Second disclaimer: If you think I'm sounding far too much like a logic professor and/or like a Vulcan here, that is because I'm taking extensive lengths to draw attention to the fact that what I'm presenting is a contradiction that I can't resolve, in an effort avoid being called a bigot and dismissed as such.
This is a case of finding myself with multiple premises, each of which I can't help but agree with in isolation, but which I can't figure out how to resolve with one another. I'm trying not to get lost in rumination here more than I need to so I'll cut straight to the point, or points as it were.
The basic subject here is the concept of a person having been raped on the basis that, when they had sex, they were too drunk to be capable of giving consent. (In the interest of saving words, for the rest of this post assume that whenever I say “drunk” I mean “too drunk to consent, by contemporary legal standards.”) To be clear, I definitely agree with this in theory; the problem comes later. So, to start with, we have the premise that if someone has sex while drunk, then they have been raped because they could not consent.
Now, in cases whether the other person is NOT drunk, this is fine and dandy. The problem arises when both parties are drunk. If a man is guilty of rape if he has sex with a woman who is, for any reason, incapable of giving consent, then is he still guilty if he is drunk when he does it? The second premise in this conundrum I've found myself in is that yes, of course he is; because being drunk does not excuse you from committing crimes. It doesn't excuse you if you steal, kill, or commit any other crime while in that state, and it likewise doesn't excuse you from rape – including rape of the from “having sex with someone who is incapable of consent.”
A corollary to this second premise is that the question of whether there is a difference between “drunk enough that you can't give consent” and “drunk enough that your responsibility for committing rape (or any other crime) is affected” in a non-issue; because, as we've just established, no degree of drunkenness is an excuse for committing rape (or any other crime).
The third premise, is that how an allegedly-raped party feels about the matter after the fact has no bearing on whether or not they have in fact been raped. That is to say, it's not true that “It's only rape if you actually regret it”; rape is defined by what occurred in the course of the act itself, not by what happens or is felt afterwards. (And, it certainly doesn't matter what the parties felt or wanted beforehand, because “No Means No.”)
The problem, then is the following: If, when a man and a woman have sex and both are drunk, the man has committed rape because the woman was too drunk to consent, why is she not also guilty of raping him?
This conclusion would appear to follow directly from the first two premises; the reason I brought in the third premise is to establish that which party (the man or the woman) is more likely to feel dissatisfied with the situation afterwards, or beforehand (or even during, since being drunk supposedly renders such things void), is irrelevant to whether or not rape has occurred.
Phrased another way, the idea that being sufficiently drunk makes a person incapable of giving consent essentially implies that it is a crime to have sex with someone who is drunk; and thus, weirdness arises when you consider the scenario of both people being drunk.
Put in more strict logical terms, those two premises imply that if both are drunk, both are guilty of rape. The premises seem solid and the logic appears valid, but the conclusion seems clearly false. How to resolve this? Is the conclusion in fact true? Is one of the premises in fact false? Is the logic in fact not valid?
Apart from proposing that the conclusion IS in fact true, and that both should be guilty of rape, the other obvious potential solution to this is that neither is guilty. Both ideas have their problems; something I want to bring up though is that this has similarities to another situation in which a person is supposedly not capable of giving consent – statutory rape. Now, it has always seemed obvious to me that, in cases where both parties are below the age of consent, neither one should be considered guilty of a crime; and that the alternatives, that both are guilty or that only one party is guilty, are both absurd. And, I definitely agree that a 30 year old having sex with a 15 year old is a crime, and that a sober person having sex with a drunk person is a crime. But, I could not honestly say that I feel equally comfortable with the idea that in the case of both parties being drunk, neither has committed any crime.
I'll head off some predicted responses early. As with what I said above, all of these preemptive counter-arguments are my thoughts and reasoning at this current time. You may feel free to disagree with any of them and explain why, just as you are invited to question the premises, logic, or assumed falseness of the conclusion above and explain why.
One more thing first, as this applies to everything I'm going to say below (and everything I said above): I am presenting a logical conundrum/paradox, something which I cannot in intellectual honesty figure out how to resolve. Stating that one particular premise which you believe in must be true, and that everything else must follow from that, is not a reasonable response because contradicting premises are the whole issue here. Do not seek to “condemn” my raising of these questions without providing a solution to the contradiction.
It's different because one person is a man and the other is a woman.
I fundamentally disagree with this for two reasons. First, the general concept of gender equality, eliminating double standards, and “Yes, it is in fact possible for a woman to rape a man, to say otherwise is lunacy.” Second, because saying that the man is assumed to be consenting by default because “men want sex” is, as I see it, exactly the same as the “she actually really wanted it” argument, which is definitely bullshit.
This is just a stupid “Men's Rights Activist” trying to reverse blame and victimhood in cases of rape.
That's not what I'm trying to effect at all. I'm not claiming that men being raped all over the place is a serious unaddressed problem, I do not believe that men being raped all over the place is a serious unaddressed problem, and I'm certainly not “looking for justice for all those men who have been accused or convicted of rape when they were in fact wronged themselves.” What I am doing is pointing out a seeming logical contradiction in the way law and society views rape, and seeking a solution to that contradiction; what, if anything, should actually be done about that is a question for after a solution to the contradiction has been determined, and a question which I am making no attempt whatsoever to answer at this moment.
Suggesting that the woman should be guilty of rape too is just another case of victim-blaming.
No, because of a subtle but vital distinction. I am not contemplating whether the woman should be condemned for “being a slut,” for having sex too freely, or for allowing someone to have sex with her. Rather, I am contemplating whether she should be condemned for having had sex with somebody else who did not give consent, and who was therefore raped – or more precisely, somebody for whom it can be said that they did not give consent as surely (or as unsurely) as it can be said that she did not give consent and was therefore raped.
The floor ist thine. Discus.
