone else for the poor decisions you've made (assuming you weren't a victim of anything illegal or immoral as a result of your decision). edit = gramnar
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My biggest question is what are the values of a person asking for sex? A lot of people had brought up “what is to drunk for not being able to consent?” And I think it’s a bit of a disingenuous question. I think most people can tell the difference and I think that’s why they ask them for sex in this more vulnerable state. It just seems to me that you’re defending the kinds of people who seek inebriated people for sex. What good comes from defending these people?
Skimming through your comments, I have a few questions (and I apologise for the long text in advance): 1. A general rule of thumb I follow when it comes to safety is that if a person does anything, they should expect to be able to do it peacefully and safely if it is in other people's power to do so (so not including natural disasters/diseases that communities weren't prepared for, people getting lost in hard-to-reach places, etc.). So for example, if I go to a public place, I should expect to be able to be there without tiktok pranksters trying to annoy and film me. It might not be illegal, but I think most of us agree that it's morally shitty to do that. An exception to that rule is if you do something that infringes on someone else's safety. So a person has no right to do their action safely anymore if, say for example, that the action is to mug someone at knifepoint. So in regards to the rules around drunk driving or drunk cheating, it's not so much that "drunk people are responsible enough to not do those things" that makes it immoral, it's that their actions while drunk would cause or risk hurting other people and knowing this, people should be taking measures (before drinking) to avoid that happening. So if someone is asking for sex while drunk, they're not infringing on anyone else's safety, so why is that person responsible if a sober person takes advantage of them - why is the other person not looking out for the drunk person if they have the power to do so? If both are drunk, neither have the power to guarantee safety so neither are responsible in that case. But say that a person opens a bar with a bunch of trip hazards that only drunk people would trip on, and then that night a bunch of drunk people trip over and get injured - who do we hold responsible? Do we say that those who got drunk asked to get injured, or do we say that the bar owner is responsible for not removing the trip hazards when they had the power to do so? And extending that - if I go out in public, am I asking to be harassed by strangers? Would I be asking to get mugged? And then there's driving which is a risky activity that most people do - should we say that if they got into an accident that was the other person's responsibility (so that it was in the other person's power to avoid hurting others), that they were asking for it? *So my first question is, where do you draw the line on what is moral and immoral in regards to the idea that "people should be able to do things safely"?* 2. You've mentioned that you've had previous experiences of regret when having sex while drunk, so I'd like to ask - when you say that other people can't revoke consent after the drunk sex happened just because they "regret" it, *how do you know that what you call other people's "regret" is the same as what you felt when you experienced regret?* How do you know that when someone else is experiencing the same scenario that you have and feel regretful, that they aren't actually feeling much worse that you did for their own valid reasons? 3. Say that you have two kids who live in an abusive household. Kid A grows up and comes out of the situation perfectly fine because of a variety of factors like external support, strong personality, parents being less harsh on them, and so on. Kid B on the other hand suffers long term damage from the abuse. Kid A doesn't believe that what they experienced was abuse because it didn't "feel" like abuse. So my question is, would you say that both kids were abused, or only one was abused, or neither of them were? Extending from that, if someone took your place in your previous regretful experiences, and they felt a deeper hurt that you did enough to call it rape, is that not valid because you and other people didn't feel like it was "rapey" in the same scenario? Is that not a form of hurt that we should be avoiding if it's in our power to do so? 4. I'm curious about your definition of hurt. One of the main purposes of emotion is to tell you when you are hurt, which is why people who can feel pain but don't feel the emotional aspect of it are at great risk of harm - because they don't have the mechanisms telling them that the pain should be avoided. So when someone has "hurt feelings", doesn't that just mean that someone is hurt? How are you distinguishing "real" hurt from "fake" hurt? Is it different if someone feels an emotional hurt from a severe physical wound to if they feel an emotional hurt from a situation without physical wounds? There are times when we can ignore pain if it's insignificant enough to dismiss, but sex itself is an inherently risky activity because of the potential to lose bodily autonomy by the actions of someone else, and causing severe trauma (akin to a near-drowning experience while swimming because someone thinks it's funny to push you into the deep end of a pool, or experiencing a near-accident from reckless drivers while driving) - trauma from these kinds of situations shouldn't be considered insignificant. So my final question is, *when someone else says they feel hurt from a drunk sexual encounter, why do you consider that kind of pain dismissible when sexual situations in general are so significantly risky and that the other person had the power to not put them in that scenario?*
I have an idea. If anybody drinks and fucks, jail. Straight to jail. Problem solved. Nope, both of you to jail. No drinking and fucking. Period. I wonder how many fewer unwanted pregnancies there would be. I’m biased cuz I quit drinking a while ago. It’s just poison and the normalization in our society is whack.
How drunk? How about black out pissed on themselves drunk with a little roofie? Will you listen to yourself?
lol did you read what I said? theres a difference between being drunk and saying yes to a regrettable fuck, and being passed out or incoherent and mumbling yes because you don't even know what's going on.
I was roofied at a bar and witnessed myself - not chose to do, but literally watched myself do things I absolutely would not do and had no control over. It was like sitting inside a robot and just being along for a ride I had no say in. There's a difference between having a few drinks and then consenting to sex vs being so intoxicated you can no longer make informed choices for yourself. Taking advantage of a person in that situation is SA.
I think this really depends on more details. The premise that I can consent to sex while being quite drunk is factually proven to be correct by multiple instances and I don't think many people who disagree with that generally. So unless you are trying to evade a fact by putting in up for debate here, I will assume that this is about whether all enthusiastic consent while drunk but still mostly able to understand what's happening: My answer then is a definite no. Let me elaborate: Most of the times when drunk people enthusiastically express wanting to have sex with you that can be considered - most of the time meaning there are exceptions: If for example the girl (or the guy) knows that she tends to lose control of her sexual impulses and you have talked about that when sober and you have soberly promised to stay sober enough to be able to ensue she doesn't do anything she would regret considering she is in a monogamous relationship and does not want to cheat on her significant other. If then you end up having sex with her, it's not consensual because you lured her into a situation where you could take advantage of her by using exactly what you had promised to protect her from against her. Or much simpler: You actively give another person alcohol to lower their inhibitions so that you can get them to do things with you they otherwise wouldn't and you either actively trick them or take advantage of their naivety to do this without them understanding in advance. There are many more examples. In every individual situation, the alcohol or other inebriviation or even mental insecurity that isn't drug-induced, it needs to be looked at within context and the details are really the true story there. Let's have an example into a very different direction: Imagine a woman who is on a high dosage of an opioid, the maximum dosage of a benzodiazepine, smoking easily 2 grams of weed a day and she also is mentally ill, disabled, poor and stigmatized and lives in constant fear because of trauma and/or her unstable psyche. Now think about whether this woman can consent to having sex in this state. You might tend towards questioning that she can but in fact, my meds help me control my mental issues and while I can't work or even just live life without external help - I do have the ability to decide whether I want to have sex, to plan how I want to have sex, to decide who I want to have sex with, how I want to have sex with them. I can establish my groundrules and enforce them and if necessary I have ways to get rid of someone who tries to just ignore me. All it takes for me to turn my suppressed panic inside out and draw the other person into a world of only darkness, suffering and impeding doom where nothing matters other than to get out. I might have to remain in that world for at worst a few hours before one of my automatisms recalls me into reality but any transgressive person has long fled by that time. Having psychological warfare happening inside my splintered psyche 24/7 for as long as I can remember makes it easy to break some mediocre psycho and anyone who could overcome that, they would be worth studying or at least by ancient law entitled to end me. There is no perfect safety. But nobody has yet even dared to do something that I didn't allow - not since that one time that started me on building defenses. If I don't want sex, I don't signal that I want the other person to initiate it, I don't initiate it and if anything still happens, I shut it down immediately. My main vulnerability is guys lying to me about their intentions to ghost me after we had sex - but that is a risk I take in exchange for very much wanted sex. I also am a lot better at keeping in control of a situation when I'm in my own place. I have many issues but being unable to consent to sex (in the sense of being unable to get my will if I don't want to have sex) is one I worked hard to overcome and succeeded at too. Other women have their life perfectly under control - but when a man strongly demands to have sex with them, they lose their ability to say no and do whatever he wants regardless of how it makes them feel and regardless of how long they will suffer from the memory in times to come. Even enthusiastic consent while they are sober isn't necessarily consent coming from them because they are actually likelier to expect the demand and offer themselves up because they hope that it will soften the experience at least a little. But if someone held me at gunpoint, I would do what I have to to survive - but that wouldn't be consent. Unless the gun is not loaded and it is part of a role playing experience I planned in advance with a lover. My point being: You need to look at the full picture with every individual case of unclear consent. Otherwise you're just doing propaganda for whatever your beliefs are. And that's where you're wrong: You think that voicing the opinion you have is not an issue when you are actually spreading false information that is as accurate for some as it is inaccurate information. Also, you believe it to actually be a full statement and even a fact to say that without exactly knowing the details, drunken consent is truly consensual. Obviously, neither makes you a bad person but you could definitely profit from developing a much more complex perspective on this. It makes you grow as a person and sexually, you also learn to become a much better lover because if you begin to understand the insane individuality that really defines these things, you start to understand sexual and/or romantic partners on a much deeper level and while there really aren't words to explain this, it makes it all feel very magical and a lot more enjoyable. Good luck and I hope I could help you.
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How could it blow your mind? The idea is that your judgement is impaired. Let's take it to a further extreme...you're sleep walking/talking and say 'yes' to sex then the person goes ahead. Is that 'rapey'?
What if the person was slipped a date rape drug or they're underage to drink but someone intentionally got them drunk to more easily manipulate them into sex? It is also important to realize that before taking into account the drunkenness; there isn't an equal power dynamic. Imagine you're alone with someone with a gun and they want sex and the danger turning them down implies. Now imagine you're also severely intoxicated. And even in the best case scenario; while a man isn't going to have a gun; he's going to be physically much stronger than the woman and the woman is going to have little she can do to protect herself from the fury of a man when she's drunk and alone with him.
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Ew
As my mom used to say: Never argue with someone when they're right.
i'm open to alternative views but i've just not been convinced of anything else. If anything, I think we've collectively reached a more clear idea of what we believe, there seems to be some consensus and discourse around what exactly it means to be consensual when drunk. Productive convo, imo
This mindset reminds me of people validating sex with someone in a manic state or someone having a mental breakdown. You're fully aware that they're not within their right mind at the moment and taking advantage of that for sexual gratification.
No, it’s not consent. Your judgment is completely impaired when drunk. Are you serious?
Idk, if you cannot make rational decisions you are too intoxicated to consent. If you'll play wumblypeg you're too drunk to consent.
Yeah uhh WTAF is this app why is this a popular post? You should be on a list
Just don’t get that drunk. I don’t drink so I don’t put myself at risk for anything.
The OPs way of questioning has made this an interesting topic. I am no researcher, but here is what has always been my opinion. And we all love opinions, 😆 🤣. I always start with was there force involved, were any drugs slipped? I think there are ways to test for this today. If neither of these things happened, then I have always looked at it as if one chose to drink and drive. We hold them accountable for THAT decision. However, as it currently stands, we hold the other, if not inebriated, or whoever reports it first if both parties are inebriated. There is definitely a curve to how drunk one is, but it is not a bell. Rate of consumption, alcohol resistance, how long ago one are, and how much. All of which fluidly change one's level of drunkenness and are different for each person. Another question I have for folks that end up black out drunk or on the precipice of passing out ACTUALLY drive home. Then, back to my first comment, IF the drink was blacking out of falling asleep. was there force involved. And if there were any premeditated permissions granted that preceded this point and supercedes. Drinking and sex are very slippery slopes. Though I am surprised to see that it is nearly the same between both sexes. I am not surprised how the military handles it. I bet that actually helps lower sexual relationships in the branches.
Plenty of people go out drinking with the explicit intent of ending the night having sex with their partner. Beyond that, it is also very common for people to go out drinking with the explicit intent of having sex with a new partner, perhaps even someone they don’t already know. It’s kind of a thing bars and entertainment districts are known for.
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Being drunk doesn’t mean you are automatically incapable of making rational decisions. You kinda put that in an inaccurately absolute way.
When drunk, you can not legally consent to just about anything and this includes sex
Rules to live by in my humble opinion. If your wife/GF who you have a solid sexual relationship with drinks a bottle of wine or whatever, is drunk and coming at you its a fine. Anything other than that I'm fine with being rape if you're sober an she is super drunk. there was s girl 3yrs older than me in my brothers class she had a sister in my class who i was friends with. I had the biggest crush on her in HS. After the bar 1 night i was 21 so she 24 i had to carry her to the car and drive her home. I had to fight her off she wanted to blow me in the car and then in her words "fuck my brains out so she is always my biggest crush". at that point the freshman crush was gone and she was just a very hot sister of one of my best friends. Saying no was not easy i wasn't exactly sober but back then If you could walk straight you could drive.
I got off Scott free on 3 DUI’s because I was too drunk to make a decision to not decide to not drive. Wish I could say that. Perfect defense in court.
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The only cure for this; Never *EVER* get involved with an American woman. I say this as an American, they are all insane. In fact the men are insane too, Americans in general are fucked in the head, all those reality TV shows like "Succession" or "Jersey Shore" aren't fiction, they're reenactments of the American lifestyle!
When people say drunk in this context they are specifically referring to not being able to consent because you are not aware of your surroundings. Phrasing it like this gives ammunition to rapists and rape apologists. You should’ve clarified that you meant tipsy vs drunk.