Victims, community need to speak up

Who is this girl? She can’t work for the State News because this piece was actually worth reading. Nice article.

Good article. Makes me uncomfortable to read, and I’m pretty sure that’s a good thing.

Nice article. Normally when someone says that victims should speak up, someone points out that they’ve never been raped and don’t know what it’s like.

You’re either responsible or not responsible for your actions when drunk. If you’re not, time to let some drunk drivers off the hook since they weren’t in the right frame of mind when they decided to get behind the wheel.

Isn’t being nice to a chick for the express purpose of getting laid also predation?

Violence against all people should be ended- women, men, gays, straights, etc…

Victims should speak up. This article is great because it informs women and men about the process involved when a sexual assault occurs. I feel horrible that the author’s friend was gang-raped; however, in examining cases like the Duke Lacrosse scandal last year, it evinces the necessity for due process and accurate evidence collection to be maintained. If a crime is committed against you in any area, you have a responsibility to maintain the evidence- otherwise our system of justice simply becomes “he said/ she said.” Sadly, the first response to a rape is often to “cleanse oneself,” but only through adequate public information can we show victims that is a course of action that will hinder your chances of social justice.

However, alcohol predation is not as black and white as the author sounds. Very few people expressly get someone drunk just so they can sleep with them. (Which if you are worried about that, you have the choice not to get drunk. No where is your right to be inebriated protected.)

Alcohol is a social catalyst- for men and women. The author completely ignores the idea that women get drunk for that very reason sometimes. While certainly “blackout” drunken sex is wrong- saying that people shouldn’t have sex while drunk is an overly broad statement. Simply put, with the stigma that is placed on sex in society, many people find it hard to embrace their sexuality without being a little tipsy. A good counterexample to the alcohol argument- when an “ugly” girl who sleeps with a drunk guy who normally wouldn’t find her attractive- is that rape? The answer is no.

There are consequences to impairing your judgment. It is a voluntary decision that no one can make for you (outside of being forcibly drugged, obviously). Having sex with someone you normally wouldn’t, much like getting behind the wheel and crashing, are both things that can happen when you impair yourself.

Lastly, the article tends to assume that all men have malicious intentions. Women can be sexual predators too. Further, they often employ the same tactics with alcohol that men do. Rather than constantly having a conversation about the dangers of men against women, we need to start discussing the real implications and realities of sex. We seek to stereotype and stigmatize sexuality across the board in this country, and then we run in circles when we discover problems.

Amir, you might not think getting someone drunk to have sex with them counts as rape, but the State of Michigan does.

Jacob- Don’t you think a reasonable person can recognize the difference between complimenting someone and repeatedly giving someone a beer. I think its safe to say that beer impacts decision making in a different way than compliments. If not then we should outlaw driving while receiving a compliment.

I just want to say that I am happy to see so many young men respond to this column. On the issue of getting someone drunk and having sex with them, the law is a bit broad. Here is what it says verbatim on Criminal Sexual Conduct in the Third Degree©: “The actor knows or has reason to know that the victim is mentally incapable, mentally incapacitated, or physically helpless.” By actor, it means the perpetrator. The incapable part is where the law becomes a grey area. Often it is assumed that men can simply hold their liquor better than women and even if they can’t, a woman is not a credible threat to a drunken man. Perhaps we need an amendment to this law. Also, this crime is a felony and punishable up to 15 years in prison. As far as men being inherently predatory, I have come across this attitude many times as well. Also, the perception which males are predatory is not nearly the same across the ethnicity spectrum. I believe that men often express there anger in a physical manner as we are socially conditioned to. And women express there anger in a more verbal manner. I believe both to be harmful. However, bruises and bleeding simply garner a much stronger response than acts of betrayal and defamation and passive/aggressive attitudes. Regardless of inequalities in our social conventions or the letter of the law, I am pleased that a young women had the courage to not only give her opinion on this subject, but also be willing to put her face and full name along with it.

Shane, that is still a bullshit, paternalistic attitude, characteristic of old conservative soccer-moms.

Regardless of the intensions of someone “specifically targeting” a girl, the girl at the end of the day accepts the alcohol, is not forced to do anything, etc. Now, if someone dropped a funny pill in one of the girl’s beverage, without she realizing, now that would be a completely different case.

The fact is that everything is being realized with her concent (unless she drinks herself out of consciousness). Regardless of the legal consquences, the fact is that it is not rape.

Shane and Tim,

More aptly, why is a girl not allowed to choose to get drunk and have sex? Since women and men are given free reign of their sex lives, there are always going to be instances of men going after women and vice versa where the feelings are not reciprocated. However, I find it very odd that people think that women aren’t capable of handling their choices responsibly enough to drink and have sex.

If a guy wants to have sex with a girl or girl wants to have sex with a guy, they are going to employ methods to convince the other person. We as a society have established that moderate intoxication is an acceptable catalyst for social interaction. If you personally are not comfortable with the decisions you make while drunk, you have the option not to drink.

Second of all, I don’t think guys really go out their with the attitude to “get girls drunk.” I think most men and women simply recognize that social interaction is harder without inebriation, though I’m sure there are cases of what you describe. You assume that all inhibitions are good (since that’s what alcohol lowers), yet alcohol frequently places people together who they might not find each other physically attractive but end up finding emotionally.

While they have their place, in general, one night stands are over-rated. However, simply saying that women are predated because they choose to drink and then have sex is an overly simplistic view of sex and a plainly derogatory view of female choice. As a feminist, I firmly believe that women should be considered equal. Yet, equality doesn’t grant you protection from your own actions- sleeping with someone you did not intend because you were slightly drunk (again, rule out the passed out, that is rape) doesn’t indicate that your rights or body were violated. It is more indicative of a lack of control.

I think a good example of both the author and other commenter’s political sexualization comes from the analysis of “hit that” in the article. While the comment comes from another speaker, the included judgment is passed on as the author’s viewpoint- that somehow indicating a sexual preference is derogatory. Yet, I hear girls, guys, gays, straights, etc… all say that they would like to hit that. We get caught up in our own sexual preferences and views that we seek to establish the perceptions of societal injustice; yet, saying that you want to “hit that” is really just an indication of sexual taste. It doesn’t treat people like a peace of meat or deride them personally or socially. Rather, that analysis indicates a lack of perception about the wide range of sexuality- mainly that not all people embrace or always practice emotional and spiritual sexual relationships.

While people often deride “f*** buddies” for always failing, many people simply fail to realize that the relationship is based on sexual tension and passions that need to be released physically in absence of a “true” relationship. You don’t establish a partnership like that for permanency or emotional satisfaction- rather we have “baser” physical needs that often need to be satisfied. A comparison lies in the attempted social force put on gays to act straight- no matter how hard they try their true sexual satisfaction lies elsewhere in most instances. Thus, we can form emotional satisfaction without sex and we can receive sexual gratification without emotional satisfaction.

Go ask your girlfriends, many will tell you they’d put up with an asshole in return for great sex.

Jacob, I tried to read most of what you said but mostly it’s a tl;dr situation. Anyway I don’t think I disagree with you I was just saying that I think guys who specifically go out to specifically get girls drunk specifically to sleep with them are wrong. Social lubrication blahblahblah is fine by me. I understand the dance dawg. I also understand predation.