“The insertion of a lying man’s penis into your vagina would be the result of your actions”
In your hypothetical, noone, drunk or sober, would be “legally responsible” for the bet. Gambling debts are not legally enforceable.
(IANAL, and this isn’t legal advice. Gambling debts are sometimes “illegally enforceable” via kneecappings and other violent means. Don’t borrow money from Vinnie the Shark to pay off the local bookmaker.)
In fact, we’ve had a thread on a situation like this, though not recently:
In this situatiuon, I believe that the girl was on top, and the young man in question had a broken arm in a cast, and he was still found guilty. If I recall, the only dissent upon appeal (where the conviction was upheld) came from a female judge.
Has this ever been used in a divorce case? I’ve stood up in maybe half a dozen weddings, including my own. None of them had a sober groom. Would that absolve the groom of having to pay alimony? Of course by the time she leaves the reception, the bride is usually drunk, so I guess the less said, the better.
I’m thinking of a red-faced Britney…
I have read the article and the threads. IMO the UK Judge was wrong. The unconscious woman did not have the capacity to give or withdraw consent. She was in a vulnerable position, as would be a mentally handicapped woman or a woman in a coma. How is it that the woman who made an unwise decision to drink to unconsciousness become her fault when a man rapes her? I agree with Kalhoun’s point. It is not the woman’s unwise or misguided action on trial, but the man’s choice to take something that he did not have the right to that is on trial.
Also, the analogy to the drunken gambler is also not a fair one. The gambler, if he/she knows they are going to drink, has the choice to leave their money at home or take only that amount they wish to gamble. Last time I checked, a woman cannot leave her vagina at home or lock it up for safekeeping. It goes with her no matter where she goes and under whatever circumstances she gets herself into.
Finally, I had to laugh at the comment about how the guy would know if the woman was too drunk to consent. Reminds me of that old argument, “Gee Judge, I didn’t know she was only 14 years old, she told me she was 18.”
It is for all of these reasons that I tell all of my woman friends who like to drink to have a buddy system or even an agreement that one will stay sober. Many, many women do not report their rapists. IMO it is due in large part to the very reasoning that was given by the UK Judge and affirmed by societal prejudices.
I’m sorry…didn’t the chastity belt go out of fashion, oh, like hundreds of years ago or so?
Except that it’s not clear that the woman was indeed unconscious or unconsenting at the time the act took place; only that she was so inebriated that she couldn’t subsequently remember whether or not they had sex in the first place (though it was established that they did) or gave or withheld consent.
If you read the earlier linked Pit thread on the subject, and the other (rather better) articles linked therein, you will see that the word “unconscious” is a complete misrepresentation on the part of the Times’ article; the woman has never testified that she was unconscious. The law clearly states that if the alleged victim is unconscious, then they are not able to give consent. The complainant in this case merely testified that she was unable to remember doing so, which is such a completely different thing from being in a coma or suchlike as to render the comparison useless.
I don’t know why you find it funny; level of drunkenness is a remarkably difficult thing to assess, whereas age has a singularly precise meaning, and only one correct answer. Given that I find it difficult to assess merely how drunk I am at times, I’m given to wondering how, exactly, I am supposed to assess the drunkenness of any potential paramour. Some people are falling all over the place after half a shandy, some are capable of carrying out pretty coherent conversations about which they will remember nothing in the morning, having necked pints solidly from lunch til closing. Should I demand a blood test? Carry a breathalyser? Can you define a useful standard of drunkenness that can be reasonably assessed by the average person, and can furthermore be validated in court should the case come to trial? Should one “just know” somehow?
Perhaps it was my comment to which you are referring? It’s generally helpful to further the debate by quoting relevant portions to which you are responding.
I know that I went to some lengths to back up my argument, so perhaps you would care to do the same. If it is so amusing, please deign to tell the rest of us exactly when the point of inability to consent occurs. How can this be discerned by an observer? How can it be discerned by the person him- or herself?
Also, what is the purpose of drinking alcohol in the first place? Whatever the goals that you name are, could women not achieve them without drinking in the first place? If the goals you name include anything to do with “loosening up,” “relaxing” or otherwise lowering one’s inhibitions, how would you resolve this with the difficulties of determining the capacity to consent? Would you decree that no woman can have sex if she has consumed any alcohol?
Why do women choose to gather together in groups with men to drink? To exchange interests and ideas? To find a person for a lifelong commitment (tip: avoid drunk people)?
I was responding to the following comments:
I would like to say that I meant no disrespect to anyone with regard to my “laugh.” If it was taken in that manner, I apologize. I merely used that form of expression to emphasize my analogy with the argument of how drunk is too drunk and when would the man reasonably know how drunk a woman should be before she was no longer capable of giving consent.
I know of no scientific standard to pinpoint the precise moment a woman (or man for that matter) becomes incapable of giving consent. Therefore, I will give two anecdotal situations I personally observed. The first occurred in my many lives ago when I worked as a cocktail waitress. One young lady was so inebriated that she was falling over and had little body control (apparently her friend had left her to go off with someone else). She was alone. Three men approached her and wanted to take her for a drive. I tried to prevent it knowing what was going to happen. But she went with them, albeit they had to carry her away. She came back later, very disheveled, a little more sober…and quiet.
Rape? In my humble opinion, yes. The woman did not have control over her physical abilities, how could she have even had a scintilla of control over her mental capacity?
The second situation occurred at a party I was attending. One young lady got so drunk that she passed out. My friends and I put her in a bedroom to sleep it off. A little later, we saw a man standing outside the door looking suspiciously as if he was standing guard at the door. He was. Several other men were in the room with her. We pushed past the rape sentry and stopped the attempt of these men to have sex with a woman completely unconscious. Fortunately, we got there before anything happened. The men were escorted off of the premises. If they had completed the sexual contact, would it have been rape? Yes.
I am not going to disagree with anyone that people put themselves in precarious situations, especially when alcohol is thrown into the mix. I also agree with you, Hentor, that alcohol, bars, and men and women can be equated with sexual contact, but not always. And certainly sexual contact should occur between two people who have the ability to make an informed decision about whom they will sleep with.
Going down the path of reasoning that if a woman drinks and puts herself in harms way, is to also reason that if a woman walks down a dark alley or wears suggestive clothing, that she somehow invited her attack. Does this logic also extend to the man on a busy street that flashes a large amount of cash and then is subsequently mugged to reason that he is not deserving of our laws to protect him?
I am not going to argue the merits of one article versus another (that’s for another thread). The original author of this thread sent me to the Timesonline article. One quote from that article states the following:
“The drama student was allegedly raped by another student, who was working as a security guard, while she claimed she was unconscious through drink in a corridor outside her flat in a university’s hall of residence after a party.”
Even if you want to redact the word unconscious from the article, I find it disturbing for two reasons. First, the woman was outside of her flat. She was not in her own bed with this man. This leads one to deduct that he had sex with the woman in the corridor. Seems highly suspicious to me. Second, this young man was a security guard. He was in a position to protect this woman, not take advantage of a highly inebriated young lady.
I am obviously new here. Thank you Hentor for pointing out that I should cite more and place quotes in my text. This is an interesting debate.
Then you don’t even want to know what kind of things I did on fire escapes after having a few drinks at parties.
I will tell you that not only did I consent to all of them, I was usually the one who made the first move, and quite an enthusiastic participant.
I remember those days fondly.
I did take it as a disdainful dismissal, so I appreciate your clarification.
But I’m not sure you’ve helped to clarify this. You’ve given two examples at the far end of the distribution that don’t help at all to determine where “drunken consent” is no longer consent. Taking the latter example first, you’ll get no argument that unconscious people are incapable of giving consent by dint of the fact that they form no words to the effect of consenting to sex.
As to the former:
Nasty behavior, yes. Asshole people. Rapists? That requires us to figure out when drunken consent is no longer consent. Clearly control over physical abilities is not a great measure, because we don’t restrict the ability for adults with tics disorders, Tourette’s Disorder, or forms of paralysis to give consent. However, I do agree that diminished physical control in someone who typically possesses more complete control can be taken as a marker of drunkenness. That leaves us with three issues – how much does physical control correlate with mental capacity? We could allow a fairly close correlation, although I understand that some people can black out mentally, yet continue to function fairly well. Given that they have no recall of their mental capacity, it makes it hard to figure out how well physical capacity indexes mental capacity.
Secondly, how much diminishment of physical control marks the point of inability to consent? I know I can recall occasions after only a drink or two when I needed to focus a little more clearly to make sure I hit the coaster, or wasn’t obviously foolish when trying to grasp my glass. I recall after only a few drinks that my trip to the restroom arced a little more than it needed to. Nevertheless, I would have considered myself still capable of making a good decision about whether to have sex with someone or not. I think we are at the same place we were before. It isn’t clear where the cut-point should occur on the spectrum of diminished physical capacity, just like it remains unclear where the cut-point on the “drunkenness” spectrum should occur.
Thirdly, remember, this is for the purpose of determining when a man switches from a willing sexual partner to a convicted criminal, so I would hope we don’t just shrug our shoulders and say, “I don’t know much about drunk, but I know it when I see it.” There should be some standard by which we can say that a man observing a woman knows when she is unable to give consent, regardless of what she actually says (i.e. when the man knows better than the woman what is best for her.)
I think I’ve made part of my point too subtle and I notice that you chose not to answer my other questions. We agree on these issues, but do you agree that in some not insignificant measure the purpose for drinking is to give license to behave in ways that we otherwise would not choose to? That is, I argue that drinking is done in part intentionally to change the mental constructs we rely on to make decisions. From discussions with women in therapy and in other contexts, I argue that women sometimes seek rationalizations (sometimes incredibly flimsy) to justify engaging in sexual behavior that they could not otherwise justify. I argue that alcohol is commonly used to this end, for sexual behavior among women as well as more generally. Thus, I have a very hard time feeling that, if one regrets intentionally seeking such a rationalization later, it is not fair to make someone else pay for that regret. (NOTE: I do not argue that it is always the case that women get drunk for the purpose of having sex, nor that it is by default okay to have sex with drunk women).
I don’t think anyone has argued this, unless you feel that the issue of consent is involved in these other circumstances. Is there any question about whether the person consented to be raped in the alley or when wearing sexually suggestive clothing, or whether the man flashing the cash consented to be robbed. We’re trying to figure out what determines when a woman who says “Yes” cannot be taken at her word. As an aside, however, the issues of one’s own responsibility for doing dumb things versus the culpability of the criminal are separate.
First point: people do, in fact have sex outside of their homes. Not surprisingly, alcohol is involved quite often in these situations, though I doubt you could call rape on most of them.
Second point: If you want to argue that the accused has no business being a security guard if he’s going to have sex with drunk students while on the clock, I agree wholeheartedly. What we’re arguing here is his criminal culpability. And the facts just don’t support that.
catsix, you’re in the Pittsburgh area too, aren’t you?
How’re you doin’?
(Just kidding. My wife is kind of odd about that, she tends to frown on the whole sex with other people thing.)
If Logically Loquacious doesn’t, I do! In rich detail! 
It’s not as odd as you’d think to frown on that. 
Shame, too.
Sadly, I don’t think it’s material suited for GD.
If God had wanted us to have sex with other people, He would’ve made our arms shorter!
I think I mostly agree with you – my personal determination is based on whether the man was “reasonable” in his belief that the woman had consented to sex, and was capable of doing so.
In the situation where a man claims that the sex was consensual, when witness had seen the woman unable to stand, and he “helping” her into the car, a jury should conclude that either (i) the guy was lying, and actually knew that she was not capable of consent, or (ii) that the man’s belief that she was capable of consent was “unreasonable”. In either case, guilty of rape.
A tougher case though, is the one where the woman is not border-line unconcious. Let’s assume the following: (i) as a matter of fact, a woman is “blacked out drunk”, i.e., unaware of her actions, and therefore, incapable of granting consent, and (ii) she’s walking, talking, singing loudly along with the music, and goes willingingly with a guy to his bedroom and has sex with him. My point is that the guy might reasonably not be aware that she’s blacked out drunk. So, in that situation, is it rape? Should the guy be punished? As far as he can tell, he’s done nothing wrong. (Bricker?)
Why do you say she is incapable of consent? She apparently is incapable of recalling having done so later on, but how can you know she cannot give consent at the time sex occurs?
If you can be held resposible for DWI if you decided to drive while you were drunk, you can be held responsible for your consent to sex while drunk.
I do find an issue if the amount of alchol was misrepresented,. but haven’t factored it into the equasion yet.
I do find it insulting (to women) when people assume that women must be protected against men - it’s like treating women like they are not responsible enought to take care of themselves (like children).