The College Rape Overcorrection

[AMX]

... your bullshit "any alcohol = rape" argument ...

You can keep your strawman and stick it where the sun doesn't shine.

[Jub]

Nah, I just don't have the background to determine solid numbers - and from what I've been hearing (and indeed reading in this very thread), the effects of alcohol may vary too much between people to define a fair standard.

You'll just have to rely on your (supposed) experience and common sense (if any) to determine whether the person you are with appears to be impaired, and back off if they are, or you're unsure.
(Unless you somehow know that they are specifically trying to get drunk and laid - that would, of course, constitute consent. But I'm not entirely sure how you'd go about determining that.)

Then define the signs one must look for, keep in mind that for a law to be effective it has to be a reasonable standard that applies to a broad section of the population. Do they have to be pass out drunk before they're too drunk to consent? Or do we push it up to stumbling with slurred speech? How about mildly tipsy and giggly? Where exactly do you suggest we draw the line based on what another, possibly drunk themselves, person can observe?

Then once you've define that, can you define what responsibility a woman has to monitor her own level of intoxication and ownership of actions taken while drunk? Keep in mind, I'm not arguing that purposefully getting a woman blackout drunk, drugging her, or giving her drinks with a higher level of alcohol in them than should be anticipated shouldn't be a crime. I'm asking what you think should happen if you take a woman out for a date, you both have some drinks?

Where does the woman's responsibility for choosing to have sex end and the man's start (I use this pairing because this is the most common way this situation happens)? Why should the man have to be more in control of himself, to the point of having to turn down a willing partner, than the woman? Should it not be the woman's responsibility to, under normal circumstances, monitor her level of intoxication and be responsible for all choices she makes while under the influence of alcohol she willingly drank?

[Frank the Tank]

AMX - either step up and define the standards (as Jub has requested) or at least be man enough to concede.

[Simon_Jester]

I do think that it should be reasonable to at least define in words what "too impaired to consent" means.

We can say "A person whose motor control is clearly impaired is too drunk to consent." Or we can say "a person whose speech is significantly slurred is too drunk to consent." Or any other behavior that is a symptom of excessive drunkenness.

We could say "a person who is blackout drunk is too drunk to consent..." except that it is impossible to tell by looking at someone whether or not they're blackout drunk, so that's a useless standard because you can't use it to avoid committing the crime.

This is important; crimes should be defined in such a way that a person can tell whether the act they are about to commit is criminal or noncriminal. For example, "theft" is defined as "taking someone else's stuff," so all you have to do is not take other people's stuff. "Murder" is defined as "killing someone when you or someone else is not in enough danger to justify lethal force," so all you have to do is not kill anyone unless it's a matter of protecting someone's life.

"Rape" can be clearly defined very easily as long as one's sexual partner is sober: all you have to do is not have sex with anyone who isn't saying "yes."

But it's problematic when you can have Alex and Bobby, both of whom are saying "yes," and both of whom appear exactly the same in terms of their behavior and actions... But sex with Alex is rape, and sex with Bobby is not.

At that point, avoiding the crime of rape becomes more complex, because there are legal behaviors that at the time do not appear different to the people doing them than a rape would.

[Frank the Tank]

Generally speaking I would agree that "motor control is clearly impaired" is a reasonable standard... however "motor control is clearly impaired" is pretty vague. What does that mean? Slightly clumsier than normal, or stumbling, falling down drunk? What if somebody is plastered but not obviously impaired? By which I mean they're not stumbling around, not that they could get in a car and drive it safely home... how could someone who doesn't know how much they've had to drink know how impaired they are?

Also, give some thought to the following scenarios; are these rape? And who is the rapist and who is the victim, if you say it's rape, and why?

1) Guy is sleeping; drunk girl comes into his room and gives him a blowjob. He didn't say no.
2) Guy is sleeping; drunk girl comes into his room and they have sex. Neither of them say no.
3) Girl is sleeping; drunk guy comes into her room and eats her out. She didn't say no.
4) Girl is sleeping; drunk guy comes into her room and they have sex. Neither of them say no.
5) Girl is sleeping; drunk girl comes into her room and they have sex. Neither of them say no.
6) Two drunk people have sex in the stairwell at a party. Neither says no.

[spaceviking]

My university had a sexual violence seminar thing this semester. Overall the seminar was quite feminist; however, they did not take nearly as a hard line as 'The Romulan Republic' regarding drunken sex. They made a clear distinction between someone who is drunk and someone who is so drunk that they are servery confused and or non responsive. I think this is an important distinction. Many of live in places where drinking socially is standard practice, acting like people need to be completely sober to have consensual sex is just not realistic. The question should be is she sober enough that she is having sex with someone; or so drunk that she is having sex done to her.

[Ziggy Stardust]

The problem with appealing to symptoms like "slurred speech" and "stumbling" is that they aren't particularly rigid or necessarily accurate indicators of sobriety, at least not in any way that could be consistently applied across multiple people. For example, when *I* get really drunk, I don't slur my speech or stumble, even though I'm so mentally incapacitated I shouldn't drive, have sex, or do anything beyond pass out and detox. It's just that my personal symptoms of drunkenness are different (for example, one weird thing that happens is I lose the ability to synchronize my blinking, so I often have one eye half closed, or am alternating winks instead of really blinking, etc.). On the flip side, you also have the problem of people responding to social pressure by acting drunker than they are; has anyone ever seen a group of college students that have been secretly given non-alcoholic beer or something? They are just as stupid as the actual drunk kids. Slurring speech, stumbling, shouting, spilling, etc.

The point being (and the reason I disagree with Arthur Tuxedo's earlier musings on the psychological aspect of being drunk) that it is a lot more difficult than people realize to separate the effects of alcohol from the extreme and often complicated social pressures being exerted, especially on the key demographic that this conversation is most applicable to (18-24 year olds, roughly speaking). I mean, observe the same drunk person in different social contexts and you will see completely different drunken behavior. I know from my personal experience how different my drunken self is if I am celebrating with my college friends, primarily engineers and fraternity brothers, versus my high school friends, primarily artists and nerdy folk.

That said, certainly at the far extreme side of things someone being unresponsive is a pretty strong indicator they are too drunk. But the extremes are ALWAYS easy to discriminate, in any paradigm. The problem is finding where the line in the big gray middle is. Just saying that any drunk sex is rape may be the safest option, but it is also incredibly unrealistic. But leaving it purely up to a case by case rubric is going too far the other way, and robs us of a consistent metric to actually measure these things (and the lack of such a metric, I would argue due to current societal standards, would have the effect of unfairly biasing things against rape victims, as that is the current status quo in many cases). From a legal perspective we can just use the same BAC level that means you are too drunk to drive; but then that brings up the problem that nobody is carrying breathalyzers around with them, as well as questions as to whether THAT is even an accurate measure, because you need to start accounting for height, weight, muscle mass, and behavioral history.

In short ... this is a surprisingly complicated issue when you actually try to approach it rationally. If I'm being honest, though, I think the real solution doesn't lie in dealing with the drinking side of the issue, but dealing with the legalistic approach to investigating and prosecuting these cases. We need to simultaneously do away with the rife victim-blaming, which is a constant problem in rape cases (especially borderline ones) while also balancing our approach to prosecuting sexual crimes in general, which has a tendency to accrue a high number of false alarms in the name of not missing any true ones. That is, our system has high sensitivity, but low specificity.

[Simon_Jester]

The problem with appealing to symptoms like "slurred speech" and "stumbling" is that they aren't particularly rigid or necessarily accurate indicators of sobriety, at least not in any way that could be consistently applied across multiple people.

I fully agree. The problem is that they're basically all we've got to go on.

[The following is not a direct disagreement with you]

It's... crazy... to define a crime such that you cannot know while committing it that you are committing it, because the question of whether the action was a crime or not is settled only after the fact.

But if the guideline is "don't have sex while intoxicated at all," the problem is that sex while intoxicated is a legal action, for certain values of 'intoxicated.' The law does not currently support the idea that ONLY sex while stone-cold sober is legal, and that all other sex is rape. Nor is this a particularly tenable position to take from the point of view of philosophy, or medicine, because in a real sense we cannot honestly say that people's ability to give consent disappears the moment they take their first drink of alcohol.

[Terralthra]

I think a large portion of this situation is due to the fact that in the western world's jurisprudence, we don't have an equivalent gradation as murder 1, murder 2, voluntary manslaughter, involuntary manslaughter, etc., for sexual crimes.

It'd be pretty simple to apply standards like the Modal Penal Code to sexual crimes as it is to murder:

Strict liability: the actor engaged in conduct and his mental state is irrelevant. Under Model Penal Code Section 2.05, this mens rea may only be applied where the forbidden conduct is a mere violation, i.e. a civil infraction.
Negligently: a "reasonable person" would be aware of a "substantial and unjustifiable risk" that his conduct is of a prohibited nature, will lead to a prohibited result, and/or is under prohibited attendant circumstances, and the human-individual was not so aware but should have been.
Recklessly: the human-individual consciously disregards a "substantial and unjustifiable risk" that his conduct is of a prohibited nature, will lead to a prohibited result, and/or is of a prohibited nature.
Knowingly: the human-individual is practically certain that his conduct will lead to the result, or is aware to a high probability that his conduct is of a prohibited nature, or is aware to a high probability that the attendant circumstances exist.
Purposefully: the human-individual has the "conscious object" of engaging in conduct and believes or hopes that the attendant circumstances exist.

Violent or coerced rape would certainly be under "purposefully", while spiking someone's drink would be knowingly, or having sex with someone who is asleep would be recklessly. Sex with someone who has drunk to blackout could easily be classed under negligently if there's any sign of drunkenness (or you knew they were drinking).

I'm pretty sure the only distinction most states make for sexual crimes is that statutory rape beyond certain limits is strict liability, and separating out crimes by what action takes place (intercourse, oral sex, manual penetration, etc.), and that lumps a large class of dissimilar acts together under a very severe label.

[Jub]

@Simon and Ziggy:

This issue is why, as shitty as it might seem, the best way to deal with it is to expect each person to be responsible for getting intoxicated and the choices they make while under the influence. Yes, it does tend to effect women in more serious ways, but the solution to that isn't punishing men for a crime that we can't be certain a reasonable person could have avoided. Now if the woman, or man, making the claim has reason to assume that the other person spiked the drink (with either drugs or more potent alcohol than should be reasonably expected) or used force or overt threats of force to make them drink that's rape. The overt threats clause is because I don't think that a woman saying he's bigger than me and had aggressive body language should be enough convict on.

In short, if you can prove that any of these things happened it should be a crime:

a) you were nonresponsive or otherwise identifiably unable to give consent when the sex happened
1a) this might include the victims answers to questions being incoherent
2b) or their asking questions that indicate that they don't understand what's going on
b) you were drugged with something other than alcohol
c) you were given a drink that contained alcohol that you didn't reasonable expect to contain alcohol
d) you were given a alcoholic drink with an unreasonably high level of alcohol content without being informed
e) you were coerced into getting drunk against your will

To criminalize cases outside of this scope is to risk casting the net too wide and trivializing the issue, to cast the net over a smaller area risks letting serious crimes go unpunished. This won't work or be cut and dry for all cases, but that's what investigation and the courts are for.

@ Terralthra:

Pretty much what you said.

[Phillip Hone]

@Frank the Tank

Where would you draw the line? Were it entirely up to you, what would you define as "too drunk to consent?"

To answer your question, I'd agree with what Jub laid out in the post above me.

The pattern that's emerged here is that some people don't drink much or at all, think poorly of those who abuse alcohol, and aren't interested in hearing about the nuances of being drunk, but rather want to simply condemn the entire set of behaviors. Most of us have a hot button topic like that (for instance very few people are willing to entertain a nuanced and fact-based discussion about pedophilia), but the onus is on us to recognize when we can't be objective about a topic. As someone whose drinking has ranged from a once-in-a-blue-moon glass of wine at dinner to life-threatening alcoholism, I can go into great detail about every stage of drunkenness and how it affects a person's behavior and memory, but if we're not having a fact based discussion and some people would rather just shout rapist and be done with it, then it's a waste of time to continue the discussion.

Simon touched upon a misunderstanding a lot of people have about alcohol, namely the "Mel Gibson defense" as I have come to call it. When Mel Gibson was pulled over on a DUI and made headlines with his anti-Semitic ranting, he blamed it on the al-al-al-al-al-al-alcohol and maintained that he did not hold such abhorrent views. The thing is, alcohol doesn't cause a person to change their beliefs, only to be less careful about who hears it. Alcohol doesn't put ideas in your head, but it does reveal to the world what you really think and who you really are. Most of the times that I've been three sheets to the broken wind, I turned into the overly friendly "I love you man!" variety of drunk, because that's what I carried inside. The few times I was carrying anger and frustration, I turned into a very clumsy Mr Hyde. Pay attention to seemingly nice people who are angry drunks, because that's the only time you're going to hear how they really feel. People spread the myth of the Mel Gibson defense because they accidentally revealed their true nature and are now desperately trying to reconstruct the façade.

So what does that mean for consent? Drunk people want the same kind of sex with the same kind of person that their sober self does, but with much less regard to consequences or the affect a hookup might have on the story we tell ourselves and others about what kind of person we are. I've hooked up drunk with women that I would not be interested in sober, but that's because I wasn't considering the drawbacks, not because the desire to fuck that person was a foreign idea placed into my head by alcohol (which simply does not happen). I've never, for instance, wanted to hook up with a man while drunk despite getting smashed at gay bars on many occasions. If I had, it would have meant that I carried same sex attractions but might not have been aware of it sober because it didn't fit my narrative. In that scenario, I might lash out at my same-sex hookup, claim I had been taken advantage of and that I would never agree to such things if I hadn't been so drunk. Yet unless I was drunk to the point of incapacitation, ie. incapable of basic motor control or intelligible speech, affirmative consent in that state is still valid because my actions reflected my desires at the time. If I were on some kind of hallucinogen and thought I was agreeing to ride a magical unicorn to an enchanted mushroom grove, it would be different, but that is not something alcohol does to the brain, despite the protests of people trying to use the Mel Gibson defense. If a person is sober enough to say yes and participate, they're sober enough to deal with the consequences. If they're too drunk for one or both of those things, they're incapacitated and anyone who has sex with them is a rapist. Unlike the fMRI machine approach, this is not a fuzzy line and it's very obvious when a perpetrator is crossing it. There can be no "double rape" under this definition because an incapacitated perpetrator cannot carry out the sexual act, and it squares with existing law (especially with an affirmative consent principle) and the experiences of people who know what it's like to be at various states of intoxication. If the drunk sex = rape hardliners want to propose a better definition, I'm all ears, but so far all I've seen is "you just want to fuck blackout drunk girls, you probable rapist!"

Arthur, you bring up some interesting points, but I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding of consent.

Consent is not a measure of what a person wants, but rather of what they consciously agree to. You can't even begin to compare it with the Mel Gibson defense, because the Mel Gibson defense is about Gibson's internal beliefs - does he hate the Jews? I completely agree with you that if you end up sleeping with someone while drunk, that is an indication that you had sexual feelings towards them and on some level wanted to. A drunk person is capable of genuine attraction, but not genuine consent. Where you go wrong is that you equate the two, when in reality, they are related but very different.

It is still possible to rape someone even if they want to have sex with you, if they haven't actually agreed to it, which can be for a number of reasons. Maybe they're not ready to have sex yet. Maybe they're waiting for marriage or some such. Maybe they're in a state where they are not qualified to give consent (past a certain threshold of drunkenness-see Jub's post for my thoughts on that).

[Phillip Hone]

Nah, I just don't have the background to determine solid numbers - and from what I've been hearing (and indeed reading in this very thread), the effects of alcohol may vary too much between people to define a fair standard.

You'll just have to rely on your (supposed) experience and common sense (if any) to determine whether the person you are with appears to be impaired, and back off if they are, or you're unsure.
(Unless you somehow know that they are specifically trying to get drunk and laid - that would, of course, constitute consent. But I'm not entirely sure how you'd go about determining that.)

Then define the signs one must look for, keep in mind that for a law to be effective it has to be a reasonable standard that applies to a broad section of the population. Do they have to be pass out drunk before they're too drunk to consent? Or do we push it up to stumbling with slurred speech? How about mildly tipsy and giggly? Where exactly do you suggest we draw the line based on what another, possibly drunk themselves, person can observe?

Then once you've define that, can you define what responsibility a woman has to monitor her own level of intoxication and ownership of actions taken while drunk? Keep in mind, I'm not arguing that purposefully getting a woman blackout drunk, drugging her, or giving her drinks with a higher level of alcohol in them than should be anticipated shouldn't be a crime. I'm asking what you think should happen if you take a woman out for a date, you both have some drinks?

Where does the woman's responsibility for choosing to have sex end and the man's start (I use this pairing because this is the most common way this situation happens)? Why should the man have to be more in control of himself, to the point of having to turn down a willing partner, than the woman? Should it not be the woman's responsibility to, under normal circumstances, monitor her level of intoxication and be responsible for all choices she makes while under the influence of alcohol she willingly drank?

The more sober partner or the one who initiated sex is responsible for some form of sexual misconduct. It doesn't work differently for women or men. We usually just assume the victim is a women because that's how it happens most of the time. It's probably not the best assumption to make, because anyone can rape or be raped, regardless of gender.

As for it being the "women's responsibility" to monitor her alcohol consumption ... no, I don't think people are responsible for being defenseless, even if they made themselves that way. If I leave my door open, does it make it any less of a robbery if someone steals my stuff? Locking the door would have been smart, but leaving it open doesn't make ME responsible for the crime.

TL;DR - being drunk makes you easier to rape, but being easier rape doesn't make you responsible for what other people do to you.

[Jub]

The more sober partner or the one who initiated sex is responsible for some form of sexual misconduct. It doesn't work differently for women or men. We usually just assume the victim is a women because that's how it happens most of the time. It's probably not the best assumption to make, because anyone can rape or be raped, regardless of gender.

As for it being the "women's responsibility" to monitor her alcohol consumption ... no, I don't think people are responsible for being defenseless, even if they made themselves that way. If I leave my door open, does it make it any less of a robbery if someone steals my stuff? Locking the door would have been smart, but leaving it open doesn't make ME responsible for the crime.

This would be more like letting somebody into your house, showing him where all you valuables are, and letting them take them; then waking up the next morning and try to charge them with theft because you regret giving away all your world possessions. This is a crime, outside of a few instances outlined above, that both parties are fully responsible for making happen. Unless the intoxication was forced upon you, sex you consent to is sex you consent to, no take backs. No other crime works this way and this one shouldn't work this way either.

If you choose to drink it and you choose to do it, then you choose to take responsibility for it and the results of it. Period.

[Terralthra]

Some people choose to drink for reasons other than to have low enough inhibitions to have sex they wouldn't have agreed to sober. Holding everyone who drinks to that standard is nonsensical.

The entire point is that consent given while mentally impaired is not fucking consent. This doesn't just apply to sex, and arguing that it does is knowingly deceitful. Many jurisdictions (including the US) recognize intoxication as an impediment to forming mens rea for various strict intent crimes, and you're a google search away from finding all sorts of people who have sued bars and strip clubs for credit card charges they "agreed to" while hammered, with varying degrees of success, along with all sorts of other contracts.

The fact that rape is a crime against the body, rather than against property, and thus can not be easily recompensed, is the whole reason it's a fucking crime in the first place.

[Jub]

Some people choose to drink for reasons other than to have low enough inhibitions to have sex they wouldn't have agreed to sober. Holding everyone who drinks to that standard is nonsensical.

The entire point is that consent given while mentally impaired is not fucking consent. This doesn't just apply to sex, and arguing that it does is knowingly deceitful. Many jurisdictions (including the US) recognize intoxication as an impediment to forming mens rea for various strict intent crimes, and you're a google search away from finding all sorts of people who have sued bars and strip clubs for credit card charges they "agreed to" while hammered, with varying degrees of success, along with all sorts of other contracts.

The fact that rape is a crime against the body, rather than against property, and thus can not be easily recompensed, is the whole reason it's a fucking crime in the first place.

Then we're back to square one as to how you define how drunk is too drunk and what the responsibility of the person drinking is with regards to what they do while intoxicated. If you choose to drink, and then choose to have sex which you fully participate in, how is that solely on the other person to the point of them being charged with rape?

[Terralthra]

As I said, and you said you agreed with - the MPC defines "negligently" thus: a "reasonable person" would be aware of a "substantial and unjustifiable risk" that his conduct is of a prohibited nature, will lead to a prohibited result, and/or is under prohibited attendant circumstances, and the human-individual was not so aware but should have been.

If you have sex with someone you know has been drinking, or a reasonable person could tell was intoxicated to a substantial degree, there exists a substantial risk that your conduct is of a prohibited nature, to wit, having sex with someone who is not of sound mind, and thus their consent is not valid. It is, of course, possible that on sobering up, there may be no ill consequences, but it's also possible that there will be, and those consequences are reasonably foreseeable. If you disregard the risk of that outcome, you meet the literal definition of "negligent."

In my ideal legislative world, there would be a case of sexual assault along the lines of negligent sexual assault, just as there is a involuntary manslaughter.

Also, as noted, intoxication would certainly be a defense to a charge of knowing or purposeful sexual assault, though it might not be so with reckless or negligent sexual assault.

[Jub]

I agree that there needs to be degrees of sex crimes, I will never agree to a crime that is a crime only after the fact and only some of the time with no clear guidelines for what does and doesn't make it a crime.

[Phillip Hone]

The more sober partner or the one who initiated sex is responsible for some form of sexual misconduct. It doesn't work differently for women or men. We usually just assume the victim is a women because that's how it happens most of the time. It's probably not the best assumption to make, because anyone can rape or be raped, regardless of gender.

As for it being the "women's responsibility" to monitor her alcohol consumption ... no, I don't think people are responsible for being defenseless, even if they made themselves that way. If I leave my door open, does it make it any less of a robbery if someone steals my stuff? Locking the door would have been smart, but leaving it open doesn't make ME responsible for the crime.

This would be more like letting somebody into your house, showing him where all you valuables are, and letting them take them; then waking up the next morning and try to charge them with theft because you regret giving away all your world possessions. This is a crime, outside of a few instances outlined above, that both parties are fully responsible for making happen. Unless the intoxication was forced upon you, sex you consent to is sex you consent to, no take backs. No other crime works this way and this one shouldn't work this way either.

If you choose to drink it and you choose to do it, then you choose to take responsibility for it and the results of it. Period.

A severely intoxicated person isn't capable of making that decision, so no, they haven't chosen it.

Period? Full stop? So if someone black outs from drinking and then gets raped, that's their fault and the person who fucked them while they were unconscious shouldn't be charged with a crime?

Then we're back to square one as to how you define how drunk is too drunk and what the responsibility of the person drinking is with regards to what they do while intoxicated. If you choose to drink, and then choose to have sex which you fully participate in, how is that solely on the other person to the point of them being charged with rape?

Because they decided to have sex with someone who wasn't in a state where they could consent to sex.

If somebody molests a child, and the child agreed to it, would you say that child needs to take responsibility for their actions?

To be clear, I'm going by the standards you posted above, meaning a person who is severely impaired, not someone who is just tipsy.

[Alyrium Denryle]

I agree that there needs to be degrees of sex crimes, I will never agree to a crime that is a crime only after the fact and only some of the time with no clear guidelines for what does and doesn't make it a crime.

Then you throw out the concept of criminally negligent homicide. There are acts you can commit that are not crimes in themselves, but that carry risks that, should the chicken come home to roost, will make you guilty of criminally negligent homicide. For example, possession and use of rat poison is legal. There are risks to using rat poison. If you ignore those risks--and the ways in which those risks get ignored is circumstantially dependant--you may or may not be guilty.

That is why we use the Reasonable Person Standard. If a Reasonable Person (a legal technical term) would have known there was a risk, and ignored it, the defendant is liable. No specific intent to commit murder (or in this case rape) is required. Only ignoring the risk.

A legal Reasonable Person knows there is a risk of non-consent when someone is drunk. The degree to which they could have determined impairment (and thus be liable) is a matter for trial.

[Jub]

A severely intoxicated person isn't capable of making that decision, so no, they haven't chosen it.

Period? Full stop? So if someone black outs from drinking and then gets raped, that's their fault and the person who fucked them while they were unconscious shouldn't be charged with a crime?

Fuck off until you've read my posts in this thread you troll.

Because they decided to have sex with someone who wasn't in a state where they could consent to sex.

If somebody molests a child, and the child agreed to it, would you say that child needs to take responsibility for their actions?

To be clear, I'm going by the standards you posted above, meaning a person who is severely impaired, not someone who is just tipsy.

Not the same, an adult made a choice to drink, and then, while still sober enough to participate actively in sex had sex with somebody. Not at all the same.

That is why we use the Reasonable Person Standard. If a Reasonable Person (a legal technical term) would have known there was a risk, and ignored it, the defendant is liable. No specific intent to commit murder (or in this case rape) is required. Only ignoring the risk.

A legal Reasonable Person knows there is a risk of non-consent when someone is drunk. The degree to which they could have determined impairment (and thus be liable) is a matter for trial.

Then do please define exactly when this level of drunk hits and show me the universal signs of drunkenness that will apply across all people. In order to have a reasonable standard, you must first define a standard. Thus far I'm the only one that has even made the attempt thus far, so please step up and define these signs that are obvious enough that any reasonable person would notice them. If you miss one, or define one so that a person can be either too drunk to consent and not display it or display it while being fine you fail as it can't be defended in a court of law as a reasonable person could fail to be aware of these signs.

[Terralthra]

Jub, you don't seem to be understanding the idea of substantial risk and negligence as Alyrium and I have been using them. The idea is that when someone drinks, there is a risk that the person is blacked out, or otherwise not of sound mind to consent. The more someone drinks, obviously, the more that risk increases. The more a person displays visible symptoms of intoxication, or the more that person drinks in front of you, the more a reasonable person would be aware of the substantial risk that person can not legally consent, no matter what they're actually saying to you.

Whether or not a reasonable person would so be aware is entirely situational, and, as Alyrium said, a matter for trial, just as accidentally killing someone by driving negligence or killing someone by improperly using rat poison would be charged as criminally negligent manslaughter, with the jury acting as the "reasonable person" and deciding whether or not they would have been aware of the risk that the person's consent is not valid.

That's...pretty much the way criminal justice works for matters of "substantial risk" and negligence, and a reasonable person standard. There are many other crimes that work exactly the same way, with the outcome/consequences determining whether or not a charge is brought, and the jury determining the level of risk the alleged perpetrator should have been aware of or disregarded.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Then do please define exactly when this level of drunk hits and show me the universal signs of drunkenness that will apply across all people. In order to have a reasonable standard, you must first define a standard.

You missed the point entirely. The Reasonable Person Standard is used precisely when the issue is context dependent.
There are some good indicators. Have you seen the person consume a few shots of tequila? Is motor function impaired? Is their speech slurred? Do they say "WOOOO! I am soooo drunk right now!"?

The indicators of drunkeness are a gestalt of behaviors, not some line that can be plainly defined unless you want to use blood tests. That is what the Reasonable Person standard is for.

The same goes for rat poison and negligent homicide. Sure, there are some rules of thumb like not leaving open containers of rat poison where 2 year olds can get at them, but that is not the sum total of things that can get you in trouble with rat poison. You cannot define EVERYTHING that could be considered negligent a priori.

[Frank the Tank]

You missed the point entirely. The Reasonable Person Standard is used precisely when the issue is context dependent.
There are some good indicators. Have you seen the person consume a few shots of tequila? Is motor function impaired? Is their speech slurred? Do they say "WOOOO! I am soooo drunk right now!"?

The indicators of drunkeness are a gestalt of behaviors, not some line that can be plainly defined unless you want to use blood tests. That is what the Reasonable Person standard is for.

The same goes for rat poison and negligent homicide. Sure, there are some rules of thumb like not leaving open containers of rat poison where 2 year olds can get at them, but that is not the sum total of things that can get you in trouble with rat poison. You cannot define EVERYTHING that could be considered negligent a priori.

In other words, you're going back to your original claim that "A person who is drunk cannot consent" while being TOO FUCKING LAZY to define what "drunk" means in any objective sense, instead relying on the "reasonable person standard," while ignoring seven fucking pages of "reasonable people" disagreeing on the standards, and justifying your position by saying that "77 universities (last I checked) are under DOJ legal-probes for miserably failing to investigate rapes on their campuses and for obstructing actual criminal cases."

In other words, in your mind it's okay for a person to retroactively rescind their consent to have sex with somebody else because rape is bad and colleges aren't doing shit about it. And as was pointed out, repeatedly, what the fuck do colleges not doing shit to investigate rapes happening on the campuses have to do with people getting to decide after the fact that they didn't really want to have sex, therefore it was rape?

Bottom line - you're claiming that "drunk" people cannot consent to sex, and then instead of defining what "drunk" means, you're ignoring that entire issue on the premise that "rape is bad." Well no shit; there's nobody here arguing that rape is good, and this continued circle jerk about "you're justifying rape" instead of defining what "too drunk to consent" means is getting pretty fucking tiresome.

[Alyrium Denryle]

In other words, you're going back to your original claim that "A person who is drunk cannot consent" while being TOO FUCKING LAZY to define what "drunk" means in any objective sense

Objectively? Ok. Too drunk to drive is too drunk to consent. Done. But you cannot determine that without a fucking breathalizer in the field, so the indicators you go by are behavior. You stupid retrograde fuckstick.

In other words, in your mind it's okay for a person to retroactively rescind their consent to have sex with somebody else because rape is bad and colleges aren't doing shit about it.

No moron. The two positions there are derived differently. Take your strawmen to another fucking forum. We have standards here.

People who are drunk cannot consent. They dont rescind it. It was never valid in the first place place. They can only GIVE consent after the fact and you are SOL if they dont. I have justified this position with a reasonably detailed discussion of how alcohol affects the cognitive processes responsible for the ability to give consent.

The university issue is another matter entirely, and has to do with shitty university responses to rape on college campuses no matter how the rape happens. The university I fucking work at covered up the antics of a god damn serial rapist, and pointedly failed to investigate a blitz rape in the animal care facility of our biology department. To the point of having an 11 hour police response time.

[Frank the Tank]

Jub, you don't seem to be understanding the idea of substantial risk and negligence as Alyrium and I have been using them. The idea is that when someone drinks, there is a risk that the person is blacked out, or otherwise not of sound mind to consent. The more someone drinks, obviously, the more that risk increases. The more a person displays visible symptoms of intoxication, or the more that person drinks in front of you, the more a reasonable person would be aware of the substantial risk that person can not legally consent, no matter what they're actually saying to you.

Whether or not a reasonable person would so be aware is entirely situational, and, as Alyrium said, a matter for trial, just as accidentally killing someone by driving negligence or killing someone by improperly using rat poison would be charged as criminally negligent manslaughter, with the jury acting as the "reasonable person" and deciding whether or not they would have been aware of the risk that the person's consent is not valid.

That's...pretty much the way criminal justice works for matters of "substantial risk" and negligence, and a reasonable person standard. There are many other crimes that work exactly the same way, with the outcome/consequences determining whether or not a charge is brought, and the jury determining the level of risk the alleged perpetrator should have been aware of or disregarded.

And what Jub (and I, and several other people) are asking is that you, and Alyrium, and Romulan Republic, etc., define where that "line" resides. Romulan Republic seems to be claiming that the line resides at one drink... that line is utter bullshit and flies in the face of logic. You and Alyrium are giving a much looser and poorly defined location of that line, such that "reasonable person" are clearly disagreeing as to where it resides.

Please don't fall back on "blackout drunk" as the "line," because I'm fairly sure all of us agree that falling down drunk, blackout drunk, or passed out is certainly over the line of consent. But if a person has had five drinks and decides to have sex with someone, then the next morning decides that was a bad idea and they were raped, were they really too drunk to consent? Mind you with five beers over a few hours your average man or woman isn't going to be blackout or falling down drunk; they're probably just going to be somewhere from lightly buzzed to happily drunk, depending on their height/weight and food consumption.

If you cannot, or will not, define that line except at the extremes, then "reasonable people" have no way to avoid accidentally raping someone, if your standards were to be adopted. Two people, each of whom consumed five beers at a party, could be mutually "raping" each other and never know it. Which is simply idiotic. Let's not continue to be idiotic... define what "too drunk to consent" means and then we can at least have a debate about whether that's a reasonable standard or not.