So are drunk people responsible or not?

[Queen Michael]

I read something that made me think. Someone wrote that if you can't consent to sex when you're drunk because of how impaired your thinking is, then drunk drivers shouldn't be held responsible for their drunk driving either, since they're too drunk to be held responsible for their actions.

I don't like to admit it, but I can't really find any major flaws in that logic. So does this mean that really drunk people can consent to sex, or that they shouldn't be held responsible for driving drunk?

 

[tippy2k2]

There is one key difference to me though between someone having sex while drunk and someone drinking and driving...

Sex while drunk = Two to Tango
Drive while drunk = You alone

While it's a very gray area (what if you're both drunk? Did you rape each other?), having sex with someone who is drunk potentially means that someone is taking advantage of someone else. Like I stated, that can be very gray in either direction but drunk driving is pretty black & white.

 

[Euryalus]

The idea is that if you're drunk, you're too "not there" to be responsible for your actions because responsibility requires you to know what you're doing. In shitfaced occasions you're not responsible for what you do when drunk... But you are responsible for getting drunk and therefore the responsibility in theory is still yours.

The difference between the car and the rape issue is that you're not raping someone, you're being raped. That's not your fault even if you did get drunk.

Now in practice that philosophical basis for culpability would mean if someone forced alcohol down your throat and then you raped someone your responsibility would be diminished because your ability to make informed choices was impaired or gone.

In practice? Drunk people get blamed for whatever they do even if in rare circumstances a defense similar to the basis of the insanity defense would apply.

 

[Vendor-Lazarus]

While it's a very gray area (what if you're both drunk? Did you rape each other?), having sex with someone who is drunk means someone is taking advantage of someone else.

This statement seems very incongruous. Why does someone have to be taken advantage of?
Would you care to elaborate on your thoughts?

 

[Smooth Operator]

Hopefully someone with knowledge in legal jargon can make this clearer.
But from my understanding you carry responsibility in all cases, however there are mitigating circumstances that will sway things if you were acting on your own judgement or under coercion.

You could apply the same thing to a child taking his parents car for a joy ride, or a child being told by his parents to take their car for a joy ride. When someone with greater ability to judge a situation pushed them into an action the responsibility will weigh heavily onto their side, but the child still drove that car and broke the law.

 

[tippy2k2]

While it's a very gray area (what if you're both drunk? Did you rape each other?), having sex with someone who is drunk means someone is taking advantage of someone else.

This statement seems very incongruous. Why does someone have to be taken advantage of?
Would you care to elaborate on your thoughts?

That's why I called it a gray area. There is no real definition of when it is taking advantage of someone and when it is someone who happens to be drunk doing what they want to do.

Granted, I meant that end to be part of the gray area, not that they were ALWAYS being taken advantage of. I will amend that to clear that up.

 

[JoJo]

I'm not entirely sure where I stand on drunken sex, it's easy to theorise about consent on the Internet but in the real world most people get drunk and many, perhaps even a majority, have had drunken sex some time in their life. Is it only non-consensual if you regret it afterwards? Not easy questions, I believe many courts distinguish between being intoxicated (simply being drunk) and being incapacitated (actually unable to consent due to being very drunk).

Drink driving or any drunken crimes on the other hand are pretty clear cut. It would be unworkable for the legal system to let people off for being drunk whilst committing a crime, otherwise criminals could just pre-drink before crimes so they could get off scott free. Mitigation in sentencing could be applied however in cases where an otherwise law-abiding defendant went off the rails while drunk, I suppose, in tandem with being registered with an alcoholic recovery group at-least.

 

[Lilani]

I read something that made me think. Someone wrote that if you can't consent to sex when you're drunk because of how impaired your thinking is, then drunk drivers shouldn't be held responsible for their drunk driving either, since they're too drunk to be held responsible for their actions.

I don't like to admit it, but I can't really find any major flaws in that logic. So does this mean that really drunk people can consent to sex, or that they shouldn't be held responsible for driving drunk?

The difference between drunken rape and drunken driving, at least in the way they usually happen, is that in the case of drunken rape the victim is drunk, and in the case of drunken driving the perpetrator is drunk. I'm not sure about all cases, but I'm pretty sure in many cases people have been prosecuted for raping someone while drunk (that is, they were the one drunk and they were the one who raped someone). So it's less about who's drunk and more about who committed the crime.

I will agree that treating drunk drivers like murderers is not the way to go, however. People who drive drunk, especially chronically, aren't criminals. They're addicts. They don't need jail time, they need support. That is one of many things our criminal system gets wrong about both alcohol and drug addicts, at least here in the US.

 

[Vendor-Lazarus]

While it's a very gray area (what if you're both drunk? Did you rape each other?), having sex with someone who is drunk means someone is taking advantage of someone else.

This statement seems very incongruous. Why does someone have to be taken advantage of?
Would you care to elaborate on your thoughts?

That's why I called it a gray area. There is no real definition of when it is taking advantage of someone and when it is someone who happens to be drunk doing what they want to do.

Granted, I meant that end to be part of the gray area, not that they were ALWAYS being taken advantage of. I will amend that to clear that up.

Ah, I see now. I would agree that is indeed a very grey area.
Both could drink and then only one may regret it afterwards yet still press charges successfully.

May take on it would be for basing validity of the case on evidence.
No evidence just means word against word and dismissed.
Better to free a guilty person than incarcerate an innocent an all.

 

[Qwurty2.0]

If you get drunk and have sex, something is being done to you by someone else that may or may not be drunk, and it may or may not happen if you are drunk. typically, people will usually only consider it rape if you are soooo drunk that you can't really consent (i.e., you're not even consciously aware of what is happening). If you get a little tipsy and have sex with someone, most will just say you made a stupid decision and are therefore responsible.

If you get drunk and hit someone while driving you did something to someone else as result of your drinking, and they usually have no say in the matter before they are hit by a two-ton projectile. You are responsible for driving the vehicle, they had no say in getting hit.

 

[DementedSheep]

I always feel like whenever people are talking about drunk rape half the people are talking about different things. You weren't raped if you made a bad decision to sleep with someone while drunk. It is rape if you were so out of it that it's less a case of saying yes when you wouldn't normally say yes and more you just couldn't say no. Someone knocked out drunk cannot give consent. That's what the whole "yes means yes" campaigns where about. No coherent response dose not mean yes.

 

[The Almighty Aardvark]

I always feel like whenever people are talking about drunk rape half the people are talking about different things. You weren't raped if you made a bad decision to sleep with someone while drunk. It is rape if you were so out of it that it's less a case of saying yes when you wouldn't normally say yes and more you just couldn't say no. Someone knocked out drunk cannot give consent. That's what the whole "yes means yes" campaigns where about. No coherent response dose not mean yes.

Yeah, I'd say that it goes even a little beyond that too. By the stories I get from female friends there are a lot of guys who don't take no or disinterest for an answer. Guys who'll keep pressing until they get a yes (or more accurately, until they stop getting a no), or even those who assume that you don't mean what you're saying and you literally have to shove them off of you to communicate your disinterest. I know at least one who person just goes along with it because she's learned that often enough just saying no doesn't mean shit..

Now imagine one of these people with someone too out of it to put up the necessary amount of resistance to their come ons. There's enough people who assume that they have consent once you stop objecting. Drunk or not, you should make absolutely sure they want to do something before you go ahead and do it.

But I agree with your main point. People aren't talking about situations where someone drunk is coming on to you and initiating it just as much as you are. That isn't rape, at the worst that's being an asshole (depending on the circumstances)

 

[Trude]

Not including rape, yes, because the ontological principle carries over their choice to get shit faced into everything that comes after.

 

[White Lightning]

Yeah. You choose to get shit faced, and as such you have to take responsibility for whatever you do in that drunken state.

Unless you're legitimately raped (drugged, physically forced, magical seduction, etc) drunken sex is just that, drunken sex. It's your own fault for getting that drunk in the first place, just like it's the drunk drivers fault for a crash.

 

[Johnny Impact]

People are 100% responsible for their own decisions. This extends to alcohol and drug use, and actions undertaken while drunk/high. You chose to get drunk, therefore everything you did while drunk is your fault, up to and including agreeing to have sex when you normally wouldn't, or striking a child while operating a vehicle shit-faced. "Well, I was drunk/high/angry/whatever, therefore I'm not accountable" has never, is not, and will never be a valid defense.

Don't like it? Don't get drunk.

There is, however, a substantial difference between giving consent under impaired judgment and someone taking advantage when you pass out. Someone who takes advantage of drunkenness to obtain consent might be a sleazebag, but consent is still the operative word in that scenario. Someone who takes advantage of a passed-out drunk who cannot say no is on a whole other level of scum.

The question is who has agency. A conscious drunk has the ability (though impaired) to choose yes or no, just as potential sleazebags have the ability to choose whether or not to take advantage.

 

[CrystalShadow]

There is one key difference to me though between someone having sex while drunk and someone drinking and driving...

Sex while drunk = Two to Tango
Drive while drunk = You alone

While it's a very gray area (what if you're both drunk? Did you rape each other?), having sex with someone who is drunk potentially means that someone is taking advantage of someone else. Like I stated, that can be very gray in either direction but drunk driving is pretty black & white.

That's one of those strange technicalities. It is by definition basically impossible for two people to rape each-other simultaniously, given what rape is meant to be. If you are attempting to perform a sexual act on someone against their will, then presumably you... Well, anyway, the same issue applies in statutory rape cases where both participants were under-age (except it then becomes the even more bizarre situation where probably neither of them did something the other didn't consent to, but thanks to some funny legal technicalities, neither of them is legally allowed to give consent, making them guilty of having sex without consent...)

Ugh. Laws can be such a mess.

It doesn't help the headaches this causes that most of this stuff is grounded in the concept of 'free will', which is a far more nebulous concept than people generally like to think. (And while it somewhat hinges on what the definitions used are, most scientific research points to 'free will' being little more than an illusion, which, if true would render a lot of legal principles moot)

 

[DementedSheep]

I always feel like whenever people are talking about drunk rape half the people are talking about different things. You weren't raped if you made a bad decision to sleep with someone while drunk. It is rape if you were so out of it that it's less a case of saying yes when you wouldn't normally say yes and more you just couldn't say no. Someone knocked out drunk cannot give consent. That's what the whole "yes means yes" campaigns where about. No coherent response dose not mean yes.

Yeah, I'd say that it goes even a little beyond that too. By the stories I get from female friends there are a lot of guys who don't take no or disinterest for an answer. Guys who'll keep pressing until they get a yes (or more accurately, until they stop getting a no), or even those who assume that you don't mean what you're saying and you literally have to shove them off of you to communicate your disinterest. I know at least one who person just goes along with it because she's learned that often enough just saying no doesn't mean shit..

Now imagine one of these people with someone too out of it to put up the necessary amount of resistance to their come ons. There's enough people who assume that they have consent once you stop objecting. Drunk or not, you should make absolutely sure they want to do something before you go ahead and do it.

But I agree with your main point. People aren't talking about situations where someone drunk is coming on to you and initiating it just as much as you are. That isn't rape, at the worst that's being an asshole (depending on the circumstances)

True, you would think that would be obvious but then I have seen people who seem to operate under the logic of "if they didn't fight back hard enough to seriously injure me they wanted it".

 

[DefunctTheory]

Diminished capacity is only a defense for things that were beyond your control, or for events that transpire while your drunk that you could not possibly have predicted before you started drinking. That covers things like 'drunk rape,' and contract law.

It does not, however, cover drunk driving, because the danger it poses to others is not unforeseen. Everyone is aware of the inherit dangers of driving under the influence, so if you do not take steps before drinking to mitigate this, its still your fault.