(05-09-2016, 11:28 PM)Brownshoe Wrote: Where is the law in your side anywhere? With your logic you could argue that one glass of whine you're not able to consent because you're impaired. You not sleeping for a day is equivalent to drinking a glass of whine, so someone could argue you if someone stays up for a day that they couldn't consent. Its a very silly logic. People still have their agency. People can still say no if they don't want too. There's a reason why it's not rape if they consent and their drunk... Just like that prosecutor said "Drunken consent is still consent".

(05-09-2016, 11:39 PM)Benton Wrote: I'd agree with the 'situation that got out of hand' part, but not really the lowered inhibitions. I know it's a major part of this thread, but out of all the rapes I covered, I don't recall any being a 'too drunk' to consent. It happens, but to what extent I have no idea. I'm mainly referring to those physically assaulted who are too embarrassed/scared/desperate to testify against an attacker. And those may be a very small or a large percentage of cases. I really don't know as statistics on sexual assault are very hard to get accurate numbers. 

As I said, in my own experience, if you look at the numbers for my area, it's relatively small if you look at the number of convictions for sexual related assaults. But through my exposure to the courts and the medical side of it, I knowthere are a lot more who start the process, but don't end up going any further.

(05-09-2016, 10:44 PM)Brownshoe Wrote: . There's a reason why the law is on my side and not yours.

(05-10-2016, 12:40 AM)fredtoast Wrote: The law is not on your side.

Contracts can be voided if the person is too drunk to think clearly, but nor "black out drunk".  The same thing can happen with consent to sex.  The facts in each case determine if a rape occurred.  There is no case law that says a person has to be "black out drunk" to be unable to consent.

(05-10-2016, 01:24 AM)Brownshoe Wrote: Contracts and consent to sex are two completely different things first of all, so that's a false equivalence. Secondly, if you're unable to speak coherently you're black out drunk. Show me one case where there was a conviction of rape when the (willingly) drunk victim gave the rapist consent to have sex.

(05-10-2016, 02:22 AM)fredtoast Wrote: I can show you where laws have been amended to remove this language.....“no crime is committed if the actor reasonably believed that the victim was not incapacitated and reasonably believed that the victim consented to the act.”


It is clear that the law is evolving to cover cases the alleged victim was conscious and able to speak, but not thinking clearly enough to give consent.  So even if none have been convicted yet it is obvious that the law is not "on your side".


And "consent to sex" and "consent to contract" are not different at all.  In fact they address the exact same issues.  There is not false equivalence at all.  Please explain why you think they are so "totally different" because from everything I know they both deal with the exact same issue of mental capacity.

(05-10-2016, 08:43 AM)GMDino Wrote: Page 11.

Some people are still arguing that someone can be drunk but unless they are blacked out they can still say no so it isn't rape.

Do we live in a rape culture?

(05-10-2016, 08:43 AM)GMDino Wrote: Page 11.

Some people are still arguing that someone can be drunk but unless they are blacked out they can still say no so it isn't rape.

Do we live in a rape culture?

(05-10-2016, 09:56 AM)Brownshoe Wrote: Obviously not, unless you live in a rape fantasy world where someone could consent to sex, but it still is rape.

(05-05-2016, 07:44 AM)GMDino Wrote:   

Our legal system takes it very seriously.

"Rape culture" refers to men still thinking a woman is "asking for it" when she dresses the "wrong" way or is too drunk to say no clearly.

(05-10-2016, 10:06 AM)GMDino Wrote: Or if you think only being blacked out means you are unable to consent.

Again:

(05-10-2016, 10:08 AM)Brownshoe Wrote: Being black out drunk you're unable to consent, but if you're drunk you are. That's why there's 0 court cases that have convicted someone for rape because they had sex with a drunk person who consented to have sex.

That's just facts. I guess you don't like accepting facts if it doesn't fit your belief.

Quote:This week, as another case of socially powerful teenage boys allegedly committing rape and seemingly getting away with it–this time in Maryville, Missouri –captivated national attention, the conversation predictably focused on the victim’s drinking. “I’m not saying she deserved to be raped,”said a defense attorney on Fox News of one of the victims, 14-year-old Daisy Coleman, adding, “She is leaving her home at 1 a.m. in the morning and nobody forced her to drink.” Slate’s Emily Yoffe claimedthat “a misplaced fear of blaming the victim has made it somehow unacceptable to warn inexperienced young women that when they get wasted, they are putting themselves in potential peril.” USA Todayreferred to Coleman dismissively as a “drunken 14-year-old cheerleader.”


Whether the alleged victims were “wasted” or “drunken” does matter, but not for the reasons those commentators suggested. It matters legally, because in most states, incapacitated people are unable to consent to sex, whether because they’ve drunk alcohol (even, in many states, if they’ve done so knowingly and voluntarily), taken prescription or illegal drugs, or are developmentally disabled. 

And though it won’t apply retroactively to Coleman’s case as a special prosecutor looks into whether charges should be refiled, Missouri law recently became even clearer on that point.

The Kansas City Star reported that Coleman’s blood alcohol content was .13 seven hours after the alleged rape. (The legal limit for driving under the influence is .08 in all 50 states). Coleman said she blacked out, and her friend told the Kansas City Star that Coleman was “unable to speak coherently and had to be carried from the bedroom” that night.

Despite years of rape law reform, many people still imagine rape as a crime involving literal force, rather than lack of legal consent.

The fact that incapacitated people can’t legally consent to sex remains poorly understood, even after two teenage football players were found delinquent of raping an incapacitated girl in Steubenville, Ohio. The confusion is so widespread, says Scott Berkowitz, president and founder of the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network (RAINN), that one of the most frequent questions RAINN gets is, “Is ‘date rape’ illegal?” Teens in particular, he told MSNBC, wonder about whether the use of alcohol or the fact of the perpetrator being known to the victim makes it rape. “Because that question is so common, we stopped using that term,” Berkowitz said.

That confusion affects both potential victims and potential perpetrators, who may not understand the depth of legal trouble their actions may invite. It also provides cover to predators who have been known to use a victim’s voluntary drinking as cover for their assault.

It’s also why feminist activists have tried to redirect the anti-rape conversations from “no means no” to affirmative consent and clear understanding that a partner is enthusiastically participating.

A handbook for attorneys on prosecuting alcohol-facilitated sexual assault created by the National District Attorneys Association acknowledges that jurors “tend to assume that the woman consented because she was intoxicated and simply regretted the sexual encounter later. In these cases, the defense tends to argue: ‘It’s not rape; it’s regret,’ or, ‘It’s buyer’s remorse.’” Indeed, the attorney for Matthew Barnett, who is accused of raping Coleman who left her unconscious in front of her house in subzero weather, claimed to the press that “subsequent investigation and interviews raised substantial doubt about the felony charge, specifically including whether the young lady was incapacitated during the encounter.” Barnett claimed to the police that the sexual encounter was consensual.

That was the version that Nodaway County, Mo., prosecutor Robert Rice seemed to be endorsing when he told the Kansas City Star of the teens, “They were doing what they wanted to do, and there weren’t any consequences. And it’s reprehensible. But is it criminal? No.” (After a Kansas City Star investigation and subsequent public outrage at the case, Rice evidently changed his mind, requestingthat a special prosecutor reopen the case.)

Because inability to consent is not a bright line the way impaired driving is, it often requires making a case to jurors based on several elements of evidence. At the same time, as the NDAA handbooknoted: “Prosecutors must overcome the tendency to focus on and blame the victim and re-direct the focus back to the offender’s actions, and thus on the elements of the crime.”

State laws vary on whether it matters if the alleged perpetrator was aware that the victim was incapacitated, but “a lot of states are silent on that exact point,” Berkowitz said.  

As for the Fox News guest’s assertion that “nobody forced [Coleman] to drink,” Berkowitz said, “typically, that doesn’t matter. I would say that 30 years ago, under most state laws, that would have been exculpatory. The fact that alcohol is consumed voluntarily would have made it not rape in many places. These days the norm is, it doesn’t matter whether they chose to drink or whether someone spiked their drink, it’s whether they’re capable of consenting.”

That’s the shift that Missouri’s state laws underwent, effective this August. (The law doesn’t apply retroactively, so it doesn’t affect Coleman’s case.)

Colleen Coble, the CEO of the Missouri Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence, said that advocates had helped update a 30-year-old criminal code. “We went from a law that was constructed primarily on the bad guy’s use of force or drugging of you to one that is very clear that it is rape if the victim is incapable of consent, in addition to elements of force,” she said. The hearings for the proposed new law happened weeks after Missouri’s own Todd Akin made famous the phrase “legitimate rape.” Coble says of Akin, “It was certainly was an unexpected opportunity to make dramatic advances in terms of people’s understanding.”

The old law included a provision, since deleted, that “no crime is committed if the actor reasonably believed that the victim was not incapacitated and reasonably believed that the victim consented to the act.” If new charges are filed in the Coleman case, Barnett’s attorney would theoretically be able to claim that Barnett believed Coleman consented, though the jury would have to buy that you could reasonably believe a crying and incoherent person is consenting.

Going forward, Missouri’s laws are as clear as they come. But the roadblock is less often the law and more often the culture. “While there are still laws that could be tweaked, for the most part the behavior that we want to make illegal is already illegal,” said Berkowitz. “The bigger challenge is first encouraging more people to report their crime–only about 4 of 10 report–and then making sure that police and prosecutors take the cases seriously, that they investigate them properly, and that they pursue them aggressively.”

(05-10-2016, 10:30 AM)GMDino Wrote: http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/maryville



Silly facts.

(05-10-2016, 10:33 AM)Brownshoe Wrote: And that article proves what? she was blackout drunk and it even says it. lol, did you even read it?

(05-10-2016, 10:38 AM)GMDino Wrote: I knew you'd pull out that one line and ignore the rest.

Good job.

Discussion over until you read it.

:jk:

(05-10-2016, 10:40 AM)Brownshoe Wrote: I already read it. Apparently you didn't. She even was found passed out in her driveway in freezing weather. How is that not blackout drunk. I wonder what it's like to be a fantasy world like yours.

(05-10-2016, 10:44 AM)GMDino Wrote: You ignored absolutely every other bit on what is considered unable to consent and how the laws have changed...even in the state where that case was after the fact.

Here's another one for you to read and not understand.

http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2015/02/drunk_sex_on_campus_universities_are_struggling_to_determine_when_intoxicated.html


Do we live in a rape culture?

We're still discussing what is "too drunk".

(05-09-2016, 12:34 PM)Brownshoe Wrote: I don't know how accurate that statistic is.

(05-10-2016, 10:55 AM)Brownshoe Wrote: Obviously we don't live in a rape culture. I understand it all very well, but apparently you don't. Having to be carried or unable to speak coherently is black out drunk (the first article).

The second one is about how colleges don't want drunken sex on their campuses, and how a guy got screwed over because him and a girl had sex while they were both black out drunk.


It looks to me like everyone takes rape extremely seriously, so how could there be a rape culture?