So, if I go out with my boyfriend, get drunk and have sex with him...is he raping me? Am I raping him when, every weekend, he goes out and gets shitfaced and comes home wanting sex? If we were to, hypothetically of course, go and snort a line or two with the express intent to have sex, are we raping each other?
There is drunk, and there is not-noticing-more-than-one-dude-is-doing-you drunk. The trouble with these kinds of hypothetical arguments is they don't really allow for the complexities of human behavior. I have lived a long life and have to admit I have been drunk enough to do extremely embarrassing things or engage in really bad judgment (wow, you are suddenly... so...very...attractive) but I am not counting those as rapes or molestations since I would not say I was so drunk that I didn't notice the train rolling in till piecing it together the next day.
I sympathise with people's desire to strongly condemn cruel criminal behavior, but you raise one important point that many seem to want to leave behind.
Even if two parties had an ongoing understanding within the context of a stable relationship that they would get drunk together for the purpose of drunken sex?
I know too many couples who go out a couple times a month, one of them gets hammered, the other one gets vaguly-tipsy-but-can-drive, then they go home and have post-clubbing sex.
Well yeah, it's rape. I was a call screener for a local radio show when all that shit hit the fan about the CU rape scandal and the some of the best advice I ever heard was a lady who called in and said that before her son went to college that she told him that if the girl is drunk then the answer is no. And I think that the problem is that we spend so much time teaching women how not to get raped that we don't spend any time teaching men not to rape in the first place.
My own experiences with young men suggest that most men know quite well not to rape, and that the problem is (1) with a small minority of men who are essentially functional psychopaths; (2) with a society whose 'unresolved gender issues' result in unconsidered kneejerk reactions to the very question of rape. Kneejerk responses make for poorly conducted victim interviews, poorly conducted investigations, poorly conducted trials, and tiny conviction rates.
Why do you think that men need more teaching on how not to rape?
Because even men who aren't inherently evil people commit rapes every day and somehow manage to justify to themselves that they haven't done anything wrong. Consider how much trouble could be avoided if men stopped having sex with drunk strangers.
I don't believe in applying the word "evil" to people, and my own work with criminals has convinced me that the most heinous acts can be justified to oneself.
A man's ability to justify rape to himself means nothing. It certainly doesn't have any implications about the nature of other men who have committed no such crime.
"I'm not claiming that that was what happened; I'm just saying that filmed semicomatose intercourse does not, for me, prove rape. I suspect that the law backs me up, and I suspect that that's why the case never went to trial."
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Even if two parties had an ongoing understanding within the context of a stable relationship that they would get drunk together for the purpose of drunken sex?
I know too many couples who go out a couple times a month, one of them gets hammered, the other one gets vaguly-tipsy-but-can-drive, then they go home and have post-clubbing sex.
Are they all raping each other?
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(1) with a small minority of men who are essentially functional psychopaths;
(2) with a society whose 'unresolved gender issues' result in unconsidered kneejerk reactions to the very question of rape. Kneejerk responses make for poorly conducted victim interviews, poorly conducted investigations, poorly conducted trials, and tiny conviction rates.
Why do you think that men need more teaching on how not to rape?
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A man's ability to justify rape to himself means nothing. It certainly doesn't have any implications about the nature of other men who have committed no such crime.
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"I'm not claiming that that was what happened; I'm just saying that filmed semicomatose intercourse does not, for me, prove rape. I suspect that the law backs me up, and I suspect that that's why the case never went to trial."
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I do think that such a film should be basis for investigation. But more investigation and context would still be necessary to establish proof.
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