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[Bauglir]

But let's make a thought experiment. Let's say that someone kidnap your familly and order you to have sex with him/her. That's rape, and he's the rapist.
Now let's say that he or she order you to go to the nearest party and have sex with someone. Clearly you have still been raped. But who is guilty. Will you held the guy/gal you sleep accountable for your rape even though he/she knew nothing about the situation?

Why is this relevant? Rape still occurred, that's all I'm arguing here.

Now if someone drink a bit too much but while being still coherent enthousiastically sleep with someone they wouldn't normally, there is no way you can call it rape.

What does this have to do with the thought experiment? I'm legitimately confused on this one - I'm not just asserting that they're unrelated, I literally can't tell what link you're trying to make.

One of three things is true:
There's an inherent contradiction in what you mean by "drinks a bit too much" and "while being still coherent". In this case, you mean to say that somebody's ability to consent is impaired but they're still fully capable of giving consent. I doubt this is the case.
-OR-
Our actor is some sort of omniscient superbeing, who's capable of discerning a person's true intent in spite of whatever conditions may be preventing them from being aware of it themselves, and preventing them from communicating it. I suspect this is actually what you're assuming - that you, as a person at a party, can safely assume that a person who has sex with you went to that party with the intent of having sex, and got drunk aware that they might make a decision they might later regret, and consciously decided that it was a risk they were willing to take. I don't think you can make that assumption, and I'll come back to this later.
-OR-
I can certainly say that rape may have occurred, but it may be the case that it didn't. Certainly, it can't be rejected out of hand just because we assume that the actor had no intent to rape. I would need more information. Remember, context is everything.

In any case, as I was saying, you can't assume that everybody at a party has thought through all possible consequences of their actions. Yeah, it's a fair enough bet that somebody at, say, a college party got drunk and was planning on having some sex anyway. It's not a sure bet, though. It'd be insane to expect everybody to devote that kind of planning to every social decision they ever make. It's your job as a decent person to put effort toward ensuring that you're not taking advantage of somebody, even unwittingly. Again, unless you are an omniscient superbeing who can know more about a person than they, themselves, do, as soon as look at them.

EDIT: Whether or not a person can consent is related to how drunk they are, but it's certainly not fair to say that all drunk people can consent or that no drunk people can consent. As I said pages ago, it's a slope from one to the other, requiring increasing degrees of care as you go from capable to incapable, and implying an increasing risk. But none of that changes whether or not harm has been done.

EDIT: Let's arbitrarily assign names A and B to two different people. Now, regarding whether or not B has been raped, A's conditions are irrelevant. It doesn't matter how drunk A was, or what A's intent was. Those things might matter for determining how blameworthy A is for the rape, and they might matter for determining whether or not A was also raped. Those are irrelevant to this scenario. Also, it clearly isn't rape if B has no retrospective objections, so situations where both parties were satisfied with the night are also irrelevant.

B remains responsible for their actions, but whether those actions can still convey consent legitimately are the point of disagreement. Right?

[Phmcw]

I'm legitimately confused on this one - I'm not just asserting that they're unrelated, I literally can't tell what link you're trying to make.

In both case, our actor is unkowingly having sex with someone without his consent.

In any case, as I was saying, you can't assume that everybody at a party has thought through all possible consequences of their actions. Yeah, it's a fair enough bet that somebody at, say, a college party got drunk and was planning on having some sex anyway. It's not a sure bet, though. It'd be insane to expect everybody to devote that kind of planning to every social decision they ever make. It's your job as a decent person to put effort toward ensuring that you're not taking advantage of somebody, even unwittingly. Again, unless you are an omniscient superbeing who can know more about a person than they, themselves, do, as soon as look at them.

I agree with that 100% but you cannot call rape the honest failure to discern at what point the person is "too drunk" to consent.
If the case is clear cut then it's rape, if it's not clear cut then it's not rape. There is no "unvoluntary rape".

[Bauglir]

If the case is clear cut then it's rape, if it's not clear cut then it's not rape. There is no "unvoluntary rape".

Bullshit. Ambiguity is a fact of life. You can't make the claim that "I can't tell, so clearly nothing's wrong", any more than I could make the claim that "I can't tell, so clearly something's wrong".

Reposting this edit from above, because we're clearly talking past each other: Let's arbitrarily assign names A and B to two different people. Now, regarding whether or not B has been raped, A's conditions are irrelevant. It doesn't matter how drunk A was, or what A's intent was. Those things might matter for determining how blameworthy A is for the rape, and they might matter for determining whether or not A was also raped. Those are irrelevant to this scenario. Also, it clearly isn't rape if B has no retrospective objections, so situations where both parties were satisfied with the night are also irrelevant.

B remains responsible for their actions, but whether those actions can still convey consent legitimately are the point of disagreement. Right?

[Phmcw]

If the case is clear cut then it's rape, if it's not clear cut then it's not rape. There is no "unvoluntary rape".

Bullshit. Ambiguity is a fact of life. You can't make the claim that "I can't tell, so clearly nothing's wrong", any more than I could make the claim that "I can't tell, so clearly something's wrong".

Reposting this edit from above, because we're clearly talking past each other: Let's arbitrarily assign names A and B to two different people. Now, regarding whether or not B has been raped, A's conditions are irrelevant. It doesn't matter how drunk A was, or what A's intent was. Those things might matter for determining how blameworthy A is for the rape, and they might matter for determining whether or not A was also raped. Those are irrelevant to this scenario. Also, it clearly isn't rape if B has no retrospective objections, so situations where both parties were satisfied with the night are also irrelevant.

B remains responsible for their actions, but whether those actions can still convey consent legitimately are the point of disagreement. Right?

Communicating clearly is the responsibility of both partners. If someone put himself in a situation where he communicate the wrong informations, that is his own reponsibility and there is nothing his partner can do. However, it's better to be safe than sorry, and obviously no one should simply take advantage of someone drunk. In practice, the only case where I could see an ambiguity are those where people get drunker than intended while flirting with someone. So they beggin sober but have a fancy on someone. Flirt. Get drunk, have sex then regret. That case is for me clearly cut not rape (I assume that he/she was still moslty coherent).

If you see someone already heavilly drunk and flirtarious, you assume he/she is just drunk and you lead him back to his friend or at least you stick to kissing.

Just food for toughts.
If A thought B gave informed consent, but due to B actions B was unable to give such consent, A wasn't able to give informed consent either. In which case A was, by your definition, raped by B since A would not have had sex with B knowing that B didn't consent. 


Edit :I think that the crux of our disagreement is that for me, rape is sex without having a convincing consent first while for you it's sex while one on the party didn't actually want to have sex.

[Neonivek]

this is true, and it's the reason why being drunk is not a defense against charges of assault, rape or indeed drunk driving.

I think the conflation here is basically the idea that Rape is a one way street. People cannot "mutually rape" eachother.

Yet because having sex with someone while the are drunk if they didn't extent agreement before getting drunk, having two people who are drunk SHOULD mean both people are essentially raped. Yet usually we give the "rape" status to only one person even in that situation.

It also exposes one minor issue with it... Which is that it only becomes rape in the eyes of the one who did it AFTER it already happened. It might be in your best interest to lay charges against the person early to avoid them from counter charging you.

Mind you usually the courts don't look favorably on you getting drunk under your own power without anyone liquoring you up... NOR intentionally liquoring yourself up to avoid charges (Someone trying to drink a ton after a violent act in order to avoid the brunt end of charges is somewhat common)

Also Drunk Driving is usually a charge because you got drunk without any plan on how to get home except driving. You were being irresponsible.

Mitigation factor on rape charges... does exist.

[Squeegy]

It seems to me that some of you are inventing increasingly unlikely scenarios to justify your opinions.

[Neonivek]

It seems to me that some of you are inventing increasingly unlikely scenarios to justify your opinions.

Two people are drunk and they both decide to have sex with each other while drunk is THAT unlikely?

[Orange Wizard]

It seems to me that some of you are inventing increasingly unlikely scenarios to justify your opinions.

Two people are drunk and they both decide to have sex with each other while drunk is THAT unlikely?

The silliness appears when you start equating drunk sex to rape.

[Neonivek]

It seems to me that some of you are inventing increasingly unlikely scenarios to justify your opinions.

Two people are drunk and they both decide to have sex with each other while drunk is THAT unlikely?

The silliness appears when you start equating drunk sex to rape.

Didn't we already establish that?

[Rolepgeek]

Facepalm

So much facepalm

Communicating clearly is the responsibility of both partners. If someone put himself in a situation where he communicate the wrong informations, that is his own reponsibility and there is nothing his partner can do.

This scares me. Partially because it demonstrates a lack of understanding, and partially because that line of thinking when it relates to extreme intimacy as in sex is terrifying. 'Well, it was their own fault they were drunk/high, and thus their own fault they couldn't give consent, so it wasn't really rape'.

Don't fuck people when they're drunk unless you've talked about it beforehand and decided it's okay between the two of you, whilst sober and in a healthy state of mind. It's really that simple. Don't take advantage of people. Stop trying to make rape some little term that you can parse and dissect and make it so you can decide what is and isn't rape. Most of the time, and I acknowledge there's people that cry 'rape' without meaning it, I'm currently being accused of it by someone who is clinically insane, but most of the time, people who call rape do so for a reason, and that reason isn't 'to get back at them'. Considering the shit our culture ends up being almost-okay with and trying to cover up(I have to think of one football team incident or another), trying to reduce the meaning of the word rape is not the real goal.

The silliness appears when you try to claim that the person who is drunk having sex with someone they didn't want to because they couldn't say no (for X reason; too drunk, got pressured whilst drunk, thought they might get hurt if they said no) and the guy didn't understand 'yes means yes' is causing their own problem. Yes, you will never have sex while drunk if you don't drink. We should not have to say 'you can't drink if you don't want to have sex with random strangers or other people you don't want to have sex with'.

Two people getting stupendously drunk and fucking each other is not really rape if they were both up for it while drunk. It's just a poor decision if they wouldn't have otherwise done it. If one person got drunk specifically to fuck the other person by getting them drunk too ('I'm drinking, see? come on, you're not the designated driver! loosen up a little!") then you get into the more difficult to deal with territory.

But most of the time, the people who are drunk don't actually give consent. They're just too drunk to say no, or maybe they don't even realize it's not who they thought it was.

Or, you know. They're drunk, and have difficulty making good choices, ones they would make while sober, and people like to take advantage of that. It's the 'taking advantage of' part that's important here.

[Rolan7]

Don't fuck people when they're drunk unless you've talked about it beforehand and decided it's okay between the two of you, whilst sober and in a healthy state of mind.

I'm glad you put this first because I don't need to waste time building a massive reply to the rest of your post.  This is a basic misunderstanding of how people work in real life.

It's really that simple. Don't take advantage of people. Stop trying to make rape some little term that you can parse and dissect and make it so you can decide what is and isn't rape.

Stop calling incredibly common consensual human behaviors like pick-up bars "rape".  Rape is a serious problem, not "sex someone ends up regretting".  It devalues the term to misuse it like that.  AND it's factually incorrect.

[Vector]

I think it may be a basic misunderstanding about how people work in YOUR life, but...

[Glowcat]

I think it may be a basic misunderstanding about how people work in YOUR life, but...

That's because your life isn't /REAL/ enough.

Also, while I saw the drugs and coercion while drunk points brought up, I feel other methods of rapist deception should at least be mentioned. Such as using cups that appear to have less liquid than they actually do, aggressively pushing drinks while the person is distracted, etc. I mean, even if you somehow care so little of your partner's autonomy that you leap straight for sexual intercourse the moment it's convenient for yourself without even trying to communicate desires beforehand, it should still be obvious that "regretting sex after being intoxicated" is a lot more complicated than that apologia may indicate.

[Vector]

Or pushing someone's hips down repeatedly, I mean.... >_>

Why do we always jump to drunk sex?

[Bauglir]

Step 1 to handling the concept of rape: If your partner says you didn't have their consent, you should assume you didn't. Even if you really thought you did at the time. Even if you really really thought everything was cool.

Step 2: There is no step 2. If you actually follow step 1, all further actions will be sensible.

Giving benefit of the doubt to all parties means*, "Well, she says she was raped, so I'm going to take her at her word", and "Well, he says he wasn't trying to rape her, so I'm going to take him at his word", and going from there, noting carefully that those are not mutually exclusive statements. It doesn't mean that you need to take time off from talking about the actual actions that occurred to debate the fucking semantics of what does or does not constitute rape, nor does it mean that telling people "You weren't really raped" is preferable to diluting the word.

*You can swap the genders of the pronouns, it makes no difference and was an arbitrary choice.