A question to the grown adult men of the Escapist

[swoop2004]

Here is the situation. First of all, notice that I am female so this is most definitely not me we are talking about and the situation didn't happen to me, but never the less affects me deeply. Anyway here is the scenario:

A girl is very drunk. An 8-9 on the 1-10 scale of sober to passed out drooling. You know her, you know she has a serious partner and would never entertain you sober. You come on to her asking if you can touch her. she agrees. she seems into it. She asks you several times if you have a condom and you say no, but have sex with her anyway. She doesn't stop you.

I know scales suck, please explain yourself if you reply. On a scale of 1 to 10 where 1 is 'extremely sweet and respectful towards women' and 10 is 'this guy would have fucked her if she was passed out', how bad and/or normal is this guys mindset?

I obviously don't understand male sexuality at all and in my eyes this is extremely disgusting. Like, devastatingly disgusting. I have been in a situation where a girl was naked and begging for it and i left. She was so drunk and horny she was actually pissed at me at the time. But I couldn't have lived with myself the next day, I knew she would never have been there if she wasn't beyond capacity hammered.

What do you think?

Edit: She didn't come on to him, he came on to her and she didn't stop it or say no specifically. I hope that clears that up.

Edit 2: Yes he had also been drinking, but I am of the type that believes, like some posters that being drunk doesn't excuse behavior. In the example I gave of myself in the same situation, I was not only wasted, i was also (for better or worse) super high on coke (it was a long time ago). This means that, yes, she has some blame here for her own actions. She knows that and hates herself, but putting that aside, it's the guys side of this i'm interested in really just now.

Edit 3: I really wanted to try and keep it very impersonal so as to respect the situation and the fact that i have turned to the internet to understand it. I am the 'bloke' she 'cheated' on, so i am very much involved. It is an awkward situation and i love her very much, we have been together for four years and just moved in together. I wish to respect her here - she is absolutely disgusted with herself and can't stop crying. She knows she is wrong as well and neither of us are unclear about that fact, I'm just very curious about men's thoughts about this. Understand I'm not trying to hate on men. My experience with them sexually is limited I just wanted a gauge of your thoughts.

I would like to state first of all that I have a degree in chemistry and biochemistry, and that may or may not be effecting my judgement.

here are some links that might help you understand how attraction/love/lust work
http://people.howstuffworks.com/love4.htm
http://people.howstuffworks.com/love6.htm

beyond that it needs to be understood that alcohol lowers inhibitions in terms of social concerns. It lowers inhibitions by effecting the frontal lobe of the brain, and the pre-frontal cortex which is responsible for logical reasoning.
http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/neuro/neuro04/web2/epowell.html
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080403183048.htm

So her reasoning for doing something with him is that her biology was saying yes and her brain ability to say wait your in a relationship you shouldn't do this was highly impaired. Does that make the act wrong? well from a biological stand point, it actually makes her kind of right, humans have two forms of evolutionary advantage one is mating as much as you can with as many different individuals to provide the best offspring, the other is pair bonding and sticking with one mate. From a social standpoint however she would likely be considered very wrong, for "cheating".

What about the guy though? Well from a biological standpoint, once again he is in the right, attempting to reproduce and all that. For a social standpoint it is harder to say, why is this, well we really don't have things from his perspective, perhaps he felt he could be a better provider/mate than you, it can still be considered appropriate to "compete" for a potential mate. Beyond that we don't know if he has any interest at all, perhaps he has been pining for her from afar for a long time, and it took that situation for him to finally act on it. Its also possible that he was just horny, she was available, and she didn't say no (that is almost pure biology there though).

To really give you a true prospective you should ask him. Perhaps he doesn't like you and he was being petty, perhaps he too appreciates your girlfriend and the situation got the better of them(him being drunk preventing him from calculating the social implications of her cheating on you aka the pre-frontal cortex). Perhaps he wants to be in a relationship with the both of you, and he thought this would be a way for him to get in.

I can not answer these questions, the only one who can is him.

Anyone who attempts to do as you ask and rate on a scale of 1 to 10 how his treatment of the woman was does not have enough information to accurately do so, because we only have your/your girlfriends side. We do not know how he feels, or what he was thinking.

Also, your argument that she can get pregnant, so what, he can also choose to pair with her because she is pregnant with his child. If you reject her, and she is alone, it is not unreasonable to think he would volunteer to be there for her, once again, we can't know any of this with out knowing his side.

Something else for you to consider, is asking him if he has a condom, is suggesting that she wants it to go further than him "touching her" unless of course, he first asked if she wanted to have sex. But that would then beg the question as to why she would ask multiple times if he had a condom.

My wife has cheated on me before we got married, I have been there but I understood that it is a lot more complicated than people want to make it. I realize that biology has a lot more of an effect than we give it credit, and I also know from documents the effects of alcohol on the brain. Congrats on your ability to still use your pre-frontal cortex under the effect of drugs, but that does not mean everyone else is like you, also it can mean that you were not having a biological drive to mate with the drunk female as you are also female, yes there is biological evidence for homosexuality, but that does not mean that all people practicing homosexuality have the biology to support it.

wow that was a bit more lengthy than I was intending...

 

[Chefodeath]

Alright OP, heres the reason why you can't really be pissed at the guy as something other than "the object which your partner used to cheat on you."

If you believed that people when drunk, as both the guy and your partner were, are not responsible for their actions, then you can't hold him to guilt obviously.

If you believe that people when drunk are responsible for their actions, then you still can't really hold him to guilt. Your partner, though drunk, still had agency. She CHOSE to cheat on you. Its basically the same as if she and the guy met on the street and had this conversation.

Guy: Hey, want to have sex?
Girl: Sure. I have a girlfriend, but I don't want to be faithful to her.
Guy: uh...ok

You can only hold the guy as guilty if you eliminate your partner's right to consent. So unless you want to say she was too drunk to make a decision, or that it wasn't her decision to make, you really can't say anything.

On a personal note however, I think its a rather trashy thing to do. If a woman wants to sleep with me, really wants to sleep with me, she can go break up with her partner first.

 

[WickedSkin]

No means no and yes means yes. I guess.

 

[Jake Lewis Clayton]

Like you said alchohol does not excuse your actions.

So woman got what she wanted at the time and deserves to suffer any repercussions.

It's not the guys fault she is in a relationship and cheated while pissed.

 

[DubMan]

So, here's a piece of advice from some pretentious dickwad who listens to too much Minor Threat and reads too much Kant:

Ditch bar life, stop drinking. When people are in complete control of their actions, problems like this evaporate. I feel a personal moral obligation to respect my capacity as a rational actor by never impairing my cognizance in the first place.

More to the point, none of the actions taken by anybody here speak to some meta-"male sexuality." The question here is one of morals. It's not really enough to merely identify that the people in this scenario were morally wrong for numerous reasons, it's most important to think about what you can do as a person to uphold your duty towards your peers. You need to encourage people to act rightly and have self-respect as an end in itself. Your friend and her abusive not-friend both took action as they did to move towards pleasure and escape from pain - they find that going to parties and getting shit-faced to be good and preferable for this reason. I find that acting in accordance with some sort of a priori basis produces a world where problems turn from those of the superficial and ultimately destructive towards problems of virtue and self-actualization.

/Blah blah

 

[astrav1]

Here is the situation. First of all, notice that I am female so this is most definitely not me we are talking about and the situation didn't happen to me, but never the less affects me deeply. Anyway here is the scenario:

A girl is very drunk. An 8-9 on the 1-10 scale of sober to passed out drooling. You know her, you know she has a serious partner and would never entertain you sober. You come on to her asking if you can touch her. she agrees. she seems into it. She asks you several times if you have a condom and you say no, but have sex with her anyway. She doesn't stop you.

I know scales suck, please explain yourself if you reply. On a scale of 1 to 10 where 1 is 'extremely sweet and respectful towards women' and 10 is 'this guy would have fucked her if she was passed out', how bad and/or normal is this guys mindset?

I obviously don't understand male sexuality at all and in my eyes this is extremely disgusting. Like, devastatingly disgusting. I have been in a situation where a girl was naked and begging for it and i left. She was so drunk and horny she was actually pissed at me at the time. But I couldn't have lived with myself the next day, I knew she would never have been there if she wasn't beyond capacity hammered.

What do you think?

Edit: She didn't come on to him, he came on to her and she didn't stop it or say no specifically. I hope that clears that up.

Edit 2: Yes he had also been drinking, but I am of the type that believes, like some posters that being drunk doesn't excuse behavior. In the example I gave of myself in the same situation, I was not only wasted, i was also (for better or worse) super high on coke (it was a long time ago). This means that, yes, she has some blame here for her own actions. She knows that and hates herself, but putting that aside, it's the guys side of this i'm interested in really just now.

Edit 3: I really wanted to try and keep it very impersonal so as to respect the situation and the fact that i have turned to the internet to understand it. I am the 'bloke' she 'cheated' on, so i am very much involved. It is an awkward situation and i love her very much, we have been together for four years and just moved in together. I wish to respect her here - she is absolutely disgusted with herself and can't stop crying. She knows she is wrong as well and neither of us are unclear about that fact, I'm just very curious about men's thoughts about this. Understand I'm not trying to hate on men. My experience with them sexually is limited I just wanted a gauge of your thoughts.

Edit 4: Setting is important here it seems. This was a work party at a farm out of town. She had worked there for the summer and this was the last night party. She was already hammered and stuck there having planned to stay before he arrived. He was the bosses wife's brother. He apparently came on to her after she had gone to the farmhouse to bed.

Typical douchbag. Ultimately though it's the dumb bitches fault for going along with it, she should have said no and didn't so it is her fault no matter what. If she had said no that would be different. Did he know she was in a relationship anyway?

 

[sniddy_v1legacy]

Happy to put this at a 10

I'm sorry if she's THAT far gone - it's rape

...and I can tell you I've been faced with my own opportunity with a girl who was about a 6 on your scale of drunkness and a solid 10 on hotness....the most fantastic arse I've seen....

But anyway, yeh she was....not slurring stumbling around drunk, but fairly inebriated - one more pint or a large wine and she'd be really clearly visibly drunk - but she was drunk

She'd recently joined team, out with me and a female friend....end of evening my friend had gone, invited up to the room for a nightcap - I'm no expert but there was more being said between lines I'm pretty sure and I'm shite at reading signs normally so....said no

...Yeh I know I did the right thing but I still kick myself and ask 'what if' it's not an easy decision to make - right or wrong is pretty hard to differentiate when you too are a 6+ drunk...I'm not making excuses, he was wrong. But I can say it takes a lot of willpower to stop and turn down sex...and alcohol, willpower and making right decisions are not a great mix...but if I couldn't trust myself I wouldn't drink...

He was wrong, verrrry wrong...but it's a tricky one to face down, trust me

 

[Hennofletch]

You don't take advantage of vulnerable women. Ever.

Having said that in this case it looks like it took two to tango.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Yeah, OP...I think you're trying to make this into something it isn't. It's not a gender issues situation. It's not about why men can't control themselves. I think you want to rationalize your girlfriend cheating on you, and create a scenario where it was outside forces that were to blame. It was that OTHER guy. It was what they did to her. Not about what she did to you. But in the end, that's really all you're left with. Your girlfriend cheated on you. She had an opportunity, and...drunk or not...she took it.

To quote Marlo Stanfield...

"You want it to be one way. But it's the other way."

And now this thread should be about everyone's favorite Wire quotes!

 

[Dragonpit]

Honestly, yeah, the guy is pretty high up there on the douche chart. Seven or eight out of ten. But the girl isn't any better. She's just as guilty as he is.

 

[Zarmi]

That scenario is called drunken abuse, which I see as just as absolutely hidious as rape. Of course, if she's too stupid to just say no, her fault, but I think the guy is just as bad for doing it. Jail time.

 

[Zobran Fobran]

10++

The man described is full-on rapist and nothing sort thereof. The individual in question was both in state where she was incapable of giving consent.

Honestly, yeah, the guy is pretty high up there on the douche chart. Seven or eight out of ten. But the girl isn't any better. She's just as guilty as he is.

Guilty of what exactly?

Getting drunk?
Letting someone touch her?
Being incapable of stopping someone as he violates her against her will?

Which one of these is a makes just as "Guilty" as rapist?

 

[MorgulMan]

Well, for me, I'd probably say he's a 7 or 8 on the sleezebag scale, where 8-10 is some form of criminal sexual assault. In my mind, context doesn't matter here, but that's because I'm a moral absolutist. Having sex outside of the confines of marriage is always wrong. Full stop. (In the interests of full disclosure, I have myself, and it was wrong full stop when I did it too, even if it was with my soon to be wife.)

However, since that's a worldview few here would agree with me on, I'll say my judgement stands even if you don't accept it.

For starters, qui tacet consentire videtur may fly in the statehouse, or the courtroom, but not in the bedroom, IMO. Just "not objecting" to sex isn't enough, even if she either implicitly or explicitly consents to other physical affection.

Now, there could be an argument against this point of view, except the knave turned it into another argument against him. You say she asked repeatedly if he had a condom. The nature of a condom being what it is, that certainly indicates INTEREST on her part in intercourse. However, I would argue that it is, at most, provisional consent to intercourse. IF you have a condom THEN let's get it on. But, since he did not have (or at least did not use) a condom, he clearly violated what was (from your retelling) her ONLY EXPRESSED WILL, that he use a condom. Clearly she would have articulated herself more fully if she were more sober, but that one point comes shining pretty clearly through, and he is a cad for disobeying her will.

Finally, of course, is the matter that she was plastered. A good argument could be made that she was in a mental state at that time such that she was unable to properly assess the situation and make a decision that would lead to consent. He deliberately proceeded in an aggressive manner with the intent and end of having sex with her. He clearly knew she was severely impaired by alcohol, and I would be likely to assume that he chose her, other considerations aside, PRECISELY because she was. He does not get a free pass for being inebriated himself. He clearly seemed to be sober enough to steer where the interaction was going. He took advantage of a woman who was practically incapacitated, and who (to my mind) clearly gave one simple condition for sexual intercourse, which he ignored. He should be shunned by any right-thinking community, and disowned by his family, if he has not immediately and profoundly expressed his regret and repentance to her for his inexcusable violation of her person.

There are no extenuating circumstances. It doesn't matter where he was. It doesn't matter what she was wearing, or how she danced, or what her sexual history is or what kind of reputation she has. She was not "asking for it". Walking up to him and saying, clearly and soberly "Please, have sex with me," is asking for it. Lying there and saying it's cool with her is he gropes her is not. Frankly, any other circumstances, such as knowing if she was in an exclusive relationship with you, only makes it worse for him to have done this.

tl;dr- He's a scumbag. He is a fool, a knave, a cad, and a scoundrel, and dying in a fire would be too good for him.

 

[Kanatatsu]

Sounds to me like a couple of drunk people made a mutual mistake and everyone involved should just move on with lessons learned.

Nobody needs to be pilloried because of this.

 

[funguy2121]

Here is the situation. First of all, notice that I am female so this is most definitely not me we are talking about and the situation didn't happen to me, but never the less affects me deeply. Anyway here is the scenario:

A girl is very drunk. An 8-9 on the 1-10 scale of sober to passed out drooling. You know her, you know she has a serious partner and would never entertain you sober. You come on to her asking if you can touch her. she agrees. she seems into it. She asks you several times if you have a condom and you say no, but have sex with her anyway. She doesn't stop you.

I know scales suck, please explain yourself if you reply. On a scale of 1 to 10 where 1 is 'extremely sweet and respectful towards women' and 10 is 'this guy would have fucked her if she was passed out', how bad and/or normal is this guys mindset?

I obviously don't understand male sexuality at all and in my eyes this is extremely disgusting. Like, devastatingly disgusting. I have been in a situation where a girl was naked and begging for it and i left. She was so drunk and horny she was actually pissed at me at the time. But I couldn't have lived with myself the next day, I knew she would never have been there if she wasn't beyond capacity hammered.

What do you think?

Edit: She didn't come on to him, he came on to her and she didn't stop it or say no specifically. I hope that clears that up.

Edit 2: Yes he had also been drinking, but I am of the type that believes, like some posters that being drunk doesn't excuse behavior. In the example I gave of myself in the same situation, I was not only wasted, i was also (for better or worse) super high on coke (it was a long time ago). This means that, yes, she has some blame here for her own actions. She knows that and hates herself, but putting that aside, it's the guys side of this i'm interested in really just now.

Edit 3: I really wanted to try and keep it very impersonal so as to respect the situation and the fact that i have turned to the internet to understand it. I am the 'bloke' she 'cheated' on, so i am very much involved. It is an awkward situation and i love her very much, we have been together for four years and just moved in together. I wish to respect her here - she is absolutely disgusted with herself and can't stop crying. She knows she is wrong as well and neither of us are unclear about that fact, I'm just very curious about men's thoughts about this. Understand I'm not trying to hate on men. My experience with them sexually is limited I just wanted a gauge of your thoughts.

Edit 4: Setting is important here it seems. This was a work party at a farm out of town. She had worked there for the summer and this was the last night party. She was already hammered and stuck there having planned to stay before he arrived. He was the bosses wife's brother. He apparently came on to her after she had gone to the farmhouse to bed.

I agree, being drunk doesn't excuse the behavior, not his, nor hers. If she isn't conscientious enough to insist on a condom or tell him no then she doesn't deserve any better, just as if he doesn't feel like he can get laid without getting hammered and getting the target of his affection hammered as well, he doesn't deserve any better.

 

[Princess Rose]

Edit 4: Setting is important here it seems. This was a work party at a farm out of town. She had worked there for the summer and this was the last night party. She was already hammered and stuck there having planned to stay before he arrived. He was the bosses wife's brother. He apparently came on to her after she had gone to the farmhouse to bed.

Wait, what?

I had the impression that this happened on a sofa, in front of other people (at least the initial fondling) and then moved into a bedroom like space (or just happened on the sofa).

But she went to bed, and he followed her in, and started things? Um... yeah, that's sounding a lot more like sexual assualt. Particularly considering Canadian law.

I mean, screw "drunk" - if she was half asleep and he did that, then that's really getting into bad territory. And he followed her in there... yeah... that's starting to tip me the other direction on this.