Sex with the intoxicated (eg, people unable to consent) is rape. Not recognising it as such is a serious issue with how we educate people about rape.
One of my most linked blogs on the issue of rape and sexual assault is
Yes means Yes, originally founded to promote a book of the same name. The reason for the name is moving towards an enthusiastic consent model. Basically the idea that consent is never assumed until it is explicitly given. It's in direct contradiction to the no-means-no tradition, which puts the emphasis on denying consent. Despite that consent never being extended in the first place.
A lot of this is due to socialisation. People are taught the no-means-no version because people (mostly men) are socialised to push boundaries in the hope that people will submit to them. It's not something explicitly taught, but implicitly passed on through culture in general. It also leads to all those falsely called "grey areas" around rape. People are taught not to seek consent but to avoid being told to stop.
We might not teach people to rape, but we sure as hell encourage behaviour that leads to rape, or borders on rape, or makes excuses for rape.
Teaching people not to rape means teaching better standards of consent. Teaching better recognition or what consent is and what rape is. And maybe even teaching respect for women outside their direct sexual worth to us (shocking concept I know).
It also means that other men take more responsibility for the actions of men around them, and act to prevent or condemn both rape and the environments that encourage it. But I'll come back to that.
I'd also be very careful about painting western culture as beyond considering rape acceptable. We aren't that far past marital rape being legal in many places (only made a crime in all 50 states
in 1993, with remaining differences in legal standards between marital and other rapes to this day, and criminalised in the UK in 1991 by judicial review) and
attitudes are still pretty fucked up;
In a survey of 11 to 14 year old boys and girls
• 51% of the boys and 41% of the girls said forced sex was acceptable if the boy "spent a lot of money" on the girl
• 31% of the boys and 32% of the girls said it was acceptable for a man to rape a woman with past sexual experiences
• 65% of the boys and 47% of the girls said it was acceptable for a boy to rape a girl if they had been dating for more than six months
In a survey of 13-14 year old boys:
• 11% thought that if a girl said “no” to sex she really meant yes
• More than 1 in 4 agreed that girls w ho get drunk at parties or on dates deserve whatever happens to them
• Almost half felt that rape was sometimes the victim’s fault
• 40% agreed that girls who wear sexy clothes are asking to be raped
• More than 1 in 3 thought they would not be arrested if they forced a date to have sex
• 36% agreed that if a girl goes into the bedroom on a date, she wants to have sex
• More than 15% agreed that forcing your date to have sex is sometimes acceptable
• More than 7% thought that it was okay for a boy to force a girl to have sex if the girl got him sexually excited
In a survey of male college students, 1 in 5 said that forced sex was acceptable:
• "if he spends money on her"
• "if he is stoned or drunk"
• "if they have been dating for a long time"
1 of 12 male college students committed acts that met the legal definition of rape. 88% of men whose actions came under the legal definition of rape were adamant that their behavior did not constitute rape.
51% of male college students reported they might rape a woman if assured they would not get caught.
Add to this
this post from the YmY blog that looks at self reporting rapists in college and
this follow up which deals with methods and attitudes, both of rapists and bystanders. Which comes back to teaching both not to rape and how to avoid allowing rapes to happen.
When it comes to the 'life changing' part, mostly what Vector said. Only think I'd add is that it may be possible to change how rape victims are viewed, by avoiding falling into traps of policing female sexuality and viewing a woman's worth as related to her sexual history. The idea that a woman can have her social value damaged by a rape is extra baggage that can and should be addressed.