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Culture War Roundup for the week of April 1, 2024

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So if you drug someone and have sex with them that isn't rape?

Assuming they can consent, no. It's very bad and should wind you in prison for a long time. But it's not rape, because that word means something specific. "Rape" is not a catch all term for "any evil behavior involving sex".

Drugging someone so they can't meaningfully resist has been a central example of rape for as long as I can remember, and I seem to be on the older end of this forum. I definitely agree with the complaint that modern feminism has expanded the definition beyond reasonable limits, as the "social justice" crowd is prone to doing with all sorts of terms, but this is not an example of it. The solution to revisionist history is not revisionist history in the opposite direction.

Assuming they can consent, no.

The assumption was "too drunk to say no", just the opposite.

I took "too drunk to say no" as "they will say yes to anything because their inhibitions are lowered", not "they're so drunk they can't even respond". The latter case would be rape, but the former isn't.

This is a special place.

  • -15

If you can't decouple your sense of moral outrage at bad acts from a discussion over what words mean, you're going to have a real bad time on this forum. My position here isn't even that spicy. We have a guy who literally argues for pedophilia being OK, we have people who think that the Jews are to blame for everything, etc. Saying "I think x act is immoral but it doesn't fall under the definition of y" doesn't even register compare to some of the arguments here.

So if you drug someone and have sex with them that isn't rape?

Assuming they can consent, no.

...Speak plainly. What's your actual disagreement with the above?

If someone takes a lot of drugs, consensually or otherwise, that doesn't open the door to "sexing" up their passed out body. Again...jesus christ.

  • -10

I read it as, "if they are intoxicated, but can still consent, having sex with them isn't rape", not "if they consent to being drugged into unconsciousness but not to sex, you can have sex with them when they're unconscious and it isn't rape." If the latter is their intended meaning, I share your horror. If the former, would you agree that it's an unobjectionable statement?

Why split hairs. Just don't.

  • -17

drawing a distinction between "intoxicated but conscious and aware" and "unconscious" is not splitting hairs. The two states are distinct, which is presumably why you have chosen to frame the discussion as being about the latter.

If your argument is that intoxication invalidates consent even if the intoxicated person is conscious and apparently aware, say that. If your argument is that intoxication does not invalidate consent unless the person's awareness is compromised, say that. Be clear about the nature of your disagreement, rather than simply emoting. At the moment, it's not clear there even is a disagreement here, as opposed to a misunderstanding on your part.

Even having this conversation is a bad sign. Why would you need to worry about such distinctions?

This didn't start from a place of having 2 glasses of wine with dinner.

You're retreating to the motte after proposing the bailey. Classic stuff.

  • -15
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