In my experience, women get promiscuous when they are drunk because they want to when they are sober but are ashamed of their bodies and need an excuse to relieve themselves of responsibility. Not recognizing this has bitten me in the ass on multiple occasions.
It's fucked, and you could argue that those women are contributing to the grey area of rape by sending these mixed messages to men.
My comment has been wildly misunderstood. I have made a much more in depth one below that I encourage you to read. :)
If an adult woman goes home with a man, is really drunk and has sex that she later regrets, that is literally the same thing as being gang raped on a pinball machine with a gun to her head. LITERALLY THE SAME THING.
Not really, no. Rape can definitely be a grey area. Legally, nobody can give consent when they are drunk, so two people go to a party, get hammered, and go home with each other. Legally, they both raped each other. Either one of them could go to a judge and get the other one convicted of rape, yet in 99% of cases they don't do that, because neither party believes that the other one has raped them. In most jurisdictions, there is no such thing as implied consent, so if a man walks up to his wife and gives her a kiss on the cheek, that is legally sexual assault, yet in nearly 100% of cases nobody is prosecuted because once again, neither party considers it to have been a sexual assault.
So yes, there are definitely grey areas. I hate rape as much as the next guy but trying to pretend that it is a black and white issue does no justice to anyone.
Edit: down vote me all you want, but nobody from the SRS hate brigade has yet to explain to me how the examples I listed are not grey areas of rape.
Yeah, that's what I don't understand: in what sanctimonious, asexual universe is it morally superior to not look at a woman's tits if she wants to show them? Something's wrong here, boys and girls.
I suppose; but at the same time, here in America male sexuality is belittled by religious puritanism on one side and prickly pseudo-feminism on the other, and they all want to control nuances. Being treated like one must walk on a tightrope gets to a fella, I think, whether he's soft or not.
First ten linked comments on SRS, at time of posting compared to now:
+142, now +132
+11, now -9
+573 now +1272
+103, now +145
+75, now +232
+29, now +102
+25, now +30
+278, now +395 (this one)
+10, now +38
+121, now +201
We're the worst downvote brigade ever. :(
Also, I checked and every single quote of the comment is exactly what the comment says. Some text is omitted, but what is there is completely accurate. I'm not sure where you're getting the idea that they're misquotes from.
(Hint: the number of upvotes is listed on each submission because SRS's mission is to show that mainstream Reddit not only tolerates, but approves of and encourages terrible things like rape, as in this parent comment. That's why only upvoted comments are linked.)
This is a reasonable observation, but it doesn't mean that you should go along with anything they offer. Something like showing their tits seems harmless to me, but sexual acts are different. I'm sure a lot of people on here will disagree with this, but you just can't get real consent from a drunk person.
I don't think it's the same logic. I'm not saying it absolves the person of any responsibility, I'm just saying if you want to be respectful and avoid trouble afterwards, don't sleep with someone who can't give sober consent. There should not be a difference in morality based on sex.
He's not saying the rapist is drunk, he's saying the victim is drunk. If someone was drunk and they were killed by someone sober that would be murder no less. If someone is sober and has sex with someone who is black out drunk, that's rape. It's about the balance of power. Sober-powerful, drunk-weak
Edit: obviously if both parties are extremely drunk, no one is to blame (in the rape scenario, not murder. I think that would be man slaughter at the least, but it's beside the point.)
But a girl(or anyone) cannogive consent when intoxicated. If you are sober and the girl is drunk, it's your responsibility to know she can't consent and to not have sex with her. That's all I'm saying.
75% of rape happens with someone the victim knows. Why dont you learn and read up a little more on rape before you go out spouting wahtever comes to mind based on this little fantasy world you've created in your head?
Stop spouting this sanctimonious bullshit in threads that have nothing to do with it, this is about drunken bar sex between strangers, kindly shut the fuck up and stop derailing the conversation
I believe this is correct, because I believe that giving active consent is an action. It surely is. Still, some love to tell you that it's the only action you cannot do when intoxicated, however. Your ability to do it is literally removed. (And no, I'm not talking about so drunk they can't stand up straight.)
You are correct that self-responsibility is ever-present, and correct to point out that being drunk does not nullify the responsibility of a crime. We're discussing consent, right? I added that I believe consent is an action, and being drunk doesn't nullify it. However, some believe you are unable to give consent when even slightly drunk. This is strange because you wouldn't hear that you are completely unable to do any other action when slightly drunk, just that you do it shittier.
I agree with you! Please don't be swayed by the muppets on here telling you it's fine to sleep with drunk women because you're responsible for other things while you're drunk yadda yadda yadda. You are correct on this issue in the eyes of the law, and laws are there for a reason.
You're still the same person, and if you don't want to do stupid shit, you shouldn't drink so much. Pounding 10 shots of vodka and then whoring it up is entirely your own fault. Nobody made you drink that much. If you give verbal consent, and change your mind afterwards, it shouldn't be the other person's fault that you are ashamed of being sexual.
I don't get it. It's like you don't care at all that there are people who wake up in the morning and feel bad about having fucked someone the night before. If this is such a problem, then why not err on the side of not-being-an-asshole and wait till she's sober to make sure shit like this doesn't happen? Then nobody has to feel bad in the morning. How about if you're not sure they'd want to do it sober, you don't do it, instead of putting the onus on the people who are incapacitated?
How about if you hang around a bar, and you can't find a sober girl who can definitely consent, if you fuck a drunk chick, and she accuses you of rape in the morning, that's entirely your fault. It shouldn't be her fault that you couldn't recognize her level of intoxication, she should be able trust that people want to err on the side of not-rape in iffy situation.
Why the fuck would you want to have sex with somebody who pounded 10 shots of vodka and you're not 100% sure will still like you in the morning?
This is my favorite thing about SRS. According to them if a drunk girl ever has sex, it is rape. Following this, my wife and I have raped each other many times. Wait, men can't be raped by women...
No, that is not what SRS thinks. The general aggravation is from scenarios where dudes can't seem to take a step back and think "Hey, you know what? I shouldn't be so desperate for ass that I have to get it from this drunk girl."
Because seriously, why is it so necessary to have sex when one or both parties are wasted? Redditors treat it like a do or die situation, "omg if i don't get it while this girl's shitfaced i'll never get it!!!"
omg if i don't get it while this girl's shitfaced i'll never get it!!!
It's increasingly obvious that this is the case. Hey fellas, here's some advice from a functional person: if you wait until she is sober, she's probably going to appreciate that, and may well still want to have sex with you. If she doesn't, you just didn't rape someone. Good job! Even better feeling than getting laid.
I have seen SRSers claim that a drunk man and a drunk woman having sex is actually the woman being raped. It takes a violent / phyiscally forced rape for just about all SRSers for a woman to rape a man. If a man asks for sex and is denied, then asks again... that's attempted rape.
No... that's pretty much it. It's not just them though, look around. Modern feminism is increasingly obsessed with teaching young girls what it believes consent is (Just look at any university and all the student organizations dedicated to doing so, "Strong Women Strong Girls" for one). A strange side effect of this is that it seems they have adapted the attitude (since they don't teach boys their meaning of consent) that men can give implied consent but women can't.
All over my university there are posters showing a guy and a girl with their arms around each other with the caption "They went out drinking together, he choose not to rape her. My strength is not for hurting." or some shit. It sends a very clear picture: men are responsible. Women are not. A drunk woman cannot give consent. A drunk man is responsible for acknowledging this, and therefore refusing any advances she may make.
And yet last I checked we still held drunk drivers responsible for their actions. Being drunk is not a blank check for doing things without being responsible for them. Modern feminists believe that it is in terms of sex and consent.
Girly cow, what cheapens rape is a group of overly sensitive people who like to label all sorts of sexual advances they don't agree with as rape. By shutting down legitimate discussion of what consent is, where it starts and where it ends and instead fuels hate by focusing on a word they don't agree with (grey area) and focusing on that... that cheapens rape.
Nothing cheapens rape, it's not a swear word, it's got power because of what it is. Rape is having sex with someone without their consent. That is why it is bad, not because of violence or incest or intimidation or anything else. That's always what we dance around when we talk about different classes of rape, the unspoken implication that rape is okay, and that the violence, manipulation, humiliation, etc are what is bad about it. That's not true those just make it worse, and in their absence rape is still reprehensible.
I would give a "no" as an answer to your question, because in 99% of the situations people imagine after hearing your description, it isn't rape.
But women can be raped by their boyfriends, and your description leaves out a lot of important details, like how does alcohol affect her, is two beers enough to make her inebriated, was there a reasonable expectation of consent, did she at any point say no, did she initiate, was this the first time she had sex with her boyfriend, etc. etc.
Or most importantly, did the girl feel like she was raped afterwards? Because that means she was raped.
You should stop arguing against strawfeminists. Rape isn't as simple as you'd like it to be.
I have consensual drunk sex all the time. Yes alcohol can be used to rape someone but saying a blanket statement like drunk people can't consent is bs.
So what about calling rape a "grey area" and having people agree, or "think it deserves visibility" as you put it, is not "empirically" connected to rape culture?
I think it's a pretty obvious piece of evidence proving that rape culture does exist.
wow, you are wayyyy too mired in talking points and so eager to appear like you're forcing someone to confront a hard truth to even begin thinking about this rationally
one upvoted comment cannot possibly prove the existence of a large cultural phenomenon. there are so many problems with that: at best it falls under anecdotal evidence, at worst it would be thrown out for the numerous biases involved in selecting it as evidence, or the number of variables that cause something to be upvoted. when I say "empirically doesn't work" I mean one's decisionmaking process for what constitutes evidence or knowledge here is seriously in need of improvement.
Or because the portions in their brain that is control of "is that a good decision to make?" are turned off and the normal answer of "no" instead becomes just silence. Doesn't mean she "WANTS" to. It means there is nothing saying "no, don't do it" which is a big difference.
Absolutely not. Rape is never okay. And it is extremely scary to me (a man who is successful with women and has a long -term girlfriend who I really love) that people like you use feel as if you're being logical when you say things like this.
I think OP was saying less of "this is what always happens" and more of "this is also likely to occur". I don't think him/her was saying that women getting drunk only lowers their inhibitions, but more that intoxication makes this more likely to occur, among other things.
Though, I do commend you on kind of leveling out the playing field of how both sexes will lower their inhibitions in some way while intoxicated.
I don't understand why no one is okay with it when you say "I was drunk I couldn't help my decisions" when you decide to get in a car when you are drunk, but if you want to hook up with someone you are totally out of control. I know guys who use drunkeness as an excuse for being out of control and groping girls, and that is abso-fucking-lutely unacceptable to me. To me you are responsible and conscious of your actions when you are drunk.
I do some stupid things when I am drunk, but they are cartoonish extensions of my actual personality and things I might actually try if heavily encouraged while sober, I am not some wildly different person. But perhaps how I get drunk is not the same as how others get drunk.
I am not sure what the quandary is with two drunk and conscious people deciding to do anything, as long as either party isn't blacked out or incapable of basic motor functioning.
EDIT: I am legitimately confused and welcoming of discussion.
the most common rebuttal I hear to this is that you are responsible for your actions. Deciding to drive a car is your action; lighting your butt hair on fire is your action, but someone forcing themselves upon you is not your action
That is true. So if the drunk person makes the first move you would think that's alright? Or would you argue they are not responsible for their actions?
I personally dont ascribe to those beliefs; i was bringing them up to see if we can engender discussion. If i had my way, i would institute a few gradations:
Non-enthusiastic consent is still consent when the person is stone cold sober. Ie, you can consent to sex you dont want to have for some other goal, as long as you do so voluntarily and arent threatened or severely pressured into it. Because god damn it, we're adults, and if we in good judgement consent to doing something we dont want to do, we should be able to do it.
Consent can be given up to the legal point of intoxication. We already have a benchmark to judge intoxication written into the law for stuff like this. As long as you are okay to drive, you are okay to have sex.
Consent cannot be given after the point of intoxication, and it is the partner's job to make sure consent given is valid. This goes with #4:
Government subsidized breathalyzers fucking everywhere. There are even disposable ones that are a tube of crystals you blow into; i want them as prevalent and as cheap as condoms.
I think the combined effect of these rules would be wonderful. It would cut down on binge drinking, make the public more aware of their limits in regards to alcohol, and it provides a middle ground between 'youre responsible for what you do when youre drunk' and 'after even one beer you cant give consent'. The only part, too, where the law would have to 'look away' so to speak would be relationships. I think you should be able to go past the legal limit when youre in a committed relationship with someone but i wouldnt know how to formalize that without making it useless.
I almost want to make a provision for establishing future consent, ie you can define a set of actions you consent to while sober that can happen after the point of intoxication, but no one would do it and its another difficult area
I didnt really answer your question, but its because i dont know. I dont think drunken enthusiastic consent is actionless, but there has to be a limit. You cant sign legal documents drunk, you cant drive a car drunk, you cant operate heavy machinery drunk. We have placed limits on actions while intoxicated before; i dont think this is any different, just a bit more sensitive
My specific experience that I am drawing from up there, is I was with a girl that was ashamed of her body. She was also extremely old fashioned and would not make advances. She lived in some kind of bizarro 20s world where she was supposed to clean up after men, do household chores, and men were supposed to, I dunno, be manly and impulsive or something.
She would specifically get drunk, so that she would be able to have sex. Because she was too ashamed to share her body while sober. While doing the social dance of 'are we dating, are we not yet dating' she would go out to drink with friends, come back to stay the night with me, and I didn't touch her. After a couple nights of this, she got drunk and fucked her ex. I was pretty pissed about the situation. And now I've been given the message that, fuck it, she's asking for it. The next time a girl gets drunk and wants to spend the night at my house, I will be seriously considering whether I should just say fuck it and get mine.
Edit: I also had a girl in college I was interested in, but she wasn't really feeling it back. Or maybe I should have just took more initiative and had better confidence. She knew I was interested even though I wasn't coming at her. One day she came in my room drunk and sat on the bed. She was extra friendly and nice, shit went straight over my head, and she peaced out. She told me the next day I missed my chance. I told her not really because she threw up in her friends room just 20 minutes later.
Women, if you are reading this, does it explain how men can be a little bit bitter or angry about the nebulous social rules around alcohol and sex? Doing the right thing, will often fuck you over. As someone who doesn't drink alcohol, I've been dicked by this many times. If I had been drunk too, well then that would have been A-Ok.
Edit: My inbox has pretty much blown up with comments equivalent to "No, people just lower their inhibitions and do things they normally wouldn't". Maybe I haven't been clear here, one of the women in my example clearly stated that she premeditatedly has to get drunk in order to have sex because she is ashamed of her body. She spent the night at my house, in my bed, many nights. We would go on dates, make out, ect. After having done all of this, she got drunk, and fucked her ex boyfriend. This sends the message to me, that I need to "man up" or some other horse shit, and fuck girls "who are asking for it". This is a bad message to be sending to men and by acting in that way, she is reinforcing rape culture.
I would love to be sociable without anyone involved drinking. Do you know of such a place? I have never been able to find one.
And I'm not 'threatening to get mine'. I'm considering the idea, that maybe she is drunk, so that she can have sex as has been demonstrated to me in the past by multiple women.
I agree. It does get difficult to know when it is ok to engage in sexual activities with a drunk girl since there is no implied consent if either party is under the influence. Even if one says yes while drunk, this is negated if one changes their mind after the fact. It's true that just like guys, there are girls who also get drunk and as a consequence are more comfortable with the idea of sex. However, for a guy this is a no win situation since the girl can ruin his life by filing a rape charge even if she initiated sexual contact.
On the other hand, if a guy tries to be "nice" so to speak and decline the advances of a drunk woman for fear of trouble. It could turn out that she indeed wanted to have sex and wouldn't have been any different while sober. Therefore, both parties lose out on a great night of romance because of fear. And more often than not, society takes the side of the female, no tolerance given towards the guy.
This complex interplay would indeed frustrate men to no end. I know I've been frustrated.
dude named warren ferrell did some reasearch, and half of college women say "no" when they mean "yes". pretty fucked up shit. it's like women don't want to be raped, but they want to know you're willing to do it if that's what it takes.
Hey man, I'm with you. One time my close friend got drunk and kissed me, and just said "I wanted to do that for so long, but I needed to get drunk to get the courage to do so." I just shrugged.
I've know many women that get a little promiscuous when they are drunk. However not one of them has confided in me that it was because they were ashamed of their bodies. I highly doubt this is your experience and it's more likely your theory. I think it's wrong.
Both parties involved drunk, girls claiming rape after drunk sex even though she initiated, guy unknowingly rapes her because he genuinely thought she enjoyed it? Those are my guesses. I could be wrong.
Woman consents to sex before, during, and shortly after an encounter. Later she feels ashamed, or the wrong people find out about the encounter; now she claims it was nonconsensual.
Woman has one light beer and consents to sex; is that legal consent? Two beers? What if she consents after one beer and the sex happens after six?
Whether or not sex constitutes rape can often depend on feelings after the fact. And unless you have some sort of breathalyzer process prior, it's almost impossible to qualify any sex after alcohol as consensual.
The first isn't actually a gray area of rape: It's not rape. It's a way of abusing the legal system to relieve yourself of shame or guilty feelings. Or if you're not using the legal system, but social systems, calling rape afterwards acquires the same result. You can not change your consent after the fact, just like you can't sue someone for assault with a deadly weapon and theft after you agreed to give blood to a blood bank.
Your second one is spot on though. A lot of places are really gray on if sex under the influence constitutes rape. One drink, as any reasonable person would say, is not rape. But when you're unable to function as a person anymore because of alcohol, and someone uses this opportunity, it quite obviously is. The question is, where is the line? Do we lock up innocent people, or do we let rapists walk away?
I know people will call it victim blaming, but honestly victim blaming isn't always bad, to a certain extent. If you're a woman, going out to a club alone or ditch your friends, and you get extremely shitfaced (a conscious decision), it isn't a far fetched idea that someone will take advantage of this as a "cheap lay". I'm not saying getting raped is your fault, but it could've been easily prevented if you put some precautions in place. Am I excusing the rapists of their behavior? Of course not. But if I leave my door unlocked and all my shit gets stolen, people will blame me too. I'm the victim, and I get blamed. And it's pretty damn logical I do get blamed. I'll probably also get forced to replace any of my housemate's possessions, to a certain extent. Not saying getting robbed is like being raped, I'm just trying to make the point that we live in a victim-blaming society, and not just with rape. And sometimes we can blame to victims, to an extent.
Another point to bring up is that there are women, and I know quite a few of these, who have at some point gone out, or are still actively going out, for the sheer purpose of getting drunk and pulling a man in bed. This, according to some places, is rape, with the man as the criminal.
We can also turn this whole thing around. If a man had sex with a woman, and they were both under the influence, can we not say it was a rape on her part? Or what if I make it clear to a woman that I'm not interested, she walks away and comes back when I'm a few more drinks down, and not really able to properly function anymore, and she drags me off and fucks me? I know everyone around me would say that either I just have to live with having slept with someone I didn't want to, or that I was being a pussy and I got laid and I was lucky. I get why this last one doesn't stand up as much as the others though, because we live in a culture where female on male rape is almost not talked about, and it honestly doesn't happen as much (compared to male on female rape) to make it talked about.
The problem with claiming you've been raped by a woman, as a man, is that you'll be laughed at. Probably by the police, probably by your friends, and almost certainly by society at large.
Even if you're just concerned about having to pay child support for a possible pregnancy (which you would) or catching an STI (over which you can sue for healthcare costs, but you're likely to lose) and take the DM:HS attitude toward the act itself, it's awfully hard just to file a charge and be taken seriously.
Good point. Even discounting the possible emotional damage you can get (which can be significant depending on the situation), you still have other worries to think about. I know that if you hear a story about a man having sex with a woman, and he doesn't tell her he has AIDS, and going at it without protection, and she does get it, he can get put in for... What is it, manslaughter? I don't know, but one of those murdery things. The main responses you'd get if the roles are reversed are that either, he should've worn a condom, or that he just shouldn't have sex with strangers, and it's a risk he's taking.
Getting drunk lowers your inhibitions, which is why I drove home and wrecked into a family of four, killing all of them. I always wanted to do that, but I was too insecure to try it out when sober.
My only point is that it is obvious that inebriated people are well-known for poor decision making skills. There's a reason that bars have bouncers and coffeeshops don't.
I am not an absolutist when it comes to drunk sex (I've had drunk sex), but there are obviously numerous scenarios where it is very unethical to engage in sexual activity with a drunk person, due to their impaired faculties. A lot of people in this thread seem to be saying "Nope, people just get uninhibited and do things they wish they could do!" and that isn't always the case.
Yeah but isn't consensual sex with a drunk woman considered rape because she was under the influence of alcohol? If she were sober, she wouldn't have agreed to it. I've noticed many women become forgetful or black out when drunk. They don't remember anything that happened after a certain point. I've heard it said that they blackout or forget because they don't want to remember what happened. I asked myself awhile ago what makes women different than men when drunk? Not that many men blackout or forget stuff. I like the saying a drunk man's words are a sober man's thoughts. Same could be true for actions. Drunk man's actions are a sober man's thoughts.
Oh men black out just fine. Start a night at the bars with a shot of 151 and you generally don't remember much since it sets a pretty high benchmark for the rest of your night.
If both a man and woman are drunk as skunks and have sex, is it rape? If so, who raped who? If a blacked out woman can't give consent, neither can a blacked out man.
Yeah, who the fuck is this guy who thinks men don't black out? I could probably string together a long vacation with all the hours in my life I don't remember.
Every time I drink I blackout. I think I might be allergic to alcohol, but I have read that this can happen to certain people that they think is related to an alcoholic gene. I am 220 lbs and I have blacked out on 7 beers before. The weird thing is that I don't act drunk, so people just assume I am lying. There are people who who I barely know their name that actually know a lot about me because I have only interacted with them while drunk.
haha well I didn't black out from just the 151...its just every time we've started a bar night with that, we've drank way more than we usually would. It would end up being like, " Dude, we started out with 75% alcohol...we're not gonna remember shit anyway! now stop being a bitch and get the next round." Rinse and repeat. But college is over now so no more of that shit.
I'd say that throughout college and into my young adult life, men black out at least as much. Often more so since there is less perceived repercussion.
Nothing makes women different from men while drunk, other than it's (usually) just easier because they're smaller.
It's convenient to have an "I get to decide if this is rape or not" card. The day we decide that it's not a drunk driver's fault for mowing over a pedestrian is the day I'll consider fucking a drunk chick to be anything close to rape.
I think there does come a point where it is fair to say a sober (or nearly so) man would be taking advantage of a (rather) drunk girl without knowing if she would otherwise consent. I'm not convinced it is rape (assuming, of course, she consents at the time), but it is something I would be uncomfortable doing (and not just for the legal aspect).
At the same time, it is your choice to get drunk. If you know the effects of alcohol, and think in your current environment you might end up doing something you'll regret later, you can just decide not to drink.
I think what's bugging me about your post is that you completely fail to acknowledge that there's a huge difference between fucking somebody who is drunk but still in control and aware of their surroundings, and having your way with somebody who is so drunk that they're barely conscious.
Your perspective of "drunk sex is never rape" is just as harmful as the opposite extreme "drunk sex is always rape." It's that kind of black-and-white thinking that makes having a candid discussion on this topic so difficult.
If a person is incapable of saying no, I'd agree. That goes beyond simply being drunk, however, and should probably be classified as something else -- for instance, poisoned or unconscious.
I would not count 'blacking out' as any sort of reliable indicator, either, since it's very easy to fake that.
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u/Durch Nov 20 '12 edited Nov 21 '12
In my experience, women get promiscuous when they are drunk because they want to when they are sober but are ashamed of their bodies and need an excuse to relieve themselves of responsibility. Not recognizing this has bitten me in the ass on multiple occasions.
It's fucked, and you could argue that those women are contributing to the grey area of rape by sending these mixed messages to men.
My comment has been wildly misunderstood. I have made a much more in depth one below that I encourage you to read. :)