I spent a lot of my late teens and early 20s in the haze between drunk sex and rape. AA wants me to 'look for my part.' Feminists would have me prosecute. The culture is so totally insane on this issue in my opinion, we can't even have a conversation.
7 guys, ketamine, and a group chat is definitely rape though.
When I was in AA and working with sponsees who had been sexually assaulted, I never had them do a “my part” for it. I don’t care what the circumstances were, there is no “my part” of a criminal violation of that magnitude (imo, anyway, it was a controversial approach)
Sponsors can mitigate the harm to some extent by doing what you do but the fact that all judgments in AA, in group discussions, in the pages of the books, in the steps themselves, are always self-critical, always tilted against the self, is what does the real damage.
By the time you sit down for step 5 the carefully studied 'oh well everything else on your list was your fault but THAT wasn't your fault' reply feels like a lie, like they're just patronizing you.
Maybe it was my fault, all of it. It's not always possible to parse all of this so finely, my emotions and body and brain do not get the memo.
Absolutely nobody deserves such violence against them, and yet this is chillingly accepted by far too many people as an excuse to punish women. The only way to change anyone’s mindset (or any legislation) about the gross unfairness of these laws is by illuminating the inhumanity. Calling it out is really hard. But being constantly worried you’re responsible for someone else’s violent actions is worse. Thank you for writing this.
I understand having (some) empathy for some of the perpetrators she mentions, but I'm more concerned with the consequences (or lack thereof) of those perpetrators' actions.
I feel like dissecting the intense woman-hatred of the 2000s (party girl culture, reality TV, etc) will be a great “how did we get here?” historical roadmap
Just to say. The NY rape loophole, where you can't charge a rapist with rape if the victim chose to drink, that is a state law. In California (for example) you absolutely can charge a rapist with rape if the victim chose to drink.
Voluntarily drinking does not remove the law’s protection. The question is whether the person was too intoxicated to consent and whether the accused knew or reasonably should have known that.
What 20 year old consents to sex with 7 guys in a frat house while fucked up on drugs? Have you met 20 year old girls? They like Taylor Swift and puppies and they want a boyfriend who loves them
So here’s the thing…I don’t think Chet or Dean read the post. To me, it’s clear that the post was not litigating the exact legal culpability of the 7 men accused here, but pointing out, as a recovering alcoholic and member of society, how insane it is that many states say that a person who intentionally got drunk is not protected against sexual assault. If you guys want to argue the facts of the case, go on a podcast. But it seems that you both have a vested interest in muddying the waters in the author’s comments — Dean, to promote your own Substack, which as you say, “do you” and enjoy the pat on the back you’ll most certainly have to give yourself, and Chet for…reasons that I can’t determine. But ya know…guy named Chet…I bet I can guess what you’re so defensive.
Also cool story about once being offered sex in college, Chet, I’m sure everyone is so proud of you. Definitely the right venue for that conversation, I’m sure all of your friend is proud of you.
Ok last i read it was 7. But even if it was sex with 2 and masturbation/groping/whatever (so, basically, also sex) with the remaining 5... this is what the parties involved even remember.. or will admit to.. just like a guy in college i knew who 'swore nothing happened' even when i woke up to him right beside me with his dick out.
The fact that some girls learn to play the game and ask for threesomes has nothing and everything to do with it. Y'all turned this world into Pornhub. Do you like it here? I don't. Men, and some women who play along with all this, have lost their fucking souls
i read the story this morning and it changes nothing in my mind. i could outline the many reasons why, but i'll just say shock and denial are very real. it took me literally ten years to realize that what happened in that bed could be considered a crime. in any case, this post is primarily about the "intoxication loopholes" in consent laws; what's considered "consensual" by the law doesn't always reflect what a reasonable person would consider consent.
I mean y’all do you, but the more you expand terms and deny responsibility the worse things are going to get. Legal crimes need legal definitions, and people have to be credible to be believed. This isn’t a vibes based coffee shop where we're passing around a bong and don’t have anything to do. This is real life.
Sorry but does this mean that you think that drunk driving shouldn’t be against the law because if you’re drunk you don’t know if your action crosses the line from legal to illegal? I think the issue is that rape culture feeds on intentionally blurred lines and revisionist history…the reason why I don’t go on a crime spree when I’m impaired is because it’s been drilled into my head that there’s never an excuse to be violent, to put others in harm’s way, to steal etc. It’s programmed deep into my unconscious brain. But for years, men have been taught implicitly or explicitly that impairment is an easy “no harm no foul” for anything you want to disappear…that’s just not how real life works. If you need to have it explained to you that you are at fault for getting drunk and sending a company wide email that gets you to lose your job, but not at fault for blacking out and having someone take advantage of you, I don’t think anyone will be able to explain the nuance of being a human being to you
If the person who crawled into bed with my that night had penetrative sex with me while I was half conscious and almost entirely immobile, how would I have known that his actions were a violation of the law? Despite being too impaired to move? Is that really a question?
if the guy who climbed on you that night had been as drunk as you were, he might not have been able to 'meaningfully exercise judgement about whether' [sex with you] would be a 'violation of the law' (which presumably then means he couldn't be found guilty for anything he did with you...)
i.e. comparing 'she was too drunk to consent' with 'he was too drunk to be culpable'
Well given that he could speak and had no trouble moving, he definitely wasn’t as drunk as I was? But I don’t think knowing you shouldn’t have sex with a semi unconscious person is a matter of inebriation; I think it’s something much more fundamental than that.
I'm not Chet so I don't know what he meant, the above was my clumsy attempt at an interpretation..
What I missed out the first time though, is that he was probably not addressing your specific situation.. or your/that guy's relative drunkenness. It reads more like a hypothetical spin on your title question.. as in: 'how could the same level of drunkness render a woman incapable of consent but not render a man incapable of knowing that what he's doing is wrong?'
And there might be a tiny grain of something worth considering in there, at some level of intoxication, they might have a problem thinking anything much...although I would still agree with you; some things should be so ingrained as wrong that they never seem ok...
I know you’re interpreting here, but 1) this is a baffling comparison and 2) I think that litigating what is and isn’t okay in response to someone’s shared experience in the comments of their substack post is not just in poor taste but lacks a degree of humanity that would be common amongst lesser creatures
I spent a lot of my late teens and early 20s in the haze between drunk sex and rape. AA wants me to 'look for my part.' Feminists would have me prosecute. The culture is so totally insane on this issue in my opinion, we can't even have a conversation.
7 guys, ketamine, and a group chat is definitely rape though.
When I was in AA and working with sponsees who had been sexually assaulted, I never had them do a “my part” for it. I don’t care what the circumstances were, there is no “my part” of a criminal violation of that magnitude (imo, anyway, it was a controversial approach)
Sponsors can mitigate the harm to some extent by doing what you do but the fact that all judgments in AA, in group discussions, in the pages of the books, in the steps themselves, are always self-critical, always tilted against the self, is what does the real damage.
By the time you sit down for step 5 the carefully studied 'oh well everything else on your list was your fault but THAT wasn't your fault' reply feels like a lie, like they're just patronizing you.
Maybe it was my fault, all of it. It's not always possible to parse all of this so finely, my emotions and body and brain do not get the memo.
I hear you
Absolutely nobody deserves such violence against them, and yet this is chillingly accepted by far too many people as an excuse to punish women. The only way to change anyone’s mindset (or any legislation) about the gross unfairness of these laws is by illuminating the inhumanity. Calling it out is really hard. But being constantly worried you’re responsible for someone else’s violent actions is worse. Thank you for writing this.
As always, I find your written thoughts a good antidote to the dark responses that come to my mind when I read stories like the Cornell case.
Thank you, Katie.
Thank you for this nuance as always and have you read this Sarah Hepola essay on this topic (among others)? https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/03/writing-controversial-opinions-journalism/627014/
“When men are in a blackout, they do things to the world,” he told me. “When women are in a blackout, things are done to them.”
I understand having (some) empathy for some of the perpetrators she mentions, but I'm more concerned with the consequences (or lack thereof) of those perpetrators' actions.
I feel like dissecting the intense woman-hatred of the 2000s (party girl culture, reality TV, etc) will be a great “how did we get here?” historical roadmap
Agreed! 🩷👩💻
Ooh I haven’t but I will now!
It doesn’t!
Just to say. The NY rape loophole, where you can't charge a rapist with rape if the victim chose to drink, that is a state law. In California (for example) you absolutely can charge a rapist with rape if the victim chose to drink.
Voluntarily drinking does not remove the law’s protection. The question is whether the person was too intoxicated to consent and whether the accused knew or reasonably should have known that.
Yes, I tried to go through and find all the state laws that have that language. California was not on the list
You should perhaps reconsider this. It appears it was consensual. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/01/nyregion/cornell-rape-accusation-reporting.html
What 20 year old consents to sex with 7 guys in a frat house while fucked up on drugs? Have you met 20 year old girls? They like Taylor Swift and puppies and they want a boyfriend who loves them
So here’s the thing…I don’t think Chet or Dean read the post. To me, it’s clear that the post was not litigating the exact legal culpability of the 7 men accused here, but pointing out, as a recovering alcoholic and member of society, how insane it is that many states say that a person who intentionally got drunk is not protected against sexual assault. If you guys want to argue the facts of the case, go on a podcast. But it seems that you both have a vested interest in muddying the waters in the author’s comments — Dean, to promote your own Substack, which as you say, “do you” and enjoy the pat on the back you’ll most certainly have to give yourself, and Chet for…reasons that I can’t determine. But ya know…guy named Chet…I bet I can guess what you’re so defensive.
Also cool story about once being offered sex in college, Chet, I’m sure everyone is so proud of you. Definitely the right venue for that conversation, I’m sure all of your friend is proud of you.
Ok last i read it was 7. But even if it was sex with 2 and masturbation/groping/whatever (so, basically, also sex) with the remaining 5... this is what the parties involved even remember.. or will admit to.. just like a guy in college i knew who 'swore nothing happened' even when i woke up to him right beside me with his dick out.
The fact that some girls learn to play the game and ask for threesomes has nothing and everything to do with it. Y'all turned this world into Pornhub. Do you like it here? I don't. Men, and some women who play along with all this, have lost their fucking souls
i read the story this morning and it changes nothing in my mind. i could outline the many reasons why, but i'll just say shock and denial are very real. it took me literally ten years to realize that what happened in that bed could be considered a crime. in any case, this post is primarily about the "intoxication loopholes" in consent laws; what's considered "consensual" by the law doesn't always reflect what a reasonable person would consider consent.
https://getbettersoon.substack.com/p/ladies-this-isnt-going-to-age-well
I mean y’all do you, but the more you expand terms and deny responsibility the worse things are going to get. Legal crimes need legal definitions, and people have to be credible to be believed. This isn’t a vibes based coffee shop where we're passing around a bong and don’t have anything to do. This is real life.
https://getbettersoon.substack.com/p/man-or-bear
Sorry but does this mean that you think that drunk driving shouldn’t be against the law because if you’re drunk you don’t know if your action crosses the line from legal to illegal? I think the issue is that rape culture feeds on intentionally blurred lines and revisionist history…the reason why I don’t go on a crime spree when I’m impaired is because it’s been drilled into my head that there’s never an excuse to be violent, to put others in harm’s way, to steal etc. It’s programmed deep into my unconscious brain. But for years, men have been taught implicitly or explicitly that impairment is an easy “no harm no foul” for anything you want to disappear…that’s just not how real life works. If you need to have it explained to you that you are at fault for getting drunk and sending a company wide email that gets you to lose your job, but not at fault for blacking out and having someone take advantage of you, I don’t think anyone will be able to explain the nuance of being a human being to you
If the person who crawled into bed with my that night had penetrative sex with me while I was half conscious and almost entirely immobile, how would I have known that his actions were a violation of the law? Despite being too impaired to move? Is that really a question?
I assume he meant something like this:
if the guy who climbed on you that night had been as drunk as you were, he might not have been able to 'meaningfully exercise judgement about whether' [sex with you] would be a 'violation of the law' (which presumably then means he couldn't be found guilty for anything he did with you...)
i.e. comparing 'she was too drunk to consent' with 'he was too drunk to be culpable'
Well given that he could speak and had no trouble moving, he definitely wasn’t as drunk as I was? But I don’t think knowing you shouldn’t have sex with a semi unconscious person is a matter of inebriation; I think it’s something much more fundamental than that.
Absolutely :)
***
I'm not Chet so I don't know what he meant, the above was my clumsy attempt at an interpretation..
What I missed out the first time though, is that he was probably not addressing your specific situation.. or your/that guy's relative drunkenness. It reads more like a hypothetical spin on your title question.. as in: 'how could the same level of drunkness render a woman incapable of consent but not render a man incapable of knowing that what he's doing is wrong?'
And there might be a tiny grain of something worth considering in there, at some level of intoxication, they might have a problem thinking anything much...although I would still agree with you; some things should be so ingrained as wrong that they never seem ok...
I know you’re interpreting here, but 1) this is a baffling comparison and 2) I think that litigating what is and isn’t okay in response to someone’s shared experience in the comments of their substack post is not just in poor taste but lacks a degree of humanity that would be common amongst lesser creatures