Well, alcohol removes inhibitions. What I am saying is that there is a difference between wanting to do something that is against your better judgement, or different from what your sober self would do, and being taken advantage of. In the former instance, you are still DECIDING to do something (it doesn't matter for the purposes of this discussion how poor or good you later think that choice to be). In the latter instance, something undesired is being forced upon you.
I appreciate the sentiment of this comment, however:
I believe that it is possible to have consensual sex while intoxicated. Put another way, I do not believe that every time a “drunk chick” goes home with a stranger she met at a bar, this experience should naturally and automatically be classified as rape.
It is certainly true that, when these events ARE rape, they may go unrecognized as such by the survivor for a long time, sometimes indefinitely- and this does represent a “sickness in our world”.
However, as a 28-year-old woman who has had both types of experiences (I have had consensual sex with an acquaintance while I was drunk and have also been raped by an acquaintance while I was drunk), it is my perspective that the difference between these experiences is extremely intuitive. When I have had drunken, consensual sex (for the purposes of this discussion I am excluding instances that were with a boyfriend), it was fun and pleasurable. I may even have regretted it the next day, saying to my friends “oh god, i can’t believe i slept with him... man i was druuuuunk” and YET it was completely clear to me, both in the moment and thereafter, that I wanted to have sex. When I was raped, though it did take me some time to name the experience rape, it was clear to me that I had not wanted to have sex, that I had not consented. For the record, I believe that the men involved in these two very different experiences also knew, just as intuitively as I knew, whether or not I wanted to have sex with them.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, alcohol removes inhibitions. What I am saying is that there is a difference between wanting to do something that is against your better judgement, or different from what your sober self would do, and being taken advantage of. In the former instance, you are still DECIDING to do something (it doesn't matter for the purposes of this discussion how poor or good you later think that choice to be). In the latter instance, something undesired is being forced upon you.
I appreciate the sentiment of this comment, however: I believe that it is possible to have consensual sex while intoxicated. Put another way, I do not believe that every time a “drunk chick” goes home with a stranger she met at a bar, this experience should naturally and automatically be classified as rape. It is certainly true that, when these events ARE rape, they may go unrecognized as such by the survivor for a long time, sometimes indefinitely- and this does represent a “sickness in our world”. However, as a 28-year-old woman who has had both types of experiences (I have had consensual sex with an acquaintance while I was drunk and have also been raped by an acquaintance while I was drunk), it is my perspective that the difference between these experiences is extremely intuitive. When I have had drunken, consensual sex (for the purposes of this discussion I am excluding instances that were with a boyfriend), it was fun and pleasurable. I may even have regretted it the next day, saying to my friends “oh god, i can’t believe i slept with him... man i was druuuuunk” and YET it was completely clear to me, both in the moment and thereafter, that I wanted to have sex. When I was raped, though it did take me some time to name the experience rape, it was clear to me that I had not wanted to have sex, that I had not consented. For the record, I believe that the men involved in these two very different experiences also knew, just as intuitively as I knew, whether or not I wanted to have sex with them.