Full disclosure: I was wrong when I started off saying that consent couldn't be given when drunk. That might be campus policy, but it's not law.
Now, as early as
May 31(that's over a month ago), I clarified my point:
Your example is terrible because you explicitly state that the person in question is "still capable of making rational decisions". This is not always the case when alcohol is involved. In fact, I'm talking exclusively about cases where the person in question isNOT capable of making rational decisions.THAT'S WHAT MAKES IT TAKING ADVANTAGE.
To which I got this response:
Taking advantage of people isn't illegal
Taking advantage of a woman's drunkenness isn't rape,absent force or her being unconscious/incapacitated.
FYI
This is wrong. our legal expert was flat-out wrong. Unconscious or incapacitated is not where the bar is set. A person can give actual consent that doesn't count as legal consent, as we have seen.
I reiterated my point:
Alcohol is a drug, by any definition of the term. Exploiting someone's drug-induced compromised state,a state where their ability to give consent is severely compromised,even if the drug was consumed willingly, is rape.
Another missed opportunity to acknowledge actual law:
Since rape is a crime, saying what is and isn't rape is a legal question. Can you provide citations to case law in a state in the US where this would be true?
We also later had this gem:
If she even remembers what happened, she wasn't too drunk to consent.
Again, this is legally wrong. A person can remember what happened and still have been too drunk to consent. BY LAW.
If she has no memory of what happened, and there were no witnesses,how do you prove there was no consent?Further,what would there be to investigate?I guess if she were drugged with rohypnol or similar, that would be something. Butabsent that, what would you even do?
These questions seem particularly odd coming from someone who should already know the answers. Fuck, all I had to do was Google it, and now we ALL know how to go about proving there was no consent.
How do I know I didn't give consent?Just because its something I can't picture myself doing doesn't mean I wouldn't do it when drunk/stoned/whatever.
Again, if it's something you would only do when you're too fucked up to know what you're doing, then you didn't give legal consent.
Let's keep going:
According to THE LAW, "consent" doesn't count if it wasintentionally coerced out of someone who couldn't make rational decisions.
Wrong
Or show me case law or statues that support your position.
I'll save you the time:
Wrong
Once again, a feeble grasp of how the law works from our friend the lawyer.
By this point I had long-abandoned the "can't give consent when drunk" stance. Just to make sure everyone knew what I was talking about, I clarified yet again:
You act like it's impossible to take advantage of a drunk person. The law already recognizes that it is, in fact, possible to take advantage of a drunk person to get them to do what they don't want to do. This has nothing to do with "feels" and it has nothing to do with infantilizing women.It is possible to get someone to do what they don't want to do when they're incapable of making rational decisions.
Does anybody disagree? Does anybody have a problem with this?
Guess what? That already legally and officially recognized precedent (reminder: That someone can take advantage of you in a compromised state to get you to do something you don't want to do) is the core of what I'm saying. I'm not saying women shouldn't take responsibility for their actions. I never have. But there's a difference between doing something and having something done to you. A legally-recognized difference. As has been mentioned many times, including on a site I linked to, judges are not sympathetic to drunk people and their fuck-ups. But when it can be shown that said fuck-up was the result of a piece of shit who knew you were fucked and exploited it for his/her gain, that's whenthe lawcomes in and says "No, that's not OK."
Jesus fucking Christ, my first graders have better comprehension than you guys.
And again, using clear and unambiguous language:
However, none of that matters when the main point I'm trying to make is thatgetting someone who doesn't want to fuck you to fuck you by exploiting their inability to make rational decisions does count as rape.
And again:
I grasp that concept perfectly fine, thank you very much. Also, like I've previously stated, even if "getting someone drunk" was a bullshit concept (despite Quaid's testimony), that does absolutely nothing to change the core of what I'm saying: Thattaking advantage of someone who's unable to make rational decisions to get them to fuck you counts as rape. That's true EVEN IF said person got himself/herself completely smashed of his/her own volition.
Yes, people have to take responsibility for actions undertaken while drunk. No, that doesn't mean it's OK to rape somebody because they chose to compromise their ability to make rational decisions. You steal an unattended bicycle that wasn't locked up, you're still a thief who broke the law (even if the bike owner CHOSE to leave his bike unlocked).You exploit someone who doesn't want to fuck you's inability to make rational decisions to get them to fuck you, you're still a rapist who broke the law. You don't have to "get that person drunk" for this to be true. But by all means, keep repeating misinterpretations of what I've said that I've already addressed multiple times. I understand that some people need to hear things a few times before they understand them. Everyone learns differently.
NEXT!
And again:
You exploit someone who doesn't want to fuck you's inability to make rational decisions to get them to fuck you, you're still a rapist who broke the law.
Now I finally got off my lazy ass and look into actual law, providing a legal guide to how prosecutors can charge someone with the EXACT type of rape I've been describing for over a month, but it wasn't enough:
No fucking shit dumbass, your little "guide" doesn't say anything about the actual issue, which is "how intoxicated do you have to be to be unable to consent?" Thats the whole point. And "Prosecutor's Guides" don't equate to case law, even if DA's wish they did.
Yes, it actually does.
Generally, there is not a bright-line test for showing that the victim was too intoxicated to consent, thereby distinguishing sexual assault from drunken sex. In drunk driving cases, the prosecution can show that the driver had a certain BAC; therefore, the driver is guilty. Sexual assault cases involving alcohol are not as clear cut.There is not a universal BAC at which the law or the experts agree that people are no longer capable of consenting to intercourse. Instead, the equation involves an analysis of the totality of the circumstances and numerous factors.The factors discussed herein are divided into two parts: (1) general factors and (2) predatory behavior on the part of the defendant. By analyzing these factors and considering the totality of the circumstances, the prosecutor can determine whether the case is sexual assault or not.
It's not as simple as a litmus test (I never implied it was), but through the magic of logic and reason we are able to determine beyond a reasonable doubt that someone was too drunk to consent and was therefore raped.
Now Lawyer Boy started to soften up a bit, but he still insisted that you had to be drunk "to the point of unconsciousness or incapacitated" which is patently untrue:
No we've never said anything different than "obviously if someone isdrunk to the point of unconsciousness, or drunk beyond speech, etc, they can't consent and you should stay the fuck away from them." But the legal goalposts for this are very high; they require practical incapacitation. Since I know you'll turn "incapable of making rational decisions" into "buzzed into sexy time when she wouldn't have done it sober" - which IS NOT the standard, I want you to realize what the standard actually is. OF COURSE HAVING SEX WITH ANUNCONSCIOUS OR INCAPACITATEDWOMAN IS RAPE AND NOBODY HAS EVER SAID DIFFERENTLY YOU FUCKING TWIT.
When asked to find case law that showed "my" legal standard for rape, I did so. My challenge wasn't to find a case where someone was found guilty of rape, it was to find case law that unambiguously stated that it is possible to rape someone who says "Yes" if they're drunk enough to not be in control of their mental capacities. It should have ended there, but Kid Law still saw fit to mock me and claim that what I just proved was what everybody was saying all along, which as I just showed you, is complete BULLSHIT. However, since he DID technically acknowledge that the point I had been trying to make was right, I figured we had come to a nice and tidy conclusion. I even got a fucking infraction for having the audacity to express a modicum of joy at having reached the goal I had been fighting an uphill battle over a month for.
TLDR: Yes, I was wrong about being unable to give consent while drunk. But for over a month, I've been absolutely right about not being able to give consent if you're incapable of sound judgment. Had this been acknowledged a month ago, we could all have been saved much bickering.
