So are drunk people responsible or not?

[Saetha]

Well, to me, there isn't a difference. People are responsible if they drive while drunk and people are responsible when they sleep with someone while drunk. End of story. Because even if they're drunk to the point of making grievously impaired decisions, they still chose to drink to that point. It's not like it's some secret that alcohol, especially in large amounts, can screw up your judgement. If you choose to drink it anyway, then you're responsible for whatever you do afterwards. It doesn't matter if someone else should've noticed you were drunk and not taken advantage, because unless they forced you to get drunk (Or sat by knowing you were) then you're just passing the blame for your own bad decision. Of course, the exception would be if you're actually raped while drunk, or forced to drink and then asked to have sex, but otherwise, it was your decision. You've got to own up to that. I mean, drunk people can make other terrible choices while under the influence. They can get a tattoo, or blow their savings on some enormous, non-refundable purchase, or any other number of consequential things. We don't blame the people who provided the service. We don't make it illegal to service drunk people. We make them take responsibility for whatever they did. This is no different.

Call it cold, but that's what I think. Sleeping someone who's obviously drunk may be low, but so's breaking up by text, or cheating on your spouse. Low =/= legally wrong.

Granted, I don't drink at all, so I'm pretty cold towards anyone who tries to use "I was drunk" as an excuse for stupid actions. Don't want to do something stupid? Don't get drunk. Boom, problem solved.

 

[Kotaro]

I think that a person is in fact responsible for their actions while drunk. It was your choice to drink, so you have to take responsibility for the results.
There really isn't much else to say about the matter.

 

[babinro]

You chose to drink?
You are 100% responsible for all of your actions.

People should not be allowed to use drunkeness as a legal pass to break the law. This is coming from someone who doesn't drink or try to alter their perception of reality in any way. I've never even been drunk in my life actually. So I'm completely ignorant to this subject matter first hand.

 

[Autumnflame]

according to popular SJW theory only if you are a man.
he is responsible for his actions no matter the state of inebriation from alcohol or drugs.

A woman on the other hand is not.

I believe if you choose to get drunk or high then you choose to have responsibility for you actions

 

[Blow_Pop]

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".

There are also juries, prosecutors, judges, and police officers who operate under that logic which is why a LOT of rapes go unreported (and sure as hell why my 3 went unreported).

If you choose to get drunk but you know your judgement is impaired (like severely to the point of not really knowing right from wrong and that can go to any level of drunkenness) and you are trying to be responsible (ie: at a friend's house, give friend keys, plan to sleep it off) and someone tries to have sex with you I'd still say that's rape since as stated impaired judgement can't properly give consent. I've known people like that. Who were either raped by their friend, friend's sibling, friend's family, friends of friend, etc and these were people that they've explicitly already told no. But knew that if they were drunk that they had issues saying yes or no and took advantage of the situation (which is despicable behaviour in and of itself) and then when the authorities were brought in the person who was taken advantage of was made to feel like it was entirely their fault because heaven forbid someone decided to get drunk because maybe they needed their brain shut off for a few hours. The American justice system sucks for rape survivors (and moreso if the person who was raped is male or if it comes out that they've been in BDSM relationships or even if they were dating the person that raped them).

Anyway onto the topic, while that logic does make sense OP, it's wrong. When you get your drivers license in America (or at least California as I'm not sure about the other states), you basically sign a thing that says you will be responsible and NOT drive drunk. I don't care how drunk you are, if you think it's a good idea to drive intoxicated you are 100% responsible for your actions and anything that happens behind the wheel. You KNOW prior to drinking and driving what the consequences can be. You know what will happen if you are caught drinking and driving.

So, knowing that you run a high risk of an accident/killing someone/winding up in the er or under arrest before you drink and drive and choosing to do so anyway =/= not knowing that if you drink that x person is going to take advantage of you.

I have met quite a few people who genuinely DON'T know what happens while they're drunk and retain next to no memory afterwards. These are mostly friends of my best friend's sister. So anyone who would use that to their advantage is kinda scum at that point.

That's what the whole "yes means yes" campaigns where about. No coherent response dose not mean yes.

That's part of it but the yes means yes campaign has quite a few flaws

 

[Tsun Tzu]

Er...it seems like a few posters in here are conflating drunken rape with drunken sex. The OP mentioned the latter, not the former.

Not the same thing.

But yes, people should be held responsible for THEIR decisions while drunk. Consenting to sex while intoxicated is no less of a decision than choosing to get behind the wheel of a car.

Someone forcing the decision on you is another matter entirely...much like the person getting hit by the drunk's car, they had no choice in the matter and, therefore, are victims. Their level of inebriation at that point is negligible when determining guilt (with caveats, of course, depending on specific circumstances) of the involved parties.

 

[manic_depressive13]

The kind of drunk people mean when they talk about "too drunk to consent" tends to be well past the point where someone would be able to find their car and start it. It's incoherent, barely conscious levels of drunk. I personally wish they'd leave out the drunk part all together. All it does is cause indignation and confusion. Less focus on whether the person is "drunk" and more focus on not having sex with anyone who is unable to give clear and enthusiastic consent. Someone slumped against you mumbling something that could have been a "yes" does NOT meet these criteria.

 

[manic_depressive13]

I feel like people are kind of misunderstanding something about consent in a legal sense in its relation to alcohol. And that is that you can't consent to sex while intoxicated. It doesn't matter if you scream yes a million times, flirt with someone, and do everything short of actually jumping the other person, you have not consented to sex, because you are legally incapable of doing so.

Do you have a source for this? The sources I consulted does not corroborate this.

 

[happyninja42]

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.

I think your comment about "the victim being drunk" is sort of the point though. I'm not sure if you are referring to drunken blackouts in your example, or just any situation where someone has had alcohol and then had sex. I think his main question is when the person who is drunk is still concious, and is making clear sexual advances on someone. It's not that they are passive in the scenario, but actively engaging another person, and trying to have sex. Is this person not responsible for their own actions, just like the drunk driver? And if not, then why have the difference in responsibility?

A woman gets drunk, and makes the choice (under impaired senses) to have sex with someone. Not her fault.

A woman gets drunk, and makes the choice (under impaired senses) to go driving. Her fault.

In both scenarios above, even if they don't remember it happening, that doesn't mean they didn't make the choice.

Personally I don't see why this is the case. I don't agree with the idea that just because someone is under the influence of mind altering substances, they are free of blame for what they do, and neither does our court system. I've done plenty of drugs in my life, and if anyone tried to tell me that I didn't make the choices I made, and that it wasn't my fault what I did, I would think they were crazy.

Now I agree that it's a very tricky subject when talking about sex, and possible rape scenarios, but it's still an issue. Personally, the few times I did some kind of drug and had sex, I was fully aware of it, and wanted it, and still wanted it after the fact. The only time in fact that I ever regretted deciding to have sex with someone, I was sober. So it's not just an issue of "sober regret" I think. If someone had tried to say that I was raped by the woman I had sex with, simply because I wasn't sober, well, again I would think they were crazy.

 

[Chaos Isaac]

They are responsible.

You purposefully intoxicated yourself, any actions taken thereafter should be your own fault. It is your responsibility.

Then is assuming you're doing it willingly, afterwards shenanigans but you should get what I mean.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

That's bullshit. You made a conscious decision to get drunk and thus should be held accountable for anything you did while drunk.

 

[peruvianskys]

The massive difference is that one action (driving drunk) is something you do yourself, while the other (sex) is something done to you or at least done *between* people.

A better comparison would be driving drunk and raping someone while drunk - both are things you do, and both are crimes.

 

[manic_depressive13]

Edit:
Also, loving all the people who's stance on being raped while intoxicated is that it was your fault for being drunk. Apparently, the other person in the equation who's taking advantage of an intoxicated person for sex is ignored in favor of trying to equivocate the two.

Yeah that's pretty damn depressing.

But honestly I'm glad that being drunk doesn't disqualify enthusiastic consent. Drunk sex feels really damn good. It will be a sad day when my partner and I can't sleep with each other after a few drinks without both of us feeling like rapists.

 

[Ryan Minns]

I am and will forever be responsible for all decisions I make that are connected to other decisions I make. I chose to get wasted and was educated enough to know my mind changes when this takes place hence any decision I made with this is completely on me. There are too many issues in life outside of my control so why would I claim things I can control are one of them?

 

[chadachada123]

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.

We're not talking about rape. We're talking about cases where consent is given. If drunken sex is rape, going on a road trip with a drunk passenger is kidnapping. It's patently absurd.

Came in here pretty much to say this.

My example usually is more along the lines of "if you convince a shitfaced person to come chill with you in a park, it's functionally no different from convincing a shitfaced person to have sex." I like your example better though.

 

[Something Amyss]

Also, loving all the people who's stance on being raped while intoxicated is that it was your fault for being drunk. Apparently, the other person in the equation who's taking advantage of an intoxicated person for sex is ignored in favor of trying to equivocate the two.

This topic is too depressing for me to actually dwell too much on, but with that statement, I seriously wonder if people would be so zealous to defend someone who were, say, to take a person's wallet while drunk.