Topics Ethics

Question How drunk is too drunk to consent? Lets take several scenarios. A karaoke bar which relies on drunk patrons for entertainment. At least some of those people will inevitably regret their performance. If they were in there right minds they would never have done such a thing but nobody really cared about that. If a person has sex with a person who was so drunk that they had sex with someone they wouldn't normally have sex with then some people consider that bad. Others don't. Depending on how drunk the person was some might consider it rape but another person would disagree. What is the appropriate standard then for consent? I think they if a person is 'blotto' then it is likely rape but to be honest I think a person has to be extremely drunk to be unable to consent to sex, for example so drunk they don't know what is going on. I don't think impaired judgment is a standard to go on. I would also suggest that there is a degree of prudery in the idea that the ramifications of merely having sex do to bad judgment are so significant that we need to protect people from the supposedly awful sexual decisions that they make when they are drunk. It's not like somebody is giving a person booze while they are signing contracts that could have lifelong financial ramifications its just plain old no eternal significance sex. Right? There seems to be some underlying under examined and unarticulated notion to the contrary. Also I must also ask why there is a double standard here. The most men are said to regret is finding that they had sex with someone that they didn't find physically attractive on the morning.

Accepted:
February 28, 2013

Comments

A lot to talk about here; I hope others will add their thoughts.

A couple of asides. I'm puzzled that you say it's likely rape if a person is "blotto," to use your word. But I'm more puzzled by something else: you say "I don't think impaired judgment is a standard to go on" and yet you don't give any reason why not.

Let that pass, however. I don't know if there's a sharp line that marks the difference between too drunk to consent and sober enough. More important, I don't see anything strange in the idea that the standard might not be the same for all cases. Karaoke is pretty low-stakes; getting married, for example, or signing a potentially costly contract (your example) is a different story.

Your reply might be that you could accept that; the standard is higher the higher the stakes. But you go on to argue that the stakes are pretty low in the case of bad sexual "decisions." I'm guessing you'd say it's on the order of deciding to sing karaoke in a crowded room. Others disagree. For many people, sexual intimacy is far more central to how they think about themselves and their relationships with others than it may be for you. For example: a person might value having a sexually exclusive relationship even though they're sometimes tempted to stray. If someone takes advantage of their intoxicated state, the result may be that the person ends up acting in a way that violates deeply held commitments. You may see that as prudery or as over-estimating the significance of sex. However it seems at least as plausible that there's nothing unreasonable about valuing sexual exclusivity, even if other attitudes are also within the bounds of the reasonable.

To this we can add a couple of further thoughts. First, women often have more at stake in sexual encounters quite apart from more general attitudes about sex. The reason is obvious: men don't get pregnant. Second, it's hard to see why women's reactions to sexual encounters -- including being taken advantage of while drunk -- shouldn't be given their due. I know women who've been taken advantage of sexually while intoxicated and who've felt deeply violated by what was done to them. I see no reason at all to dismiss their reactions.

We can sharpen the point by thinking about your last sentence. For the sake of argument, let's suppose that most men's regrets about drunken sex are no deeper than the one you describe. That might mean that men's attitudes about sex are quite different from women's on average. But that wouldn't be a double standard in the usual sense. A "double standard" as we usually use those words is a kind of hypocrisy: one and the same person applying standards inconsistently or applying different standards without a relevant distinctions. If it's true that women's attitudes toward sex are often different from men's, that doesn't make anyone a hypocrite and it doesn't give men any reason not to respect women's attitudes.

The original question was where the line lies between sober enough to consent and too drunk. As noted, that's not a question with a simple answer. But the deeper issue is about our attitudes toward other people's values and preferences. The fact that you value something and I know you do typically gives me a reason to respect your value even if I don't happen to share it. I may find that picture my beloved's aunt painted ugly. But I know it means a lot to my beloved, and I'll act accordingly. All the more so in the highly-charged, emotionally-complex realm of sex. There, I'd suggest, we have all the more reason to be mindful.