The College Rape Overcorrection

[Phillip Hone]

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).

You've made the same unjustified leap as the other posters, which is to assume that an intoxicated person is not aware enough of what they're doing and who they're doing it with to consent to sex, and like them you have also failed to define that "certain threshold". Drunk people know exactly what they're agreeing to and who they're agreeing to do it with, moral hangups and marriages be damned. It's not like someone who dropped acid and thinks they're a carton of yogurt agreeing to be stirred. The only threshold at which this is not the case is when someone is drunk to incapacitation and cannot form the words to consent or muster the coordination to resist (if they're even aware of their surroundings). Having sex with a person in that state is clearly rape even in the strictest sense. Setting the bar any lower causes far more problems than it solves (if it solves any) and creates nonsensical "double rape" situations, as well as trivializing actual rape by lumping it in with relatively normal behavior. I can understand the desire to discourage sketchy drunk hookups, but treating them as rape would ruin a lot of peoples' lives over a "crime" that most of them couldn't have possibly known they were committing with a "victim" who was a willing and active participant.

Define it by picking an arbitrary number - same way we decide if people are too drunk to drive, same way we decide if someone is to young to have sex. The same god damn way the law works for fucking everything. I don't know why this is so hard to understand. Like AD I feel it should be somewhere around the point where we decided people are too drunk to drive.

I defy you to explain to me how it is any more irrational than saying a 17 1/2 year old is off limit but 18 year olds are fine.

Like others have mentioned, I believe they should count as some form of negligent rape. Similarly, we don't charge people who accidentally run somebody over as if they plotted for months to stab them to death in their sleep. Yet both are crimes and both are taken seriously.

Let me be more clear. We as a society at least get the idea of designated drivers. And of bars confiscating people's keys. Stuff like that. It's not considered the realm of comedy to imagine a group of friends out to get drunk, where one guy stays sober to drive everybody home.

So while people often fail to practice basic precautions, we seem to be past the point where the drunk drivers are fighting for their right to drive drunk. They're into the "we get it's dangerous, we don't feel we have a sufficiently convenient choice, so we're gonna keep gambling" phase. It is socially accepted that drunk driving is at best a bad idea.

Everything you have written above is not my experience.

At which point you've basically said "no social drinking that might lead to sex." Which translates, for all practical purposes as "no social drinking."

In which case I think my characterization of this position of yours as "teetotaler" earlier in the thread was quite apt. You're basically trying to ban social consumption of alcohol, and while I don't think it's inherently wrong for you to try, realistically you are doomed to failure and will save yourself some time by admitting it.

Nope. People can still drink. Never said otherwise. It's easy - go out and drink all you want, but no driving, and no sex.

Drunk screwing is practically the whole point of alcohol consumption for many people. It's not something we do for convenience, it is in many cases why we went somewhere that serves alcohol. This creates a higher degree of pushback.

You've got to be shitting me - something creating push back is a good reason to just leave it be? Is that what you're saying? I'm aware that this will be difficult. I just think it's worthwhile.

[Jub]

Define it by picking an arbitrary number - same way we decide if people are too drunk to drive, same way we decide if someone is to young to have sex. The same god damn way the law works for fucking everything. I don't know why this is so hard to understand. Like AD I feel it should be somewhere around the point where we decided people are too drunk to drive.

I defy you to explain to me how it is any more irrational than saying a 17 1/2 year old is off limit but 18 year olds are fine.

Like others have mentioned, I believe they should count as some form of negligent rape. Similarly, we don't charge people who accidentally run somebody over as if they plotted for months to stab them to death in their sleep. Yet both are crimes and both are taken seriously.

Did you honestly just say that it is good practice to set arbitrary laws even though every law you quoted has already been challenged, and in many cases beaten, because these arbitrary laws don't work very well in the real world? Are you honestly this mentally handicapped?

Everything you have written above is not my experience.

So what, your anecdotes and your set of moronic friends is the word of god on this issue now?

Nope. People can still drink. Never said otherwise. It's easy - go out and drink all you want, but no driving, and no sex.

Why no sex? How many good times are you willing to sacrifice to prevent a single "rape"?

You've got to be shitting me - something creating push back is a good reason to just leave it be? Is that what you're saying? I'm aware that this will be difficult. I just think it's worthwhile.

In the vast majority of cases nobody is harmed by drunken sex, worst usual case, one person is upset at a choice they willingly made. Is getting rid of one worth getting rid of the other?

[Phillip Hone]

Oh, so let's make a law that effects billions to protect handfuls of people that should be, as responsible adults, able to control who the actively participate in sex with, because a few idiot women regret their drunk one night stands the next day. Even better, you haven't defined what, aside from the "victims" after the fact regret, separates drunk happy sex from drunken rape sex. You're basically saying that any drunk sex can and should potentially be rape if the victim at some point in the future decides, nah that wasn't really a person I'd have fucked sober and calls rape.

"A few idiot women..." Hmm, true colors coming out?

What separates perfectly fun pest control (putting out poison) and negligent manslaughter (putting out poison that somebody eats) until somebody comes along after the fact (of the poison placement) and makes it suddenly a crime?

Great, then define where the demarcation between able to consent and unable lies. Not just for this but for alcohol and every other drug.

This should be determined by mental health professionals, not me. I'll defer to their judgement.

If I call up an ex and have drunken sex with them and blow 0.08 afterwards, should I have the power to I ruin their lives by later claiming that I wasn't able to consent to the sex?

This has come up several times before, but even under what people who take my and AD's stance, you would be unlikely to win that trial.

Not even addressing the social pressures that make one gender far more likely to regret it the next day than the other?

I can show females reporting this sort of sex as rape, can you show even one going the other way? The ball is in your court fucktard, put up or shut up.

Even if 100% of the people reporting these rapes were female, that would in no way make the law discriminatory. If 100% of the people who report being lynched are black, would that make a law against lynch mobs discriminatory against whites?

Also, for all your chiding me for ignoring your points, you ignored this.

I'll answer your point, but I expect a retraction of certain straw men afterwards, and will otherwise feel quite cheated.

My analogy to what you're suggesting is heavily restricting anything that could be used as a weapon to prevent a few murders per year, after all if you need a baseball bat it's not that hard to submit to a background check and sign binding legal documents while also being subjected to unreasonably restrict limits on your behavior. You swung your baseball bat near somebody who felt threatened by it, assault charges; that ball you hit accidentally beaned the person you're playing a game against and he later decides you coerced him into playing, battery charges. Are you getting the point yet?

So answer this you piece of shit hypocrite.

None of these things are actually problems. If people were routinely being press ganged into baseball games then yeah, well, sure, that would be similar. Otherwise this is just a gigantic non sequitur.

So what, your anecdotes and your set of moronic friends is the word of god on this issue now?

It's my anecdote against Simon's.

Did you honestly just say that it is good practice to set arbitrary laws even though every law you quoted has already been challenged, and in many cases beaten, because these arbitrary laws don't work very well in the real world? Are you honestly this mentally handicapped?

The last insult in this sentence is offensive to people with mental disabilities.

What alternative are you looking for? If we don't set some kind of age floor, it'd be perfectly legal to fuck children.

Why no sex? How many good times are you willing to sacrifice to prevent a single "rape"?

An infinite number. An academic question anyway, at least for me, and I'm getting plenty as is. Maybe for some others of you out there it's more of a concern ...

In the vast majority of cases nobody is harmed by drunken sex, worst usual case, one person is upset at a choice they willingly made. Is getting rid of one worth getting rid of the other?

Yes.

[Jub]

What separates perfectly fun pest control (putting out poison) and negligent manslaughter (putting out poison that somebody eats) until somebody comes along after the fact (of the poison placement) and makes it suddenly a crime?

The fact that at anytime before the event all the elements are there, measurable, and can be strictly defined in a legal sense and thus the person can effect the outcome in a meaningful way. During consensual sex how is the person supposed to know that later on the person they are having sex with will regret it later and thus stop?

This should be determined by mental health professionals, not me. I'll defer to their judgement.

So once again you call for a change, any change, but can't define what that change should be.

This has come up several times before, but even under what people who take my and AD's stance, you would be unlikely to win that trial.

How so? I make the plan, drink, text them and get them to invite me over. So long as there is no evidence left behind that I preplanned this outcome. From then on it will assume that this woman, likely less drunk than me, took advantage of me. Without you being able to read my intent there is no way to determine that I had planned this outcome.

If I hadn't planned the event before hand and the exact same sequence of events happens do I go from perp to victim?

Even if 100% of the people reporting these rapes were female, that would in no way make the law discriminatory. If 100% of the people who report being lynched are black, would that make a law against lynch mobs discriminatory against whites?

Yes, in fact any law designed around the protection (or the harm) of a person designed knowing that it will effect a single group out of many is discriminatory. That doesn't make it bad, it does make it discriminatory.

For example, I could pass a law that anybody who had an ancestor that was a slave between x and y dates gets a higher minimum wage. In the US this would almost 100% effect none whites, you can argue that it is a measure to ensure equality or to right past wrongs, but the law is still discriminatory.

I'll answer your point, but I expect a retraction of certain straw men afterwards, and will otherwise feel quite cheated.

I have long since stopped caring what you think or valuing your contributions to this thread. So good luck with that.

None of these things are actually problems. If people were routinely being press ganged into baseball games then yeah, well, sure, that would be similar. Otherwise this is just a gigantic non sequitur.

It's a hypothetical showing that any harmless thing can lead to both horrific crime and create unintended criminals. If for examples the highest proportion of murders were being caused by pencils and pens because the totalitarian police state has cracked down on all objects that could make more effective weapons, would you support them being banned to save lives?

It's my anecdote against Simon's.

No, it's your anecdote with nothing to back it up versus his anecdote which has the support of years of people drinking and fucking without the issues you describe being common place. Until you can prove otherwise, you've got shit.

The last insult in this sentence is offensive to people with mental disabilities.

The motto of this board is as follows:

"Get your fill of sci-fi, science, and mockery of stupid people"

Given that stupid used to be a term to describe the mentally deficient you're barking up the wrong tree here.

What alternative are you looking for? If we don't set some kind of age floor, it'd be perfectly legal to fuck children.

Some countries set the age of consent at puberty while other set it at 21, that means in one nation people as young as 8 or 9 can legally consent to sex in some places and in other places people that can fight and die for their country can't legally have sex in it. Now define precisely why one of these ages is wrong and the other is right? After all pushing the age of consent older and older will prevent abuse, so by the logic you've displayed in this thread we ought to set it to at least the mid twenties when our brains have finally stopped changing so rapidly, otherwise that sex we had at [insert legal age of consent here] could feel like rape later in life.

An infinite number. An academic question anyway, at least for me, and I'm getting plenty as is. Maybe for some others of you out there it's more of a concern ...

Ah, so this is a case of fuck you got mine now? I knew there was something.

Yes.

You sir have no concept of the real world. Go back into your bubble, bury your head in the sand, whatever you need to do, you;re simply not ready for the real world.

[Arthur_Tuxedo]

You've made the same unjustified leap as the other posters, which is to assume that an intoxicated person is not aware enough of what they're doing and who they're doing it with to consent to sex, and like them you have also failed to define that "certain threshold". Drunk people know exactly what they're agreeing to and who they're agreeing to do it with, moral hangups and marriages be damned. It's not like someone who dropped acid and thinks they're a carton of yogurt agreeing to be stirred. The only threshold at which this is not the case is when someone is drunk to incapacitation and cannot form the words to consent or muster the coordination to resist (if they're even aware of their surroundings). Having sex with a person in that state is clearly rape even in the strictest sense. Setting the bar any lower causes far more problems than it solves (if it solves any) and creates nonsensical "double rape" situations, as well as trivializing actual rape by lumping it in with relatively normal behavior. I can understand the desire to discourage sketchy drunk hookups, but treating them as rape would ruin a lot of peoples' lives over a "crime" that most of them couldn't have possibly known they were committing with a "victim" who was a willing and active participant.

Define it by picking an arbitrary number - same way we decide if people are too drunk to drive, same way we decide if someone is to young to have sex. The same god damn way the law works for fucking everything. I don't know why this is so hard to understand. Like AD I feel it should be somewhere around the point where we decided people are too drunk to drive.

That's a ridiculous place to set the limit. I have carried reasonably intelligent conversations at triple or even quadruple the legal limit for driving. A small but significant minority of people can't be trusted to steer a high-speed, multi-ton missile down the highway at .08 without causing a wreck. That's all the legal limit for driving means.

I defy you to explain to me how it is any more irrational than saying a 17 1/2 year old is off limit but 18 year olds are fine.

Like others have mentioned, I believe they should count as some form of negligent rape. Similarly, we don't charge people who accidentally run somebody over as if they plotted for months to stab them to death in their sleep. Yet both are crimes and both are taken seriously.

You still have not justified why drunk sex that is regretted should be treated as rape. You keep skipping over the step where you're supposed to explain why a crime occurred like an underpants gnome and acting incredulous when people don't agree with you. Having sex with someone who can't string a sentence together to say yes or muster the coordination to either resist or actively participate is clearly rape, but someone who was sober enough to do both of those things had a conscious desire to have sex and then acted on that desire, and they are responsible for the consequences of their actions. To say this is "victim blaming" is to presume that there is a victim, which is to ignore our argument and then proceed as if it had been addressed and refuted.

Step 1: Collect alcohol
Step 2:
Step 3: BIIIIIG RAPE

Do you honestly not see why people are becoming upset with this broken record tactic?

[Phillip Hone]

I have long since stopped caring what you think or valuing your contributions to this thread. So good luck with that.

If you're openly going to repeatedly throw straw men at me and then refuse to take them back when challenged, well, there's really no point in my addressing anything you say in this thread, is there? So this is the last response you're getting.

@Arthur_Tuxedo

It's not a broken record. It's been explained over, and over, and over, for ten tedious pages. Just because you keep ignoring it or failing to understand doesn't make it a broken record.

To briefly recap, alcohol impairs your ability to make judgements.

Consenting to a sexual act is an intellectual judgement.

People who have been drinking past a certain point aren't capable of making that judgement anymore.

It's impossible to pick an exact level of intoxication because everyone is different, so like driving, it'd have to be some arbitrary standard. As you yourself admit, at .08 most people are still fine to drive. Well, at .08 they're probably safe to fuck as well, but better safe than sorry.

[Jub]

If you're openly going to repeatedly throw straw men at me and then refuse to take them back when challenged, well, there's really no point in my addressing anything you say in this thread, is there? So this is the last response you're getting.

You've broken several debate rules and are debating with a wall of ignorance tactic that is near ban worthy.

Here are a few sections of the rules you may have missed when you joined:

Posting Rules:

5. Grow a Thick Skin. People are allowed to insult each other and use profanity on these forums. Do not run to a moderator or dismiss someone's argument just because he's insulting or rude. The best way to respond to a rude person is to show him up by producing a better argument than he can.

Debate Rules:

3. Miss Manners Does Not Live Here. Do not whine about other people being rude. In particular, do not use someone's rudeness as an excuse to ignore his arguments. However, there are limits. You may be rude, but you may not use racist or homophobic slurs. If you do, you will be summarily banned.

The last insult in this sentence is offensive to people with mental disabilities.

Due to DR3, you don't get to run from me because I was rude to you. So rebut me or concede, either way I'm going to win anyway.

-----

You've also broken debate rules 4 and 5 which state:

4. No "Broken Record" Tactics. Do not employ the "broken record" debating style of continuously repeating yourself until other people give up.

5. Back Up Your Claims. If you make a contentious statement of fact and someone asks for evidence, you must either provide it or withdraw the claim. Do not call it "self evident", restate it in different words, force the other person to prove your claim is not true, or use other weasel techniques to avoid backing up your claims.

You've been repeatedly asked to define terms and have failed to do so when asked, there are too many examples to quote at this point. Hence the breaking of DR4.

-----

Administrative Rules:

If you don't like me calling you out on this refer to this rule.

3. The Rules Are The Rules. If you dislike our forum's policies, either keep it to yourself or leave. This is our forum, these are our rules, and if you don't like it, there are plenty of other forums out there.

You can respond or be reported, your choice.

[Formless]

The exploitation model is an excellent model for what happens when a sober person exploits a drunk person's impaired judgment for sex.

Not such a good model when comparably drunk people make a mutual (possibly impaired) decision.

Because exploitation doesn't make much sense when you're forced to say two people are exploiting each other in the same way for the same thing.

Considering that alcohol lowers your inhibitions and has never been considered an excuse when the crime is assault and not rape or other sexual crimes, I don't consider the sobriety of the exploiting party remotely relevant here. My analysis is based first and foremost on the reality of the crimes and the drug, not philosophical meanderings.

[Jub]

Considering that alcohol lowers your inhibitions and has never been considered an excuse when the crime is assault and not rape or other sexual crimes, I don't consider the sobriety of the exploiting party remotely relevant here. My analysis is based first and foremost on the reality of the crimes and the drug, not philosophical meanderings.

So using drunkenness as a defense for the crime is invalid while also being equal to the state that allows the crime to exist at all? How does that make any sense in a way that doesn't lead to the only correct move after having drunken sex so you can claim victim status while leaving the other person with no valid defense for the crime?

[Coop D'etat]

You've made the same unjustified leap as the other posters, which is to assume that an intoxicated person is not aware enough of what they're doing and who they're doing it with to consent to sex, and like them you have also failed to define that "certain threshold". Drunk people know exactly what they're agreeing to and who they're agreeing to do it with, moral hangups and marriages be damned. It's not like someone who dropped acid and thinks they're a carton of yogurt agreeing to be stirred. The only threshold at which this is not the case is when someone is drunk to incapacitation and cannot form the words to consent or muster the coordination to resist (if they're even aware of their surroundings). Having sex with a person in that state is clearly rape even in the strictest sense. Setting the bar any lower causes far more problems than it solves (if it solves any) and creates nonsensical "double rape" situations, as well as trivializing actual rape by lumping it in with relatively normal behavior. I can understand the desire to discourage sketchy drunk hookups, but treating them as rape would ruin a lot of peoples' lives over a "crime" that most of them couldn't have possibly known they were committing with a "victim" who was a willing and active participant.

Define it by picking an arbitrary number - same way we decide if people are too drunk to drive, same way we decide if someone is to young to have sex. The same god damn way the law works for fucking everything. I don't know why this is so hard to understand. Like AD I feel it should be somewhere around the point where we decided people are too drunk to drive.

That's a ridiculous place to set the limit. I have carried reasonably intelligent conversations at triple or even quadruple the legal limit for driving. A small but significant minority of people can't be trusted to steer a high-speed, multi-ton missile down the highway at .08 without causing a wreck. That's all the legal limit for driving means.
[/quote]

Setting the limit at the level of impairment that is too drunk to drive is absolutely riduclous, you'd never get triers of fact to agree that is reasonable and I don't think you'd find many scholars on the subject supporting anything close to that.

Requiring that they are actually passed out is too high of a standard though, you'll find a good portion of very credible cases of sexual assualt are below that threshold. What your looking for is sufficent capacity to be aware of making decisions and acting upon them, and whether they can understand the sexual nature of activities, its risks and consequences and the ability to decline to participate. In otherwords, a clear capacity to understand what is going on and participate in it.

As for what a few people are arguing, I doubt you'll ever get to a legal point where a clear yes would be disregarded unless there are also clear signs of incapacity. If nothing else reasonable misapprehension is going to be an obvious full defense against the charge in those cases. At this point it would be a big step forward if it can get firmly established that clearly blotto persons are off limits (let alone the unconscious). And any yes from a person is noticeably out of it does not constitute a real yes.

[Patroklos]

Even if we agreed to this standard how exactly are we going to enforce this in this problematic morning after recanting of consent situations? Testing their alcohol content after the fact will inevitably come down to an unscientific judgment call similar to what we do now.

Don't get me wrong I like the idea of having a set, verifiable and codified limit (say some multiple of the driving limit for example). Short of having mandatory breathalyzers everywhere Minority Report eye scanner style this is not going to help in the most difficult consent situations. Unlike drunk driving the assessment of intoxication is not generally done in close proximity to the time of the offence.

[Phillip Hone]

If you're openly going to repeatedly throw straw men at me and then refuse to take them back when challenged, well, there's really no point in my addressing anything you say in this thread, is there? So this is the last response you're getting.

You've broken several debate rules and are debating with a wall of ignorance tactic that is near ban worthy.

Here are a few sections of the rules you may have missed when you joined:

Posting Rules:

5. Grow a Thick Skin. People are allowed to insult each other and use profanity on these forums. Do not run to a moderator or dismiss someone's argument just because he's insulting or rude. The best way to respond to a rude person is to show him up by producing a better argument than he can.

Debate Rules:

3. Miss Manners Does Not Live Here. Do not whine about other people being rude. In particular, do not use someone's rudeness as an excuse to ignore his arguments. However, there are limits. You may be rude, but you may not use racist or homophobic slurs. If you do, you will be summarily banned.

The last insult in this sentence is offensive to people with mental disabilities.

Due to DR3, you don't get to run from me because I was rude to you. So rebut me or concede, either way I'm going to win anyway.

-----

You've also broken debate rules 4 and 5 which state:

4. No "Broken Record" Tactics. Do not employ the "broken record" debating style of continuously repeating yourself until other people give up.

5. Back Up Your Claims. If you make a contentious statement of fact and someone asks for evidence, you must either provide it or withdraw the claim. Do not call it "self evident", restate it in different words, force the other person to prove your claim is not true, or use other weasel techniques to avoid backing up your claims.

You've been repeatedly asked to define terms and have failed to do so when asked, there are too many examples to quote at this point. Hence the breaking of DR4.

-----

Administrative Rules:

If you don't like me calling you out on this refer to this rule.

3. The Rules Are The Rules. If you dislike our forum's policies, either keep it to yourself or leave. This is our forum, these are our rules, and if you don't like it, there are plenty of other forums out there.

You can respond or be reported, your choice.

Go head and report me if you think you have a case.

I never fucking said I wasn't going to respond to you anymore because you were rude to me. I said I was going to stop responding to you because you've thrown several straw men at me and you've refused to concede them when challenged - what is even the point of arguing with someone like that?

PR 5 - Never said you couldn't insult me, just that I found that particular insult to be in bad taste. What, is there some rule against pointing out, "hey, that thing you said, it's offensive to a group of people." No, there isn't.

PR 3 - 3. Miss Manners Does Not Live Here. Do not whine about other people being rude. In particular, do not use someone's rudeness as an excuse to ignore his arguments. However, there are limits. You may be rude, but you may not use racist or homophobic slurs. If you do, you will be summarily banned.

Look, it's not for us to play moderator, but you're throwing this shit at me, and against my previous statement, and my better judgement, I'm going to respond to this one. In my opinion, you used a slur. I know the rule technically only says "racist or homophobic slurs," and I never reported you, and you using that slur isn't why I stopped responding to your (it was the straw men, broken record tactics, and general you being a fuckwad of a debator). Still, I thought I'd point it out.

4. No "Broken Record" Tactics. Do not employ the "broken record" debating style of continuously repeating yourself until other people give up.

5. Back Up Your Claims. If you make a contentious statement of fact and someone asks for evidence, you must either provide it or withdraw the claim. Do not call it "self evident", restate it in different words, force the other person to prove your claim is not true, or use other weasel techniques to avoid backing up your claims

From where I'm standing it is you who is breaking these rules with your relentless wall of ignorance and straw manning, but that's for the moderation to decide.

[aerius]

Even if we agreed to this standard how exactly are we going to enforce this in this problematic morning after recanting of consent situations? Testing their alcohol content after the fact will inevitably come down to an unscientific judgment call similar to what we do now.

Don't get me wrong I like the idea of having a set, verifiable and codified limit (say some multiple of the driving limit for example). Short of having mandatory breathalyzers everywhere Minority Report eye scanner style this is not going to help in the most difficult consent situations. Unlike drunk driving the assessment of intoxication is not generally done in close proximity to the time of the offence.

And that there is your problem, even if were possible to put a breathalyzer app on every cell phone it still wouldn't work. For instance, how do you prove that the victim was the one who blew into it? The victim could be passed out drunk while the rapist blows into the phone, registers a pass, and when it goes to trial, lies and claims that the victim was sober and consented. Good luck, unless the damn app also collects DNA samples. Or you have telescreens everywhere as in 1984.

Or let's say you have a 3 drink limit for consent. You've seen the other person have one drink, you ask her how many she's had and she says 2, and she consents to sex so you go do it. Later on she claims she was drunk and lost count of how many drinks she's had, says it must've been at least 4 or 5 so the consent ain't valid, therefore rape. Now you have a giant fucking can of worms for the court to sort out.

[Patroklos]

Obviously every sexual encounter should involve a notary. Who also witnesses the event at the time of certification. Better have two just to make sure.

Of all the movies that would predict reality who would have thought Demolition Man would get this close?

[TheHammer]

Even if we agreed to this standard how exactly are we going to enforce this in this problematic morning after recanting of consent situations? Testing their alcohol content after the fact will inevitably come down to an unscientific judgment call similar to what we do now.

Don't get me wrong I like the idea of having a set, verifiable and codified limit (say some multiple of the driving limit for example). Short of having mandatory breathalyzers everywhere Minority Report eye scanner style this is not going to help in the most difficult consent situations. Unlike drunk driving the assessment of intoxication is not generally done in close proximity to the time of the offence.

And that there is your problem, even if were possible to put a breathalyzer app on every cell phone it still wouldn't work. For instance, how do you prove that the victim was the one who blew into it? The victim could be passed out drunk while the rapist blows into the phone, registers a pass, and when it goes to trial, lies and claims that the victim was sober and consented. Good luck, unless the damn app also collects DNA samples. Or you have telescreens everywhere as in 1984.

Or let's say you have a 3 drink limit for consent. You've seen the other person have one drink, you ask her how many she's had and she says 2, and she consents to sex so you go do it. Later on she claims she was drunk and lost count of how many drinks she's had, says it must've been at least 4 or 5 so the consent ain't valid, therefore rape. Now you have a giant fucking can of worms for the court to sort out.

As I noted in a previous post, assigning drinking limits or BAC limits is an extremely faulty method for determining ability to consent for sex. Not to mention ignoring other recreational and prescription drugs that might affect judgement. Which is why I proposed my two step process that really no one answered, so I'm going to restate again to see if anyone sees a flaw on the methodology.

In short, sexual consent should be considered valid if at the time of the act both parties appeared to:

1)Know where they are.

2)Know who they are with.

Both questions should be relatively easy to ascertain answers to and establish that a reasonable person, at the time of the act, was aware of their situation when they gave consent. It would set a fair standard for everyone, and best protect both parties. Sure people will regret having had sex even if they could answer the two above questions, but that doesn't make it a crime.

[Vendetta]

You know, making up new ever fiddlier definitions of consent when 60% of cases are never reported, half or more of the ones that are are dismissed by police or prosecutors and only something like one in ten ever get to trial and the conviction rates are something like 4-6% anyway probably isn't going to do much good.

It's far more important to

a: ensure that when rapes are reported to authorities they are dealt with properly. Due diligence in investigation and far far less dismissal of the claims of the victim.

b: education of boys and young men about consent and what it means, particularly focusing on recognising and avoiding pressure tactics (placing a woman in a position where she feels she cannot leave and keep asking until no turns into yes simply due to apparent lack of options).

[TheHammer]

You know, making up new ever fiddlier definitions of consent when 60% of cases are never reported, half or more of the ones that are are dismissed by police or prosecutors and only something like one in ten ever get to trial and the conviction rates are something like 4-6% anyway probably isn't going to do much good.

It's far more important to

a: ensure that when rapes are reported to authorities they are dealt with properly. Due diligence in investigation and far far less dismissal of the claims of the victim.

b: education of boys and young men about consent and what it means, particularly focusing on recognising and avoiding pressure tactics (placing a woman in a position where she feels she cannot leave and keep asking until no turns into yes simply due to apparent lack of options).

No one is looking to redefine consent. The primary issue throughout this entire thread is the concept of retroactively invalidating consent based on x,y,z factors that are not clearly defined and subsequently calling the afore mentioned act "rape". Trying to push the line that "consensual drunken sex = rape" is always going to get massive fucking push back, and is going to have collateral damage to the entire cause. When you have such ambiguous conditions, it actually makes it far easier to be dismissive of claims because the line has been so fucking blurred.

That's why its important to come to SOME sort of consensus that is realistic in the scope of normal human sexual behavior, as to when sexual activity becomes criminal. We must differentiate between people who have simply "fucked up" by getting drunk and having a later regretted consensual sexual encounter, vs those who have been truly taken advantage of in a state of mind that they didn't know what was happening, or were forced against their will.

[RogueIce]

In short, sexual consent should be considered valid if at the time of the act both parties appeared to:

1)Know where they are.

2)Know who they are with.

Both questions should be relatively easy to ascertain answers to and establish that a reasonable person, at the time of the act, was aware of their situation when they gave consent. It would set a fair standard for everyone, and best protect both parties. Sure people will regret having had sex even if they could answer the two above questions, but that doesn't make it a crime.

The problem is, how do you ascertain that they were or were not at this state hours, days or more after the fact, without it becoming a case of "victim's word vs defendant's word"?

That is the inherent problem of a lot of acquaintance rape cases, is proving something beyond a reasonable doubt when most of it comes down to he said/she said.

Even at a party or something, the best you've got it eyewitness testimony, which is notoriously unreliable at the best of times; adding in that most - if not all - of your potential witnesses were probably at various levels of intoxication themselves doesn't help any.

You know, making up new ever fiddlier definitions of consent when 60% of cases are never reported, half or more of the ones that are are dismissed by police or prosecutors and only something like one in ten ever get to trial and the conviction rates are something like 4-6% anyway probably isn't going to do much good.

In a justice system where we're supposed to prize the presumption of innocence ("better 1000 guilty people go free than 1 innocent be jailed" and all that), an argument beginning along the lines of, "We're not getting enough convictions for this crime," will be inherently controversial.

It's far more important to

a: ensure that when rapes are reported to authorities they are dealt with properly. Due diligence in investigation and far far less dismissal of the claims of the victim.

I won't deny that there are cases where investigators have dropped the ball. But we'd need to make sure that any reforms we bring about won't unduly bias the process against the defendant, either (as arguably was the case as cited in the OP, although granted that wasn't the criminal justice system).

And given the inherent difficulties present in trying to prove whether or not consent was given - since again, a lot of it will be one person's word against another - how much will "better investigation" really matter in the end?

b: education of boys and young men about consent and what it means, particularly focusing on recognising and avoiding pressure tactics (placing a woman in a position where she feels she cannot leave and keep asking until no turns into yes simply due to apparent lack of options).

This is probably a good idea, certainly. Though it depends on what factors you take into account. Like I've honestly seen it said that if you just happen to stand between a woman and the door, that's undue pressure and any 'consent to sex' was 'coerced' and they were raped, which comes across as absurd because I doubt many people pay that much attention to where they're standing in a public space. Or I've seen people say that just because a man is physically bigger and taller the woman automatically feels pressured to say 'yes' but it's not like you have any control over that, either.

I'm sure there's probably also some social issues with focusing on just men and boys with this new educational initiative as it would imply that only men are rapists and so on and so forth. But I'll leave that one for others to discuss because it's not really an area I can even begin to try and pretend to have any competence in trying to explain.

[TheHammer]

In short, sexual consent should be considered valid if at the time of the act both parties appeared to:

1)Know where they are.

2)Know who they are with.

Both questions should be relatively easy to ascertain answers to and establish that a reasonable person, at the time of the act, was aware of their situation when they gave consent. It would set a fair standard for everyone, and best protect both parties. Sure people will regret having had sex even if they could answer the two above questions, but that doesn't make it a crime.

The problem is, how do you ascertain that they were or were not at this state hours, days or more after the fact, without it becoming a case of "victim's word vs defendant's word"?

That is the inherent problem of a lot of acquaintance rape cases, is proving something beyond a reasonable doubt when most of it comes down to he said/she said.

Even at a party or something, the best you've got it eyewitness testimony, which is notoriously unreliable at the best of times; adding in that most - if not all - of your potential witnesses were probably at various levels of intoxication themselves doesn't help any.

Well it seems to me that in most cases, considering these acts tend to go down in private, it is going to be the accusers word vs the defendant's word no matter what you do. And short of videotaping it, I don't see any way you're getting around that aspect. The same with eye witness testimony. Unless we're all wearing body cams such things can't be avoided.

But it does at least set a reasonable standard for both participants, and third party witnesses as to what to look for vis-a-vis the ability to give consent. It doesn't require an expert in human behavior, nor does it require specialized equipment to perform blood/urinalysis tests. And it sets a realistic due diligence baseline for anyone engaging in sexual behavior to make sure the person they are with knows where they are and what they are doing while they are "doing it".

[Vendetta]

In a justice system where we're supposed to prize the presumption of innocence ("better 1000 guilty people go free than 1 innocent be jailed" and all that), an argument beginning along the lines of, "We're not getting enough convictions for this crime," will be inherently controversial.

When the conviction rate is that comically low, and the reasons for it are noticably bullshit (prosecutors refusing to press a rape conviction because the victim "could have consented" but pressing and securing the conviction for the breaking and entering during which the rape was committed, as an example, I'll dig up the article for this when I have more time it was recently in the Guardian)

I won't deny that there are cases where investigators have dropped the ball. But we'd need to make sure that any reforms we bring about won't unduly bias the process against the defendant, either (as arguably was the case as cited in the OP, although granted that wasn't the criminal justice system).

And given the inherent difficulties present in trying to prove whether or not consent was given - since again, a lot of it will be one person's word against another - how much will "better investigation" really matter in the end?

It's not that they're dropping the ball, it's that they're refusing to even go near the ball. They are dismissing the claims usually without serious investigation (in the UK 40% of reported rapes are dismissed as no crime by the police, meaning no criminal investigation takes place). The overwhelming social effect is that rape is simply not treated as seriously as it should be by the criminal justice system.

Like I've honestly seen it said that if you just happen to stand between a woman and the door, that's undue pressure and any 'consent to sex' was 'coerced' and they were raped, which comes across as absurd because I doubt many people pay that much attention to where they're standing in a public space. Or I've seen people say that just because a man is physically bigger and taller the woman automatically feels pressured to say 'yes' but it's not like you have any control over that, either.

You know those are exactly the sort of things that bullshit pickup artists use to secure sex, right? They are specific pressure strategies which men employ to overcome resistance because they don't actually want to accept the idea that no means no. Some people might do them "by accident", but that's only a defence if they haven't been told what the effect is.

I'm sure there's probably also some social issues with focusing on just men and boys with this new educational initiative as it would imply that only men are rapists and so on and so forth.

There really aren't. Rape is statistically a massively one sided issue.

[AMX]

Then define the signs one must look for,...

You'd really need to ask somebody who has extensive experience with drinking and interacting with drunken people.
From my POV, I can tell that there is both a "too drunk to consent" and a "not entirely sober, but still able to consent."
But I don't have the background to define a strict line between the two.

... 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.

That'd be the "fair standard" I referred to above.
Needs to offer enough protection without being unduly restrictive, and shouldn't leave a significant grey area.
You're not going to get that from me, for obvious reasons.
But anyway, "best effort" away...

Do they have to be pass out drunk before they're too drunk to consent?

That's obviously over the line.

Or do we push it up to stumbling with slurred speech?

Seems suspicious. Hands off.

How about mildly tipsy and giggly?

Should be fine, although you may want to get some input from people who have experience with that level of intoxication.

Where exactly do you suggest we draw the line based on what another, possibly drunk themselves, person can observe?

Checking the "Progressive effects of alcohol" table on wikipedia, "Impaired Reasoning" seems significant.
Apparently that typically comes with Disinhibition and Extroversion.
And it sits right between "stumbling with slurred speech" and what could be summed up as "mildly tipsy and giggly."

I'm afraid I'll have to call this our grey area.

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?

One person making a mistake does not give somebody else carte blanche to exploit that.

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.

Well, duh.
You're not crazy.

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)?

That's a false dilemma - both have a responsibility for their actions.

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?

He shouldn't.

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?

And we're back to the part where one person's mistakes do not absolve somebody else of guilt if he* takes advantage of them.
*continuing your example

[Formless]

Considering that alcohol lowers your inhibitions and has never been considered an excuse when the crime is assault and not rape or other sexual crimes, I don't consider the sobriety of the exploiting party remotely relevant here. My analysis is based first and foremost on the reality of the crimes and the drug, not philosophical meanderings.

So using drunkenness as a defense for the crime is invalid while also being equal to the state that allows the crime to exist at all? How does that make any sense in a way that doesn't lead to the only correct move after having drunken sex so you can claim victim status while leaving the other person with no valid defense for the crime?

Let me say this again, since you are basically restating the same damn question I entered to answer yesterday. And let me be clear, I only entered the thread to answer this one question for a newbie, I don't intend to get sucked in any more than this. This is the last post I will make on the subject, and then I'm going to continue preparing for Christmass. You have no idea how much I've simplified my life by using certain websites less, SDN obviously included.

There is a fundamental inequality between people who get drunk and then victimize others and people who get drunk and are victimized by others. I mean, really, phrased that way it should be obvious that there is a fundamental inequity, but I'll elucidate anyway. And lets ditch hypothetical situations since I believe they are being used as rationalizations to avoid the cultural issue here.

Alcohol lowers inhibitions, hence its name "liquid courage". It wouldn't have that name if people didn't specifically know this and use it as a means to an end. It is also a known aspect of drinking culture that people liquor up to enable behaviors they find difficult to do while sober. That's why there are bars in every city that are notorious for their fights: there isn't really a such thing as a raging drunk, just angry people who get drunk to let out their aggression on others, and they know which bars to do that at. People also use liquor to get sex, and may not care if they get it fairly or not. They may even lack faith in their ability to get laid while sober. The problem with what has been proposed is that it assumes the decision to have sex was made by both parties while drunk; in reality its usually something that the proposing party wanted before the first round of drinks, and its heavily influenced by cultural attitudes towards sex and alcohol. They may not go into the situation with a plan to commit date rape (though all too often they very much do), but they do go into it with a purpose. They may not even get as drunk as they think, because their perceptions of their own intoxication are effected by their perceptions of alcohol itself; in other words, they psych themselves up and chalk it up to the liquor. Thus, it is easy for someone to think they are more drunk than they really are.

Which brings us to another faulty assumption: that the victimizer and the victim are equally drunk when the decision is made, even assuming that the desicion wasn't made when sober. Another reality is that people have different tolerances to alcohol, and that they can and do use this fact to drink others under the table. Sometimes without even realizing what they are doing, because hey, they are drunk. Their judgement is impaired. But they may also do it subconciously, because again, they want to have an excuse and their culture says its okay.

And this is the final inequity, the reason society does not allow drunkenness as an absolute excuse for these other crimes like assault, and why drunk driving is a crime unto itself. People already falsely believe that their behavior is excused by their intoxicated state, and specifically seek out drinks as a justification or to muddy the water. Its basically the same problem as "boys will be boys", only repackaged with alcohol. It allows more people to get hurt, and harm prevention is the whole point of drunk driving laws. Now, I know that it is difficult to police date rape and similar crimes. But allowing the attitudes that perpetuate it to slide is something that we can change by not repeating them as if they were valid, and ultimately any change in law or policing more often reflects a change in attitude than it does precede it anyway. People don't lose all of their faculties all at once, so before they get that drunk they should already have a plan not to make a decision this dangerous, and should not surround themselves with people who will enable them to do so. Much as they should plan against driving while drunk. The designated driver can also be the one who protects you from yourself, for instance.

So there you go. Many people drink to have fun, but ideas of "fun" vary and very often do not include mixing alcohol and sex, particularly the groups most likely to be date raped like women. So when they get victimized or exploited its because other people made a bad decision, usually while sober, not them. Other people get drunk specifically to give themselves an excuse to make bad decisions, and don't need to be as drunk to carry through with them as the people they then target. The inequality exists in the fundamental reasons people get drunk in the first place, and in light of the gravity of the consequences. The best way to combat this is to change the drinking culture and get people to think with their brains and not their dicks.

Besides, the best sex organ in the body is your brain. I don't see why you would want to compromise it with alcohol-- hell, Shakespear was making jokes about drunk dicks not preforming properly way back in his day.

[Aether]

Aether, the difference should be incredibly obvious. In one case (driving drunk), the drunk is endangering others. In the other case (drunk sex) they are being exploited by others. The difference is in who gets hurt; the alcohol is merely the catalyst for dangerous situations and drinking is thus always a risk, but those situations are not equivalent simply because they involve alcohol. A person can and should make accommodations ahead of time so that they don't have to drive drunk, in order to be considerate of other people's safety. However, people around the drunk person are an unpredictable variable, so the onus is on other people to be considerate of the problem with consenting while drunk. Put it thusly: drunk driving is wrong and dangerous, but pressuring a drunkard into driving because you are too lazy to be the designated driver or some damn thing makes you morally culpable for what happens next. That would be a better, if still imperfect, analogy to what is being argued here.

I see that many posters have already touched on similar aspects, but since you replied to me directly, I will do the same. I prefer to find aspects of an argument where we can both find common ground.

I agree that in the scenario of driving drunk (by legal definition) puts other people at risk. I have seen it argued that it's not being in a state of intoxication that is illegal, it is the operation of the vehicle under that circumstance which is the crime. In the second scenario a person has a sexual encounter while drunk (again, by legal definition). It's not being drunk that is the crime in this scenario either, it's the act of having sex while drunk which is being argued as a crime.

The common thread between both arguments is indeed alcohol, and it is the inconsistency how the state of mind the offender is considered. Society often does not take pity on the drunk driver. We empathically state that the drunk driver knew what he or she was doing; however, under the exact same circumstances with sexual encounters we state that the person did not understand what they were doing. Therefore since they do not know what they are doing, they are incapable of providing consent.

That is where I see the lack of consistency: same level of impairment but only in one instance does the person "know what they are doing" and it follows that they are capable of providing consent. I would argue that we must apply consistency, so the person having "drunk sex" is also capable of providing consent given the same circumstances as above.

Pre-Edit:
I see your post to Jub when I hit preview, so I don't know if you will answer my post. In any case, I hope you have a nice Christmas.

[Jub]

Go head and report me if you think you have a case.

I already have Phil.

I never fucking said I wasn't going to respond to you anymore because you were rude to me. I said I was going to stop responding to you because you've thrown several straw men at me and you've refused to concede them when challenged - what is even the point of arguing with someone like that?

In the same way that you've refused to define what you mean by too drunk to consent and have refused to acknowledge the implications your idea creates?

PR 5 - Never said you couldn't insult me, just that I found that particular insult to be in bad taste. What, is there some rule against pointing out, "hey, that thing you said, it's offensive to a group of people." No, there isn't.

The board has a rule that specifically states to grow a thicker skin. This means you're not allowed to waste our time by whining about people insulting you. You don't get to decide what crosses the line on here boy.

Look, it's not for us to play moderator, but you're throwing this shit at me, and against my previous statement, and my better judgement, I'm going to respond to this one. In my opinion, you used a slur. I know the rule technically only says "racist or homophobic slurs," and I never reported you, and you using that slur isn't why I stopped responding to your (it was the straw men, broken record tactics, and general you being a fuckwad of a debator). Still, I thought I'd point it out.

I can call you a cock sucking mentally retarded baboon so ugly that your own whore mother tried to drown you in sewage at birth and not get in trouble. I don't think using words that the board owner himself has used in debates here will get me in trouble any time soon.

From where I'm standing it is you who is breaking these rules with your relentless wall of ignorance and straw manning, but that's for the moderation to decide.

What term have I failed to define and what points have I failed to back up? You completely ignored entire sections of my posts and have refused to define what too drunk to consent means. So define your terms in a rigorous way, or concede.

[SCRawl]

I'm going to moderate this publicly.

None of the anti-drunk sex posters (for lack of a better term) have really tried to define where we should draw the line when it comes to consent not being valid. The closest we have is the idea that having sex with anybody you even half suspect might be drunk is a risk and you should steer clear or risk being an accidental rapist. This is clearly not realistic in any sort of real world. Heck, even as we stand non-violent rape is a big game of he said she said and this would only increase the number of such cases.

So put up a clear position that could work for the real world or concede.

I don't see that this requires a concession or a significant rebuttal.

Philip Hone, I don't see anything from Jub that needs a retraction. You appear to have misinterpreted statements as representations of your arguments. To paraphrase:

Jub: "A stereotypical man behaves in *this* way after a drunk hookup he would not have engaged in while sober. Why wouldn't women behave similarly?"
PH: "These rules would apply to men and women, so that's a strawman".
Moderator: No, this is not a strawman. Jub did not misstate your argument, but is rather making a different point.

Jub: "Restricting sex in this way won't reduce sexual assault. All it would do is shame people more, and make sex more taboo."
PH: "Punishing people for doing the illegal version of a thing doesn't make the thing taboo, and no one said anything about anyone being shamed for sex, so that's a strawman."
Moderator: No, this is not a strawman. Jub argued that shaming and increased taboo would be a natural result of the policies you espoused.

Now, Jub, asking someone if they are "mentally handicapped" is in pretty poor taste, but there's no rule against poor taste.

I'm dismissing both of these reports. Keep it at least nominally civil.