Letters to the Editor
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Fet
you and I agree on this.
I would never put myself in such a situation with a girl, I am clear that I do not need the potential grief, but every guy is not like me.
I am happy you agree the 'yes' can come in many forms.
My original argument is that the 'yes' in a drunken situation is smeared out to the point of near non-existence when both parties are stinking drunk.
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@ Anon, re: sheep
Q: Why do Scotsmen wear kilts?
A: Sheep can hear a zipper from 20 paces.
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I am Anonymous 2:09
Is no one going to answer my question about getting it up the ass??????
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Hey, women
Do you wonder why articles like this result in a tsunami of letters from men?
Here's why: a woman of age who goes into a pub in Scotland alone on a Friday night is OBVIOUSLY not going there to read Proust. Okay? I, like many men, am good and sick of these fantasy world show trials. She's there to get picked up, and hopefully, have sex with some guy. This is fine. Men and women have been doing this since the dawn of time. This is what we're supposed to do.
Now, if you're this woman and you do not, in fact, want to get laid, you have a number of options. You can stay sober. You can nurse a beer all night. You can not go -- there's no constitutional right to go to bars. You can go on a Tuesday night. Or whatever.
And if you do go, and get hopelessly plastered, like, falling down, then yes, throw the guy who fucks you in jail. No problem. In fact, the other guys in the bar would be happy to stomp him. But what you do not have the right to do is to get quietly loaded, appear to participate in the mating process, and then use it as a method to put some guy in jail for a decade. You also aren't allowed to use the threat of this as an excuse for some kind of feminist power trip. Like, you know, at Duke.
Get it?
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Complex, yet simple.
Consent, like all aspects of sexuslity and sexual negotiation, can be complex.
But the principle is simple:
It is not OK, if someone is drunk, to steal their money.
It is not OK, if someone is drunk, to run over them in the road.
It is not OK, if someone is drunk, to punch them in the face.
It is not OK, if someone is drunk, to have sexual contact with them without their consent.
It is complex to consider "how drunk is too drunk to give consent?" and "what about if both people are drunk?" and other questions that come up when trying to apply a simple principle to a complex situation. But the principle itself should not even be debateable.
The complexity of situations is one reason that we have an adversarial legal system that allows people representation and their day in court. What seems to be difficult for people to grasp on an individual level is that if the situation is potentially thorny and complex, it behooves one to act cautiously and with forethought, and that if one does not do so, one may wind up facing consequences that one has failed to anticipate, does not want, and is not prepared for.
And when I say "consequences," I mean some sort of agreed upon censure or punishment. Not "being raped," which I say in anticipation of those who might try to parrot my previous paragraph as justification for why a person is to blame for their own sexual assault. Having someone do something to your body that is harmful to you is not a "consequence," it is a crime.
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Not always
There's 2 pubs down the street from where I work right next to each other. Some nights I just need to sit outside with a beer and a smoke, my iPod plugged in and read either a good book or a trash mag someone left behind. I'm there to decompress!
Luckily I know most of the clientele from going to either place once or twice a week for the past year and a half. A friendly nod, or a quick conversation is nice. Sometimes I'll go there to pick up a conversation with a particular person from last time, but until then I'll happily chat with other regulars.
People I don't know, however, I'm more apprehensive with. I'm more of an introvert, so having a random person talk to me out of nowhere will throw me off. I generally will politely excuse myself and move on, especially if I feel weird or awkward.
I guess the whole point of this is, sometimes women WILL just go out for a drink, after work, alone...expecting to leave alone! I'm very thankful that I have not one, but two options where I can go for a pint after work to end my crazy work day without even thinking some guy's going to try to skeeze on me!
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Being drunk and having sex is different than being drunk and getting raped
I really feel I need to point this out, but my guess is it still won't sink in. Many people go out, get drunk and sleep with someone-heck I've done it. And I've regretted it, but I have never filed rape charges. It was clear to myself, those around me and the gentleman that I took home that I knew what I was doing and though I regretted it later, it was a choice that I made. Now, I am interpreting this law to say that if you rape a woman that is drunk IT IS STILL RAPE! It doesn't become consensual by default because she happens to be drunk and obviously wanted it. And for the record I have had two friends that have woken from a drunk stupor (one in her own dorm room!) to find a guy on top of her trying to stick it in. One was told "I thought you wanted it", the other was given no explanation (thank goodness they can both scream really loudly). This is what these bills are put into place to prosecute.