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Lmao why is almost everyone talking about the law? Morals can exist regardless of the law
That's a poignant philosophical observation:
Yes, this gets covered in basic mandatory reporting training. The issue with intoxication is generally the power asymmetry. If there is no asymmetry, there's less of a problem. It isn't a hard and fast rule though. If someone says or implies they don't want to fuck when sober, and you both get drunk and fuck, that's probably not great. Likewise, someone taking advantage of a body mass asymmetry to remain relatively more sober while consuming the same amount of alcohol is definitely still rape.
Basically, if only one person is drunk, there is a strong presumption of assault. If both people are drunk, there is no such presumption, and you'd generally defer to the nature of their relationship outsode of the drinking. So two complete strangers getting sloshed and fucking is typically safe. Two otherwise platonic friends doing the same thing is more of a grey area and you better be sure you are not misreading the situation. You getting drunk with a friend in the hopes they will make a poor decision they wouldn't make while sober is rape.
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What I don't see discussed already here is that it depends on the relationship. Both of you being drunk is not the right time to decide for the first time that you want to do it, but if you've already made that decision and now happen to be drunk, whatever.
Consent and being drunk is not about a power imbalance, or at least not completely. It is about both parties' capabilities to consider the consequences of their actions. Will one or both regret what they've done later? How would they tell, if they were either of them drunk?
Regretting a decision has nothing to do with consent. Just because you consented to something does not mean you won't regret it or vice versa.
How drunk is too drunk?
This kind of situation is something that is extremely fuzzy to define, but has some easy implications for how people should be taught to handle the situation.
If you are drinking, know your judgement is impacted. The same applies for others.
If you know someone is not normally interested in you, assume they will still feel the same when they sober up and don't try anything while they are drunk.
If you are interested in a stranger while drunk, know your judgement is impacted and you are likely to misread cues so error on the side of caution. Better to miss an opportunity than to completely misread their intentions or miss signs that they are past their ability to make decisions.
Past that, aim for obvious signs of consent because once again, you are drunk and will probably misread their nonverbal cues.
To be honest the best outcomes came from listening to good friends who recommended for or against hooking up with someone because they were not the one looking to get some.
If your drinking you tend to forget your judgement is impacted.
I don't forget that it is impacted, but it is hard to tell how impacted it is.
Yeah, its seems in Canada law it depends on the circumstances. You can't consent if you're unconscious or if you've been drugged, or coerced... and, yeah, those seem to me like obvious cases of rape. But going by this article, two people being drunk doesn't automatically negate consent so long as they're both aware and willing.
Article Summary:
Consent is defined in the Criminal Code as "voluntary agreement of the complainant to engage in the sexual activity in question." Janine Benedet, a law professor at the University of British Columbia's Peter A. Allard School of Law, puts it this way: "The question is whether the person in their own mind wanted this sexual activity to take place." According to the code, no consent is obtained when the agreement comes from someone other than the complainant, the person is incapable of consenting or is induced by the accused abusing a position of trust, power or authority. Consent also does not exist if someone "expresses, by words or conduct, a lack of agreement to engage in the activity" or if the complainant, who previously consented, expresses "a lack of agreement to continue to engage in the activity."
In that decision, the court wrote that "when the complainant loses consciousness, she loses the ability to either oppose or consent to the sexual activity that occurs. "Finding that such a person is consenting would effectively negate the right of the complainant to change her mind at any point in the sexual encounter."
The code says there is no consent where someone is incapable of consenting. Various factors affect an individual's capacity to voluntarily agree to sexual activity, according to Canadian law. One factor courts sometimes consider is whether the accused was in a position of authority, said Benedet. "There are provisions in the Criminal Code that talk about consent being vitiated when someone is in a position of trust or authority," she said. Despite the idea of a position of trust impairing the ability for there to be consent, Benedet said there continues to be debate in the case law about "what kind of relationship really puts you in a position of authority."
Intoxication is also considered a factor that affects a complainant's capacity to consent to sexual activity. But in practice, Benedet said, the threshold of intoxication at which point someone is deemed incapable of consent varies depending on the circumstances. Where a complainant becomes intoxicated involuntarily, for instance, by being drugged, "courts [tend] to be very generous in terms of what level of intoxication would be sufficient to amount to incapacity." If a complainant consumes drugs or alcohol by choice, courts have "a very high threshold for incapacity, much higher than they would have applied in those involuntary intoxication cases."
Of course, it's extremely common too lol
Its a "two wrongs dont make a right" situation in many countries.
One person is drunk means they cant consent.
Both people are drunk doesn't magically eliminate that. It just means now neither of them can legally consent.
Think about the question reframed like so:
"Does being drunk make me immune to raping others?"
Obviously the answer becomes "no", right?
So .... they raped each other? They could both go to jail?
Wisconsin has in the past prosecuted two 17-year-olds as adults on sexual assault charges for having sex with each other. So, yeah, the legal system has no qualms about treating people as both victim and perpetrator for the same action.
That's..... stupid honestly
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I didn't pose the question to argue in the comments. That said, I would argue that the question I raised is very different from the question you've rephrased. It's obvious that if you (being drunk) force yourself on someone who is sober, then that is rape; it is less obvious whether two drunk people who think they're giving consent can (morally/ legally) give consent.
Here I don't mean to argue against your interpretation of consent because I wanted to hear different opinions in the first place. I just don't think that's a fair rephrase of the question because it renders the original question trivial.
it is less obvious whether two drunk people who think they’re giving consent can (morally/ legally) give consent.
It isn't. Neither of them can consent, full stop.
Whether it is rape however gets determined in court by a judge and potentially jury. Burden of proof is on the accuser etc etc.
If neither of them charge the either with rape, then neither of them have raped the other.
From a legal standpoint
If you don't have a rape conviction on your record, you are not a rapist... from a legal standpoint. Full stop.
The question was "can they consent to have sex with each other", which is technical inherently. Consent is a technical legal term.
Now, what many people perhaps are instead in this thread addressing is the question: "Is it ethical to have drunk sex with someone who is trying to consent"
And I would say yes, its fine, under the following conditions:
Condition 1: You have had consensual sex with this person before under sober circumstances
If there is already a pretense for consensual sex with this person and this is a followup to that, then it's much more reasonable to assume that they want to fuck again. If this is the first time sex is being initiated however, I would politely decline but let them know that if later, when they are sober, they still wanna fuck, then I am game. I have a personal rule that my first time I have sex with someone should be when stone cold sober... Not just for consent reasons (which is obvious as a reason), but I want the first time we have sex to be when I am at my best performance and able to make a good first impression.
Condition 2: There was already prior implied consent before they got drunk
If this person was hitting on me and indicating an interest in sex before they started drinking, and now that they have had a drink or two they are following up on that prior consent, that's also fine imo. If someone is chatting me up and flirting, indicating they are into me, and clearly signaling intent while sober... then they go get a bit tipsy and come back and indicate now they REALLY wanna fuck... that's also fine because it's clear even when sober prior they were interested.
In other words, if I have never had sex with them before and there was no indication when they were sober they wanted to have sex, and only once drunk suddenly now they wanna fuck... thats a big nope from me, I steer clear of that situation and politely decline as thats not going to be really consensual, and even from an ethical standpoint I can't bring myself to have sex with someone who only demonstrated interest once drunk.
So your position is: 1) You can never give consent while drunk. 2) It only counts as rape if someone is accused and convicted in court and 3) Although you can't consent while drunk, it is okay to have sex with people who have consented while sober. Am I understanding you right?
There are some holes that one could poke in this view, but it's an interesting one and I thank you for sharing it. It's good that we can have these conversations even though we disagree.
Not sure about the specifics of the law (I never drink alcohol, so I never bothered to read up on it), but from an ethical point of view, it highly depends on how drunk the two are. Is one of them significantly more intoxicated than the other?
Generally speaking, I'd recommend against it unless you aren't THAT drunk. When you are significantly intoxicated, you are less likely to be able to express your discomfort or notice/recognise your partner's discomfort, so there is always the risk that you, while drunk, might think you're having consensual sex while the reality was that the other was unable to consent and actively wanted to stop, and you misunderstood their intent.
Obviously it matters greatly if the two already know and trust each other, and are more likely to recognise when the other is uncomfortable compared to strangers hooking up for a one night stand, so there is another layer of consideration.
Generally speaking, probably best to avoid getting hammered and having sex.
No, any alcohol consumption means parties can not consent.
There is no way you actually believe that
The whole social system is centred around alcohol.
Anti European moment
Actually, you can never get consent for sure. It was only freshman philosophy class, but I remember studying philosophy of mind, and the concept of a philosophical zombie. No, not the shambling undead thinking deeply about the ethics of eating brains, but a thought experiment about a thing that behaves in all of the ways that you would expect of a human, but which has no conscious experience, and therefore no intent.
AI is helping to demonstrate the point that you can never know the mind of another person, and no way to know whether there is a conscious mind capable of consent behind the actions. Therefore, the best bet is to never have sex.
(The above is irony, in case Poe’s Law applies.)
Absolutely. It would depend on how drunk though imo. My wife and I have gotten drunk and had sex and ive done the same with my girlfriend(I'm poly not cheating). If someone was black out drunk or so drunk they clearly can't take care of themselves then I would say no
My spouse and I have drunk sex.
If I'm at a party and I've been with a person for a few months, have already had sex before, and already talked about doing it after I also see no issue.
If you are going to a party that is explicitly for sex and drugs, you should expect to have drunk sex with strangers. You know know this is going to happen before becoming intoxicated.
If you have talked about maybe making the attempt to date show up so a party on E and corner someone in a walk in pantry, that isn't fine.
But what if both people are on MDMA? I know I get very horny on it and fall in love with everything.
My second and third paragraph should have that covered.
If it is a situation where you know you get horny and someone is trying MDMA for the first time, you don't disclose that you do get horny, and you have sex. I would say that is a gray area that leans towards bad.
My first time trying edibles was with someone that I already had sex with and was planning on having sex with that night. If we got horny from that and fucked sooner than expected then that would be fine.
I guess to sum up, if you put someone in a situation where they don't have knowledge of the possibilities that is bad. Everyone already feels this when it comes to other things. Like hidden fees. They said x but y happened. Why should I expect y to happen? This is a new situation and I'm ignorant and you took advantage of it. Even if I got what I originally wanted the "price" changed.
Depends primarily on prior agreement.
If before being drunk both parties stated something along the lines of "let's get drunk and have sex" and both agreed then it is obviously consensual. Grabted consent can be removed at any point but if neither party states/shows intention to back out it is safe to assume that there was consent during the act even if both parties were drunk because they'd agreed to it beforehand.
An important distinction to make is between the prior scenario in which both people agree with each other and one where I (hypothetical I) go to an event where it is explicitly stated that there will be a lot of alcohol and sex, I know of this fact and I agree that I want to have sex whike drunk. This is because while the assumption of consent still holds true it is an assumption as I need to know beforehand what I'm getting into and it's not exactly a given that I would consent to having it with anyone at that party over specific people. This obviously complicates things. Essentially everyone involved would need to be on the same page as tonwhat they're getting into and agree beforehand that they want to have sex whike drunk and with whom.
If there's no prior agreement the safest bet is don't have sex with drunk people. Naturally if both are at an equal level of drunkenness (≠ equal amount of drinks) it is difficult to assign blame but that doesn't mean both consented. It also depends on the level of drunkenness: two buzzed people who are still capable of understanding what is going on, can still communicate and are just less inhibited can probably still consent, two passed out drunk people cannot consent.
[Granted,] consent can be removed at any point but if neither party states/shows intention to back out it is safe to assume that there was consent during the act even if both parties were drunk because they’d agreed to it beforehand.
And a state of intoxication can prevent someone from being able to express the desire to remove consent. It is entirely possible to start an encounter with that capability, and have an intoxicant ingested before the encounter take away that capability after the encounter has begun.
Let's complicate the hypothetical further: Both parties are fully sober, and agree to a sexual encounter, in which Party One will pretend to be blacked out. Party One ingests an intoxicant in secret, and actually blacks out after the encounter has begun. Is Party Two guilty of a crime?
In your hypothetical, party one is the guilty one. By lying, they've altered the situation and therefore doesn't actually have party two's consent (in the same way "stealthing" changes the equation).
Sure a state of intoxication can remove the ability to consent and that is something the two need to discuss beforehand too, but if here both are equally drunk or they agreed to it at any level of drunkenness, nobody can read minds so going by the information available to any person we can say there was consent because they agreed beforehand. If any part specifies "it's ok unless we get too drunk" then it's a different case of course.
I don't fully understand what you mean in the second question, is part one agreeing to pretend to be blacked out but then blacks themselves out without part two knowing? Or is part one not knowing they are getting knocked out drunk? Because in the first case, where Person 1 agrees to have sex when pretending to be blacked out but then secretly blacks themselves out then person 2 is innocent and if anything the victim since they consented to having sex with the other person pretending to be in an intoxicated state and not necessarily actually being in that state. If it's the second scenario then person 2 is completely guilty because person 1 did not agree to having sex while being blacked out
No. Don't get drunk with people to have sex.
I think you missed the point
It was a question, and the answer is no. You can't consent and they can't consent, if you're both inebriated. You can play what ever mental gymantics you want to basically justify rape (which you may be the victim of, I'm not calling you a rapist), but the reality is still the same, especially amongst strangers or people on a first date. I will die on this hill
Mmh. Depends on the exact circumstances. Needs to be judged one a case by case basis.
But once you're completely intoxicated, just lie there and sleep soundly in a puddle of vomit, I'd say this is definitely too much for consent. ...Drunk depends...
I'm sensing a vibe of male friendship here.
this post was submitted on 14 Sep 2023
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