Opinions on This Advice -- Another Cary Tennis Thread

[Freudian_Slit]

Our friend got drunk and went to a hotel room with a bunch of Marines

That’s the link–it may ask you to watch an ad for a Salon Pass before you can see the actual letter.

From the letter:

To make a very long story short, Jan went out one night with one of her friends (whom I don’t know very well), and got really, really drunk – so drunk in fact that Jan and her friend decided to go to a hotel room with a bunch of Marines that they had just met that very night. Lisa and I were up until 5 a.m. trying to find Jan, who had been drunken-dialing us with worrisome messages like, “I lost my friend, I can’t find her! I’m in a hotel room. Come and find me!” CLICK.

We did find Jan and her friend and brought Jan home, and immediately I knew something wasn’t right with her. Lisa got the full story from Jan’s friend, who then went home. As it turns out, Jan had consensual, unprotected sex with one of the Marines.

Cary’s advice, though, kind of burned me:

As I read over your letter, I keep coming back to the phrase “consensual, unprotected sex.” You say she had “consensual, unprotected sex” – while drunk, in a hotel room full of Marines. The sex was with a Marine and it was consensual. OK. She had just the Marine – while drinking. OK. Maybe they were both drunk. We don’t know. And there were a bunch of Marines. She was drunk in a hotel room full of Marines. Marines are strong young men trained to kill. OK. They are also trained to be gentlemen. OK. And, well, it may have started out fun, but at one point she was dialing her friends on her cellphone, crying out for help, calling for rescue, crying out that she had been abandoned. She was drunk and afraid. It does not sound like an episode of “The Love Boat.” That’s not to say she was raped. But perhaps we could say she had sex with a Marine under conditions of traumatic fear blunted by drunkenness. That’s not good.

I’m just not seeing any evidence of that. She seems to know what she’s doing (Jan) and she’s done this a lot. Plus, that whole blaming the boyfriend for being possibly violent/abusive seemed to come out of nowhere.

I don’t know–does anyone else think that Cary’s advice is at all reasonable?

[Gary_T]

He strikes me as a blithering idiot. Why does anyone read this tripe?

The point that the boyfriend should be told of the STD risk is valid.

Dear Abby would give a thoughtful, to-the-point answer without detouring through a stream-of-consciousness ramble of imaginary quasi-related ideas.

[Rocketeer]

@Gary T

…imaginary quasi-related ideas.

Aren’t all ideas imaginary?

[lavenderviolet]

That “advice” guy is a blowhard and I find his writing painful to read. But from what I was able to tolerate reading, I agree he’s jumping to conclusions. Just because the latest episode involved a guy who happens to be a Marine doesn’t mean he’s a scary rapist. Just because she’s a woman doesn’t mean she’s a passive victim of men.
However I do see how an answer like that would appeal to Salon’s readership, which of course leans left (a demographic that I would expect tends to be on the alert for any possibility of female oppression/victimization and distrustful of military personnel)

[Gary_T]

@Rocketeer

Aren’t all ideas imaginary?

I have no idea, but I imagine so.

“Ideas” wasn’t the best word for what I was getting at. Perhaps “aspects of the situation” is more on point.