Earlier today I participated on a thread where many men were asking why, when two people have sex while drunk, they are responsible for the act as an assault whereas the woman is typically not. Here was my answer:
OK I’m hearing a lot of questions about why a man is typically responsible for ensuring consent when both parties are drunk. I’d like to address that.
First of all, if you are a man and you have been sexually assaulted by a woman while intoxicated, you have every right to speak up and receive support as well as transformative justice. Sexual assault can happen to anyone, and everyone regardless of gender needs to learn to be accountable for their behavior.
Here is why, however, this scenario almost never happens and why men must assume responsibility for ensuring consent:
First, at a certain level of intoxication it is usually nearly impossible for most men to sexually perform. This means that sex with a man who is blackout drunk almost never happens. Now, if a man is blackout drunk and a woman gropes him or otherwise forces herself on him, then she is assaulting him. But again this is almost never the description of the assaults that are taking place. Most of the scenarios you are discussing involve coordinated action and movement on the man’s part and the inaction of lying on a bed from the woman involved.
Second, on the whole, men are much stronger than women. While this is not true in every scenario, most men feel confident physically defending themselves against unwanted attention from a woman. Women on the other hand, being less physically strong, may either attempt to fight off a man and fail, or, they will give in to non-violent sex against their will because it is better than resisting and having it turn into violent rape, which the man will be capable of forcing on them due to his physical strength. This is doubly true when alcohol is involved, meaning women will be physically weaker and men will be more prone to violence.
Third, women are not conditioned to value sex as belt-notches reinforcing their self-worth the way that men are, so a woman receives no praise for having “scored.” If anything she receives slut shame and scorn. So she is not motivated to close that gap in drunkenness so she can brag to her buddies about it. This is not behavior that is encouraged in women the way it is encouraged in men (see: the frat behavior of Brett Kavanaugh and Mark Judge). Furthermore women are conditioned into NOT making the first move (see: LMR/ASD, last-minute resistance/anti-slut defense), which men are conditioned into, so scenarios where a woman is making a move on an unwilling man, while not impossible, are rare. (I should know, I’ve had plenty of experiences wanting sex with men who did not want to have sex with me and I haven’t coerced any of them into it. I was next to my musical rock idol on a tour bus cuddling with him and I could feel his erection on my thigh through his jeans in his sleep, and because he had said he didn’t want to have sex because he had a cold, I STILL didn’t touch it, even though I wanted to.)
Fourth, in the patriarchy we live in, women are conditioned to attend to men’s needs in a way that men are not conditioned to attend to the needs of women. If you need any evidence of this, you need only look at women’s magazines, where they are told each month 50 new ways to give a better blowjob, whereas I have never seen a single men’s magazine feature a tutorial on cunnilingus. Women are taught to keep homes for their men, make excuses for them, do their laundry, cook for them, and justify all their bad behavior with “boys will be boys.“ Men on the other hand are conditioned by the media they’re exposed to, especially Hollywood films, to feel entitled to a beautiful, sexually pleasing girlfriend just by doing the bare minimum, or worse, by stalking her outside her window with a boom box (threat/manipulation/ignoring of stated boundaries). So when it comes to sex, women are far less capable of saying no if they think that it will displease the man they are with. Men who don’t receive what they feel entitled to are far more likely to be violent, coercive, and angry, whereas women are trained to repress any signs of displeasure or else come off as “crazy.“ For evidence of this, witness the calm demeanor in the testimony of Christine Ford (recounting the PTSD of her assault) versus the angry emotional outbursts of Brett Kavanaugh (faced with the horror of being denied a spot on the Supreme Court), and still most men are saying that he is the more credible party. Imagine for a moment if she answered the committee’s questions with the same tone that he did, and imagine what the response would be.
Further evidence that men aren’t naturally attuned to prioritize women’s needs is found in many corners of the PUA community where many would-be PUAs refuse to listen to women even if they themselves are PUA instructors trained by Neil Strauss, Mystery, and Adam Lyons (hi). More PUAs practice pickup to appear studly in the eyes of their male peers than to actually learn how to be pleasing to women, which would make them “betas” or “cucks” according to their backward philosophy.
For another example I guarantee you there will be a man on this thread who will argue with me about what treatment I have right to reasonably expect as a woman instead of LISTENING to me tell them what I want and need from them in order to be able to trust them and desire them. Just watch.
So the answer to why men are responsible for ensuring consent from women during sex while drunk, and not so much the other way around?
It’s because of privilege.
This is the responsibility that comes with the power that you wield. It’s time you recognized all the advantages that you have been given, and start using them responsibly.
Yes, it IS your job. You might not like it, but if you continue to act like it, you will be slapped with a rape charge for these actions eventually. So better to just learn it now and accept it as reality. Because women are not accepting this treatment anymore. You have been warned.
PS. If you don’t like this or feel this is unfair, you don’t have to have sex with women. Or you can risk it and do jail time, where if the jokes you tell are accurate then you will face the same fears of rape as women do just walking down a dark street. Good luck, fellas.
*****EDITED TO ADD:*****
Look I’ll translate what I said in that paragraph about intoxication and male sexual performance:
In most heteronormative cases of rape you guys (men) are talking about where you wonder why it’s a man’s responsibility to account for sex under mutual intoxication, men are the do-ers and women are the do-ees. In like 75% of all possible sexual positions this is the case. This means most sex requires a man’s ACTIVE participation while it merely requires a woman’s PASSIVE participation. If yall are that drunk, a) you weren’t that drunk that you couldn’t move and b) you were still capable of actually sticking the dick in (unless you have rigor mortis?), which requires your actively making a move and not passively receiving one. That means that in all but the unlikeliest cases it was a decision on your part to engage in penetration, whereas a woman, especially a drunk one, could very easily be penetrated without her decision, by even the slightest amount of force commonly thought of as “dominance.” The bar for active participation for MOST of what people think of as heteronormative sex (PIV) is VERY low for women and VERY high for men.
Now, IMPORTANTLY, not all sex nor sexual assault requires penetration, or even an erection, because not all sex nor sexual assault looks like what most people think of as heteronormative sex. And it is VERY possible for a woman to force herself on a man while he is intoxicated. Which means that whiskey dick is not even remotely a determining factor for assault.
If he woke up to her blowing him? Assault.
If she shoved her junk in his face without his consent? Assault.
If she was his teacher/employer? Assault.
If she emotionally blackmailed him or threatened him if he didn’t? Assault.
If she disrespected his safeword during a BDSM scene? Assault.
If he gave her his consent only under conditions he found out were false? Assault.
If he’s underage? Assault.
If he’s only doing it because he depends on her financially? Assault.
But that’s not what yall are talking about, is it? No, you’re talking about plain old drunken vanilla missionary sex with a girl that you know you wanted and why do we assume YOU were the one who definitely consented, why doesn’t the story ever go that SHE assaulted YOU.
Boy sit your ass down.
I’ve tried to initiate sex with past male partners when they were drunk. Trust me, they felt VERY comfortable swatting me away, and if I had kept at it, they would have turned belligerent. I once somehow put my finger in my ex-boyfriend’s ear when we were both asleep, and he basically woke up frantic and instinctively punched me. And that was his ear. If men don’t want something, they tend to make their displeasure known loud and clear.
I’m not saying it can’t happen. I never said it couldn’t. For a man with enough early trauma and sensitivity that he learns to freeze/fawn as a trauma reaction, yes, this could be a possibility that he goes along with sex he doesn’t want because he’s been so conditioned to be a people-pleaser or he’s so afraid of abandonment. But let’s be honest, that’s not most dudes, and it’s DEFINITELY not the dudes on that thread I was replying on – because MEN WHO HAVE EXPERIENCED ENOUGH TRAUMA TO FREEZE/FAWN GENERALLY BELIEVE WOMEN. But I’m pretty sure it’s statistically documented that men are overwhelmingly more likely to fight/flight and women are overwhelmingly more likely to freeze/fawn. You know, because patriarchal conditioning.
So no. That’s just boys who don’t want to take responsibility for their actions.
Recent Comments