gex gex, your statement directly contradicts prevailing medical theory, based on evidence. Please provide cites for your assertion, if you can.
QtM, MD
My previous post should in no way be interpreted as a rationale for stating that people under the influence of drugs and alcohol should be held less liable criminally for their actions. I believe in the principle of suffering the consequences of one’s actions. And if one knowingly elects to diminish one’s capacity for reason, and commits a crime, oh well.
Unless affirmed later. I think voidable or valid is more accurate.
(bolding mine) Fraud is always an exception to the exception of the exception, isn’t it?
I would hope fraud would be excepted, Beagle
Qadgop: I can’t provide cites, and noting the MD after your name, I’ll draw my assertion. I was probably being too strong - I meant that while capacity to reason is impaired, there is still a capacity to reason. (Is this more accurate?) That’s why I don’t drive while drunk; I can still reason that it would be a bad idea.
I mean withdraw, rather than “draw my assertion”
That would depend on the laws in one’s jurisdiction. I do not know what the laws are in Paris. What you have set out does not apply to where I live, in Canada.
Here in Canada if one has sex with another person without having that person’s consent, then one commits sexual assault. Consent can not be given by a person who is drunk. Therefore, if one has sex with a drunk person, then one commits sexual assault.
It’s kind of scaring that so many people think that it’s a girl’s fault if some guy takes advantage of her when she’s too drunk to do anything about it. It’s rape (at least in most U.S. jurisdictions).
The answer to the original question is that intoxication is not a legal defense. Couldn’t this question go in GQ?
Sho 'nuff, chula, and no argument here. I think the point that is trying to be made (though not particularly well 
) is that in a typical college party situation, both male and female participants in drunken sex are drunk, and therefore neither can legally give consent. Technically, both are victims of rape - or neither are. But the presumption is that the female is the victim of the rape, and it shouldn’t be.
Sua
This may sometimes be the case. However, I think if a drunk man pulls the clothes off an unconscious woman and proceeds to engage in sex acts with her body then he is unquestionably a rapist and she is unquestionably a rape victim – and this is not an unusual scenario.
Sometimes be the case?!! To exaggerate only a little, I’d bet the majority of college students don’t know it is physiologically possible to have sex sober. 
No, I’d say the scenario I presented is common - much more common than the scenario you present. In my scenario, rape charges are rarely brought, because the sex was, in practical terms, consensual - though not consensual under the law.
But consider the situation where two wrecked college students tumble into the sack together. The next morning, the boy and the girl separately go the police to report they have been raped, because they were too drunk to give consent. Which one, do you think, has a better chance of being taken seriously?
BTW, I agree with you that your scenario constitutes rape.
Sua
Some crimes may have reduced penalties, at least under UK law if I remember correctly, because of the aforementioned ‘intent’ or Mens Rea. For an example, it can reduce murder to manslaughter because you might not have had the specific intent to kill that person but, because you are drunk you may have been knowlingly acting in a way that you know MAY harm someone. The same applies sober, of course, but you are more likely, I feel, to act in a way that could be dangerous to others if you are drunk.
Once drunk, I think the issues of recklessness and negligence are more common than actual intent, hence the often lighter sentences, apart from certain offences like driving etc which the majority of are strict liability offences with no intent involved!
IANAL,
But I have studied this a bit in school so take what you will from it.
There’s something called Dram Shop Laws which deal with what the OP was suggesting. Specifically the illegal act of driving while intoxicated. Yes, there are laws on the books that say you are not fully responsible for your own decision to drive drunk.
These break down into four main categories:
Adult host vs minor guest
Adult host vs adult guest
Minor host vs minor guest
Bar owner/employee vs adult patron
In each of these cases, when the appropriate Dram Shop laws are in effect, the host can and probably will be held negligent for serving liquor to someone and then knowingly letting them drive intoxicated.
Each state has its own rules on how it deals with each scenario and I couldn’t even begin to give you the breakdown on who does what.
But, IMNSH (and oh so professional) O, Dram Shop laws suck ass.
Let’s take minor vs minor to start with. The law is saying that if you’re 18 and you host a party you are responsible for making sure that your friend, another 18 year old, isn’t going to drive drunk. He’s 18 and so cannot be held responsible for his actions but you’re 18 and you’re now responsible for EVERYONE’s actions. This makes no sense. What if the party was at your friend’s house next week? Are you saying that he’s suddenly learned responsible and a sense of duty over the course of 7 days and suddenly you’ve lost all yours? You revert back to helpless minor because that beer you chug is not under your own roof?
The bartender scenario: there is a teeeeny tiny part of this law that makes sense. The bartender, with much more experience dealing with drunk people than Joe Average, should know when a patron is too drunk to drive. But this ignores the fact that a bartender has about a billion other things to concern himself with and can’t babysit every single person who walks in or out of his establishment. Besides, what is he supposed to do anyway? Wrestle the guy to the ground and take the keys away? Lock him in the bathroom?
If everyone would just take responsibility for their own actions, how great the world would be. I’d have to find a new line of employment…but I could deal.
But dram shop laws say “look, you someone else is partially negligent for your dumbass choices.”
The ONLY one I can support is Adult host vs Minor guest. All the other guests should just know better. But I guess they don’t.
Or is it? The purpose of these laws is not to keep people from having sex after they’ve had a glass of wine each, it’s to prevent people from being taken advantage of when they are incapacitated. It’s not easy to get a rape conviction under any circumstances. Good luck convincing a judge or jury to convict if you were sober enough to say “Why yes, I’d love to have sex with you!” even if your partner doesn’t look so cute the next morning.
Why would anyone do this if the sex truly was “in practical terms consensual”?
No, that’s not the purpose of rape laws at all. The purpose of rape laws is to criminalize non-consensual sex. And non-consensual includes both where the victim says “no,” and where the victim is deemed to be unable to say “yes,” including where the victim is legally intoxicated (>.10 BAC) or underage. A person with three glasses of wine in them, who can maintain coherent conversations, walk a straight line, etc., is legally unable to consent to sex.
I concede, as you note, that it would be difficult to get a conviction under such circumstances, but that doesn’t mean that a crime has not been committed.
Catholic guilt. 
Sua
If you are under the influence and commit a crime, you should be held accountable for your actions. Drugs and alcohol are no excuse. A crime is a crime, no matter what your body is doing. If you consume alcohol, you do so knowing that it may affect your actions. In fact, this is why I never have more than a glass of any alcoholic substance, and never do drugs. I don’t like the idea of not having complete control of myself.
I wasn’t speaking from a legal, but from a moral point of view.
Someone abusing from the drunken state of someone else (especially if getting her drunk was part of the “seduction” strategy) could be morally wrong, but I’ve few sympathy for someone who would get drunk, would agree to have sex with someone and on the following day, would say that actually she didn’t really want to have sex, but was drunk, and that’s entirely the other person’s fault.
My assumption is that people are usually, by default, responsible for their choices. That include the choice to get drunk, and in most cases also what you do once you’re drunk. Most people are still able to make a choice, sensible or not, when they’re drunk. That could be driving a car or having sex with this ugly guy. If you put yourself in the position of doing stupid things, you can’t blame others for these stupid things.
I reacted to the previous post due to the implicit assumption that the poor drunk girl was a helpless victim of the mischievous freshman. I met my share of women who got drunk all by themselves and then proceed to hit heavily on guys and make everything possible to have sex with them. Sometimes, you’ve to be strongly in control of yourself to decline the “offer”. So, I won’t blame the guy who indulge in it, nor even who will try to hit on a drunken girl. If she agreed, it means that at some point, she wanted to have sex with him. Alcohol doesn’t deprive you of all ability to make a choice, and the desire you feel when drunk is as real as the desire you feel when sober. If you subsequently think you made a mistake, it still was your mistake. Just drink less next time.
Nope. It’s not rape. She’s drunk and she choose to do stupid things while drunk. As long as she consented, that’s not rape. (I’m still speaking from a moral, not legal, point of view) Or else, you’ll have to assume that someone who DUI or commit a murder while drunk isn’t responsible at all, either. If you’re responsible for your choices when doing bad things, you’re also responsible when consenting to have sex.
“Taking advantage” is quite seedy. But I (perhaps mistakingly) perceive some “evil guys take advantage of helpless girls” assumption in your post I don’t like. There’s zero reasons to assume that the girl is in any way less responsible than the guy when they decide to have sex, drunk or not. And anyway, the situation is rarely as clear cut as “taking advantage of”. Quite often, both partners have drank. Why should I think the guy is guilty and the girl is a victim if they have sex? Also, as I wrote in my previous post, the drunk girl quite often allow, or encourage, or even chase the guy. I’m sorry, but you can’t just throw any responsability out of the window and decide that taking care of your interests now lays on the other person shoulders, and that he’s an odious rapist if he did what you asked him to do.
I would question your last comment : “this is not an unusual scenario”. What makes you think so?
It’s not an unusual scenario. I’m one of those somewhat sheltered teenagers who doesn’t normally go to parties like that and who doesn’t normally hear about stuff like that, and even I know of a time or two that it has happened.