I ask ladies because of the primary focus of the related GD thread
There seems to be a huge grey area in defining what is too intoxicated to consent to sex.
Between stone cold sober and passed out lies a grey area.
I will take it as a given that:
stone cold sober = obviously able to give implied consent.
Passed out = unable to give implied consent.
I would define implied consent as a lack of any protest to escalating touches leading to sex. A touch that elicits any protest on the part of the woman would break implied consent.
I am not asking to define the merits of any other part of the thread, just where should there be a carved in stone line of too drunk to consent.
Depends - a stranger - one drink. My husband - I can get pretty schnockered.
In general, you should know the lady in question well enough that she trusts you when she has been drinking and you can trust that either you or her impairment is not going to result in regrets for either of you. The number of drinks correlates to the depth of your relationship.
You are too drunk to drive cause you are at greater risk at causing an accident - not cause you don’t know where you want to go, don’t know how to get there, or anything like that.
Depends if it’s someone you normally have sex with. I haven’t considered it rape even when I was super fucked up and with a boyfriend. As long as I’m conscious, fine. I’m sure that wouldn’t be the case for everyone though so for someone who doesn’t feel that way about it, but does get super drunk, she should make sure her SO knows that.
If it’s a stranger or just someone you don’t normally have sex with, if you’re having serious motor control issues they shouldn’t try. Well, they probably shouldn’t try if they can tell you’re drunk at all, but that’s never gonna happen.
I think that’s the problem, not the BAC. “Implied consent” is asking for trouble. Explicit consent should be what you’re aiming for, and enthusiastic tiger growling rip your clothes off consent is more fun yet.
If I was a man, and the woman a stranger, whether my intent was honorable or not, I wouldn’t try to get “implied consent” after *any *drinking. I just wouldn’t trust any stranger not to twist it into an accusation later. Sucks, but it’s the reality of the world we’re living in right now. Likewise, I won’t (even as a female) be the only one alone with a stranger’s child behind a closed door unless I’m being paid to babysit. It sucks that that’s how we have to behave to protect ourselves, and I wish the world was a different place, but Ideals don’t keep people out of court.
With my husband? If the safe word ain’t used, it ain’t rape. I’ve never been so drunk as to be unable to remember or use it.
Guys, I know this sucks, but the rule is simple - don’t have sex - regardless of how much she has drunk, even if she is stone cold sober - with a woman you don’t trust not to cry rape. If you don’t know her well enough to know, you don’t know her well enough to have sex with.
Also, a woman you know well - the first time, and probably the second and third - implied consent isn’t good enough - explicit consent. After all, you need to have the birth control/STD/ who has the condoms discussion anyway, right? The first rule of consensual sex outside a long term relationship is use dependable birth control AND STD protection (and the two are not synonymous) - unless you are ready to support Junior for the next eighteen years while keeping current on your Zovirax prescription.
And a woman you have broken up with - or are seriously thinking about breaking up with in the next week - yeah, avoid sex. Cause you can’t trust her and she can’t trust you in those circumstances.
To say “she wasn’t that drunk” is rules lawyering and makes you a jerk.
Guy here, so grain of salt and all that; Unless other agreements have been made: Too drunk to drive means too drunk to have sex.
Drunk driving can mess up your and other people’s lives considerably. So can drunk sex. Some STDs are lifethreatening, or render someone infertile. Abortions are a big deal. Having a kid is a big deal. These are decisions to be made sober or not at all.
And “implied consent” is bullshit. If you can’t ask, you shouldn’t be fucking. And if the other party gets offended by you asking, you definately shouldn’t be screwing this person.
This, so much. It is entirely possible to get consent before you start drinking, and then have sex after you are both pretty sloshed, but that’s the sort of thing that happens in relationships. Going to a party where the alcohol is flowing freely, or a bar, hoping to pick up someone you don’t know, or don’t know well, who will be too tipsy to say no is morally reprehensible, but also a bad idea. She might be too drunk to remember to tell you that she’s taking Clomid, because she and her husband are trying to get pregnant. Or that she is a nurse, who is taking prophylactic HIV drugs after a needle stick, or might just have the poor judgment to think you won 't care-- or care that she has herpes, or hepatitis.
And if she’s been drinking, the chances are that you have too, which means you are more likely to be verbally coercive if she does say no, because your judgment is impaired.
She might not think of it as rape the next day, but do you really want sex with you to be something a woman regrets, feels bad about, and maybe even gets a case of the willies when she remembers it? That she recounts to her friends as one of her worst memories, and something on her top five list of “If life had a do-over button”?
If you have to take 100% of the initiative — that is, if your partner never at any point unbuttons or unbuckles or strokes or fondles any relevant garments or tingly parts, and making things happen is entirely up to you — then you probably have to worry about these questions a lot more seriously than if you require the other party to meet you halfway at least here & there and now & then as matters escalate.
When you say,“explicit consent,” do you mean the woman says, “yes, I want to have sex with you” or some equivalent phrase? I think my wife has said that a few times during the decades of our marriage, but other than that, I don’t remember ever getting verbal consent to sex, aside from “Yes! Yes!! Yes!!!” when already in the throes of passion. Enthusiastic participation seemed to be a sufficient standard.
No birth control/STD discussion yet? Well, that’s one thing oral sex is good for.
Your wife is someone I assume you have already had sex with, know well, and trust and therefore are past the explicit consent point. The first time you had sex with her, its a good idea to have the whole “I think this relationship is getting to the point where we should have the birth control/STD discussion…” conversation. And the second time and probably the third time its good to be getting verbal feedback “is this okay?” “do you like this?” If she isn’t giving it.
Oral sex without the STD discussion can get you a raging case of herpes.
I was including her as an exception. The point was that during my single days, back when dinosaurs ruled the earth, verbal consent just didn’t happen. But I quite naturally took enthusiastic participation as sufficient evidence of consent.
Jeez, if I had to wait for *verbal *feedback on what’s working for the other person, and what isn’t, I’d be a pretty lousy lover.
Apropos of that, getting back to my ‘enthusiastic participation’ standard, there were lots of ways to notice a reduction in enthusiasm, if you will, before anything was said. It’s the second time you’re smooching and you touch somewhere interesting, and you can feel a bit of pulling back or stiffening (on her part, not yours!) or some of the zip goes out of the kissing - no, you don’t have to wait to be told, “I’m not ready for that yet.” You find somewhere less interesting for your hand, she’s relieved that she didn’t have to actually say anything, and when you see each other again, she probably is ready to go a bit further.
Maybe people do more talking in the proverbial heat of the moment nowadays - I don’t know. My days as a single guy were back in the 1970s and 1980s. It was more of a dance than a conversation back then; talking took place more in the afterglow.
Tru dat, and when I ride my bike, I could get hit by a car. Herpes won’t kill you, is treatable, and what are the odds anyway?
It bugs me to no end when people confuse “consent” with “making good decisions.” All this talk of herpes and pregnancy is beside the point. “Too drunk to make good decisions” isn’t relevant to the question.
And it bugs me that anyone would have sex with someone who was drunk if there was any chance the next morning that someone felt it had been a bad decision. Sex happens, you guys act like screwing the drunk chick will be your one and only chance in life to get laid.
