Man reportedly escorted out of Skepticon for asking "problematic" question [SocJus]

There is a certain set of logic that makes some sense about being "too drunk to consent", but it seems it is much more complex than that.

For example, if being too drunk to drive also means one is too drunk to consent (because you are not capable of nor responsible for making decisions at that point), then doesn't that mean you are also not guilty if you drive while drunk? Because you were intoxicated and clearly did not have the capacity to make such a decision, one way or the other?

Of course, we hold people to account for deciding to drive drunk. Why? Because blowing a point-oh-eight will likely mean that for most people, they have lost enough of their response time and other faculties to safely drive . . . BUT THAT DOES NOT MEAN THEY HAVE LOST ENOUGH OF THEIR FACULTIES TO NOT MAKE SENSIBLE DECISIONS . . . such as not fucking driving.

Being intoxicated may mean you don't have fast enough response time for driving safely, but you don't need a quick response time to fuck. You just need the same mental faculty to say "yeah, let's fuck" (or to not say no) as you would employ in deciding to not drive drunk.

Additionally, doesn't context of relationship play into this? If you just met someone at a club or a bar or a party and they are nearly too plastered to walk, it is reasonable to assert that this might be an unfair situation wherein you can't accept their willingness, interest, or even enthusiasm for sex to be "real".

But if you're in an ongoing relationship with them and sex is a regular part of that relationship, how is having two or three drinks into you altering that? Are you seriously implying that when my fiancee and I go out for dinner and I have a scotch and she has two or three glasses of wine -- she is suddenly incapable of deciding to have sex with me? This woman plays games, recites formulas for chemical reactions, and still shoots mean pool at point-oh-eight . . . but despite the thousands of times we've fucked, it's probably rape? Fucking seriously?

And let's add to this . . .

When I was sixteen, I was seeing a girl who was twenty. Her mom was a bar-tender and frequently mixed drinks for me (other than an occasional scotch, I'm not a drinker; only really drinking when someone is offering it as a gesture). So after a couple drinks, when we'd fuck, I was being raped? Are you fucking kidding me?

Or how about when I was seventeen and dating a girl in her mid-twenties? I (barely) remember one night when I drank an entire bottle of brandy (which is like 110 proof) myself. I had tunnel vision. Reached a point where I was rolling around on the floor having a laugh, because I couldn't physically stand up. I don't even think she had one drink. We fucked half the night and I barely remember any of it. Was that rape, too? I mean, she didn't ask and I never gave an affirmative answer (but if I didn't want to fuck, I would have said no - because I wasn't fucking literally passed out and my mouth fucking worked).

So I can see how, in some ways, there is a logic to "if you're drunk, you can't consent -- even if you consent -- and it is therefor rape".

But I wasn't raped. Any of the many times I've been legally incapable fo driving, but fucked. And I wasn't raped the few times I was totally blasted off of my ass and nearly black-out drunk. Even when I was fucking under age and dating people well into adulthood.

So if I know that I was capable of saying "no", if I didn't want sex any of those times and was not raped, then I have to accept that women are just as capable of making decisions and being responsible as well as ACCOUNTABLE for them (drunk or not) as I was.

Unless you have literally passed out, you are aware of what is going on and capable of saying "no". I can confirm this, because I have (in my much younger years) been as fucking close to black-out drunk as you can be without actually passing out and had sex with people who were neither drunk or even necessarily had any alcohol at all. And the sex was consensual, even though I didn't affirmatively consent.

I refuse to accept that women are so precious and weak that they can not be just as aware, responsible, and accountable as I have been under the same (or even worse) circumstances and anyone who suggests that a woman is somehow less capable in those same circumstances is a fucking sexist piece of shit.

/r/KotakuInAction Thread