quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: But a lot of this discussion sound like people think that its worth risking hurting someone to get some sexual gratification.
The risk of someone getting hurt exists in pretty much any casual sex encounter, and in a lot of non-casual ones as well. I'm not convinced there's a legitimate "ought reasonably to have known" clause in the morality of someone feeling hurt the next morning.
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quote:But a lot of this discussion sound like people think that its worth risking hurting someone to get some sexual gratification.
Honestly, I don't really care about the risk of hurting someone with consensual casual sex, even inebriated consensual casual sex. It's not that big a deal, or if it is to you, you should be avoiding that sort of scene. In that case, I think the responsibility falls near fully on the person hurt.
Little hurts or regrets are part of life. I think we do a lot of damage by pushing the idea that they aren't or that people should be intensely concerned about preventing them.
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quote:Is Samp the only person left in this conversation who drinks?
Heh, I noticed that too, and it was making things even less representative than usual!
quote:The risk of someone getting hurt exists in pretty much any casual sex encounter, and in a lot of non-casual ones as well. I'm not convinced there's a legitimate "ought reasonably to have known" clause in the morality of someone feeling hurt the next morning.
I'm not either-and for me that conversation seems doomed to failure, morality being so incredibly subjective, and then you add on a heap of 'what should have been known beforehand' which is perhaps even murkier.
For me the potential problem is simply this: can someone consent to sex while intoxicated? How intoxicated must they be before they can't? We already have laws about things like driving, and unless I'm mistaken you can't be bound to, say, a contract you sign while drunk because you can't be said to be in your right mind. The question for me is, "Why is sex different?"
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Rabbit, I am not sure exactly what is meant here by "sexual gratification." If what you are talking about is just the physical gratification, you may be right, but I have never had sex that was just that. Sex - even casual sex - is (or can be) an opportunity for intimacy, deepening relationships.
I am quite sure that I have hurt more people by not having sex with them than by having sex with them.
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Signing a contract is a lot like driving a car; it's something you can't do effectively if your judgment is impaired.
Logistically, at least, sex isn't something that requires unimpaired judgment. If you can put Tab A into Slot B, you can have sex. And, in fact, drunken sex can be quite a lot of fun.
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quote:Logistically, at least, sex isn't something that requires unimpaired judgment. If you can put Tab A into Slot B, you can have sex. And, in fact, drunken sex can be quite a lot of fun.
Agreed-not *quite* what I was saying, though. Obviously sex doesn't require unimpaired judgment. My question is, to what extent does consensual sex require unimpaired judgment?
ETA: Whoops! Didn't see mph's post.
My personal answer to that question is, "It depends." I mean, different people's judgment is impaired at different levels of intoxication, of course. But I do wonder how much of a problem that is (I do think it is at least something of a problem): that this big ole grey area exists.
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I think this topic comes down to the practicalities, since we pretty much all agree the moralities are grey areas. The ramifications of making drunken sex illegal make it almost impossible to implement such a law.
First off we already have way too many laws that aren't enforced. Second you would put away (if enforced) a lot of people for a very stupid reason, that is, no one regretted it or felt exploited.
There are more, but it just seems clear (to me at least) that this extrapolation of unconscious consent will never be perused legally.
Sex is a powerful and necessary act which can mean a huge variety of things to people, and like any powerful thing can be misused horribly. Intoxicants are nearly the same story. So, when you have such powerful interactions as intoxicated sex it is best to be very very careful or you might end up very very burned, one way or another.
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Given: 1) You cannot consent to intercourse when inebriated. 2) You cannot give advance consent for intercourse (added: for commencement at a time you are unable to give consent).
Then: 3) You cannot ever have drunken sex with your spouse without it being rape.
As (3) is absurd to me, it seems like something must be wrong with (1) or (2).
Of course this thread is quite confusing to me, with more people talking past each other than any thread I can remember, so maybe I'm wrong in thinking that there are folks here who hold positions (1) and (2).
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1) Is problematic without a good definition of "inebriated" which could be anything from tipsy to passed out.
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quote:For me the potential problem is simply this: can someone consent to sex while intoxicated? How intoxicated must they be before they can't? We already have laws about things like driving, and unless I'm mistaken you can't be bound to, say, a contract you sign while drunk because you can't be said to be in your right mind. The question for me is, "Why is sex different?"
Why is drunk sex treated differently than drunk driving laws?
Well, there's the practicality issue of the law. It's easy to administer a sobriety test on a drunk driver. You can't really administer such a test one or two days later. And if a drunk driver causes damage, that damage is much more concrete - it's observable and measurable. How do you handle day-after regret? How can you show that sex would not have happened had both parties been sober or that any sober sex would not have resulted in regret anyway. And would you put a time window on when that regret needs to be felt? Immediately, within 6 hours, two weeks later? Would married people need to renew consent every time they drink in case they have sex later that night?
I do think it is somewhat of a problem, but I'd be wary of a law with too broad of a scope and with very little means for accurately administering.
<edit> Eh, much of this was addressed or mentioned during the time it took me to type it.
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quote:Sex - even casual sex - is (or can be) an opportunity for intimacy, deepening relationships.
I simply can't imagine its possible to have an intimate relationship building experience with someone who is stupid drunk. Mildly inebriate, sure, but plastered or even passed out -- no way.
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quote:But a lot of this discussion sound like people think that its worth risking hurting someone to get some sexual gratification.
Honestly, I don't really care about the risk of hurting someone with consensual casual sex, even inebriated consensual casual sex. It's not that big a deal, or if it is to you, you should be avoiding that sort of scene. In that case, I think the responsibility falls near fully on the person hurt.
Little hurts or regrets are part of life. I think we do a lot of damage by pushing the idea that they aren't or that people should be intensely concerned about preventing them.
If that were true, date rape wouldn't be an issue.
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quote:Little hurts or regrets are part of life. I think we do a lot of damage by pushing the idea that they aren't or that people should be intensely concerned about preventing them.
quote:If that were true, date rape wouldn't be an issue.
Bull f**king s**t! Date rape is not a "little hurt or regret". Date rape is being violated against your will by someone you thought you might have feelings for and who you trusted.
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quote:Sex - even casual sex - is (or can be) an opportunity for intimacy, deepening relationships.
I simply can't imagine its possible to have an intimate relationship building experience with someone who is stupid drunk. Mildly inebriate, sure, but plastered or even passed out -- no way.
Passed out, of course not. But "inebriated" is a pretty flexible term and fluid condition. (Pardon the pun.)
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quote:Little hurts or regrets are part of life. I think we do a lot of damage by pushing the idea that they aren't or that people should be intensely concerned about preventing them.
quote:If that were true, date rape wouldn't be an issue.
Bull f**king s**t! Date rape is not a "little hurt or regret". Date rape is being violated against your will by someone you thought you might have feelings for and who you trusted.
Stone_Wolf, remember that we are talking about a whole range of consequences from mild regret to violation. If a person consented to sex because they were misinformed or confused about the feelings or the trustworthiness of their partner, that is not date rape. If they were incapable of consent, that is different.
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quote:Bull f**king s**t! Date rape is not a "little hurt or regret".
I think that was my point. If you get stupid drunk and have sex with a person and the next morning that person accuses you of rape (which is where we started this discussion) chances are that person feels more that a "little hurt or regret". Even if they are misremembering what happened and they actually did consent, they feel like they were raped.
Suggesting that "a little hurt or regret" is the worst thing likely to happen when people get stupid drunk and have sex is ignoring reality. Lots of people feel like they've been raped after such an experience. That's more than "a little hurt".
You ought to care whether or not someone you had sex with feels like they've been raped. You ought to care enough to make sure it doesn't happen, even when you are both drunk.
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Is consensual "date rape" really a big issue?
To me, the main problem with sex where all the people involved are willing and active participants and then afterward one of them regrets it is thinking that it should be called anything like "date rape".
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quote:Sex - even casual sex - is (or can be) an opportunity for intimacy, deepening relationships.
I simply can't imagine its possible to have an intimate relationship building experience with someone who is stupid drunk. Mildly inebriate, sure, but plastered or even passed out -- no way.
Passed out, of course not. But "inebriated" is a pretty flexible term and fluid condition. (Pardon the pun.)
I thought I'd acknowledged that when I said "Mildly inebriated, sure". I don't drink but my husband does as do many of my friends. A lot of people are more able to relate deeply with others after a little alcohol, but that's very different from stupid drunk. People become too drunk to be capable of deep intimacy long before they actually pass out.
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Right. It just isn't always clear to either of the people involved just where that line is. Not to the inebriated person and especially not to the other person.
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quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: Is consensual "date rape" really a big issue?
To me, the main problem with sex where all the people involved are willing and active participants and then afterward one of them regrets it is thinking that it should be called anything like "date rape".
To me, the main problem we've been discussing is what constitutes consensual sex. If the answer to that were as trivial as you imply, it would never have made it before the courts.
Can a person be still conscious and yet too drunk to consent to sex? If we were asking whether a person could be too drunk to consent to a medical procedure or enter into a contract, I think everyone would agree, yes.
The fact that a lot of people don't believe they consented the next morning indicates the answer to that question should be yes for sex too. People can be so incapacitated by alcohol that they are incapable of consenting to sex. And those people are likely to be more than just "a little hurt" the next morning.
I also think its possible for people to be so inebriated that they can no longer judge whether or not their partner has consented. The combination of those two things makes the likely hood of someone being hurt more than just a little by a drunken sexual encounter pretty high.
[ June 01, 2011, 05:43 PM: Message edited by: The Rabbit ]
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Rabbit, I very strongly disagree with the idea that date rape and drunken consensual sex (with morning after regret) should be equated. I'm sure there are cases where people really truly do not remember consenting, but we are talking about cases where they did, and drank consensually as well. So, those bad feelings, as bad as they are, are repercussions of their own poor choices.
Not being involuntarily drugged and then raped while passed out. There is a world of difference.
Now, those bad feelings I spoke of are unfortunate, but I think MrSquicky's point is those poor decisions which lead to those bad feelings need to be learned from so they are not repeated.
The same can not usually be said for date rape.
To Rakeesh: THIS IS SCREAMING, not my previous post, plus, you can't really call it "profanities" when ***ed out the dirty parts. [wink]
To kmbboots: Perhaps being that drunk puts someone in a position of not be able to make a good choices, but my point is that, that their choices put them in that position. At some point the buck stops with the individual.
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quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: Right. It just isn't always clear to either of the people involved just where that line is. Not to the inebriated person and especially not to the other person.
Exactly. Add to that the fact that it can happen that one inebriated person thinks they're having drunk sex when the other thinks they're being raped, and I would say it is better to err on the side of caution whenever possible. That's from a moral perspective, not a legal one, and the caution I speak of is not necessarily gender specific. Just to be clear.
(I live in New Orleans. They have drive-up daiquiri stands here. We generally take the attitude that your life is yours to eff up. I like the idea that laws don't exist to protect you from being stupid. You just have to understand that the consequences are also yours.)
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Stone_Wolf, You have mentioned two extremes: Drunken consensual sex where one party regrets it the next morning and date rape where one person is involuntarily drugged and forcibly assaulted. I agree, those two things are quite different. But those two things aren't the only two possibilities. There is an entire continuum between those two point and it isn't easy to determine where the line should be drawn between what is consensual and what is not -- particularly when one or both people involved are inebriated.
As Olivet said, its entirely possible for one inebriated person to think they are having consensual sex when the other thinks they are being raped. Its entirely possible for one drunk person to mistake incapacitation for consent.
Given the potential for hurting another person, I would think a person would want to err on the side of caution for moral grounds and not just for fear of being charged with rape.
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You are missing the side of the spectrum where people have inebriated consensual sex and both are delighted. In my experience, the far more likely outcome.
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quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: You are missing the side of the spectrum where people have inebriated consensual sex and both are delighted. In my experience, the far more likely outcome.
No I wasn't missing it. I wasn't trying to describe the full spectrum of drunken sexual encounters. Just the "regretable" part, since those are the two point Stone_Wolf mentions.
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Ah. Okay. It does, though, speak to the question of why people don't always err on the side of caution, I think. And why erring on the side of caution is not always the best choice.
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quote:I think that was my point. If you get stupid drunk and have sex with a person and the next morning that person accuses you of rape (which is where we started this discussion) chances are that person feels more that a "little hurt or regret". Even if they are misremembering what happened and they actually did consent, they feel like they were raped.
And if they are misremembering, and they did coherently give consent, then I don't think it's the fault of the person that they had sex with, at least not by default.
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quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: Ah. Okay. It does, though, speak to the question of why people don't always err on the side of caution, I think. And why erring on the side of caution is not always the best choice.
Erring on the side of caution is maybe easier for a woman, in the sense that an incapacitated man is more challenging to have sex with, I'll give you that. ;D (The flip side is being aware of your limits when it comes to drinking, I guess. For me that is fairly simple, as I have a reasonably mild alcohol intolerance, and vomiting on people is never sexy. Neither is a runny nose or asthma-like symptoms all that conducive to happy fun time. I stick to my limits because failure to do so renders me uncomfortable and mildly disgusting. I make no judgments on other choices, though. Mine have been fairly easy, given physical/circumstantial limits and my natural tendency to favor thinking over feeling when making decisions. (That's a personality trait, not a value judgment.) It's sad that women often have to consider their safety when drinking, even with friends, more than men do, but it is what it is, I guess.)
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quote:Just the "regretable" part, since those are the two point Stone_Wolf mentions.
I was talking about those two because (consensual drunken sex) was what MrSquicky was talking about when you (Rabbit) brought up date rape in a manor which made them seem the same.
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My point, which you still seem to be missing, is that it is often difficult to tell where the one begins and the other ends. Its a continuum.
Its silly to say, as long as its consensual, the worst that could happen is some one will be a little hurt, when the entire question is whether or not it consensual or cross a line into something else.
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quote:Originally posted by Stone_Wolf_: It's not so much that I missed it, it's more that I vehemently disagree.
It's the difference between being shot and playing with a loaded gun.
Bad analogy, since it is clearly possible for one person to be raped and the other not to believe they have raped anyone. With a gun, there'd be blood and stuff.
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quote:Originally posted by Orincoro: Again, acceptable *because* you are drunk, and acceptable *while* you are drunk are not the same things.
Actually, could you elaborate on this, I'm not sure I follow this particular step.
Situation 1) I am not attracted to you, and had decided not to sleep with you, but I am drunk and horny, and you'll do, so let's do it.
Situation 2) I *am* attracted to you, and had been thinking about sleeping with you, and now I'm drunk and horny, let's do it.
I've found typically that alcohol related hookups occur between people who are already attracted to each other, and have simply not admitted or acted upon their attractions yet. In these cases, it's a bit difficult to say that you slept with someone *because* of alcohol, but certainly alcohol was a factor- just not the only one. And then there are even more clear cut cases- you go on a third date with someone, and you both drink- you may both have already decided that you planned to sleep together. I have had that experience, and I doubt that's unique in any way.
And of course, a drunk married couple may have sex while drunk, and rightly claim that the drinking didn't make the act acceptable, but simply that the act was acceptable while drunk, just as it would be sober.
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quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: For me the potential problem is simply this: can someone consent to sex while intoxicated? How intoxicated must they be before they can't? We already have laws about things like driving, and unless I'm mistaken you can't be bound to, say, a contract you sign while drunk because you can't be said to be in your right mind. The question for me is, "Why is sex different?"
Let me revisit, since I didn't really answer this the first time. "The state has no place in the bedrooms of the nation" is my main rule of thumb when it comes to laws about sex. In contrast, some form of regulatory regime is a firm requirement in order to have enforceable contracts and safe roads.
That is, in general, we don't need to make a comprehensive set of laws governing sex, because that isn't any of the state's business. We do need comprehensive sets of laws to govern contracts and driving. Now, obviously there are cases where we need laws about sex, but we don't need an overall regulatory structure that covers all of the details.
It follows from this that in general, laws about sex should be relatively few in number and narrow in scope. Age of consent, rape, etc. Possibly sex education and/or availability of pregnancy control depending on your views.
This distinguishes laws about sex from laws about contracts or driving.
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I don't think anyone is talking about laws regulating sex. The issues is about laws that distinguish between consensual sex and rape and the difficulty is that there isn't always a bright line distinction.
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In Trudeau's case, the issue was whether the state could intrude into an act between two consenting adults, the answer being no.
In the case of the JD, the very issue under debate is whether there *is* consent and the state was explicitly asked by one of the adults to enter the situation, so Trudeau's saying isn't so useful here.
quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: I don't think anyone is talking about laws regulating sex. The issues is about laws that distinguish between consensual sex and rape and the difficulty is that there isn't always a bright line distinction.
Those are a subset of laws that regulate sex.
quote:Originally posted by Mucus: In Trudeau's case, the issue was whether the state could intrude into an act between two consenting adults, the answer being no.
In the case of the JD, the very issue under debate is whether there *is* consent and the state was explicitly asked by one of the adults to enter the situation, so Trudeau's saying isn't so useful here.
I think it is, if the question we're asking is why there's a difference between ability to sign a contract while inebriated versus consent to sex while inebriated. There is a clear and strong public interest in the former, while the public interest is far less clear in the latter.
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I don't see why there is a clear strong public interest in people signing contracts to do things like buy life insurance. I certainly don't see why people being cheated financially when they are drunk is of greater public interest than people being raped when they are drunk.
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quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: I don't see why there is a clear strong public interest in people signing contracts to do things like buy life insurance.
You think the public has no interest in contracts being enforceable? That there should be no overarching regulatory framework governing contracts?
That's the crux of my point: that driving and contracts both require overarching regulatory frameworks, while sex does not. Treating them differently in the specific case of inebriation is therefore reasonable.
quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: I certainly don't see why people being cheated financially when they are drunk is of greater public interest than people being raped when they are drunk.
Strawman. I haven't suggested anything of the kind.
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quote:Originally posted by kmbboots: Honestly, Rabbit. What kind of capitalist are you!
The robber baron kind? Let's get the little guys drunk and have them sign absurd contracts, we don't need no regulations! Posts: 10886 | Registered: Feb 2000
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quote:Originally posted by twinky: I think it is, if the question we're asking is why there's a difference between ability to sign a contract while inebriated versus consent to sex while inebriated.
The state isn't realistically going to regulate when people have sex when both parties are consenting with no disagreement. What is going to actually happen is that the state is going to be called in when one party is disputing consent. In other words, when they bring the case in front of the public (the police and the courts).
The saying was never meant to say that the state couldn't rule on disputes that started in the bedroom, otherwise it would rule out prosecuting things such as rape in a bedroom. When the parties themselves have already brought the dispute public and are asking for the state to intervene, I think we're on different ground.
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quote:Let me revisit, since I didn't really answer this the first time. "The state has no place in the bedrooms of the nation" is my main rule of thumb when it comes to laws about sex. In contrast, some form of regulatory regime is a firm requirement in order to have enforceable contracts and safe roads.
That's my view as well, about laws and the bedroom. I also agree that generally speaking there cannot be a comparison between the need for laws to enforce contracts, safe driving, and private sexuality.
quote: That is, in general, we don't need to make a comprehensive set of laws governing sex, because that isn't any of the state's business. We do need comprehensive sets of laws to govern contracts and driving. Now, obviously there are cases where we need laws about sex, but we don't need an overall regulatory structure that covers all of the details.
I agree with most of this as well-I would be pretty darn leery, for example, of the state attempting (however well-intentioned) to regulate exactly when consent has been lost or retained via intoxication between two otherwise consenting adults in a bar or something.
What I do think the state has a pretty strong interest in, however, is making 'consent' pretty clear. When is it lost and when is it retained? In a situation where both parties are intoxicated, I wouldn't support laws to make one party some sort of sexual aggressor, just because the other when sober later realizes they weren't actually consenting...because that's a very murky decision. Obviously my opinion changes if one party continues over the explicit objections. Being drunk isn't a license to be violent, of course. Is that making sense? I'm a bit distracted at the moment, but I wanted to respond before lunch.
quote:It follows from this that in general, laws about sex should be relatively few in number and narrow in scope. Age of consent, rape, etc. Possibly sex education and/or availability of pregnancy control depending on your views.
I absolutely agree, and I see now that I should've chosen my words more carefully. My original question should've been, "Why is consenting to sex different?"
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I think that last sentence actually confuses the issue! Different legally, ethically...?
I agree that the state needs a clear definition of consent, because rape law will always hinge on it. I do think that it's okay for the definition of consent to be different in different spheres; I see no particular reason that contractual consent and sexual consent should have the same definition where applicable.
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quote:Originally posted by twinky: ... You and Rabbit have both extended my statements far beyond what they actually say.
I'm not meaning to. It just seems to me that in cases that aren't brought before the courts, there is no change. The issue of consent only comes up when one party is asserting that there is no consent, which is pretty much rape (or sexual assault is maybe a less provocative term).
What would a less extended(?) case be that would land in the courts and bring the issue up, but not entail an allegation of sexual assault?
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I'm not talking about the case in the thread title, which is maybe where the confusion is coming from. I'm only addressing Rakeesh's questions about defining consent in different spheres.
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I make no judgments on other choices, though. Mine have been fairly easy, given physical/circumstantial limits and my natural tendency to favor thinking over feeling when making decisions. (That's a personality trait, not a value judgment.) It's sad that women often have to consider their safety when drinking, even with friends, more than men do, but it is what it is, I guess.)
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