Letters to the Editor
blunderdog
Published Letters: 494 Editor's Choice: 10
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@AKA Smith
[Read the article: Casual hookups cause "gray rape"?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"There are degrees of drunkenness. That is why suspect drivers have to blow into the Breathalyser." --AKA Smith
Yeah, that's true. So...in the case of "gray rape" or "drunken sex," all you have to do is have both perpetrators blow a breathalyzer before they engage in any first-, second-, or third-degree sexual contact, right? Then we know scientifically who's a "victim" and who's not. (We can ignore fourth-degree sexual contact because there's no legal penalty involved.)
Thanks to the war on drunk-driving, it's been pretty well decided that you can't determine how drunk someone is through "field testing," so someone who wants to have sex with someone else who has had a drink can *NEVER* assume (for legal purposes) that the drinker's behavior is indicative of consent.
That may not be so realistic, though, in practice. There are probably more people who are "criminals" using that definition than even potential victims.
Do you think we should be looking for solutions to these kinds of issues, or just underlining our definitions and repeating, "if everyone would just act right, there'd be no problem"?
Well, duh.
The unstated legal requirement that arises under such a model is that the GUY must always act right or become a rapist. The GAL doesn't have to act right. If she gets penetrated when she's drunk, even if she's screaming "pound me big boy," she's the victim of a criminal.
According to the legal definitions, there's no _functional_ "consent test" when alcohol is involved. By definition (applying the "drunks can't consent" rule), drunken sex is non-consensual, and thus, RAPE.
And yes, if that's TRUE, then it's rape if a guy fucks a drunken woman, and it's rape if a woman fucks a drunken man. (Something about the 14th Amendment and equal legal status under the eyes of the law comes to mind.)
Personally, I think the vast majority of our intellectual posturing on the subject is a whole boatload of nonsense. Dig it--human sexuality is hecka lot more complicated than our legal definitions about it are. Everyone wants to simplify every case into a prototype which can be generalized and applied to every future case.
That's just not going to work when you're talking about human behavior surrounding SEX. It's all a bit too ingrained in our biology.
The real issue seems to be that both men and women need to be educated about the other gender's expectations better. Women need to understand that the male sex-drive is not a particularly rational phenomenon. And men need to appreciate that women's pre-mating courtship behavior is similarly not particularly rational. And I'll try to be clear here: it's not rational for a man to believe that the woman who let him into her bed wants him to fuck her. And it's not rational for a woman to get naked and fool around with a man she doesn't want to fuck without *telling him in advance* that he's not getting laid.
Obviously, there is no solution at all for the problem of the woman who cannot legally determine whether she wants to fuck a guy or not. Er...maybe therapy.
I think we'll keep muddling along with our current approach, and we'll keep arguing about who has the best ideas, but this is not a problem that can be solved by changing simple legal institutions or definitions. It'll work itself out over the course of a few hundred years, when our collective mores catch up to our levels of industrialization and ethics.
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@ AKA Smith
[Read the article: Casual hookups cause "gray rape"?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"Are you one of those guys who are able to achieve an erection and complete sex by penetration while unconscious? Because if you are, I can see why you would think the degree of drunkeness has no validity.
"However, in law and in courtrooms, judges and juries decide things like culpability and intent all the time. Maybe you would just prefer to eliminate that from our legal system? Or would you prefer to eliminate rape laws?"
I guess you just can't be understanding what I'm writing. You're only seeing something crazy and stupid. Not much I can do about that.
I didn't bring up "degree" of drunkenness because it doesn't apply in the case of the female *victim,* not because I ignore the effects on the *perpetrator.*
The thing that's so stupid about the way you keep changing the subject is that the "problem" of "gray rape" is NOT the situation where there's a comatose victim violated by an alert guy. We all AGREE that's simple rape.
The "gray rape" case is where it's NOT CLEAR that a rape occurred. (That's why they call it "gray." You know, like neither black nor white, but something in-between.)
The example anonymous brought up is perfect, but I don't think I've seen you comment on it.
Two young people get drunk and hook up. The next day, they believe intercourse occurred. The woman says she didn't consent to sex, but both of them admit they're a bit foggy on what happened after they started fooling around.
THAT'S the "gray rape" case. Not a comatose woman being pumped by a guy who could've driven himself home.
In the case described, do you think the "right" thing to do is lock the guy up for X years? Why only the guy, when both of them were drunk and not so clear on what ACTUALLY happened? Or do you think he could be acquitted in such a case because the witness for the prosecution may not be credible to the jury?
If the guy says no sex happened, and the gal says sex happened, and there's no CLINICAL evidence, should the case even be brought to trial in the first place?
Why take either "victim" or "perpetrator" at their word, when THEY WERE BOTH DRUNK?
BTW: Asking me if I want to eliminate rape laws is a pretty sleazy thing to do. I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt and paying attention to what you're saying, but you lose a lot of points by falling back on grade-school tactics.