The College Rape Overcorrection

[Jub]

If someone does not consent to sex, it is rape, and for consent to be valid, it cannot be given by someone who is impaired to the point that they cannot rationally make such a decision. Very simple.

Great, now define what that point is in such a way that we can make legal judgement based off and explain why we can't apply the same standard to other events that also require consent. You've made the claim that this state exists and that people that are some, as yet undefined, level of drunk can't make consent and should be able to charge people with serious crimes based on things that they agreed to while drunk, now hash out exactly how you think this should work in a court of law.

[AniThyng]

As for drunk driving, the simple fact is that it is not particularly consistent with consent law, but the same drug that impairs judgment and insight (themselves necessary for driving) additionally impairs motor-visual acuity, making the average intoxicated person dangerous behind the wheel, regardless of the lack of the ability to assess their own impairment. My belief is that the regime of harsh punishment of drunk driving is to convince people to decide before they go out to drink that they should plan to rely on other means of transportation. If you can come up with a better plan to keep people from driving drunk, I'd be happy to switch to it, since the current one does make a person guilty of a crime for which they can not possibly have mens rea.

So if we punish people that have sex while drunk with harsh punitive penalties, will that change anything and convince people to...uh...not have sex while drunk?

[The Romulan Republic]

Obviously sex after, say, one sip of beer isn't rape, and I don't think I ever said otherwise. If I did, it was certainly unintentional. Sex with a drunk person, however, is a different matter.

And if I understand what you're saying, you're arguing that a drunk person who has sex is responsible for that action despite being drunk. That is simply rape victim blaming, and utterly disgusting.

My question to you is if we can hold that drunk person accountable for things such as crimes committed, purchases made, drunken phone calls to their boss/ex-partners, how and why is sex any different?

It is a difficult question. I believe that consent is one of the most important things when it comes to sex and I don't want to compromise that by saying that we count decisions made while ones' mind is impaired as consensual. However, I also don't want to argue that people have no responsibility for what they do while drunk for obvious reasons.

I suppose you could go with something that came up earlier in this thread: the idea that people who commit crimes while drunk are not criminally responsible. That does not rule out incarcerating them any more than being found not guilty by reason of insanity means you go free.

Using I was drunk and later regretted having sex with him as an excuse to accuse somebody of a vile crime is stupid. Here's an example that should prove it once and for all:

Again, this is victim blaming.

A friend and myself were both drunk and for reasons that made sense at the time he cut the sleeves off the shirt I was wearing with a knife and in doing so cut up my arm. Now, if I were thinking like a woman who would accuse a man of rape for having sex with her while she was drunk, I could have charged him with assault;

Interesting that you assume a woman falsely accusing a man.

even though I was willing to let him use the knife to cut the sleeves off my shirt at the time. Why? Well I was technically unable to consent to allowing him to batter me with a knife as I was drunk, and he did convince me to go out and drink with him so I could even claim he coerced me into having the drinks as a pretense for later harming me.

Now I think we can all agree that charging him with a crime after the fact for accidentally cutting me while we were both drunk is stupid. So why does it seem less stupid if we apply this same logic to sex?[/quote]

Well, I'm not a lawyer and can't say what the legal position would be, but I would say that if his intent was to cut your sleeve and not your arm, the worst he is guilty of is vandalism that accidentally caused an injury, not assault.

But you can be charged with a crime you commit while drunk.

If your friend had cut a major artery and you'd bled to death, I suspect he'd have been arrested.

[Jub]

It is a difficult question. I believe that consent is one of the most important things when it comes to sex and I don't want to compromise that by saying that we count decisions made while ones' mind is impaired as consensual. However, I also don't want to argue that people have no responsibility for what they do while drunk for obvious reasons.

I suppose you could go with something that came up earlier in this thread: the idea that people who commit crimes while drunk are not criminally responsible. That does not rule out incarcerating them any more than being found not guilty by reason of insanity means you go free.

It's not a hard question, unless the drink/drugs were forced into you, your choices are solely yours to deal with. If you fuck up while drunk be it by crashing your car, trading your wallet full of money for junk, or having sex you need to own that. You chose to drink to the point of irresponsibility and thus you chose to put yourself into a place to make bad choices.

Again, this is victim blaming.

In my opinion there is no victim, if she said yes while drunk she still said yes. You don't get to take back stupid choices made while drunk so you need to know your limits and hold to them, or don't drink.

Interesting that you assume a woman falsely accusing a man.

Show me examples of men taking people to court after a night of drunken sex.

Well, I'm not a lawyer and can't say what the legal position would be, but I would say that if his intent was to cut your sleeve and not your arm, the worst he is guilty of is vandalism that accidentally caused an injury, not assault.

But you can be charged with a crime you commit while drunk.

If your friend had cut a major artery and you'd bled to death, I suspect he'd have been arrested.

If I had the choice he wouldn't be charged at all even had he caused me death or permanent injury. My fault was as great as his and seeing as I can't be charged for being cut while drunk, he shouldn't be charged for harming me.

[Terralthra]

As for drunk driving, the simple fact is that it is not particularly consistent with consent law, but the same drug that impairs judgment and insight (themselves necessary for driving) additionally impairs motor-visual acuity, making the average intoxicated person dangerous behind the wheel, regardless of the lack of the ability to assess their own impairment. My belief is that the regime of harsh punishment of drunk driving is to convince people to decide before they go out to drink that they should plan to rely on other means of transportation. If you can come up with a better plan to keep people from driving drunk, I'd be happy to switch to it, since the current one does make a person guilty of a crime for which they can not possibly have mens rea.

So if we punish people that have sex while drunk with harsh punitive penalties, will that change anything and convince people to...uh...not have sex while drunk?

Presumably? I mean...are you asking me "does the criminal justice system work?"?

[Jub]

Presumably? I mean...are you asking me "does the criminal justice system work?"?

Given the numbers of repeat offenders for many crimes, overfull prisons, higher conviction rates for minorities, and many other issues; I'd argue that the American criminal justice system doesn't work...

[Terralthra]

Presumably? I mean...are you asking me "does the criminal justice system work?"?

Given the numbers of repeat offenders for many crimes, overfull prisons, higher conviction rates for minorities, and many other issues; I'd argue that the American criminal justice system doesn't work...

No argument that the American implementation of criminal justice has some major flaws, but none of those seemed to be implicated in the question "does punishing people for a particular behavior reduce its incidence?" to which the answer is generally "yes, to one degree or another."

[AniThyng]

As for drunk driving, the simple fact is that it is not particularly consistent with consent law, but the same drug that impairs judgment and insight (themselves necessary for driving) additionally impairs motor-visual acuity, making the average intoxicated person dangerous behind the wheel, regardless of the lack of the ability to assess their own impairment. My belief is that the regime of harsh punishment of drunk driving is to convince people to decide before they go out to drink that they should plan to rely on other means of transportation. If you can come up with a better plan to keep people from driving drunk, I'd be happy to switch to it, since the current one does make a person guilty of a crime for which they can not possibly have mens rea.

So if we punish people that have sex while drunk with harsh punitive penalties, will that change anything and convince people to...uh...not have sex while drunk?

Presumably? I mean...are you asking me "does the criminal justice system work?"?

I think i'm asking if it makes sense to impose punitive penalties on drunken sex because consent given is invalid, despite the possibility neither party is in a state to judge adequetely the validity of the consent.

[Jub]

No argument that the American implementation of criminal justice has some major flaws, but none of those seemed to be implicated in the question "does punishing people for a particular behavior reduce its incidence?" to which the answer is generally "yes, to one degree or another."

Yea and no, criminalizing marijuana hasn't really made a huge dent in those that use it nor did prohibition before that and sodomy laws didn't stop gay sex. So while you might lessen drunken hookups to some extent I doubt we see the reduction that we've seen with drunk driving, if only because drunken sex isn't usually a public event and crimes that can be easily hidden don't tend to be swayed as much because the odds of being caught are low. If simply passing a law against something and punishing a few people worked to significantly lessen that behavior, we'd likely not see the continued popularity of sites like the Piratebay.

[The Romulan Republic]

If someone does not consent to sex, it is rape, and for consent to be valid, it cannot be given by someone who is impaired to the point that they cannot rationally make such a decision. Very simple.

Great, now define what that point is in such a way that we can make legal judgement based off and explain why we can't apply the same standard to other events that also require consent. You've made the claim that this state exists and that people that are some, as yet undefined, level of drunk can't make consent and should be able to charge people with serious crimes based on things that they agreed to while drunk, now hash out exactly how you think this should work in a court of law.

Nailing down how the courts should work is a lot to ask of someone who is not in a political or legal profession and has no post-secondary legal education beyond debate club.

And I'm not sure exactly how drunk someone has to be before they've had too much to consent. A biologist or a doctor would be better qualified to answer that. If there are any professionals here with relevant information who want to weigh in they're welcome to.

Edit: My ignorance of such specifics does not mean that my basic moral position is invalid. Just as I know that terrorism is bad without having the training to lead a counter-terrorism operation.

[salm]

I think it is established that most peoples view on this topic depends on their opinion whether they believe that you are responsible for shit you do when drunk or not.

But lets assume that you´re can not consent when drunk:
So, does anybody have a solution for situations in which both people are drunk which, I assume, is the default position and not the exception? Does mutual rape cancel itself out? Are both of the rapists involved not responsible for the rape because they are drunk? Should both rape victims be punished because they are both rapists? Is one person involved more guilty and therefore considered the rapist while the other party is less guilty and therefore considered the victim? How do you determin who has more guilt?
I am not interested in special cases like one of the two persons being drunk beyond recognition and the other is only slightly buzzing. That is boring. I assume that in most cases both people have been drinking together and have a similar level of drunkness, mas o menos.

The people taking the side of "drunk = no consent" have been steering around this issue in the whole thread so it would be interesting to see their solution for this.

[Coop D'etat]

If someone does not consent to sex, it is rape, and for consent to be valid, it cannot be given by someone who is impaired to the point that they cannot rationally make such a decision. Very simple.

Great, now define what that point is in such a way that we can make legal judgement based off and explain why we can't apply the same standard to other events that also require consent. You've made the claim that this state exists and that people that are some, as yet undefined, level of drunk can't make consent and should be able to charge people with serious crimes based on things that they agreed to while drunk, now hash out exactly how you think this should work in a court of law.

Consent in sexual assault is merely a variaty of consent in assualt in general, it is treated differently than contract law because it is a matter of bodily integrety, which for obvious public policy reasons is protected much more stringently than economic interests.

As for these nightmare scenarios people are cooking up. Reasonable mistaken belief in consent is a full defense to an assualt charge. If you wouldn't or couldn't be expected to know that they were intoxicated beyond their ability to consent, you'd have a legal defense against prosecution. This just doesn't apply if your mistaken belief was reckless or willfully blind, i.e. if your claim to a mistaken belief was in a situation were a reasonable person really ought to know that they were incapable as well as the requirement to take reasonable steps to make sure a person has the capacity to consent.

Of course, that's the Canadian law that would apply to you. Unfortunately American criminal law isn't standardized like ours is so its inappropriate to generalize to every situation, but this is the general idea.

This really isn't about tipsy people fucking, as much as people seem to want to make it the case. We're not talking about the level of intoxication that impairs the ability to opperate a motor vehicle for one thing, but people actually so out of it that they cant' be said to be in a position to understand what they are consenting to. Frankly keeping people that far gone from making decisions they might regret is pretty basic being a good person. For another thing, this is an issue because date rapist using alcohol to do things to people who can't resist is incredibly common and rarely punished and there is a gigantic social interest in doing something to combat that problem. Rather than worry so much about false accusations which 1) are incredibly uncommon compared to the number of sexual assualts 2) A person will still have considerable legal protection against.

As for mutually intoxicated people, if you're too out of it to consent, likely you are too out of it to have actus reus either. Although all situations would be judged on the entirity of their circumstances.

[salm]

As for mutually intoxicated people, if you're too out of it to consent, likely you are too out of it to have actus reus either. Although all situations would be judged on the entirity of their circumstances.

Does this really matter? You can sexually assault and rape people even without the ability to perfom. And women don´t get whiskey dick so it is more difficult for them to be too drunk to fuck.

However, I strongly agree that circumstances are the key factor. It´s just silly to categorize all drunk sex as either good or bad.

[Coop D'etat]

As for mutually intoxicated people, if you're too out of it to consent, likely you are too out of it to have actus reus either. Although all situations would be judged on the entirity of their circumstances.

Does this really matter? You can sexually assault and rape people even without the ability to perfom. And women don´t get whiskey dick so it is more difficult for them to be too drunk to fuck.

However, I strongly agree that circumstances are the key factor. It´s just silly to categorize all drunk sex as either good or bad.

I'm limiting my opinion to your intoxicated enough to mutually assualt situation, which is a different propositon than "whisky dick." Its somewhat hard to argue you have the mental capacity to commit a crime if you didn't have the mental capacity to understand what was going on. This is definately a touchy area because drunkness shouldn't be a defense for sexual assualt in general. The thing is that in most sexual assualt cases you're performing actions which are obviously inherently illegal (typically use of force upon a person, but also commiting sexual acts without positive consent). Its easy for even the drunkest person to know that fucking an unconscious person or physically forcing is wrong, a bit harder to take efforts to assess someone elses mental state. In this scenario you aren't doing anything which is inherently illegal. I would think in most apparently innocent situations like this you'd have the benefit of reasonable misapprehension. If I was rewritting the code to account for this situation, I'd consider putting in a specific clarifying rule against it purely for situations where actions consituting affirmative consent was given. So it is a really thorny problem.

It may be silly. But frankly I think the reason it seems to get into silly territory is people looking to muddy the waters of what should be some fairly straight forward propositions
1) That people should take reasonable steps to make sure the that the other party consents and has to capacity to consent (this is not dissimilar to what is expected with age of consent rules).
2) That the legal regime should be in a position to go after alcohol using date rapists, which is a pretty big problem that isn't being handled adequately.
I don't think people are actually against reasonably tipsy sex. Just sex that amounts to taking advantage of people who aren't in a position to take care of themselves.

[Simon_Jester]

I'm not sure I want to get into an in-depth critique of the board. I already feel like I might be playing fast and loose with Administrative Rule 4. Though I recognize that, since I have brought an issue up, its reasonable to expect me to defend my position and that the above is a cowardly answer. For now I'll just say that I've seen quite a few posts here that are rather sexist but that in fairness I feel this is more a quality of the board in its early days than the board now.

The moderators have taken considerable and respectable pains to prune anything particularly sexist for the five years I've been here. I'd say that the level of sexism here is lower than in the culture at large- which doesn't mean it's always good, but does suggest that if women can bear to participate in the culture at large, sexism is probably not what's keeping them out of this subforum of SDN.

So basically... it's like this. There are male posters here who are see a risk. They see a risk to men who have no intention of committing rape as connoted in the culture*, but who encounter women whose judgment is impaired, while their own judgment is also impaired. And in this state of mutually impaired judgment, they both act on an impulsive attraction, have sex they both agreed to at the time.

And then, when the smoke clears, the man faces getting kicked out of college and maybe kicked into prison. Because "they fucked a drunk woman."

And you can say that's sexist, in that somehow it inherently treats women's concerns and complaints as meaningless that men might fear this when they can literally see examples of it happening, and can no longer see any statute on the books to prevent it. But I'm not sure it can just be dismissed as pure sexism, even if SOME of the men who fear this are clearly acting and thinking in a sexist way.

It's an issue where men who are sexist (and treasure their due process rights) unfortunately find common ground with men who aren't sexist (but treasure their due process rights).

Have you noticed who I'm directing those "wisecracks" at? It's not Mike Wong, who by all rights should be a raging nerd, yet he doesn't feel the need to act like a creepy, loser nerd stereotype, instead pursuing and marrying a beautiful woman. It's not people who act like mature adults with some moderate amount of life experience. No... I make fun of "nerds" who think that their complete lack of any experience with women or sports or the sun gives them some level of credibility to speak on those subjects. If you didn't resemble the "bitter nerds" wisecrack, then you probably wouldn't be bothered by it.

Dude. I'm married.

And really, you're breaking out the "you wouldn't mind seeing people called loser nerds if you weren't yourself a loser nerd" line? You're turning into a parody here; what will you do for an encore, start throwing homophobic slurs and assume everyone who doesn't like it must be secretly gay themselves?

I almost hope you do.

Look, the argument is really simple; if I have sex with a consenting women who's been drinking, that does not make me a rapist. If a woman has sex with a consenting me after I've been drinking, that does not make her a rapist. If you disagree, that MAKE A FUCKING COHERENT ARGUMENT refuting that viewpoint instead of whining like a little bitch about it.

Read my posts. Or at least don't direct that at me.

Here's the issue that nobody here has yet answered.

If I take a woman I met online out for a date somewhere the serves drinks, have a few drinks myself while buying her a few drinks, and we both end up buzzed and having sex, why should I have to worry that she might change her mind the next day and claim that I raped her after purposefully getting her drunk?

Assuming that she never made any indication she was having anything other than a good time, and never said anything about not buying her more drinks, what's the issue? If she didn't want the drinks she didn't need to accept them, if she didn't want to head somewhere private she had every right to walk away, if she didn't want the sex should could have said no. If these things didn't happen, why should she have the right to retroactively turn a consensual night of adult fun into a crime? If we're going to treat women as equals we should expect them to have the same responsibility to own up to their actions while drunk as any male, that includes not getting to make a big deal of something they consented to while drunk.

The very legitimate issue here is that the consequences of sex in and of itself fall mainly on the woman; she's the one with the chance of pregnancy. Moreover, we do in fact live in a society where men routinely go far out of their way to have sex with women, with some even going so far as to deliberately drug them to make that possible.

There are good legal reasons why women do (and should) have recourse if they can provide evidence that they were seduced by unjust means; it's not a minor matter even before we talk about the psychological side.

To further highlight the absurdity of the idea that a drunken women is so out of control of her actions that she is incapable of consent how about we apply this same logic to other things. I could go to a bar, have a friend buy me drinks, do something stupid that would otherwise get me in trouble, and then claim I had the drinks forced on me and that my friend coerced me into doing said stupid thing. How far do you think that would fly with the police and do you agree that it should be a valid means of getting away with doing stupid things while forcing the consequences onto somebody who thought you were having a mutually enjoyable evening together? If so, you're a moron, and if not you have no right to support women doing this same thing.

So what do you propose be done in cases where a bunch of men spike the punch bowl at a party with extra alcohol to get the women present extra-drunk in hopes that they will 'consent' to sex? For that matter, what does the woman do if someone drugs one of her drinks, if the drug residue is out of her body before she makes it to the police to report the rape?

Why is "a drunk person who has sex" being treated as equal to "a drunk[or for that matter, sober] person who is raped"? These are two very different things, or should be. Especially since your own sentence parsing implies active participation by the said drunk person, ("has sex"), rather then being the unwilling victim of the action. I would think that at that point it is not "victim blaming" to consider the implications of such a standard.

Under current law, a person who is sufficiently drunk is incapable of consenting to sex. I think that's a good thing- and as a result, given enough alcohol consumption, the line between "drunk person who has sex" and "drunk person who is raped" can blur. There is a level of drunkenness at which it is meaningless to say that a person consented to an action.

[salm]

Why is "seducing by unjust means" and "spiking drinks" relevant? I don´t think anybody is are arguing about tricking people into sex with alcohol or other means.
People don´t have to be forced to drink. People like drinking. They drink out of their own free will all the time.
Tricking other people into having sex or in fact tricking people in general is bad and water is wet.

[salm]

It may be silly. But frankly I think the reason it seems to get into silly territory is people looking to muddy the waters of what should be some fairly straight forward propositions
1) That people should take reasonable steps to make sure the that the other party consents and has to capacity to consent (this is not dissimilar to what is expected with age of consent rules).
2) That the legal regime should be in a position to go after alcohol using date rapists, which is a pretty big problem that isn't being handled adequately.
I don't think people are actually against reasonably tipsy sex. Just sex that amounts to taking advantage of people who aren't in a position to take care of themselves.

I agree with this but I think the issue is that it´s difficult to agree what these reasonable steps are.
Furthermore, there are a couple of people who argue that reasonable tipsy sex doesn´t exist because alcohol + sex = unreasonable by definition. Such black and white statements are wrong in my opinion.

[Thanas]

I'm not sure I want to get into an in-depth critique of the board. I already feel like I might be playing fast and loose with Administrative Rule 4. Though I recognize that, since I have brought an issue up, its reasonable to expect me to defend my position and that the above is a cowardly answer. For now I'll just say that I've seen quite a few posts here that are rather sexist but that in fairness I feel this is more a quality of the board in its early days than the board now.

Lol, the board has mellowed out consistently from the style of the earlier days that were full with sexual imagery and insults. Heck, nowadays we talk about if "cunt", "bitch" or "retard" are offensive whereas these were pretty common the earlier days.

[TheHammer]

Don't get me wrong, I take issue with "Yes means Yes" in how its interpreted at present. Its far too ambiguous, and I don't believe that the accused should have the burden of proof placed upon them that the accuser said "Yes" hard enough. I happen to believe that while you certainly should get that first "Yes", that it remains in effect until if and when they say "No"... But I suppose that's too reasonable...

Well, body language clearly indicating disinterest or resistance should count as "no" to anyone who is remotely 'reasonable.' One partner suddenly going immobile and doing nothing, for example. That does not normally happen when someone is consenting to sex.

Body language is where it gets more ambiguous and easily misinterpreted. And is one of the biggest problems of "Yes means yes" because apparently a "body language yes" is legitimate, but no one can define what exactly that would be.

Pushing someone away would be an obvious non-verbal "no". However, "going immobile and doing nothing" could mean a variety of things that in the heat of the moment might not be picked up on. If a clear consent was required and given early on, a revocation of that consent should be equally as clear.

[TheHammer]

As for why this doesn't apply to buying booze or signing credit card receipts, or other matters of contract, that's actually been argued (successfully) in court, though the court held that being intoxicated only rendered a contract "voidable, not void, so that the party intoxicated may, upon recovering his understanding, adopt it, when it will become obligatory." IE, a person who agrees to something while drunk may in fact void it upon regaining their sobriety; if they do not do so, it becomes obligatory. That precedent is from the late 19th century, though I can't find SCOTUS precedent overruling it. Courts have generally been leery of voiding contracts will-he nill-he due to drunkenness, unless someone deliberately intoxicated someone else in order to get them to agree to something they wouldn't otherwise, though they have on occasion.

Such a thing makes sense if you are obligating yourself to a future act. Or recovering money or property you agreed to transfer while under the influence. However, you can't retroactively take back sex that has already taken place. And that's the key issue... The apparent recourse some would propose is that since you can't take back the sex, you therefore have to call it "rape", even in a case where by all accounts it was wanted and consensual at the time of the act.

[Frank the Tank]

I have addressed what you've said, or at any rate I've tried to. If you don't agree with my response, that's not the same as me avoiding anything.

And no, I am not accusing you of being a rapist. I have no proof of such a thing and have no desire to make such an accusation falsely.

However, if you are defending having sex with drunk people, especially if you are defending having sex with drunk people while one is not intoxicated, then yes I believe you are potentially defending rape.

In other words, you are trying to accuse me of defending rape... even though I haven't said anything about defending sex with drunk people. You're just being mealy-mouthed about it. Very classy...

Obviously sex after, say, one sip of beer isn't rape, and I don't think I ever said otherwise. If I did, it was certainly unintentional. Sex with a drunk person, however, is a different matter.

Fabulous... you've finally agreed to some sort of lower limit. Sex after one sip of beer does not equal rape. On the other end, nobody (despite your strawmen to the contrary) is arguing that sex with a stumbling, blackout drunk people while you are perfectly sober is okay either. But neither of those extremes are being debated by anyone. The issue is what happens in situations like the OP, when one drunk person initiates sex with another drunk person, and then cries rape after the fact. At what point is the sex no longer consensual?

And if I understand what you're saying, you're arguing that a drunk person who has sex is responsible for that action despite being drunk. That is simply rape victim blaming, and utterly disgusting.

So yes, I think you're defending rape, and I think you are morally bankrupt.

Clearly you can't quite figure out what the hell you want to argue. On the one hand, you say I'm not defending rape; here you claim I am defending rape. At no point in time have I ever defended rape. So fuck off on home with your strawmen if you can't come up with an argument that doesn't involve screeching "rapist!!!" when you can't put together a coherent argument.

Edit: I also take exception to your apparent attempt to turn the debate into a debate about my character rather than my arguments. Granted, I've probably been guilty of that kind of debating myself a bit. Perhaps we should both show better conduct.

Fuck you - you've accused me of defending rape on no fewer than three occasions. You have no grounds to stand on to start pulling out Miss Manners bullshit at this point.

If someone does not consent to sex, it is rape, and for consent to be valid, it cannot be given by someone who is impaired to the point that they cannot rationally make such a decision. Very simple.

Hardly simple, especially as you have consistently FAILED TO DEFINE IMPAIRMENT TO THE POINT THAT THEY CANNOT RATIONALLY MAKE SUCH A DECISION.

If you're too fucking stupid that you can't define the following, then why are you debating this?

1) What is the definition of "impaired to the point that they cannot rationally make a decision about consent?"
2) Are there other decisions (besides sex) for which people can retroactively decide they didn't actually consent? If not, what makes sex so unique that people can retroactively decide they were raped?

[Jub]

Nailing down how the courts should work is a lot to ask of someone who is not in a political or legal profession and has no post-secondary legal education beyond debate club.

And I'm not sure exactly how drunk someone has to be before they've had too much to consent. A biologist or a doctor would be better qualified to answer that. If there are any professionals here with relevant information who want to weigh in they're welcome to.

Edit: My ignorance of such specifics does not mean that my basic moral position is invalid. Just as I know that terrorism is bad without having the training to lead a counter-terrorism operation.

Yes, but you've been unable to even reasonably define what your terms mean to this point. What, in general, are the signs you think an outside observer would need to see to know that it's no longer okay to have sex with a person? Now keep in mind, that these signs should be clear enough that even another drunk person can see them otherwise we end up with the double rape scenario which is obviously stupid.

------

The very legitimate issue here is that the consequences of sex in and of itself fall mainly on the woman; she's the one with the chance of pregnancy. Moreover, we do in fact live in a society where men routinely go far out of their way to have sex with women, with some even going so far as to deliberately drug them to make that possible.

That's wonderful, but it still doesn't fall to anybody but the woman to ensure that she doesn't get too drunk and do something she'll come to regret. The fact that some plurality of men as scuzzy doesn't mean that we need an overly harsh blanket law especially when as we've seen nobody can even define what too drunk to consent means and nobody wants to answer the obvious implications of what too drunk to consent means for other activities partaken in while drunk.

There are good legal reasons why women do (and should) have recourse if they can provide evidence that they were seduced by unjust means; it's not a minor matter even before we talk about the psychological side.

Of course, but the burden of proof is on her to show that she was unjustly tricked and the standard of evidence needs to be higher than something like; he bought me drinks all night, I didn't want to take them but was afraid to say no before I was too drunk to consent, then I said yes to sex with him and now I feel that I was abused. The onus in that case was on the woman to not have too many drinks, the fact that they were bought for her doesn't mean she was obliged to drink them or to stay in proximity to the person buying them for her. If we're to treat women as equals we need to expect that they're not in need of special protections above and beyond what men require in similar situations.

Now if she was tricked somehow, like maybe the drinks were specifically stronger than a reasonable person would have expected them to be without a drastic change in either drink volume or flavor or if drugs were added, then there is more of a case. However if the person ordering the drinks says something like, let me go get you something from the bar, it's on the woman to decide if she feels comfortable drinking something she can't know the contents of.

So what do you propose be done in cases where a bunch of men spike the punch bowl at a party with extra alcohol to get the women present extra-drunk in hopes that they will 'consent' to sex?

How do we prove their motivation behind spiking the punch bowl, especially if the charges aren't leveled at a person who spiked the punch bowl. Also, what do we do to the men that didn't know the bowl was spiked and had sex with women that were perhaps more tipsy than they intended to be? Are those men now rapists even without any intent to rape? Can we make the claim that they knew the punch was spiked and brought over a glass for their date anyway? How do we prove such a claim in a way that doesn't unfairly err to one side of the other?

How common is the exact scenario versus a man taking a woman on a date to a bar and buying her drinks?

For that matter, what does the woman do if someone drugs one of her drinks, if the drug residue is out of her body before she makes it to the police to report the rape?

Drugs don't normally get found in alcoholic beverages by accident and certain drugs are commonly used in date rape scenarios, so that makes taking blood tests of the victim easier. However I would also say that there will be cases where a woman willing took drugs and then had sex, so this isn't open and shut either. The issue is that there can be no proof either way and due to the fact that, as far as we know, male on female rape is a bigger issue than rape of any other gender pairing, we are now constructing laws that will err towards believing women over men in situations where exactly what happened is unclear.

As a male I find the cheering by feminists about how more men are being convicted to be a bit strange. Shouldn't the goal be to make the right convictions and not simply more convictions?

Under current law, a person who is sufficiently drunk is incapable of consenting to sex. I think that's a good thing- and as a result, given enough alcohol consumption, the line between "drunk person who has sex" and "drunk person who is raped" can blur. There is a level of drunkenness at which it is meaningless to say that a person consented to an action.

What is this line? Please define it for us in terms that are useful. How can I as an observer, who may or may not have spent the entire night with this woman, supposed to know how drunk is too drunk for her to be able to consent to sex that appears mutually desirable at the time? Also consider that I myself may have fallen victim to the spiked punch, or may have had less than perfect self control when it came to knowing my limits.

[sarevok2]

Maybe America should adopt something like Iran's Muta or temporary contract marriage that lets Iranians practice casual sex in a legal manner in a muslim country...

[AniThyng]

Maybe America should adopt something like Iran's Muta or temporary contract marriage that lets Iranians practice casual sex in a legal manner in a muslim country...

I suppose there isn't a contract that lets you drink in a legal manner as a muslim is there....

[TimothyC]

Can we at least all agree that doing significant damage to a person's ability to get an education without any due process is a bad thing?