Dennis Prager says women campus assualts lie

[AniThyng]

Y'know, this is an issue that affects about half of humanity, but for some people it seems the most important part of it is the "I want to have sex while punch-drunk" demographic.

Sorry, no sympathy and understanding here, guys. Wanna' be one the safe side? Don't have sex while drunk or with people who are drunk.

why this is not a slippery slope to don't drink, period is beyond me.

[The Romulan Republic]

Drinking isn't a problem unless you're incapable of stopping before you're drunk. But I would say don't get drunk is a pretty good attitude to have. I'm not arguing in favour of legal prohibition. I'm saying that not getting drunk is a choice I would encourage others to adopt for moral reasons and self-interest.

Edit: And if you get drunk and do something you shouldn't have, my sympathy is limited.

[Batman]

The problem with 'stopping before you're drunk' is the very act of drinking impairs your ability to judge whether or not you are. Combine this with a culture where binge drinking and having no clue what you did last night is considered an achievement, and there's going to be a lot of people who do that.

And what exactly is immoral about getting drunk?

[Simon_Jester]

I personally can get behind the "don't get drunk" thing, but various societies have tried to create enough public disapproval of drinking to eliminate it. It never works.

The US specifically tried to ban alcoholic beverages outright for about 10-15 years, and all it got us was a mass of organized crime making money off the War on Liquor.

So realistically, drinking is never going to go away in human society. We need some idea of how to handle the question "what is the definition of rape in the context of drinking, where it is possible to agree to things drunk that one would never agree to sober, or to do something and then not remember it the next day, even while others remember it quite clearly?"

It's a significant side issue to be discussed in addition to the generally agreed upon "accept a standard of yes means yes, convince men they're not somehow entitled to sex or required to trick/coerce sex out of women, and so on."

[Batman]

I concur. Maybe detached enough from the main issue that we should contemplate asking to have it split into its own thread?

[amigocabal]

So realistically, drinking is never going to go away in human society. We need some idea of how to handle the question "what is the definition of rape in the context of drinking, where it is possible to agree to things drunk that one would never agree to sober, or to do something and then not remember it the next day, even while others remember it quite clearly?"

The best way to handle the drunkenness consent thing is to look at our drunk driving lawsd.

One element of the crime of drunk driving is that the drunk driver chose to drive. This implies that the intoxication was not severe enough that it was impossible for the driver to have made the choice to drive.

the same principle applies to sexual consent. There is no reason for the law to say that a person deemed unable to choose whether or not to have sex because of a particular level of intoxication is nevertheless deemed capable of choosing whether or not to drive a motor vehicle.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Does the current law actually hold, as Terralthra says, that consensual sex with a drunk person is considered rape? My understanding was that they would have to be drunk to the point of being incapable of making decisions, which is well past the point of memory blackout.

Therein lies the problem. Its not cut and dry. Most laws say that if someone is in such a state that they are "unable to consent" that it would be rape. To me, a reasonable standard would be that they were in such state of mind that they don't know where they are, unable to say either yes or no. But if you stretch that definition of "unable to consent" to include "Gave consent, but was under the influence of alcohol", then even the concept of "yes means yes" falls apart. As I noted before, we don't excuse drunk drivers because they were under the influence when they drove. Quite the contrary, we lambast them for being "irresponsible" for choosing to drive after drinking.

That's why I'm an advocate that if you make the decision to drink, then you must accept the consequences of your own actions while under the influence of alcohol. "No still means no", but "yes means yes" in that scenario and we're not sending good people to jail because a second party regretted their actions when they sobered up.

Ahem

First of all Fuck You, you Rape Apologist Scum.

Ok. That having been said, here is the issue.

With respect to drunk drivers, people who drive while drunk are not actually liable for the act of driving while drunk in itself. They are liable for what amounts to negligence. For failing to take the precautions necessary to keep them from driving drunk in the first place. They fail in their duty of care to everyone else around them when they get on the road. A duty of care that exists toward others, but that does not extend to the prevention of crimes against their person. If someone is drunk and because of that drunkeness is an easy victim of fraud, drunkeness on the part of the victim does not excuse the fraud, because the act of fraud is an act committed against them by someone else making the active choice to do so.

No One has a duty of care to prevent someone else from victimizing them, in other words.

Additionally, trying to look for philosophical or logical consistency in the criminal code is like looking for leprechauns at the ends of rainbows, so I really dont see the point of the drunk driving statute being used as a counter-example. Its existence implies absolutely nothing regarding the correctness of rape statues, because there is no consistency in the criminal code.
....

One of the first things alcohol impairs is the ability of the prefrontal cortex to regulate behavior. It weakens the outgoing connections. Input goes in. Outputs dont leave, not because it does not send them, but because the line is blocked.

There are two major parts of the brain that handle decision making re: sex. The amygdala and the prefrontal cortex. The amygdala gets input from certain lovely little parts of the hypothalamus etc that tell it that Person A is some sort of Sexy. It Wants. Signals prefrontal cortex for a sanity check while it tells the rest of the brain to Initiate Seduction Protocol. If sober, the prefrontal cortex may send an abort code to the rest of the brain if it decides that mating is a bad idea (the amygdala almost always wants to mate, so the prefrontal cortex may decided that cost/benefit ratio is not in favor, or because there are other social obligations like a pre-existing relationship or monastic vows that preclude mating). The decision is made by way of the relative strength of both sets of signals. If not sober, the abort code (if present) is artificially weak. It is sent at full strength, but does not reach the intended recipients. This is often so much the case with drunkeness that people disassociate completely, and their higher cognitive functions become passive witnesses to their actions.

They might say "Yes" in such a state, but they dont have a valid mental quorum. It is not Them who makes that decision. It is a temporarily brain damaged person.

The next day, everything reintegrates. Which means the prefrontal cortex gets its voice back and its input is incorporated into the consciousness. And that fully realized person has to deal with the consequences of what someone did to them while they were physiologically unable to make informed decisions. Now, this might not be a problem. If for example the prefrontal cortex would have given the go ahead to sleep with someone, consent can be given post-facto now that the mind has its quorum. If not... it is rape. And the rapist has no one to blame but the rapist.

[AniThyng]

Yes but isn't this entire discussion about the rapist himself being drunk?

[Elfdart]

Does the current law actually hold, as Terralthra says, that consensual sex with a drunk person is considered rape? My understanding was that they would have to be drunk to the point of being incapable of making decisions, which is well past the point of memory blackout.

Therein lies the problem. Its not cut and dry. Most laws say that if someone is in such a state that they are "unable to consent" that it would be rape. To me, a reasonable standard would be that they were in such state of mind that they don't know where they are, unable to say either yes or no. But if you stretch that definition of "unable to consent" to include "Gave consent, but was under the influence of alcohol", then even the concept of "yes means yes" falls apart. As I noted before, we don't excuse drunk drivers because they were under the influence when they drove. Quite the contrary, we lambast them for being "irresponsible" for choosing to drive after drinking.

That's why I'm an advocate that if you make the decision to drink, then you must accept the consequences of your own actions while under the influence of alcohol. "No still means no", but "yes means yes" in that scenario and we're not sending good people to jail because a second party regretted their actions when they sobered up.

Let's put it this way: If you get drunk and I convince you to write me a check while you're drunk, if you were able to show that you were in fact under the influence then not only is that check worthless, but I could find myself in hot water for theft if I tried to cash it. Yes, even if you were all smiles while signing it. Now I realize it's pretty difficult to prove you were drunk when I took advantage, just as it's difficult in rape cases, but the principle is the same.

You're also equating driving while drunk (which is a crime) with being raped while drunk (which is not).

Yes but isn't this entire discussion about the rapist himself being drunk?

And what if he is?

[AniThyng]

I don't think anyone is arguing that a sober person is not guilty of rape if the other party is drunk, but if both parties are drunk what does that imply about the decision making of the drunk male?

[The Romulan Republic]

I don't think anyone is arguing that a sober person is not guilty of rape if the other party is drunk, but if both parties are drunk what does that imply about the decision making of the drunk male?

I find it interesting that if two people have sex when they're drunk you assume that the one who might be a rapist is the male. Men may rape women more than the other way around, but this is basically saying that if everything other than gender is the same, the man is the one to view as a potential rapist even though the woman did the same thing.

I'm of the opinion that if everyone was comparably drunk and they accidentally had sex everyone is a rapist or nobody is a rapist regardless of their genders, and I lean toward the latter option because otherwise the same act is simultaneously rape and being raped and in any case no one is really taking advantage of anyone because everyone's equally out of their wits. Though its more dodgy if they got themselves and someone else drunk for the purpose of having sex.

[Kon_El]

Y'know, this is an issue that affects about half of humanity, but for some people it seems the most important part of it is the "I want to have sex while punch-drunk" demographic.

Sorry, no sympathy and understanding here, guys. Wanna' be one the safe side? Don't have sex while drunk or with people who are drunk.

This is an issue that affects all of humanity. Why are you rejecting the idea of the woman being the sexual aggressor? In situations where people have sex while drunk why is it almost always the man who is labeled a rapist? Drunk horny people make mistakes. Trying to lay blame on only one of them is a dangerous position to take that will push away supporters who don't like being blamed because of their gender.

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

Let's put it this way: If you get drunk and I convince you to write me a check while you're drunk, if you were able to show that you were in fact under the influence then not only is that check worthless, but I could find myself in hot water for theft if I tried to cash it. Yes, even if you were all smiles while signing it. Now I realize it's pretty difficult to prove you were drunk when I took advantage, just as it's difficult in rape cases, but the principle is the same.

OK, but what if the payee didn't take advantage of the check writer's inebriated state or was even aware that their judgment was impaired? What if they were both drinking and the check writer voluntarily offered to pay the payee's expenses after listening to tales of financial hardship, but would not have been so generous sober? You and the other hardliners in this thread are assuming coercion, that the less impaired person is deliberately taking advantage of the more impaired person with full knowledge that they would not comply while sober. Without that assumption the argument falls apart completely and psychic mind reading skills are required not to commit a retroactively-determined felony. I think we can all agree that deliberately taking advantage of a drunk person is rape (or theft, in the above example), but the assumption that all cases fit that profile is completely unjustified.

[Metahive]

Y'know, this is an issue that affects about half of humanity, but for some people it seems the most important part of it is the "I want to have sex while punch-drunk" demographic.

Sorry, no sympathy and understanding here, guys. Wanna' be one the safe side? Don't have sex while drunk or with people who are drunk.

This is an issue that affects all of humanity. Why are you rejecting the idea of the woman being the sexual aggressor? In situations where people have sex while drunk why is it almost always the man who is labeled a rapist? Drunk horny people make mistakes. Trying to lay blame on only one of them is a dangerous position to take that will push away supporters who don't like being blamed because of their gender.

If it's an issue that affects 100% of humanity then all this griping about all drunks who want to have sex without having to think about it is even more mismatched. Of course, the statistics tell me that this is a problem that affects women way harder due to the prevalence of macho-centric cultures on Earth so your complaint is just in the same vein of all those other shmucks who think racism against white people is just as big an issue as racism agains PoCs. So you can eat your Red Herring.

I also say this, part of being a responsible adult is to know one's own limits which involves knowing how much alcohol one can stomach before turning into an atavistic baboon who has to bone everything in sight.

Totally missed the Hammerfucker comparing people who get raped while drunk to drunk drivers. Please look for a deep shit pit and drown yourself in it, you ulcer.

[AniThyng]

I don't think anyone is arguing that a sober person is not guilty of rape if the other party is drunk, but if both parties are drunk what does that imply about the decision making of the drunk male?

I find it interesting that if two people have sex when they're drunk you assume that the one who might be a rapist is the male. Men may rape women more than the other way around, but this is basically saying that if everything other than gender is the same, the man is the one to view as a potential rapist even though the woman did the same thing.

I'm of the opinion that if everyone was comparably drunk and they accidentally had sex everyone is a rapist or nobody is a rapist regardless of their genders, and I lean toward the latter option because otherwise the same act is simultaneously rape and being raped and in any case no one is really taking advantage of anyone because everyone's equally out of their wits. Though its more dodgy if they got themselves and someone else drunk for the purpose of having sex.

In the context of this discussion i think it's a given the assumption is the person doing the penetration and assumed to be the rapist is male regardless of the sex of the person being penetrated

[Beowulf]

I think this is assumed because the laws are written as such. Surveys are written as such. Rape isn't just being forced to have sex, but it's being forced to be penetrated. From a previously linked survey (linked by Feil) the following questions were asked about rape:

[Female respondents only] Regardless of how long ago it happened, has a man or boy ever made you have sex by using force or threatening to harm you or someone close to you? Just so there is no mistake, by sex we mean putting a penis in your vagina.

Has anyone, male or female, ever made you have oral sex by using force or threat of force? Just so there is no mistake, by oral sex we mean that a man or boy put his penis in your mouth or someone, male or female, penetrated your vagina or anus with their mouth or tongue.

Has anyone ever made you have anal sex by using force or threat of harm? Just so there is no mistake, by anal sex we mean that a man or boy put his penis in your anus.

Has anyone, male or female, ever put fingers or objects in your vagina or anus against your will or by using force or threats?

Has anyone, male or female, ever attempted to make you have vaginal, oral, or anal sex against your will, but intercourse or penetration did not occur?

In none of them, can a female rape a male by having vaginal sex with him. The closest is the attempted rape question at the end. Similarly, if a guy is forced to penetrate another guy, it's still not rape. Nor is being forced to give oral sex to a woman.

[Alyrium Denryle]

I find it interesting that if two people have sex when they're drunk you assume that the one who might be a rapist is the male. Men may rape women more than the other way around, but this is basically saying that if everything other than gender is the same, the man is the one to view as a potential rapist even though the woman did the same thing.

Because we have to pick our pronouns and might as well use the set that is accurate in 90+% of all cases

In none of them, can a female rape a male by having vaginal sex with him. The closest is the attempted rape question at the end. Similarly, if a guy is forced to penetrate another guy, it's still not rape. Nor is being forced to give oral sex to a woman.

Which is bullshit, but a woman forcing a man to penetrate her is very very rare, and the law has yet to catch up to the fact that it exists.

OK, but what if the payee didn't take advantage of the check writer's inebriated state or was even aware that their judgment was impaired? What if they were both drinking and the check writer voluntarily offered to pay the payee's expenses after listening to tales of financial hardship, but would not have been so generous sober? You and the other hardliners in this thread are assuming coercion, that the less impaired person is deliberately taking advantage of the more impaired person with full knowledge that they would not comply while sober. Without that assumption the argument falls apart completely and psychic mind reading skills are required not to commit a retroactively-determined felony. I think we can all agree that deliberately taking advantage of a drunk person is rape (or theft, in the above example), but the assumption that all cases fit that profile is completely unjustified.

It is really simple. People have a duty to not harm somebody else. Physically, financially etc. Unless circumstances are such that a greater harm will occur thereby and no special relationship exists that overrides more general duties exists.

Whether coerced or offered, the Check Writers willingness is invalidated by their mental state.

If both parties are drunk, then it goes two ways. Either the Negligence argument in my prior post, or a Mulligen of the form "well that is just fucking sad". Not sure where I fall. Thankfully it actually is not as relevant as one might think, because on college campuses, most rapes of this sort are committed by a relative handful of young men who are serial offenders and use alcohol as an explicit strategy.

...........................

When we get down to the brass tax on this issue, no objections the concept of Drunk Sex Is Rape is actually a principled objection. It is because it is something almost everyone has done. No one wants to cop to being a possible rapist (even the actual knowing rapists). No one wants to think that they have hurt someone else (except the people who knowingly and with malice commit rape). So many of our social interactions are lubricated with alcohol, so many of our (particularly early lifetime) matings are under the influence of alcohol that going out for drinks and to pick up potential mates has reached the point of being a ritual anthropologists could study.

Normally, it wont bite you in the ass because the other person also likes you and was just nervous about approaching you etc etc etc. Fun night, no one gets hurt. Until Someone Does Get Hurt. Until someone does not think you are sexy, but the alcohol kept them from saying No or kept from failing to say Yes.

Do you really want to play Russian Roulette with being a rapist? I know I dont.

[PKRudeBoy]

Does the current law actually hold, as Terralthra says, that consensual sex with a drunk person is considered rape? My understanding was that they would have to be drunk to the point of being incapable of making decisions, which is well past the point of memory blackout.

Therein lies the problem. Its not cut and dry. Most laws say that if someone is in such a state that they are "unable to consent" that it would be rape. To me, a reasonable standard would be that they were in such state of mind that they don't know where they are, unable to say either yes or no. But if you stretch that definition of "unable to consent" to include "Gave consent, but was under the influence of alcohol", then even the concept of "yes means yes" falls apart. As I noted before, we don't excuse drunk drivers because they were under the influence when they drove. Quite the contrary, we lambast them for being "irresponsible" for choosing to drive after drinking.

That's why I'm an advocate that if you make the decision to drink, then you must accept the consequences of your own actions while under the influence of alcohol. "No still means no", but "yes means yes" in that scenario and we're not sending good people to jail because a second party regretted their actions when they sobered up.

Let's put it this way: If you get drunk and I convince you to write me a check while you're drunk, if you were able to show that you were in fact under the influence then not only is that check worthless, but I could find myself in hot water for theft if I tried to cash it. Yes, even if you were all smiles while signing it. Now I realize it's pretty difficult to prove you were drunk when I took advantage, just as it's difficult in rape cases, but the principle is the same.

You're also equating driving while drunk (which is a crime) with being raped while drunk (which is not).

Yes but isn't this entire discussion about the rapist himself being drunk?

And what if he is?

How exactly does this square with the existence of an entire industry based around plying people with as much free booze as they want in order for them to make terrible financial decisions they would never make while sober? Because I'm fairly certain that if I tried to take Harrah's to court for the 200 bucks I lost there a few weeks ago I would be laughed out of the building, despite the fact that I was quite heavily intoxicated, and in fact blacked out for portions of it. Which raises another point, that one can be blacked out for portions of a night and remember other parts.

[General Zod]

How exactly does this square with the existence of an entire industry based around plying people with as much free booze as they want in order for them to make terrible financial decisions they would never make while sober? Because I'm fairly certain that if I tried to take Harrah's to court for the 200 bucks I lost there a few weeks ago I would be laughed out of the building, despite the fact that I was quite heavily intoxicated, and in fact blacked out for portions of it. Which raises another point, that one can be blacked out for portions of a night and remember other parts.

A lot of rape victims receive exactly that kind of treatment in real life already. Several don't bother coming forward because they think they're going to get blamed for it because they were drunk.

[amigocabal]

Ahem

First of all Fuck You, you Rape Apologist Scum.

Ok. That having been said, here is the issue.

With respect to drunk drivers, people who drive while drunk are not actually liable for the act of driving while drunk in itself. They are liable for what amounts to negligence. For failing to take the precautions necessary to keep them from driving drunk in the first place. They fail in their duty of care to everyone else around them when they get on the road. A duty of care that exists toward others, but that does not extend to the prevention of crimes against their person. If someone is drunk and because of that drunkeness is an easy victim of fraud, drunkeness on the part of the victim does not excuse the fraud, because the act of fraud is an act committed against them by someone else making the active choice to do so.

No One has a duty of care to prevent someone else from victimizing them, in other words.

No one in this thread has claimed that rapists may legally rape drunk persons who fail to takemeasures to avoid rape. that a drunk person may be moire vulnerable to rape does not excuse the rapist.

The thing is, drunk people sometimes choose to have sex. Drunk people sometimes choose to drive. And the law does not deem them inculpable for these acts that they took while they were drunk.

The fraud example is not applicable because drunkenness by the victim is no defense for fraud- offering counterfeit X-boxes for cash while presenting them as the real thing is still a crime whether the purchaser is drunk or sober. But soliciting sex from an adult is not a crime. And when solicitation results in "yes", it is not rape. It can not be rape, period. To say otherwise would eviscerate the meaning of rape, and ultimately undermine our moral revulsion to it.

[Alyrium Denryle]

The fraud example is not applicable because drunkenness by the victim is no defense for fraud- offering counterfeit X-boxes for cash while presenting them as the real thing is still a crime whether the purchaser is drunk or sober. But soliciting sex from an adult is not a crime. And when solicitation results in "yes", it is not rape. It can not be rape, period. To say otherwise would eviscerate the meaning of rape, and ultimately undermine our moral revulsion to it.

Except when the person is drunk when solicited and they say "yes", it IS statutory rape if they complain, you ignorant shitstick.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Additionally:

The means by which someone chooses to rape someone--be it by physical force, blackmail, or chemical inducement--ought not alter our moral revulsion to the act of rape itself. The violation of someone else in that way should be all the incitement to moral outrage we require. Everything else is additional.

[Simon_Jester]

When we get down to the brass tax on this issue, no objections the concept of Drunk Sex Is Rape is actually a principled objection. It is because it is something almost everyone has done.

Cards on table; I haven't. Very probably I never will. I've drunk alcohol in mixed company while single, but never to the point of anything resembling intoxication and I wasn't looking for hookups. And now I'm married, and I'm a fairly sobersided person. So the odds are pretty good I will literally never have the experience of "go out, get drunk, try to get into someone's pants" in my life.

I'm not talking about this because I don't want to think about "being a possible rapist" or "maybe I hurt someone else." But I do think there's a legitimate point here.

We've established that "no means no." We've established that "yes means yes," and more to the point, "no yes means no." We've established that it is wrong to deliberately impair someone's judgment until they say "yes" to a proposition they'd normally say "no" to.

Very well. All these are basic, commonsense moral principles. Applying them to the question of sexual assault is totally solid and, frankly, probably covers the great majority of all actual rapes. If everyone followed those rules, we'd be doing a lot better.

On this much, everyone seems to be in agreement. Except for a couple of idiot troglodytes, of course.
______________________

Then we get into the 'alcohol and consent' issue. Which boils down to: where do we draw the line?

To take the extreme case, chosen deliberately to illustrate the point:

If Alice drunkenly writes Betty a check and puts it in the mail, can Betty be labeled a fraudster for cashing the check? That would be absurd, because she has no way of knowing Alice was drunk at the time. It might be reasonable to refund Alice's money if we can prove that Alice wrote the check while too impaired to make rational decisions... but Betty has not committed a crime.

And if we try to make Betty's actions illegal and send her to prison, that will not have good consequences. It will create widespread revolt against the law itself, because the verdicts appear unjust. At the same time, it can make people afraid to cash checks received in the mail, because there's no way of knowing if this is the infamous Drunk Check That Sends You To Prison.
______________________

Now, the extreme case of cashing checks is obvious and was chosen to illustrate the basic line of reasoning here. The case of having sex while one or both parties is drunk is NOT so obvious, I get that; I just want to establish the structure of the argument..

First of all, it's obviously a lot easier to tell that someone is drunk in person than through the mail. If it were 100% possible, we wouldn't even need to have this conversation. Because it'd be easy to tell which people were:
1) Totally intoxicated (unable to consent).
2) In a state of blackout (even if they can consent, they won't remember doing so later).
3) Mildly intoxicated (legally, such people can consent)

But in reality the line between (1) and (3) varies depending on things like individual alcohol tolerance, and (2) is totally undetectable to an outside observer except in statistical terms like "there's a 50% chance he won't remember this later."

Which brings us back to the same problem we have with cashing a random check in the mail- that in at least some cases you do not know whether you're dealing with a legal or illegal act, and there may be no outside evidence to distinguish the two cases. A person in state (1) may look a lot like a person in state (3), depending on circumstances. A person in state (2) will attest in court that they did not give consent and were so intoxicated they can't remember anything... even if the actual amount of alcohol they consumed was relatively small.

And then we get...

Do you really want to play Russian Roulette with being a rapist? I know I dont.

So basically we hit the problems I described in the "cash a drunkenly written check" scenario.

For one, we get people who rebel against this interpretation of the law, because it is normative in our society for people to consume alcohol and socialize, with an option on sex afterwards.

But under the interpretation being debated here, we explicitly reject any excuse-making or defense-making related to the exercise of this normative activity. We reject the concept of "X did not know Y was that drunk," or "X was themselves just as drunk as Y, both of them made the same decision simultaneously, so we cannot pick one party and single them out as the rapist."

Now, there are VERY good reasons not to make "I didn't know she was that drunk!" a defense in a rape case. But I don't think the people concerned with "I didn't know she was that drunk!" issues are all self-interested here.
______________________

And then, we get into the fact that (as some like Terralthra and Metahive have spelled out), the only way to really follow this basic legal policy is rather onerous. We'd have to pretty much outlaw social drinking in mixed company as we know it. The obvious solution is that we basically just go back to Prohibition and see if it works out better this time than it did last time. It probably won't; if we can't get crack cocaine off the streets we certainly can't get liquor off the streets. And if anything, the rape rate in the speakeasies would go up because nobody involved would be willing to call the police and tell them they'd been drunk.

If drinking alcohol in company (ironically, normally seen as somehow less problematic than drinking alone) stays legal... I don't know what we could do.

The historical 'solution' to this problem is a stupid, patriarchal response. Premodern societies would segregate the sexes so that women simply never appear in the same room as men who are engaged in social drinking. Or at least, 'respectable' women who actually had a right to not be raped in those patriarchal societies would never spend time around drunk men. A woman who did spend time around them, voluntarily or as a condition of employment... well, at that point we get the origins of the 'blame the victim' meme.

So we can't feasibly stop people from drinking socially. And we can't at all stop the sexes from associating while engaged in social drinking, assuming social drinking happens at all. So we've got a definition of rape in which the only way, as a society, to eliminate rape is to eliminate things that we normally consider legal and normative, and which are not in themselves harmful.

That fuels the resistance and pushback against such a definition of rape.

And I really don't think it's hard to understand why.

[Channel72]

^ Um... yes. Very well said.

And essentially, the few people in this thread who are actually willing to argue that we totally ban normative behavior (social drinking) come off as particularly insane, because they're arguing a very radical position. (Also, while we're at it, let's just ban cars to reduce car accidents - or perhaps mandate a nation wide speed limit of 5 MPH.)

Realistically, nobody is going to take those sorts of argument seriously. So again, the only real solution to this is to slowly deterioriate the facets of our culture that encourage "male sexual conquest" - especially among youth (ages ~25 and under). If, on average, men are more likely to see women as actual people with their own objectives, then this should change the dynamics of male/female socializing to the extent that rape (and false rape accusations) become much less of an issue.

[Kon_El]

Y'know, this is an issue that affects about half of humanity, but for some people it seems the most important part of it is the "I want to have sex while punch-drunk" demographic.

Sorry, no sympathy and understanding here, guys. Wanna' be one the safe side? Don't have sex while drunk or with people who are drunk.

This is an issue that affects all of humanity. Why are you rejecting the idea of the woman being the sexual aggressor? In situations where people have sex while drunk why is it almost always the man who is labeled a rapist? Drunk horny people make mistakes. Trying to lay blame on only one of them is a dangerous position to take that will push away supporters who don't like being blamed because of their gender.

If it's an issue that affects 100% of humanity then all this griping about all drunks who want to have sex without having to think about it is even more mismatched. Of course, the statistics tell me that this is a problem that affects women way harder due to the prevalence of macho-centric cultures on Earth so your complaint is just in the same vein of all those other shmucks who think racism against white people is just as big an issue as racism agains PoCs. So you can eat your Red Herring.

Does it effect women way harder or does the macho-centric cultures condition men to calk it up to "Beer goggles" without even considering that it might be rape.

I also say this, part of being a responsible adult is to know one's own limits which involves knowing how much alcohol one can stomach before turning into an atavistic baboon who has to bone everything in sight.

No one has to bone everything in sight. People have a sex drive. Under the effects of "social lubricant" people become more able to engage in all kinds of activities that social awkwardness would otherwise make difficult. The problem is it can be virtual impossible to tell the whether someone has had enough to drink to lessen their awkwardness or is too drunk to make reasoned decisions. Rape is a strong accusation to make in these situations.

Totally missed the Hammerfucker comparing people who get raped while drunk to drunk drivers. Please look for a deep shit pit and drown yourself in it, you ulcer.

Take your self righteous indignation and shove it up your ass.