this post was submitted on 20 Feb 2024
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The poster did. If your actions as a prosecutor are to punish one party who is at the same level of drunkenness as the other, who you're letting go, for the same actions (sex with a drunk person), then yeah, you're saying at least sometimes, you're not responsible for your actions while drunk.
Being drunk leads to poor reasoning and poor decision making whether you're male or female. Either apply the same standard or don't. If she wants to pursue action against him, or the state does, then they both face the same penalty, considering the same crime.
You also seem to default to making judgements about what another person's theoretical state of mind would be if they weren't drunk in this situation. That might work for prosecution, but it's a shit heuristic for actually preventing anything. I don't know most people's states of mind when we're both sober, and now you're expecting a drunk person to figure out another drunk person's sober mindset?
People are responsible for their actions, and the foreseeable consequences of their actions.
If it was not reasonable for her to believe he would consent to sex while sober, she should not have had sex with him.
It's my hypothesis that prosecutors will only bring charges if they think they can convince a jury that a person was not reasonable to believe the other party would consent to sex while sober.
Yeah which is why posters like this are good. Don't have sex with drunk strangers. Don't have sex with drunk platonic friends. Don't have new types of sex with existing serial sexual partners unless it's reasonable for you to believe they would consent while sober.
No I'm asking them not to try. If your judgement is impaired by alcohol, don't try to assess if someone has consented to sex with you.