@larsiu So the fact that 19 states make an exception for voluntary intoxication is a bit of an anomaly. My guess is we'll see that number gradually dwindle down to close to zero over the next few years.
As long as the legal standard never gets too close to "I didn't feel good about myself or my actions the next morning so I concluded it was non-consensual."
Obviously and intentionally simplistic but goddamn trying to parse a legal standard from two intoxicated 20 somethings is going to be impossible and the furthest thing from a bright red line. Especially if there is no violence involved. Good luck.
I don't know. I kinda think that if you cross the threshold where you no longer understand your reaction to a drink or a drug, you put yourself there. Yes, we as a society have an obligation to protect those people from themselves but it's impossible to protect them from shit bags like these frat bros who will take advantage of that situation. The moral of this story probably won't be justice done or served but only another cautionary tale which will, as usual, go unheeded and we'll be back to this 5 years from now.
NB: Just because a state treats voluntary and involuntary intoxication the same way, that doesn't mean the bar for proving non-consent is lowered. McM can probably confirm that most of us had to read a famous old case in contracts about a guy who really wanted to buy a plot of land from a guy who really didn't want to sell it, and they ended up at a bar getting blasted together, and wrote up a contract for the sale on a bev nap. Seller tried to claim that he was way too drunk to legally contract to anything, and the court said tough shit, and enforced the sale. I'm sure plenty of those 25 states with consistent intoxication laws still have very difficult to reach bars for consent, i.e., no matter how drunk you are, if you're not passed out, if you're still able to slur the words, "Sure, baby, let's do it," then that's it, you consented.
@larsiu So the fact that 19 states make an exception for voluntary intoxication is a bit of an anomaly. My guess is we'll see that number gradually dwindle down to close to zero over the next few years.
As long as the legal standard never gets too close to "I didn't feel good about myself or my actions the next morning so I concluded it was non-consensual."
Obviously and intentionally simplistic but goddamn trying to parse a legal standard from two intoxicated 20 somethings is going to be impossible and the furthest thing from a bright red line. Especially if there is no violence involved. Good luck.
I don't know. I kinda think that if you cross the threshold where you no longer understand your reaction to a drink or a drug, you put yourself there. Yes, we as a society have an obligation to protect those people from themselves but it's impossible to protect them from shit bags like these frat bros who will take advantage of that situation. The moral of this story probably won't be justice done or served but only another cautionary tale which will, as usual, go unheeded and we'll be back to this 5 years from now.
See my post right before this one, but yeah. The real issue here isn't the voluntary/involuntary thing. It's how we define intoxication with regards to consent. If we make it too easy to claim non-consent just because you had a few drinks, then all of a sudden everyone in every bar will be too scared to hook up. But I don't see that happening. Drunk people have sex all the time, and the only time you see anyone prosecuted for it is if one of them was passed out, or their drink was drugged, or they were a minor, or something like that.
@goat or they’ll raise the evidence standard in some fashion. In dram shops most/many states bumped it to clear and convincing
Frat boys telling other frat boys that they need to come on over for free pussy right now sure isn't good behavior. I guess it may not be criminal behavior, though.
@bar-down I'm guessing in the world of intoxicated consent, most states probably use some variation of the reasonable person standard.
@goat I have no idea re criminal and consent. On civil it just got bumped from preponderance
I know one of the men claimed he was to incapacitated to give consent and the Jane Doe performed oral sex on him anyway.
That poor bastard, sounds absolutely horrible...
A good friend will bail you out of jail, but your best friend will be sitting next to you in the cell saying "that was f***ing awesome"
Were some of them partying with her? Just as fucked up? I don’t know the facts in detail.@bar-down I'm sure. According to the article, that's how it happened in Minnesota - a high profile conviction was overturned by the courts, and the law was changed.
If you think about it, it makes sense. If someone is genuinely so intoxicated that they are no longer capable of meaningful consent, then it really doesn't matter how they got to that state. I mean, we don't draw that distinction with other mental states. You rape an unconscious girl, no one asks if you knocked her out, or if she voluntarily went to sleep on her own. It's still rape, either way. You don't get to say, "Well, she was talking in her sleep, and she said yes." We draw a bright line - if you're unconscious, you can't consent, no matter how you got that way.
Was she unconscious?
She was taken advantage of by terrible, despicable people who deserve some punishment. But is it rape? Maybe?
I know I wouldn't put myself in that situation b/c i'm 51 and was never in that situation. Which is actually not true. I left and locked the door on my way out a couple times.
If she can’t consent b/c of intoxication, is it consistent or fair to say the intoxicated boys had the mental state needed to commit rape and be labeled terrible, despicable people (yes, I know there are laws/precedent on this for the legal question)?
Lot more moral complexity in these cases than many want to admit.
Were some of them partying with her? Just as fucked up? I don’t know the facts in detail.@bar-down I'm sure. According to the article, that's how it happened in Minnesota - a high profile conviction was overturned by the courts, and the law was changed.
If you think about it, it makes sense. If someone is genuinely so intoxicated that they are no longer capable of meaningful consent, then it really doesn't matter how they got to that state. I mean, we don't draw that distinction with other mental states. You rape an unconscious girl, no one asks if you knocked her out, or if she voluntarily went to sleep on her own. It's still rape, either way. You don't get to say, "Well, she was talking in her sleep, and she said yes." We draw a bright line - if you're unconscious, you can't consent, no matter how you got that way.
Was she unconscious?
She was taken advantage of by terrible, despicable people who deserve some punishment. But is it rape? Maybe?
I know I wouldn't put myself in that situation b/c i'm 51 and was never in that situation. Which is actually not true. I left and locked the door on my way out a couple times.
If she can’t consent b/c of intoxication, is it consistent or fair to say the intoxicated boys had the mental state needed to commit rape and be labeled terrible, despicable people (yes, I know there are laws/precedent on this for the legal question)?
Lot more moral complexity in these cases than many want to admit.
Ignoring all the complexities of different people having different levels of intoxication, looking at two simplifications, I think the answer is obvious:
Person A is incredibly intoxicated and Person B is sober: Person B bears some moral culpability for engaging in sex with Person A to the extent that Person A may not have chosen to do so absent their intoxication.
Person A and person B are both incredibly intoxicated: Neither person bears any moral culpability, even if they would not have had sex had they been sober. They simply made a mutual bad mistake.
Of course, lots of cases will not fit neatly into one of those two simplifications.
is this rape? or just morally reprehensible?Person A is incredibly intoxicated and Person B is sober: Person B bears some moral culpability for engaging in sex with Person A to the extent that Person A may not have chosen to do so absent their intoxication.
By the way Mods, does the intoxication defense/exception apply to over the line posts and bans?Were some of them partying with her? Just as fucked up? I don’t know the facts in detail.@bar-down I'm sure. According to the article, that's how it happened in Minnesota - a high profile conviction was overturned by the courts, and the law was changed.
If you think about it, it makes sense. If someone is genuinely so intoxicated that they are no longer capable of meaningful consent, then it really doesn't matter how they got to that state. I mean, we don't draw that distinction with other mental states. You rape an unconscious girl, no one asks if you knocked her out, or if she voluntarily went to sleep on her own. It's still rape, either way. You don't get to say, "Well, she was talking in her sleep, and she said yes." We draw a bright line - if you're unconscious, you can't consent, no matter how you got that way.
Was she unconscious?
She was taken advantage of by terrible, despicable people who deserve some punishment. But is it rape? Maybe?
I know I wouldn't put myself in that situation b/c i'm 51 and was never in that situation. Which is actually not true. I left and locked the door on my way out a couple times.
If she can’t consent b/c of intoxication, is it consistent or fair to say the intoxicated boys had the mental state needed to commit rape and be labeled terrible, despicable people (yes, I know there are laws/precedent on this for the legal question)?
Lot more moral complexity in these cases than many want to admit.
Ignoring all the complexities of different people having different levels of intoxication, looking at two simplifications, I think the answer is obvious:
Person A is incredibly intoxicated and Person B is sober: Person B bears some moral culpability for engaging in sex with Person A to the extent that Person A may not have chosen to do so absent their intoxication.
Person A and person B are both incredibly intoxicated: Neither person bears any moral culpability, even if they would not have had sex had they been sober. They simply made a mutual bad mistake.
Of course, lots of cases will not fit neatly into one of those two simplifications.
Asking for a friend . . .
Once the threesome was over, everything beyond that was terrible and despicable. They knew better and did it anyway. Of course, so did she. So here we are.Were some of them partying with her? Just as fucked up? I don’t know the facts in detail.@bar-down I'm sure. According to the article, that's how it happened in Minnesota - a high profile conviction was overturned by the courts, and the law was changed.
If you think about it, it makes sense. If someone is genuinely so intoxicated that they are no longer capable of meaningful consent, then it really doesn't matter how they got to that state. I mean, we don't draw that distinction with other mental states. You rape an unconscious girl, no one asks if you knocked her out, or if she voluntarily went to sleep on her own. It's still rape, either way. You don't get to say, "Well, she was talking in her sleep, and she said yes." We draw a bright line - if you're unconscious, you can't consent, no matter how you got that way.
Was she unconscious?
She was taken advantage of by terrible, despicable people who deserve some punishment. But is it rape? Maybe?
I know I wouldn't put myself in that situation b/c i'm 51 and was never in that situation. Which is actually not true. I left and locked the door on my way out a couple times.
If she can’t consent b/c of intoxication, is it consistent or fair to say the intoxicated boys had the mental state needed to commit rape and be labeled terrible, despicable people (yes, I know there are laws/precedent on this for the legal question)?
Lot more moral complexity in these cases than many want to admit.
@larsiu I intuited from how Brad framed the question that he was looking for answers rooted in ethics rather than legalisms.
(But the answer is, it would depend on the jurisdiction.)
I was unaware of The End of Threesome Rule.Once the threesome was over, everything beyond that was terrible and despicable. They knew better and did it anyway. Of course, so did she. So here we are.Were some of them partying with her? Just as fucked up? I don’t know the facts in detail.@bar-down I'm sure. According to the article, that's how it happened in Minnesota - a high profile conviction was overturned by the courts, and the law was changed.
If you think about it, it makes sense. If someone is genuinely so intoxicated that they are no longer capable of meaningful consent, then it really doesn't matter how they got to that state. I mean, we don't draw that distinction with other mental states. You rape an unconscious girl, no one asks if you knocked her out, or if she voluntarily went to sleep on her own. It's still rape, either way. You don't get to say, "Well, she was talking in her sleep, and she said yes." We draw a bright line - if you're unconscious, you can't consent, no matter how you got that way.
Was she unconscious?
She was taken advantage of by terrible, despicable people who deserve some punishment. But is it rape? Maybe?
I know I wouldn't put myself in that situation b/c i'm 51 and was never in that situation. Which is actually not true. I left and locked the door on my way out a couple times.
If she can’t consent b/c of intoxication, is it consistent or fair to say the intoxicated boys had the mental state needed to commit rape and be labeled terrible, despicable people (yes, I know there are laws/precedent on this for the legal question)?
Lot more moral complexity in these cases than many want to admit.
I’ve lived a sheltered life.