abaya

Smooth, I'm sincerely sorry if this is confusing... but honestly, to me, it is a case of two people being responsible for two stupid decisions. I am not a victim, but that doesn't mean the guy is 100% innocent, either. That is my point... that no one is 100% innocent. I feel that since you think I'm putting some of the responsibility on the guy, then you think that I'm someone asking to be recognized as a victim. And that is the kind of all or nothing thinking that I am not interested in, regarding this situation. No one was innocent, as I see it. Does that mean one or both people were 100% guilty? Not by my logic, though I'm afraid that is what you are reading into it.

... look man, have I ever argued with you on this point? I feel like you are trying to hammer it into my head that it was my responsibility to get drunk, when I admitted that fact right from the beginning. I'm beginning to think that your impression is that it's all my fault that I lost my virginity that night, when in fact there were two people involved, and two people making decisions. I don't understand why you want to absolve the guy from all wrongdoing, when it's obvious that bad decisions were made on both sides.

The analogy would be more complete if you said that I had $10,000 in my pocket, and the guy found it and asked me (while I was drunk), "Hey, do you mind if I borrow this for a while?" And in my drunken state, after vomiting, I said "Well... okay." (without having any memory of the situation). Obviously, it would have been my responsibility for losing the money because I got drunk in the first place. There is no dispute there. But that doesn't erase his responsibility for being an asshole for taking advantage of someone who was beyond any capacity to make decisions. I did not just say "HI!! Here's $10,000 I'm carrying around, would you like to have it?"

Just because someone has something valuable and does something careless while in possession of it, doesn't mean anyone else has the "right" to take advantage of that situation. I've met plenty of men who would never, ever have sex with a woman who was drunk... most of them are turned off by someone vomiting on them before the act, but there are others who would pursue it anyway. I call the latter assholes, but each to their own.

__________________
And think not you can direct the course of Love;
for Love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
--Khalil Gibran

Gilda

It seems abaya's case is a bit different from the specific type of case listed in the OP. It's about the effect of intoxication on capacity to give consent.

I find it dubious that a man can find a woman passed out in the street and vomiting and still reasonably think she's in a position to give informed consent, and it seems that he would be highly motivated to remember, interpret, and report things in such a way as to cast himself in better light.

Clearly it would be nearly impossible to get a conviction here, as the evidence is going to come up short of reasonable doubt.

Getting drunk to the point that you pass out on the street and lose your memory of what happens next is clearly foolish and demonstrates some poor choices were made. This is behavior that any woman should avoid because it impairs her judgment and places her in situations where she may do things she's going to regret later and also places her at much greater risk of being sexually assaulted. This is all true. It's also true that men should avoid getting intoxicated to this degree because it can lead to the same foolish decision making. Sexual assault, though a risk, is much, much smaller than it is for women.

It doesn't, however, mitigate the responsibility of the man who is with her to ensure that the woman he is having sex with has given her informed consent. Simply being drunk isn't enough, but there is a point at which a person is intoxicated to the point of incapacity to consent.

I'm not referring to two people who get drunk, have consensual sex, then regret it later. That's stupidity, but not rape. Nor am I referring to false rape allegations that occur as a result of later regrets. Those are offensive and undermine the credibility of women who have actually been raped.

In your situation, this may be true, and if you were referring specifically and only to that, I'll not argue with you.

However, in a more general sense, there are rape and sexual assault victims that are 100% innocent.

__________________
I'm against ending blackness. I believe that everyone has a right to be black, it's a choice, and I support that.

~Steven Colbert

abaya

I appreciate everything you said, Gilda. I agree, and that is what I am trying to get at. In no way am I absolving myself from the fact of having made very poor decisions to get myself into that situation. I don't know how many times I've said it, but I'll keep saying it until it sinks in. I know what I did wrong, and I have not backed down from that.

The fact is, however, that while I was clearly beyond drunk (vomiting, stumbling, repeating myself over and over, calling this guy by the name of a friend of mine... when the guy had clearly told me that he was not the same person), the guy at no point was as drunk as I was. He was not vomiting, he was not blacked out (he remembered a hell of a lot more details than I did... since I remembered nothing), he got me into a taxi and remembered his own hostel address, he had the forethought to put on a condom several times (so he says), and he remembers that we had "great sex"... and we ended up in the shower, conveniently (especially in terms of evidence). Even if it was not some form of rape, I don't see how he's not at least an asshole for proceeding in the manner he did.

__________________
And think not you can direct the course of Love;
for Love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
--Khalil Gibran

smooth

Now, you claim you were acting drunk, couldn't walk, vomitting all over the place, just lying around while he poked and prodded you and asked if he could have sex with you.

Yet, in an earlier response to Gilda, you wrote:
You even wrote that you remember yourself enjoying the sex, only to later realize that you were with a different man than you had thought.


If you are asking, I hold you 100% responsbile for the loss of your virginity that night, and yes, I posted that earlier. If you want to change your story so that the description is more in line with you being incapacitated and now looks very different to me from what you were initially describing, then fine, but that wasn't the way you were portraying the interaction when I first responded.


Regardless, the point remains that if young adults were taught to not drink beyond their limits, then these sorts of interactions wouldn't occur.

__________________
"The theory of a free press is that truth will emerge from free discussion, not that it will be presented perfectly and instantly in any one account." -- Walter Lippmann

"You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists." -- Abbie Hoffman

abaya

Certainly, Gilda. I don't think anyone here, least of all me, would argue with you. That is beyond any question.

I think the issue here, is whether it is still "rape" in a blackout situation. Are there different degrees of "rape?" I don't know. I just know that when I saw the rape scene in the movie "North Country," it affected me instantaneously. I wept on ktspktsp for a very long time, not knowing why the trigger had been so severe. It was not the same situation as mine, but it triggered the feeling I had when I sobered up that morning and realized what had happened... that I had lost something so extremely valuable to me, at the time. It went far beyond feeling "regret" the next day. It was a strong sense of violation, as well as shame for my being so stupid as to get into that situation.

I am not changing my story. The next time I post I might as well pull out those 3-year-old e-mails and post them all here for you to read. You can see what the guy said, and what I said, and see that it is all the same story, if that's what you want. I'm not sure what you want, really.

Did you read what I quoted about alcohol-induced blackouts? Yes, I was drunk, vomiting, could not walk (all quoted to me by the guy, not in my own memory). That was general drunkenness, crossing into the blackout zone. Once fully in the blackout zone, however (which I only know from reading about the biological reasons behind it), the "drunken" behavior ceases and one starts to appear very lucid and rational. One may continue throwing up (apparently, I did), since the body is trying to get rid of shit, but may also make decisions contrary to the person's otherwise usual convictions and beliefs. That is a trademark of a blackout.

The enjoyment that I noted was at the edge of my blackout, when I was sobering up and realized that I had been having sex (first shock) with someone who was not my friend (another shock) and with whom, in fact, was a complete stranger who seemed to think I was there voluntarily (third shock). All three of these shocks hit me in about 30 seconds, and within that time I was out of the shower, putting on my vomit-stained clothes, and actually ASKING the guy, "Did we have sex? DID WE HAVE SEX? Why is there vomit on my clothes? Where am I? WHO ARE YOU?" over and over again. He could not understand why I was asking him things like that... he thought I had gone insane, perhaps, because he thought I had been conscious of all the answers to those questions throughout the night and had, up until 30 seconds ago, appeared to have been enjoying myself. He saw this woman do an honest 180 in a very short period of time and could not make any more sense of it than I could.

I remembered having sex, but it was not ME... it was another person entirely, during the blackout. The ME who sobered up and had these shocks was not the same person who was "enjoying" the sex... how could it be? It was an act I had condemned in my personal beliefs since I was a young girl. It was akin to murdering someone, in my belief system. It was truly as if two different people had gone through the night in one body... the me who got consciously drunk, and the me who had sex with a stranger. The me who woke up knew that I had been drunk, but did not know how I had gotten into that situation otherwise.

For what it's worth, I agree with you. Hell, I didn't take a drink until my 21st birthday, and had only been fully drunk a few times in my 20's (always in a safe place with friends) before this event happened... but never blacked out for 8 hours straight. If you do read the scientific reports on alcohol-induced blackouts, you can see that they are not always induced by large amounts of alcohol. Sometimes it can be a moderate amount, but it interacts badly with a person's particular chemistry. Yes, that should be taught to young people, obviously. Who would argue with that?

__________________
And think not you can direct the course of Love;
for Love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
--Khalil Gibran

Zeraph

My problem with this isn't that a woman shouldn't have the right to change her mind, she should, but that I see no fair way to use this law. It's primary use it seems to me would be abusive because it comes down to "he said she said". Unless you tape yourself everytime you have sex...;

smooth

actually, I'm aware of blackouts and the how/why of them. I didn't post that they can be caused by other things than alcohol, including extreme feelings of guilt, because that wouldn't have done much more than appear like I was doubting your sincerity. One woman in our program is the premier researcher on memory reconstruction...you could look her up. I will PM her name to you, and you will find her work informative and helpful, I'm sure. It interesects precisely with how the brain & memory works with the law.


look abaya, all I'm pointing out to you is if you appeared to be lucid and sober after a period of time then how is the guy supposed to know that you weren't short of running a barrage of tests on you?

I really can't account for how you're coming at me, because in my mind I've been respectful of your feelings and what you view as traumatic. That's fine, but it's odd that I am answering in a way very similar to how your real life friends answer, and yet on here you noticed that a few people actually responded in a way that both surprised you and has given you some comfort. I didn't mean to take away from that comfort, but remember that the general consensus you're getting on this board was initially surprising to you.

I'm going to bow out of this conversation because it doesn't seem like I'm getting a fair shake. I'm not upset with you, nor have I lost any respect for you. But I never asked for transcripts of your conversations. I'm merely answering your question of how I would assess the situation based off what you wrote. It seems that as your posts continue, more facts come out. And those facts significantly alter the context and framing of the interaction. I hope that as time goes by, you'll revisit this thread and understand how I came to the conclusions I posted.

PM sent.

__________________
"The theory of a free press is that truth will emerge from free discussion, not that it will be presented perfectly and instantly in any one account." -- Walter Lippmann

"You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists." -- Abbie Hoffman

abaya

Thanks for the PM, and for bowing out. I still feel I need to answer things that you said, however. I never disagreed with this point. My question is, why did you feel the need to point this out to me over and over again?

No, sorry smooth, I'm afraid you're not answering at all like my real-life friends answered, because none of them chalked up my "guilt" to being 100%. Everyone agreed that both parties were responsible, though the guy was an asshole for taking advantage of the situation.

The reason I was surprised at some people's answers here was because they were putting the guilt 100% on the guy, which I (same as you) thought was unfair of them. I never budged on that stance, though it seems you perceived that I did budge on it. My only position all along has been that in a situation such as mine, two people were at fault; I was stupid, and he was an asshole. And when that happens (not in a case of pure innocence vs. guilt), both people have to take responsibility for their decisions... otherwise you get some useless, expensive, messy court situation that only makes things worse. I just don't understand why you disagreed with me, or how I "hid" any facts from the beginning.

__________________
And think not you can direct the course of Love;
for Love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
--Khalil Gibran

KnifeMissile

Just out of wild curiosity, I have two questions...

First, why do you say that abaya's "coming at you?" She certainly disagrees with you and has listed her reasons for doing so but is this really what you meant by "coming at you?" I think most people would agree that that term implies a level of beligerence that, as far as I can tell, isn't present in her posts...

Secondly, what makes you think that the surprising posts have given her any comfort? It's a long thread, even more popular than the atheist thread, so perhaps I missed it but I saw her take no comfort in these surprises...

smooth

if you're going to ask me a direct question, then I'll answer I suppose...

"coming at me" in that every response starts with "you didn't read my posts, you don't understand what I'm saying, you don't get it"

she's not doing that to anyone else, and that implies to me that she's feeling support from those responses and not mine...which should answer your second question.


and abaya, I can only guess that your friends probably think that you are responsible, but why would they say it like I did? of course they think he's an asshole. they are your friends and support, I'm just an anonymous poster.

the reason I kept bringing up that point is that you still haven't answered my question...what was he supposed to do differently? what makes him an asshole?
EDIT: to clarify, I didn't see any "harm" done to you, from your description other than having lost your virginity. But he didn't know that until afterward. You are placing more value on the sex that was conducted purely by the fact that it was your first time. That decision is yours to make, he didn't violate your right to keep your virginity. although it certainly comes across like he did. at worst, he was having sex with a drunk girl, and that happens all the time.

I don't read journals. I keep the personas of who I interact with entirely within the context of each thread I come across. I was responding to you in relation to what Halx was bringing up.

__________________
"The theory of a free press is that truth will emerge from free discussion, not that it will be presented perfectly and instantly in any one account." -- Walter Lippmann

"You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists." -- Abbie Hoffman

abaya

KM, thanks for your comment, but I did want to say that smooth said I was "both" surprised and comforted (separately, I assume) by some posts on this thread. He is probably also referring to what I posted in my journal, about how parts of the thread had been very helpful in me dealing with what happened that night. To be sure, the "surprising" parts were not terribly comforting, but the assurance (mostly from ratbastid) that I was responding with the correct amount of responsibility was of great comfort to me, since it confirmed something I have tried to believe (but have not always been convinced of) for a long time.

EDIT (after smooth's post): Thanks for the clarification on the journals; I spoke of my "comfort" there, so that was why I thought it might have come from there.

Well, I would be interested to hear what other posters have to say on this, for the sake of discussion. But, since you're asking me, I'll answer that in my opinion, I think he ought to have recognized at least somewhat how very drunk I was (via the initial stages... vomiting/stumbling), and if he was so kind as to pick me up off the street... to also have been so kind as to figure out where I was staying (or even taken me to the police station, if nowhere else) and put me in a taxi going back there. To me, that is what a considerate person would do, even if he was also intoxicated (especially if he was conscious enough to find another bar for us to "have more drinks," after I was found at floor level). That is what makes him an asshole, I suppose. Or maybe just human, who knows.

__________________
And think not you can direct the course of Love;
for Love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
--Khalil Gibran

smooth

so this doesn't get lost, your loss of your virginity in that way was 100% on you.
that is different from the fact that two adults made poor decisions that resulted in sex they both or at least one wishes didn't occur.

before meeting you, he had no idea you were a virgin and presumably didn't know until after the fact. it doesn't matter though, you being a virgin doesn't make the act any more or less of a violation...other than to your own personal views of how sacred your first time was going to be.

and that's what I'm responding to mostly, this undercurrent that isn't always explicitly stated that had this been with someone else or had it not been your first time, that it would be less of a conundrum for you.

it's an emotional trigger for many I'm sure, but to be honest, it's no different than any weekend night where women and men hook up in bars and go with each other drunk out of their minds. sometimes puking, sometimes not, but never wholly in their right minds. if that's the new threshold to consider a man a rapist, and more than three people in this thread have voiced that opinion, then so be it but that's a dangerous viewpoint for a variety of reasons.

and that's all that I meant by me agreeing with your friends, that the dude is not a rapist.

__________________
"The theory of a free press is that truth will emerge from free discussion, not that it will be presented perfectly and instantly in any one account." -- Walter Lippmann

"You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists." -- Abbie Hoffman

KnifeMissile

Oh, right. Somehow, this had slipped my mind. I accuse people of not reading posts all the time (mostly because it's really obviously that they hadn't) and I must admit that it's somewhat beligerent...

This is mostly a personal point but I prefer to think that friends don't support you by telling you what you want to hear. Friends support you by telling you the truth. Who needs comfort from a pack of lies?

Not picking her up off the street in the hopes of gettng laid?

Admittedly, I didn't realize that he had literally done this, either, but apparently he had...

While she certainly place a lot of value on the virginity, it wasn't her only value. Why did she get tested for STDs afterwards? Because she had unprotected sex with a perfect stranger who, literally, picked her off the street. How many other girls might he have picked up off the street? Safe sex is as much his responsibility as hers...

I do the same thing.

By the way, you haven't really put anything in relation to the original post. The original post was about withdrawing sex during the act. This whole abaya sub-thread was just an interesting diversion to a vaguely related but very interesting topic...

abaya

I was not one of those people calling him a rapist. I agreed with my friends IRL. And yet your posts were aimed directly at me in terms of getting me to realize that he was not a rapist. Very frustrating.

And we'll just have to disagree here. I was not 100% responsible for losing my virginity in that manner. I was 100% responsible for getting drunk, that's clear. But by no means was it my conscious, rational choice to have sex, for the first time or the 100th, with a friend or a stranger, in that manner. That was not my choice. Does that make him a rapist? Not to me. Does that make me a victim? Again, not to me. Does that mean I should just chalk it up as another "weekend on the town?" No, and that is something I will not do, and would not have done even if I wasn't a virgin at the time.

Yes, losing my virginity loaded that event down with very heavy emotional implications, but I know myself well enough that if the same event had happened long after I was sexually active, I know it would have disturbed me very deeply. You don't know me well enough to contradict that fact, I'm afraid.

Just wanted to note that I am aware of this, and made note of it in my journal but not here. I apologize for taking this thread off-track... at first my experience seemed very relevant, but I realized at one point that perhaps a new thread was in order. But by that time the two topics were rather tangled and it seemed alright to just go on ahead as it was. I do hope that my semi-related situation has cast light on just how tricky it is to make an accusation of rape when it is not a clear innocence vs. guilty party situation, which is often the case (especially with HS and college-age women)... and how difficult it really is to make that call, both personally and legally.

__________________
And think not you can direct the course of Love;
for Love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
--Khalil Gibran

The_Jazz

Abaya, I'll answer your question since you posed it for all the guys on the board.

If I had run across you passed out on Bourbon Street with your belongings scattered everywhere, I would have stopped to help, gotten you in a cab and gone on with my evening. I can say that because I've done exactly that both on Bourbon Street and off it. I wouldn't 1) call the cops (they'd take you to jail for public intox, even in NO) or 2) take you home myself. The first is pretty self-explanatory but the second is for exactly what happened to you.

In my opinion, after having read and reread all of your posts, the guy plain old took advantage of you. I don't know what smooth has read that I haven't but I can't see where anyone could possibly think that you consented, especially if he literally picked you up in the street. I'm sorry, but an unconcious single woman that comes on to you after waking up is not a potential bedfellow. Maybe after she sobers up, but there is no way that any prudent person hops in bed with her after the vomiting, smell and what should be obvious intoxication.

At best, this guy is guilty of being a flaming asshole that should be ostrasized from polite company. At worst, well, we've all been over that again and again. Regardless, if one of my friends did something like this, we wouldn't be friends for long. Its one thing if you spend hours in a bar both getting drunk together, but something entirely different to pick someone out of the gutter, buy her another drink (WTF?!) and then trot her off to your place.

__________________
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - B. Franklin
"There ought to be limits to freedom." - George W. Bush
"We have met the enemy and he is us." - Pogo

Carno

If you were telling him you wanted to have sex, then you were conscious.

You might not have been rational, but that's alcohol for you.

abaya

Jazz, thanks for your post. Good to have some fresh voices in here.

Carno, I have no memory of telling him I wanted to have sex. I have no memory of meeting him, throwing up on/near him, having more drinks with him, getting in a cab with him, deciding to go to his place, deciding to have sex, deciding to get in the shower, deciding to use a condom, or any of the rest that he remembered and told me that I/we had done.

All I remember, which I have said over and over again, is getting drunk with my acquaintances on Bourbon Street... and then somehow enjoying what was happening in the shower about 8 hours later... and then coming-to and realizing very quickly that this was not any kind of situation I ever wanted to be in, and getting myself out of there. That is the extent of my memories of the evening.

__________________
And think not you can direct the course of Love;
for Love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
--Khalil Gibran

Carno

Just because you don't remember what happened the night before doesn't mean you weren't conscious. It just means you drank so much that you don't remember it.

Gilda

Yes.

What you describe here is textbook PTSD. It would probably be helpful to talk to a professional about this.

__________________
I'm against ending blackness. I believe that everyone has a right to be black, it's a choice, and I support that.

~Steven Colbert

smooth

What I've read differently is the same thing that even changed Gilda's position. First Gilda said it was clear-cut rape, then abaya's responses led her to leave it up to abaya.

that's just one example, I'm not the only person who read her account differently than she's now proposing...even knifemissle commented that the "literally" picking someone off the street was news to him...

how one can evaluate my replies *after* she adds more facts that appear like she wasn't consenting, is beyond me...well, no it's not beyond me. it appears that people who generally enjoy disagreeing with me in other venues are doing so here, as well!

This has been my impression from the beginning.
Furthermore, I suspect your blackout is caused more by guilt and stress than the alcohol consumed. but that's just based on the fact that you didn't come to until a full 8 hours later in the guy's shower while enjoying sex you shouldn't have been enjoying.

__________________
"The theory of a free press is that truth will emerge from free discussion, not that it will be presented perfectly and instantly in any one account." -- Walter Lippmann

"You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists." -- Abbie Hoffman

Gilda

Since abaya threw this to the gallery, my answer would be help her up, help her get a taxi and send her back to her hotel.

He found a woman he didn't know who was so drunk she was vomiting, couldn't stand, and was calling him by someone else's name and took her back to his hotel to have sex with her.

It's hard for me to understand any interpretation in which that isn't being an asshole.

__________________
I'm against ending blackness. I believe that everyone has a right to be black, it's a choice, and I support that.

~Steven Colbert

smooth

according to her, he did call her a taxi but she asked to go to his place
then, also according to her, they weren't having sex until 8 hours later in the morning, in the shower, and she was enjoying it until she realized he wasn't her friend.

that's how it's confusing.


EDIT: what I wrote is where she describes her memory end point the night before and the start point in the morning. everything else is what she claims he told her. so her falling all over, calling him different names, and puking were all things he relayed to her the next day. doesn't sound like he was trying to hide her drunken state, and doesn't fit the profile you (Gilda) suspect of someone who's trying to alter the facts to put him in the best light. it sounds more likely that he took care of a drunk girl and then when she came to (but not the REAL coming to, because the REAL person would never act like what followed...), they started to talk about her life and then somehow sex was brought up and she has hazy rememberings that she consented.

they're sitting there having conversation, he believes is with a sobering up individual. there's no indication he had sex with her when she was puking or obviously impaired, that's all assumption and the points that she remember seem to contradict that being the case. the timeline is getting frustrated by the addition of this and that, but this is how I'm piecing it together anyway.

__________________
"The theory of a free press is that truth will emerge from free discussion, not that it will be presented perfectly and instantly in any one account." -- Walter Lippmann

"You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists." -- Abbie Hoffman

roachboy

abaya:

i have hesitated to post anything to this thread because in the end my only response was that i felt (and feel) badly that you had to endure that experience, and that you have to endure its repetitions. including this one.

if my experience is any guide, ambiguity can be hard to live with: worse in some ways than a clear action, no matter the outcomes....it's hard to cathect (in the awful parlance of the 30s freud translations)...so it's hard to "get over" because it's hard to assign a clear meaning to...it obviously resists being stuffed into clear narratives that are not particular: the narrative is that of what happened. if there are gaps, they aren't going to be filled in.
so it keeps coming back.
and you get to relive it when you write or talk about it.

i read through the thread and see it as a large repetition: because it appears that no resolution into anything other than ambiguity is possible, nothing is resolved here into anything other than ambiguity. the outcomes are contained in the premises (the story itself): the thread is a tautology.

i hope that this repetition serves some good function for you: that this will be among a series the result of which is this becoming something that you can let slide away into a kind of past that no longer causes pain when you remember.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Gilda

Further details revealed after that have led me to the conclusion that this was probably rape. This is part of what I was trying to say in my last post, but apparently didn't express very clearly.

__________________
I'm against ending blackness. I believe that everyone has a right to be black, it's a choice, and I support that.

~Steven Colbert

Frosstbyte

Whether or not a crime punishable by our judicial system occurred, I really don't think there's any question that the guy is a douche. Furthermore, in many (most?) criminal codes throughout the US, having sex with a girl who is drunk-EVEN IF the guy is drunk, too-can get you convicted of sexual assault. Consent CANNOT be given while you're drunk. It's a legal impossibility, in the same way that a contract made while you're drunk isn't valid. When I was a freshman in college, they had a series of lectures that everyone had to go to in the first few weeks where they had cops come in and explain it to us so that no one would be surprised if they got arrested. Now, certainly there is prosecutorial discretion involved and it's not at all likely that most of these cases see trial, but that remains the law.

The whole "consciousness" question is pretty irrelevant. If someone gave you laughing gas and had you sign your bank account away in exchange for a bag of poo, you would have been conscious, too, but that doesn't count for a whole lot. She may have been "conscious" in the sense that she wasn't asleep or dead, but she had no legal capacity to give any sort of consent.

All legal arguments aside, the decent thing to do would be help the person up and get them back to their hotel. If you're a stickler for rules and kind of heartless, I can see you wanting to call the police. Buying the person another drink and having sex with her really doesn't fall into any reasonable category besides "taking advantage of the situation." And that, pretty clearly, makes you an asshole.

Gilda

I said "better light". People who've done wrong often try to put a more positive interpretation on things that lessens or mitigates their accountability for their actions without altering things completely. Even if this is the coldly factual account of what happened on his part, with nothing altered to make him look better, this guy is still a major creep, or at least was acting like one.

He took care of the drunk girl who was vomiting, couldn't stand on her own, and was calling him by the wrong name by taking her back to his hotel and having sex with her.

Not what I'd call a nice guy.

__________________
I'm against ending blackness. I believe that everyone has a right to be black, it's a choice, and I support that.

~Steven Colbert

smooth

I agree with you there, Gilda that as it is portrayed to us currently, she could have been raped earlier in the evening. The only account we have of her engaged in sex was while in the shower the next morning and she definately remembers enjoying it, albeit regretting who she was with.

I tried to make it clear that my comments were made in relation to the narrative as presented when I first responded. If anything, it appears that when people on the board expressed that this was rape, more details that made it appear more like rape came forth.

And really the only reason I'm responding at this point is because it certainly feels, although I'm not sure, that these little comments at the end of the latest replies that any other understanding that he's an asshole is incomprehensible somehow places me in the same category. And that's bullshit to lay at my feet when more than one person thought the narrative shifted.

__________________
"The theory of a free press is that truth will emerge from free discussion, not that it will be presented perfectly and instantly in any one account." -- Walter Lippmann

"You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists." -- Abbie Hoffman

Frosstbyte

I don't think we're laying it at your feet so much as we're confused why you believe that it was a socially/morally acceptable choice to choose a course of action that led to them having sex, despite all the (fairly obvious) signs that she was very drunk and sick. Seeing someone who is in that condition and thinking, "I bet I can get with this girl if I help her feel better" seems opportunistic at best and predatory at worst. I think MOST people would either get her a cab and send her home or call the police or call an ambulance.

abaya

Frosstbyte, thanks for addressing Carno's statement. Basically, if you read up on the alcohol-induced blackout, you would see that a person can be conscious and still not acting in a fashion that suggests "a conscious decision." Those are two sides of the same word... I think that's one of the problems here.

Gilda and roachboy, thanks for your posts. I really appreciate them. Roachboy, as I said in my journal, the telling of this story has brought the experience to the surface again... simultaneously, it has contributed to some form of healing, just as it happens each time I get triggered. Usually it is only my husband who has been able to comfort me, but putting it all out in a public forum has somehow made it more real, more accessible, and given me some sense of "facing it down."

Smooth, is this some kind of trial for you? Why are you so hung up on this? You might ask me the same thing, but frankly I don't feel a need to explain why I'm "hung up on" one of the most traumatic things I've experienced. The story never changed. Yes, I added details as it went on, because back on page 1 when this was still about the OP, I didn't feel particularly inclined to give a play-by-play of every gory detail about my story. That's not good forum etiquette, and it would have required a post about as long as one of these pages in order to get all the details out. No one does that.

Anyway, six posts ago you were bowing out. I am really not sure why you continued to post, other than that this situation is perhaps causing its own kind of reaction in you... but that is a simple guess. I'm not calling you an asshole, mind you. Nobody here is. But you have some kind of defensive, even accusative, tone to your posts that I don't understand.

__________________
And think not you can direct the course of Love;
for Love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
--Khalil Gibran

Gilda

I interpreted this:

"he had the forethought to put on a condom several times (so he says), and he remembers that we had "great sex"... and we ended up in the shower, conveniently (especially in terms of evidence)."

as meaning his account of what happened included multiple acts, the last of which occurred in the shower. I'm sure abaya will correct me if I've read that wrong.

Nope. I was calling him a jerk, not you.

__________________
I'm against ending blackness. I believe that everyone has a right to be black, it's a choice, and I support that.

~Steven Colbert

smooth

because you and others directly asked me questions after that post.
this place is neither yours nor mine and my change of mind to respond to those questions isn't of any concern to anyone but myself

I'm unsure how I can be both defensive and accusatory, but that's neither here nor there. I certainly didn't set out to come across that way, and I may be reacting to what appears to be people bandwagoning in a different direction and me left in the wind explaining how I could be so insensative as to not comprehend how this guy is a total asshole, when in reality no one on here knows a single effn thing about what happened other than what you're putting out there.

and I never said it was morally or socially appropriate to take visibly sick or drunk women home with the intent to get with them. nor did I say you were "hung up" on anything...in fact, only you in this latest response used that phrase yet you placed it in quotes...which should go some way in explaining why I feel myself becoming defensive.

all I said was that you were responsible for losing your virginity. and that was based off you saying you were conscious and enjoying sex in the shower until you realized you weren't with your friend. it's not a trial to me, but I never asked you for proof just pointed out that your narrative shifted and now that we've got no one else in here I'm not going to be one of the guys who automatically takes your account as an invitation to indict the dude for rape or being an asshole, especially when you don't even know what happened yourself.

__________________
"The theory of a free press is that truth will emerge from free discussion, not that it will be presented perfectly and instantly in any one account." -- Walter Lippmann

"You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists." -- Abbie Hoffman

abaya

Gilda, no correction here, you had it right. There were multiple acts, he told me, though the only one I was sobering up to was the one in the shower.

I can accept that as a reason for your defense. I just do not appreciate your assumption that I am somehow deliberately obscuring things, as if I have some kind of motive for doing so. I am telling the story as I know it, and as it comes back to me from whatever corner I shoved it into 3 years ago to not have to think about it in detail anymore. Yes, that means the story comes in bits and pieces, but that is often how traumatic events are recalled. I have not thought about the event in this much detail since it happened. But everything I said here was true to what the guy told me, and to my bits of memory toward the morning.

You've got it wrong here. You are leaving out the blackout portion of it, and I see that as key. I was not passed out, but I was not making "conscious" decisions at any point the whole night. The first real decision that *I* made was to get the hell out of that shower... it was not a conscious decision to enjoy the sex, it was not a conscious decision to think that I was having sex with my friend. When I was shifting from the blacked-out me (enjoying the shower, also thinking it was with someone I knew) to the ME I know (which again, took about 30 seconds of a literal fog lifting off my brain), I wasn't reacting in "regret" just because I "realized" it wasn't my friend. No. That is a gross misunderstanding. I--the non-blacked-out ME--was reacting in shock to the ENTIRE situation, every single part of it... the whole scene, from the guy to the act to the setting to myself... ALL of it being utterly foreign and involuntary to me. It was as if two different people had passed through the night in the same body, and one of them was knocked out until morning. That is the only way I can explain it, and I don't want to have to explain it again.

__________________
And think not you can direct the course of Love;
for Love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
--Khalil Gibran

KnifeMissile

Woah, something's gone out of hand, here...

While you are certianly not obligated to respond to her inquiry, she is certainly free to ask. The question doesn't make this board hers or yours...

While I never sensed any accusation or defensiveness on your part before, I'm starting to sense it, now!

What would it matter to you if people "bandwagon?" Some posters have mentioned that they find your stance "incomprehensible" but you're the one who is interpreting this to mean that you are "insensitive." I understand that you simply have a different pont of view. Is it so hard to imagine that they may have the same understanding as me?

Well, I'm relieved to see that you can tell when you're being defensive. Let me ask, why do you feel this need? Why don't you just post as if you have nothing to defend? What's the worse that can happen? Personally, I think that's the situation you're in...

abaya never said that you called her "hung up." She said that she thought you were hung up and then mentioned that she might be, as well, but that she would have good reason to be. The quotes she was using was to quote herself since she had used that very phrase in a sentence, earlier...

Okay, something's gone terribly wrong here. You're making totally wild accusations now and it's crazy. There is no trial on you, no one said that you had "asked for proof," and no one thinks she should indict anyone.

Honestly, where is all this coming from?

smooth

now here's the thing, I'm not forgetting about the black out portion. Neither you nor I have any idea what happened during it. how could either of us draw any conclusions about it other than from supposition?

But humor this: what if you don't really know the REAL "you."
How are any of us, including you, to know whether the real you is the socially inhibited you, who believed that sex before marriage (or maybe love--no assumptions here) was wrong

OR

the real you is the socially unhibited persona who was freely engaging in something that was pleasurable?

it was pleasurable by your own measure, on a physical level, until the values you had intentionally plumbed right out of your head the night before came rushing back.


Both could be the real you, for example, maybe the blacked out you is the preferrable you. the one you used to unleash with alcohol when you knew you were prone to do crazy things. maybe what I've offered will give you an angle by which to own your past...in a way that doesn't filter it through guilt of doing that which you regretted.

Perhaps, abaya, you wanted to experience sex and your last concious decision was to chose to do it in the only way your body and conscious would allow you to enjoy it--surrealisticly.


@knifemissle,
honestly, a lot of it comes from responses like yourswhen you see my name and jump in opposition to whatever I post...whereever I post, it's tiresome

it is neither mine nor abaya's thread or board, just adults having conversations and allowing them to drift where they might...but it's evidently comforting to some members to center around this portion of the discussion between abaya and myself. anyone was free to ignore my posts and continue with the OP, but this seems more interesting to the participants...who am I to refute the direction this organic development took.

Gilda, I agree with you that abaya relates various parts of multiple acts of sex. But she gives the caveat that he is extremely drunk, as well (to the point of missing his flight) so his recollection is no more noteworthy than hers...and here we have his words filtered through hers. What we do know, is that she was deriving physical pleasure from the only sex act she remembers. Is it illogical to suspect that she was deriving pleasure from the earlier acts, too?

It's an interesting proposition to hold that one person is a jerk for acting a certain way and not have the same opinion of a person who can try and understand the concsiousness of the jerk but not act like that.

what makes a jerk? someone who thinks like one? or someone who acts like one?
and is there really a split between what one thinks and how one acts in terms of who that person actually is? which one takes precedence?

the question of intent becomes salient in that we have no idea what either of them were thinking when they met. perhaps he had no intention of having sex with abaya. maybe that came much later in the interaction, after the exterior signs of intoxication had long worn off, and they were discussing each other's life...each other's goals and wishes and other things. perhaps he felt a genuine connnection with her, or her with him. maybe they fell into love with one another for a fleeting moment in time, certainly not the type that many of us here are knowledgable about--what with our lumped up notions of commodification of love entangled with sex and how two people show, in western capitalism, that they love one another. perhaps they enjoyed the *now* that so many meditators attempt to seek...to be unfettered by the social.

the incident may be the least of the concerns, but the baggage that comes with it, that is created by our environment, that appears to have caused abaya more "harm" than the act of sexual intercourse itself.

__________________
"The theory of a free press is that truth will emerge from free discussion, not that it will be presented perfectly and instantly in any one account." -- Walter Lippmann

"You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists." -- Abbie Hoffman

Gilda

Rape and sexual assault victims often experience physical pleasure. It's irrelevant to the issue of whether or not it was a rape.

My statements were regarding the guy abaya has been talking about, not you. What you do with that is up to you.

__________________
I'm against ending blackness. I believe that everyone has a right to be black, it's a choice, and I support that.

~Steven Colbert

smooth

lol, that's not at all what I was asking
I was asking you to explore the ramifcations of whether a "person" is determined by one's thoughts or deeds?

__________________
"The theory of a free press is that truth will emerge from free discussion, not that it will be presented perfectly and instantly in any one account." -- Walter Lippmann

"You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists." -- Abbie Hoffman

KnifeMissile

Where does the rest of it come from?

First of all, I didn't see your name and then jump in. Do you honestly think that? What have my other posts to you looked like? Do you think we have some history, I saw your post and thought "hey, it's smooth again. I'll really nail it to him, this time!" Really?

I read your post and that's to what I responded. I hardly even noticed that it was written by some guy who calls himself "smooth." I must say, you're taking all this rather personally, aren't you?

Secondly, I prefer not to think of it as "opposition." If I agree with you then I will say so and if I disagree, I will express that, too. Again, I didn't decide to oppose you and then read what you posted.

If people often disagree with you it just means you have unpopular views. Welcome to life. If it's any consolation, I'm like that. Remember, I defend pedophilic rights! If people seem to do it wherever you go it only means they frequent the same forums that you do. So what? It may be tiresome but it's hardly sinister. More specifically, it hardly warrants lashing out...

Indeed, who are you to refute the direction? I don't even know what you're talking about...

Gilda

I believe identity is a function of one's mind, which probably comes as no surprise.

How we see others is a matter of interpreting their behavior. There is no other means by which to judge others.

__________________
I'm against ending blackness. I believe that everyone has a right to be black, it's a choice, and I support that.

~Steven Colbert

smooth

knifemissile, just give it a rest.
I thought by not really responding to you that you'd move on, but you didn't

I don't know what you're talking about when you wrote that I'm lashing out
that doesn't even make sense to me

and yes, when you see my name you post in predictable ways
I'm trying to read what abaya says and make sense of it, among others
my posts have been about content
your posts, when directed toward me anyway, are about how I carry myself in the discussion

this is what happens when you do that and I respond and then the thread dies because it looks to others that we're having some interpersonal conflict when in reality I have no idea where half of your position is coming from in relation to the original topic or the divergent one.

actually, I dont think I'm holding an unpopular view.
not only are the responses pretty evently split between whether it's rape, abaya experienced behavior that both many men and women engage in any bar I've ever been inside.

__________________
"The theory of a free press is that truth will emerge from free discussion, not that it will be presented perfectly and instantly in any one account." -- Walter Lippmann

"You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists." -- Abbie Hoffman

KnifeMissile

I did notice that your response was light but I didn't interpret that as a desire for me to "move on." Because this is a public forum, If you really wanted me to not respond, you'd simply just not give me something to respond to...

Furthermore, a line like this:...really looks like you're provoking a response. I mean, if someone falsely accuses you of antagonizing them, how would you respond? I'm certain a response would be forthcoming. Just look at your own posts...

The rest is in a PM...