Drunk Sex or Date Rape? Responses

Basha weighs in:

When Brett Sokolow, JD, came to speak last Thursday night about drunken sex and date rape, I must admit I attended more out of a sense of obligation than genuine curiosity.

Sokolow proceeded to relate the facts of a case, and then ask the students and faculty present to vote guilty or not guilty. While I had rightly expected discord amongst those present, I did not anticipate my own ambivalence. Legally it seemed the man in question was guilty of rape, but morally? Maybe just poor judgement. His punishment seemed disproportionate: 18 mos. in prison + lifelong registration as a sex offender? The man lost his job and education prospects because a drunk girl woke up the next morning, didn't remember having sex with him and was very unhappy about it. At the same time, she had consumed the equivalent of 15-20 shots (at his behest) while he remained basically sober. Any reasonable person should know she couldn't consent, right?

Honestly, I don't know -- one person's funny story of a drunken Saturday night is another's nightmare. How do you tell the difference and what should the consequences be?

I think a large part of the problem is that we don't seem to have the proper vocabulary or perhaps comfort level to talk about what happens to us and to express what we are comfortable doing or not doing?

Adda weighs in:

I totally agree with Basha in that, legally speaking I did find the defendant guilty of rape--the girl in question had had way too much to drink to be able to consent, evidenced, if nothing else, by her having blacked out. Unfortunately, its also true what Basha said, which is that so much of this case depended on things specific to their respective personalities--another, more sexually experienced woman might not have charged the defendant with rape. The point being that at the end of the day it often comes down, not to objective facts, but the experience of each person involved. In this case, the accuser felt like her drunken state, and lack of ability to make a reasoned decision, or fight back, was taken advantage of.

And although I truly believe in the importance of respecting and believing women who feel that they have been raped, I do wonder whether such circumstances are enough to warrant the sorts of penalties they can carry--its a tragedy that the defendant will now forever have to register as a sex offender.

What this leads me to wonder is whether or not we should lump all sexual assault crimes together, or whether the law, and society should actively acknowledge that there is an enormous grey area and that crimes that fall into that grey area should be handled differently? In other words, I want to believe in the inherent goodness of most men, and I want to believe that good men can make poor decisions, but that does not mean that they are morally corrupt, or dangerous to all women-kind. Instead, I think it behooves us to create a well structured system that addresses what causes men in such ambiguous situations to take advantage of the situation, rather then respect the female and her right to protect her body. Why do men feel entitled to sex? Is it purely hormonal, or is it conditioned by our society that encourages men to want sex all the time?

What is interesting to me though is that of my friends who can remember their assaults, they have talked about how during the assault they felt totally invisible, or like anything they said or did was falling on deaf ears. What this indicates to me is that during most sexual assaults men dehumanize the victim to the extent that its totally irrelevant what his or her feelings are in the moment--their sexual desire, or desire for power, conquers all. It also suggests that assaulters care so little about the feelings of the victim, that after the fact the assaulter would never register the event as an assault. I think that sort of dehumanizing is obviously incredibly problematic and speaks of deepseated misogyny on the part of the assailant. Unfortunately, in this case, the victim couldn't remember having sex, and is therefore incapable of telling us what the defendant acted like in the moment.

Perhaps instead of jail sentences, men should undergo major counseling. But maybe something like this can't be solved that easily, and the only answer is to change our culture so that men and women don't don't internalize such misogyny.

Maggie weighs in:

I wish I had made it to this talk; it's such an important discussion.

I understand what Basha and Adda are saying about the punishment being disproportionate to the crime in the case study, or at least disproportionately harsh when you consider the intentions of the male student. That being said, I don't feel an inordinate amount of sympathy for this guy. I think men, especially male college students, need to be aware of the consent laws in their state and know the role of alcohol in this legal context. If you know that a woman can't give consent when she is drunk, then it's probably in your best interests to not have sex with her, even if she is the one initiating the hookup.

I think that men should be as aware of the possibility of rape as women are. Rape is a constant threat that changes the way women conduct themselves. It changes what neighborhoods we live in, how late we stay at the library, with whom we socialize and how we interact with these people. Before we come to college, many of us hear the same warnings: always pour your own drinks at parties, don't go anywhere alone with a guy you don't know, etc. My point is that rape is a part of a woman's consciousness, but as far as I can tell, it's not something most guys think about, or at least it's not something they think about as much as women do. To be honest, I'm kind of envious of college guys because they haven't had to worry about keeping their wits about them when they go out. I don't think that such ignorance or obliviousness on the part of men is fair or productive. Why is the onus on the woman to "not put herself in a bad situation?" Why shouldn't men operate on the same principle and avoid situations like the one described in the above case?

In short, why should only women be responsible for stopping rape? In recent years, groups of men have become more active in preventing sexual assault. The national group Men Can Stop Rape and the undergraduate organization NO MORE (a group dedicated to involving men in discussions about rape and sexual violence) are too great examples of the growing number of men who are taking responsibility for their role in sexual violence prevention. I think that when men begin to be more conscious of their role in rape prevention, there will be fewer situations like the one Sokolow discussed.