From: rberlin@birdland.Eng.Sun.COM (Rich Berlin)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: Camille Paglia is GOD! was Re: camille paglia
Date: 19 Nov 1992 16:09:48 GMT
Organization: SunPics -- A Sun Microsystems Business
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: remarque.berkeley.edu
Originator: muffy@remarque.berkeley.edu

In article <1992Nov15.192856.7938@tamsun.tamu.edu> sharring@cs.tamu.EDU (Steven L Harrington) writes:
>In article <1992Nov14.083248.27164@leland.Stanford.EDU> farthing@leland.Stanford.EDU (ljf) writes:
>>Exactly.  And yet you seem to think that it isn't rape if a woman is
>>"stupid" enough to get drunk and can't defend herself.  Maybe she
>>should wear a tag saying, "I don't consent to any sex."  Would that
>>suffice if she were too drunk to say yes or no?
>
>Am I correct in inferring from this that you believe anytime a man and
>woman engage in sex when the woman is drunk that it is rape? I'll buy
>into that if the woman is passed out and cannot offer consent, but
>this is absurd beyond that situation. It would seem that you suggest
>that if a woman consents to sex with a man when she is impaired by the
>influence of alcohol that this makes the man a rapist. Would you say
>the same thing with the sexes reversed? If so, I've been raped in the
>past (by this definition) - what's the statute of limitations, perhaps
>I'll prosecute...


I'm sympathetic to both of these positions; there has to be some
middle ground here.  Where is common sense in all this?  Even *I* know
better than to get drunk when I can't trust other (possibly drunk)
individuals to look after my welfare.  I *have* gotten drunk in a
situation where I knew this was part of a woman's plan to seduce me
and I don't feel that I was raped simply because I was drunk when sex
occurred.  I felt that I had given my consent hours earlier; I agreed
to a quiet dinner alone with her at her house, I knew she was as
attracted to me as I was to her, and the time felt about right.  

But that's very different from going to a party and getting smashed,
NO MATTER WHICH END OF THINGS YOU'RE ON.  You shouldn't be doing it if
you're a potential rape victim and you shouldn't be doing it if you're
a potential rapist, either.  Nobody has a "perfect right" to be drunk
with impunity; you are *voluntarily* impairing your own judgment and
your own capacity for self-protection.  Now, I don't for a moment
believe that it's any less of a crime to rape someone who is in a
drunken stupor--frankly, even if s/he *is* a willing partner, I think
that sex with an unconcious or barely-concious partner is just short
of necrophilia--but I *do* think it's stupid for anyone to drink
irresponsibly when the situation is not totally secure.

-- Rich
--
===============================================================================
Richard.Berlin@Eng.Sun.COM   |   The significant problems we face cannot be
			     |   solved at the same level of thinking we were
			     |   at when we created them.  -- Albert Einstein


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