Poll: Is it rape if you have consensual sex with a willfully intoxicated person?

[awesomeClaw]

Ok, let´s say you´re at a party. At the party, you meet a cute young man(or woman, or transgender or whoever you want to fuck) and you two get along nicely. You both get a little tipsy and the man/woman asks you if you want to go home with him/her. You go home with him/her and have a night of awkward drunk sex WHICH NONE OF YOU OBJECT TO DURING THE ACTUAL SEX.

HOWEVER, the morning after, the man/woman says that S/he regrets sleeping with you, and now claims that you raped him/her. Is she/he in the right?

Personally, if you *can* consent, your consent is almost always valid. You should know where your limits are. Note: I am talking about being drunk enough that you *can* actually talk and orally(heh) consent. I don´t need to tell you having sex with someone unconcious is rape. I´m also not talking about the cases where someone put something in your drink. Putting something in the other persons drink, is rape, since you actively tricked the person into going over his/her limits.

But what do you think? Am I just a sick victimblamer(although I believe there is not a victim in thise case?), am I thinking completely straight? Something inbetween?

 

[peruvianskys]

This to me seems like a strawman because I really don't think it happens as often as people seem to believe. If both parties are drunk and they both consent then sure, it's not rape. But if one isn't drunk, or one is filling the other with alcohol with the express intent to bang him or her, etc. then it is, and the latter is almost always the truth of the situation when you have these "She was totally fine with it last night, fuckin' ladies" stories that bros like to throw around.

 

[Joshic Shin]

As you set it up, no, it would be hard to prove it as rape. But then, you have put up a highly controlled straw man here that is very easy for you to take down.

A more real world application would be one where both wake up and look incredible depressed at the stupidness of last night and swear to never talk of it again.

Or, if you are talking about rape, it would be more likely that the guy would stay more sober than the woman and keep a steady supply of booze her way so she couldn't think well. If you have ever been to a party with girls you would know that girls get bad judgement very quickly when drunk, and I've seen some guys try and use that to their advantage.

So, short answer, yes, it is rape. It's called date rape.

 

[Craorach]

Let me put it this way, if you break a law while you're drunk, you're still fully responsible, and you will be treated as if you were sober the entire time. So if the law deems your judgement while intoxicated to be your genuine choice and your responsibility in most situations, why would it be any different in this situation?

It's your problem that you got drunk and then decided to go drive your car, and it's your problem when you get drunk and decide to let some random guy nail you.

I pretty much agree with this.

You can't say, on one hand "you are responsible for how you act when drunk" and then on the other "but not if something bad happens to you".

It's one thing to claim rape when someone spikes your drink, be it with drugs or more potent alcohol, but entirely another to expect someone to read your mind and know you wouldn't go along with this if you were not in your, entirely willing, drunk state.

Everyone should be held 100% responsible for what they do when drunk, if they are not forced to be in that state by deception or physical restraint. This include when they make bad choices which harm them or that they later regret, as well as when they do terrible things to other people.

Consent is Consent, unless coerced, you shouldn't be allowed to take it back after the fact.

 

[PhantomEcho]

The trouble is always the same:


On the one hand, you've got legitimate cases as described above... where the man very clearly is intentionally inhibiting the woman's ability to think clearly by providing alcohol. That's a very clear-cut case of sexual assault.

On the other hand, you've got an environment which is expressly conducive to drinking, where alcohol is flowing readily, and where it can be fairly reasonably argued that neither one of you were drinking for the express purpose of sexing up the other. That's a hard case to prove either way, and sadly it's often times random chance.

I have a friend who works in Sexual Assault Outreach, dealing with the victims. She's told me some real horror stories. And then again, she's told me some stories that just make me wonder how anyone -ever- believes an accusation of rape.

It's just such an emotionally charged topic of discussion... you can't win no matter how hard you try to argue what is and isn't sexual assault.


The bottom line is, preventative advocacy is far more straightforward than attempting to pick through the chronology of the night to determine whether or not it counts as a legitimate case of sexual assault. Teach young men how to use their best judgement, and women how to use their best judgement... and let anything that falls between the lines go to court.

That's what the courts are there fore.

 

[Zen Toombs]

Intoxicated persons cannot grant consent.

But if consent is given prior to getting drunk/high/whatever, then it doesn't matter if one or both (or more, if'n that is your fancy) partners are intoxicated. Because consent was given, you see.

 

[isometry]

No, it's not a rape if two adults consent to have sex. Intoxication is irrelevant as long as we understand "consent" to mean an adult giving permission with their own free will.

Regret for drunken choices is not rape. Adults are responsible for themselves and the decisions they make at all times, intentionally poisoning themselves doesn't change that responsibility.

 

[Auron225]

As you said, if it involves one person spiking the others drinks or anything like that, then yes it is, no question.

But imo, if someone goes out and gets smashed off their face, then the other person... ok screw Im gonna say man and woman. Of course I know it happens the other way around too but for the sake of this becoming confusing, please assume the roles can be swapped?

If a woman gets wasted by her own choice, and a man (drunk or sober) has sex with her, so long as she can speak and gives him consent, its not rape.

Being drunk can very easily lead to bad decisions - one of which could be giving consent to a stranger to have sex with you. You are responsibile for your own actions, even if you are drunk. Of course I disagree with people who would take advantage like that, but I wouldn't call them rapists.

 

[PhantomEcho]

As you said, if it involves one person spiking the others drinks or anything like that, then yes it is, no question.

But imo, if someone goes out and gets smashed off their face, then the other person... ok screw Im gonna say man and woman. Of course I know it happens the other way around too but for the sake of this becoming confusing, please assume the roles can be swapped?

If a woman gets wasted by her own choice, and a man (drunk or sober) has sex with her, so long as she can speak and gives him consent, its not rape.

Being drunk can very easily lead to bad decisions - one of which could be giving consent to a stranger to have sex with you. You are responsibile for your own actions, even if you are drunk. Of course I disagree with people who would take advantage like that, but I wouldn't call them rapists.

See, I really want to agree with this... but I just can't quite find it in me.


I agree whole-heartedly with you on almost all counts. But there's just this issue about what the guy (assumptive guy, could also be gal) should then be guilty of. Are we talking douchebaggery here? Do we consider this to be any kind of a crime?

Or is it just criminally bad decision making?

I don't know. Somehow, I feel as if the fear of it being constituted as sexual assault might at least do more good to prevent it... even if I don't agree that it should be called such... just because of the high level of douchebaggyness in men.

Eh. It's all above my paygrade...

 

[DustenRust]

As someone mentioned before, if you're drunk and you're breaking the law, you're still responsable for your actions.

However, i believe having sex is not against the law. Yes, rape is and it's completly wrong to take advantage of someone's weaknes, but then again, in my experience, the state of being drunk will not make you do stupid shit that you couldn't ever do in any other state. When being drunk you're actually doing stupid shit which is considered acceptable by a small portion of your brain. So if you're not gay, and never had any gay thoughts you will never suck a man's junk when being drunk.
Indeed if two persons are getting drunk and both decide to rob a bank, they're hold responsible and they need to face the law, but if they are both drunk and decide to have sex, that has nothing to do with rape or breaking any law.

Another thing I could point out is that, usually we all feel bad about ourselves after getting too drunk, regardless if we did stupid shit or not, so feeling bad about having sex the other day while drunk might be part of that feeling that's already there to begin with.

The thing that boggles me is the fact that if a man had sex with a woman while both tipsy, the man will not consider the fact that he was raped even if the woman in question might not look as good, or be as smart and atractive as he thought when drunk. It's just a decision, or a stupid decision which he alone took and has to live with.

Bottom line is, if you're a chick at a party, you get drunk as shit and want to have sex then it's your own goddamn decision, drunk as you may be. If my GF would go to a party, get drunk and fuck with a total stranger (or not) then I couldn't consider that rape. I would consider that cheating and I would think that she was thinking about cheating long before she got drunk. The booze merely gave her a boost.

One last thing: the above mentioned is valid in the state descried by the OP (being tipsy). If we're talking about a man being sobre and a woman being completly hammered so that she can't even walk without falling, then the man should listen to his "little man in his brain" which sais that something's wrong with the picture of having sex with her, even if she babbles about wanting it. I also believe that the woman should hold herself responsable for getting shitfaced at a party with strangers and suffer the consequences while trying to learn something from her mistakes, and not blame the booze, the man or the system for not protecting her stupid ass while shitfaced.

 

[smithy_2045]

No, it's not a rape if two adults consent to have sex. Intoxication is irrelevant as long as we understand "consent" to mean an adult giving permission with their own free will.

Regret for drunken choices is not rape. Adults are responsible for themselves and the decisions they make at all times, intentionally poisoning themselves doesn't change that responsibility.

I pretty much agree with this. You can't decide the next morning that you regretted it and because of that say you couldn't have possibly consented.

 

[Soxafloppin]

If there too drunk to give consent, yea.

If there just drunk and have got the horn, fire away.

 

[Mr.Tophat]

IT depends. If someone is purposefully getting someone drunk in order so that they will be more complicit when pressed for sex, yes, it is by all definitions rape. Don't forget alcohol is a drug, you are basically drugging someone so that they will have sex with you. So yes, that is rape.

Now, if two people get drunk and end up having sex, and they were not purposefully getting each-other drunk for the sole purpose of taking advantage of them, then there is no intent, so it is not rape.

 

[LightspeedJack]

Depends on the situation, in the situation you described, no if you were both drunk and she consented it was not rape, just a bad decision for her (if she did regret it that is, not to put down your laying skills). If a girl is hammered to the point that doesn't know what she doing but you're sober, I would say that's pretty much rape. It depends on each person's level of intoxication. Then again if they did consent then you can't really claim it as rape unless they objected. If you drive drunk and kill someone that's still you're responsibility. You can't just blame things on someone else if your drunk.

Wow didn't expect to go into such detail there.

 

[Trivun]

If they give consent, and mean it at the time, then it's not rape, regardless of how drunk they are. If they change their minds later then that's too bad, they made the decision themselves and have to live with that, and anyone (male or female) who cries rape in such a case is, in my view, a complete bastard.

However, there does need to be some blame on the other person as well (the non-drunk one, or whatever), for taking advantage of the drunken state of the person they're sleeping with. For example, I myself almost ended up in a similar situation at university, when a friend's friend from home came to visit her, and got really drunk on a pub crawl. I spent half the night trying to look after her while she was drunk, and before she got drunk I had tried hitting on her, but when she was that intoxicated there was no way I was going to take advantage of the situation, because I'm not like that. Did I pass up a possible opportunity for sex? Maybe. But if I had taken that opportunity, then regardless of how I would personally feel afterwards (like a dick, for the record), if the girl then cried rape when she had previously been all for it, then I would be calling her out on that and certainly would feel the girl would be nothing more than a whore who wanted to assuage her own guilty feelings by passing them on to someone else...

(note those aren't my actual feelings towards the girl, who I only met that one time anyway and was a very nice person anyway - these are simply the feelings I would have in such a situation...)

 

[Woodsey]

I would say it depends on how pissed they are, but then its technically rape if a 15-year-old wilfully has sex with an 18-year-old, so I don't know in terms of an actual legal definition.

 

[trouble_gum]

No, they're not.

At least, based on the situation given, they're not.

You both get a little tipsy and the man/woman asks you if you want to go home with him/her. You go home with him/her and have a night of awkward drunk sex WHICH NONE OF YOU OBJECT TO DURING THE ACTUAL SEX.

Both parties are intoxicated, presumably to a similar, inhibitions lowered but mobility and speech only mildly impaired level. Both parties consented to the sex. It's not date rape, because that still hinges on a lack of mutual consent. Simply being unhappy with one's choice of sex partner and how said sex turned out is not a sufficient justification for crying rape.

 

[GoAwayVifs]

This is a question of legalities, and in most place you cannot given consent when you are intoxicated in any way. It is rape. However, proving that you were intoxicated at the time is rather difficult. Whether you are trying to get them drunk so they are more likely to consent or not is irrelevant.