Drunken Sex and Male Culpability

Annie Kendzior

Back in the unenlightened 50's and 60's women were supposed to be virginal at marriage, but as the 60's turned into the 70's that got amended to women were supposed to be virginal until they got drunk at college and "didn't know what I was doing" and had sex. But that didn't count, because, that really wasn't me who had sex, just the drunken alter ego me. By the 80's women could have sex before marriage if they were in a "committed" relationship, which is to say, it is okay if "Well, I was in love with the guy."  By the 1990's Gore Vidal and Tom Wolfe were reporting college girls had given up all pretense of not wanting sex except in certain, restricted circumstances, but were inclined to "hook up" with boys every weekend, for fun and pleasure.

As far as Mad Dog can tell, this summary of evolution of sexual mores among college girls/women varies with the college.  

During the 1990's a male student at Brown University, a junior, just a year from graduation was expelled because he had sex with a drunken co-ed. He had come back to his fraternity house room and found a naked, drunken coed in his bed, considered this a gift from God and had sex with her. She awoke the next morning, exchanged names and telephone numbers with him and went home to her dorm and had a change of heart. She decided she had been raped. Because all incoming freshman sign a pledge as one of those one thousand pieces of paper you sign during freshman week, the university had the boy/man in clear violation of this university policy, that boys not take advantage of drunk girls.

Now, in the second decade of the 21st century a case at the Naval Academy has hit the headlines. Of course, there can be no adequate analysis of the ethics of a case without establishing the "facts" and the facts may be remembered and perceived differently by all involved. But, at least as it is reported in the New York Times, the sophomore midshipman now says, in her lawsuit, she went to an off campus party and arrived drunk or at least semi inebriated. While partying with members of the Naval Academy football team, she drank more, so much in fact she "blacked out." She says now she can recall only brief moments of that night but was driven home by one of the football players. Later that week, she texted the player who had driven her home and met with him and he told her he and another player had had sex with her. 

Then the consequences began to unfold, in terms of looks she got from the football players, isolation and ostracism by other midshipmen and a general sense of wearing the scarlet "A"--the sort of stuff Mad Dog remembers from when he was a teenager when word got out that a girl was "easy." Now, in 2013, of course, every girl is presumed to be or ought to be "easy"--but not at the Naval Academy, apparently.

Of course, the military has become the last bastion of irrationality and ridiculousness when it comes to rules about sex, as General Petraeus would be the first to conclude. You cannot have sex with a soldier you outrank, which means, exactly, what?  Sergeants cannot have sex with anyone except other sergeants?  If you are married, you cannot have sex with anyone but your own wife. And that is a standard which General Eisenhower would have loved enforcing. While in theater, in combat assignments, we will assign you a young woman to sit in your foxhole with you, and you may not have sex with her.  Just read Kayla Williams (I Love My Rifle More Than You) on that one. As Ms. Williams notes, women assigned to overseas combat postings suddenly find they are, for the first time in their lives, consideredd to be among the most sexually attractive women on earth. On the plane ride back to the United States, the joke goes, "Welcome back to America. All you ladies have just gone from being a '10' to a '4, again.'"

So here is the question:  If a young woman gets drunk, not alone in her room, but gets drunk and goes to a bar or to a party, where a reasonable person might expect she would met young men who are present in hopes of having sexual intercourse with some willing female, does she then  have any right to demand punishment for the young men who "took advantage of her?"

Suppose the woman had not been drunk at all, but merely became excited after dancing with the young man, and went off to his room and had sex and then later decided the music had stripped her of her defenses?

Or suppose the woman  merely said she was drunk when in fact, she had had nothing to drink, but she went off to a room and had sex with a young man who thought (mistakenly) he was taking advantage of her lowered resistance: Would he then be guilty of having violated his oath to not have sex when he had reason to believe the lady's judgment was impaired?

The most cogent question is, of course, if a woman willingly puts herself into a state of impaired judgment, is it required of a young man to accurately diagnose that state and to refrain from having sex with her.

You can see the scene:  
                             Woman: "Take me to your room."
                             Man:       "I'd love to, but are you drunk?"
                             Woman:  "Well, maybe a little."
                             Man:        "Then I cannot."
                             Woman:   "Well, then, no. I'm fine. I just want to have sex. Do I have to be drunk to want to have sex?"
                             Man:         "I don't know? Do you?"
                             Woman:    "With you, maybe. Most guys don't require me to pass some roadside test. Do you want me to walk heel to toe? Touch my nose with my finger? What are you,  a cop?"
                              Man:         "Hey, I'd love to, but I've signed this paper that says I cannot have sex with women who've been drinking too much."
                              Woman:    "Well, how much is too much?"
                              Man:         "I don't know. Maybe we should have you breathe in to a breathalyzer."
                              Woman:    "Or how about we go by the ER and have them draw a blood alcohol level on me."
                              Man:         "That works for me."
                              Woman:    "Get lost, loser."