Even Some Liberals Defend A Rape Culture

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Sometimes I repost blog entries on the Daily Kos website. I like to try to get a lot of comments and recommendations that might help in promoting my blog. I get nervous waiting for comments over there but I like the rush no matter what the response is. However, I really wasn’t prepared for the comments after posting my entry about the Steubenville Ohio rape case. The comments showed how ingrained the rape culture is in this country as even some liberals play into it.

If you don’t know Daily Kos is a big blog that tends to express and support liberal political views. It also allows members to post blogs called diaries that are listed on the front page. Members who read the posts can comment and recommend the article. If enough people recommend a post it will be promoted as a featured post on the front page of the site. That is a goal of mine when I post entries there.

Sunday I reposted my entry about Steubenville Ohio rape case titled “Guys, If The Girl Is Drunk It Is Rape – Period“. I thought it was a straight forward essay about how if a woman is drunk guys need to leave them alone or they could be in trouble for rape. I was not prepared for some of the shocking comments readers left on my post. I was disappointed.

Here is a sample of comments:

If you’re going to argue that being above the legal limit for operating a potentially deadly motor vehicle makes someone so horrendously impaired they can’t even tell if they’re willing to consent to sex or not, wouldn’t that necessarily mean we can’t prosecute someone for DUI because they didn’t know what they were doing when they decided to get behind the wheel and drive? Sounds like an ironclad temporary insanity defense to me if that’s how we’re going to think about this.

I wanted to scream “exactly”…
after seeing the title, but then came this circle of reasoning:

Why does the woman have to be stone cold sober, not dress sexy, not flirt…. and on and on. Why can’t the boys and men just leave a woman alone and not try to take advantage of her, espeically when she is intoxicated or passed out.

So I have to ask the diarist, exactly at what alcohol level and what form of “go ahead” is needed before sex can begin?

If a woman has a glass of wine
and then decides she would like to have “fun”,
the man should say no to ?
Any woman who has had a drink should be protected from the mistakes she is making ?

I see what you’re getting at
but how drunk is drunk? Is it the same as “drunk off your ass”? If I have a girlfriend and she has 2 or 3 glasses of wine and is all over me, am I a rapist? Depending on what definition you use, .08 BAC is drunk…I’m pretty sure you’ll have a hard time convincing someone that at .08 BAC it’s impossible to give consent. 

Can a man give consent to a woman when he’s drunk? How about to another man?
What happened in Steubenville was the rape of a completely incoherent woman and actions that nobody capable of giving consent would ever consent to. Your diary leaves open the possibility of labeling a rapist anyone who has ever had sex with someone who has been drinking. 

Rape is a serious topic, and warrants serious…
discussion.
This diary headline is unserious and reflexively anti-sex.

These bad comments show there is a lot of work to do even for some liberals to get on the right page on this issue.

It’s clear I wasn’t talking about “a couple of drinks…” Drunk in the whole context of the diary is pretty clear. If I was going to split hairs on the definition of “drunk” I would have written about that. If the woman is passed out or so drunk she would be arrested for DUI then it is common sense. It seems obvious to me that some of the rape apologists were debating the title of the post rather than the actual text.

As someone else commented they said if the woman seems drunk then back off. I agree and was the point of my essay.

Personally, I would have concern even if the woman was just tipsy. There is also the other consideration if the woman and the man is in a relationship compared, like in the case, the woman is a stranger or not in a relationship with the man. But that is over thinking this. If a guy wants to ride that third rail then that is up to them but again if the girl is drunk then you are treading dangerous ground.

I am not anti-sex I am anti-stupid. Very rarely does alcohol and sex turn out well. People will point out the victim was stupid in getting so drunk she couldn’t remember what happened but I respond by saying no matter how stupid her decision was she didn’t ask or deserve to get raped. The worst that should happen to a drunk person is they wake up with a cotton mouth and huge headache.

Again why does the woman have to behave a certain way why can’t the men just leave her alone??

Even though I was disappointed how the discussion of my post degenerated into the usual screeching attempt to cover up the serious issue of rape, I plan on cross posting more entries of this blog on Daily Kos.