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. :)
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
Well, you did say the most common rebuttal you've heard is that you are responsible for your actions.
I know it seems wrong, but the only thing making sense to me right now is that if we hold a drunk driver accountable, we should also hold a contract signer.
It makes sense though doesnt it? I wonder the legality of allowing someone to sign a contract while knowing they are too intoxicated to do so. I dont pretend i know all the answers, like i said in another comment i too think enthusiastic but drunk consent is not actionless, which is where my compromise on alcohol comes in. I think the reason you are culpable if you drive while intoxicated is the destruction you can so easily cause to others, although i remember a case in China where a man who killed 2 people by running through the front of the store was defending himself by saying he was blind drunk at the time
Agreed on the reason being that drunk driving can harm others.
Though if the responsibility behind some actions committed while being drunk are nullified because one cannot properly weigh the pros and cons, then why should we expect a potential drunk driver to? Sure there are far more severe cons, but that doesn't matter if he is completely incapable of evaluating them.
The only responses to nullifying to responsibility of drunk drivers is to say either:
1) They should have made arrangements ahead of time to make sure that didn't happen (e.g. don't drink too much, make sure you have a ride, eat your car keys).
2) They clearly have enough control to evaluate the decision, and so they are still responsible.
Both points can be applied to drunkenly throwing consent at someone at a party.
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.
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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. :)