Does Alcohol Always Mean Lack Of Consent?

[Sewe]

Automatic & Always? Hell no.

 

[Ebol]

"And his lack of care for my feelings later when I spelled it out to him was telling. In fact, he left the conversation with: "I'm hungry. You can keep talking but I need to eat." No understanding, no apology, just defenses and he's hungry."

That shows such a callous disregard. There you are trying to give him the benefit of the doubt and work things through, and you get this from him? If he does not respect your feelings now it doesn't sound like he regarded your wishes or your well-being at the time it happened.

 

[Mozapet]

In the case you specified it certainly sounds like assault. He didn't ask for your consent, didn't even check to see if you could respond properly. The "it felt like you wanted it" is an old excuse and always sets off radars. To say "it felt like" means he was just assuming. He didn't ask, he didn't check, he just went for it based on what he felt.

That's pretty much textbook date rape.

Date rape always feels hazy to a lot of folks, because you know them, it also is the reason why so many rapes go unreported. How do you report someone you know and maybe even care about? What about the people you both know? What if you did consent and can't remember?

That's why there's a legal definition of rape and why consent is such an issue. If you can't remember if you consented-you were too drunk to consent. Alcohol muddied the waters for a long time, and that's why laws about obtaining consent and not having sex with anyone you suspect may have been drinking comes in.

Think of it this way-most places if you have even *one* drink, you can't sign for anything because you're considered compromised. If someone can't get you drunk to buy a car, why should they be able to get you drunk to have sex with? It's your *body* not a thing, and that's infinitely more important and personal.

What was done was assault, whether you report it or not. His response only makes it worse.

 

[Recano]

It certainly sounds like a sexual assault to me and that he may believe that he had this right.

consent was not given or denied, nor was it sought by him.

He not only disregarded what you had told him as well as you being in and out of consciousness, but he also took advantage of the situation.

He did things we do not normally do.

I had told him prior to drinking that I wanted to be left alone (just in general) and lose my mind for a while after a rough day. I told him I wanted a safe place to do so.

He rationalizes his actions and shifts the weight of his actions onto you through claiming and stating:

he did not know I was that drunk and said "it felt like you wanted it."

How was he to know Yes, No or otherwise?

Possibly, impaired beliefs of his led him to consider or believe:

This was an opportunistic time.
He had a good enough cover (you were intoxicated).
He's married (though separated) to you, a request to be left alone (such as prior to drinking), is not to be taking too seriously.

How was he to know if I didn't explicitly say "No" (even if he knows I have issues surrounding that, but it is still my responsibility)

It's not surprising you feel and think the way you do about this. It must be awfully confusing.

My issue I wanted to discuss with T was just the feeling of disrespect and disappointment in his lack of his ability to say "Hey, no, you're too drunk" and/or leave me alone/put me to bed even if I initiated as he says I did. I definitely felt hurt and betrayed, but not assaulted.

I'm really sorry this occurred. You didn't ask for nor deserve this, nor the ridicule and later shifting of blame.

 

[Umopu]

I'm sorry this happened to you. However, I think you have to really think about this before you go down the sexual assault road. Your spouse may be an asshole and absolutely not care how you feel, however if you accuse him of assault then it will completely change his life.
One thing you said was that you initiated kissing and that he said he didn't know you were that drunk. This is a slippery slope. If he in fact didn't realize you were "drunk" and you came on to him then I am not sure it is assault. I am certainly NOT trying to beat you up or making you feel guilty for questioning what happened, however I think you do need to take some responsibility for the situation. If you in fact came on to him and he didn't realize you were that seriously drunk, which I know people that can black out and not remember anything and I had no clue they were that intoxicated, then he may not be guilty of anything except having make up sex in his mind.
I just urge you to be fair. This could essentially ruin someone's life and needs to be taken seriously. AND! I am not trying to negate the impact this has had on you or minimize how you feel. I categorize this into "bad choices" and hopefully you can see that drinking too much isn't the answer either. Drinking impairs your judgement and leads you down some horrendous paths. Now...if you decide he knowingly took advantage of you, please by all means prosecute the hell out of him. Only you can differentiate between the two. Good luck. Sorry this happened.

 

[Adup]

If he in fact didn't realize you were "drunk" and you came on to him then I am not sure it is assault.

I think this could be a fair point in general.

However:

I had stumbled around and fallen prior

and passed out a few times during

I cannot see how a sober adult who knows the OPer extremely well (i.e. he knows what her "normal" is like) can mistake the above behaviours for anything other than pretty extreme intoxication. Falling over and passing out are pretty big clues to drunkeness!

I can't find any way to justify or excuse a person who continues to have sex with someone who is unconscious.

 

[Puporeh]

With a married (but separated) couple - one inebriated after 2 bottles of wine and the other completely sober?

Because...

@Sikese - I'm sorry for I do not believe anyone (with exception of you and your T) are able to figure out definitively whether rape vs. not rape. My therapist and I (me making the final decision, only - from my sole life experiences. That said, I believe that every sex abuse experience here in this life-giving forum are as different as our thumb prints and our DNA (unless twins, etc.). I shared a few days ago in this amazing forum that after childhood extensive exposure to violent sexual, verbal, physical, verbal, mental (psychological mind-bending) extreme trauma and torture, I as an adolescent then on into early adulthood began to act out sexually. (promiscuously) as it was "labeled" back then and this is in hindsight not the whole cloth truth of what was going on with me. For at the time I had no idea I was re-enacting my depraved childhood sexual abuse. No clue. Back then had a T that called this "promiscuity" and that I was being "promiscuous" and now being a lot older, and some of my fragmented memories returning, I call it being taken advantage of as a naive' and unknowing young girl and young adult with no life skill sets taught by "caregivers" to me - whatsoever. I did not know anything about blackouts and dissociation. And might I add, that without consent - rape is just that - rape. Period. Grrr.

And I drank to point (most every time) to inebriation state, and yet every time sex was initiated by man. And that my body and mind and on most all of my young girl, young adult after sex occurrences I would only for moments think what the h*** just happened once I was home wondering what the expletive just happened to me and to my body. No one to ask, no one to care. And I back then thought that someone touching my body was attention and negative attention was better than - no attention at all - for me. (during these times my brain would - just leave me - for a time. I never remembered the penetration, completion, etc.) Nor did I know what a climax was either for myself, or male. No one taught me about my periods, etc. When period first started I was on milk route with my dad (he said nothing) and former at the time step-monster (mutha) put a box of kotex on commode lid (back) that was it. I thought I was dying (menstrual). I only remember bits and pieces of boy then later as I got older a young man on top of me, and physical movement (motion). Blacked out or dissociated. Only fragments now. Now looking back I believe this to be rape (many times) rape. Consent? When dissociated and/or in a full-blown black-out! Consent in a drunken blacked out or dissociated state of mind - impossible. This period of time as an adolescent, then young woman. No one else except the young boy, then young man as I got older, and me know that no consent was given during these horrible times in my life. This was the 70's (peace, love, make love not war, vietnam war, Woodstock and "free love" and sex sex sex. As I got older - an adult woman, I then knowingly began with forethought to use men and alcohol to numb me (hindsight) from the above (unwittingly) that I was running away from and using sex, drugs, alcohol, anything that I misguidedly believed would help me escape (hindsight) from what was lying just beneath my mind's surface that being - extensive extreme abuse.

And I would have to be totally drunk (inebriated) and chemically out of my ever-loving mind and unable to give consent in a blacked out (ragdoll) or dissociated from my mind. I had to be in full and total brain disconnect to do sex acts (adolescent and young adulthood). This is my life, my story and it sounds preposterous, because it is mind-blowing, mind-bending, and I admit this sounds like fiction and unbelievable. This is sheer unadulterated truth of what I as an adult then allowed to happen to my precious little girl mind and body - in a growing young girl then young woman's body. and I was ignorant not stupid (did not know I was sexually being taken advantage of) and I did not know rape from sex, literally. I had very first sex experience at age I believe 18 or 19. And all I wanted was someone to love me, and all I got was "sex". There were a few men who loved me deeply and professed their love through their actions other than just "sex" and I ran from them, for love - back then - foreign language to me. I never saw either mom or dad in a loving relationship with anyone. Just beatings, alcoholism, verbal (psychological) warfare, on and on. Not until recently (through church) have I seen what love is through married couples of 40, 50, and 60 years of marriage. Imperfect unions holding on to why they fell in love with one another in the first place. And every day (when they tell me they choose) to work on their marriages. They say marriage is work. And there if play and enjoyment - if the work is done (mutually).

I am just now getting needle's eye basic understanding about what loving a man, making love, and commitment, radical acceptance, forgiveness, compromise, open lines of communication, boundaries for husband and boundaries for wife, patience, tolerance, mutual space for man and woman on and on I am just now at such a late stage in my life, learning what love and love-making means between to consensual for me and only for me - married adults. I had and continue to choose celibacy for now and almost two decades now of my life. I knew something was horribly unhealthy with me psychologically, after making this decision. And I was right

Yet a misdiagnosis for a couple of decades+ kept me on many mind-altering drugs since approx. mid 1980's (perhaps earlier) and out of any recovery. Correctly dx'd for now dx'd pro. comp. ptsd and m.d.d.@Sikese, If you believe you were raped then talk to your Therapist about this. No one can tell you otherwise. Talking this out with good trauma therapist will enable you to get down to the brass tacks and actual events leading up to, during, the post traumatic event (rape?).

And I wish and hope for you all good things and hope and pray you will continue in recovery with your T to open up about details surrounding this hurt-filled and sad very traumatic experience that you and your T are dealing with - in which your T (Therapist) believes to be sexual assault. Your decision(s) about what you believe happened to you is important just as much if not more than what your T believes @ I tried to do this on my own for a long, long time. As I stopped drinking to excess (then not at all now) and I got sicker, and sicker and sicker with trauma nightmares and fragmented memories, I too entered therapy. You have a gut instinct and a T. I care about you. I as you can read relate to being raped, and to your post @Sikese.

Actually, when I lost my virginity, it felt like I was not there - not present then aware of what was happening then not, ad nauseum (although I did not cognitively or pictorially remember the entire "sex" act nor (from severe sexual childhood abuse) know a penis from a passion fruit (couldn't think of any food that starts w/ letter p). And there was very little if any pain that I can remember associated with penetration nor blood loss because of previous extensive extreme sexual abuse. I learned how to drink by watching my undiagnosed and therefore untreated severe ptsd alcoholic U.S. Navy vet dad and found out that alcohol, pot, and other drugs would numb my brain - and I would leave the guy and in the house following "sex" I would early on in "sex" experiences go into house, and not understand fully the ramifications, nor the long-term effects of what boy, then young man, then man (through years) had physically in some sort of bodily motion (foreign) done to me - which now I know was "sex"
(hindsight) which was sexual act for me a.k.a. rape of a empty-headed, naive', ridiculously ignorant young girl and again I throughout my adolescence and most of my adulthood thought (because I was never taught) that sex was love (yet I did not know what love was either at this time in my life) so I would simply go away mentally whenever penetration occurred. Sad but true. I can't believe this is my life - as a young girl, woman and on up. Ridiculous to not be taught about sex and the difference between sex and love. Rage inside of me boils.

I repeated drunken and/or drugged state in order to be "loved" by men and blacked out or dissociated from the "sex" act, or so my little girl inside of me thought this was love. I was raised by expletive flippin' wolves. Sorry. I was. *Caregivers* never taught me one iota of a semblance of anything related to sex, human body, love, marriage, on and on. My (brain) mind already knew how to dissociate all on it's own from previous childhood (extensive) sexual horrific trauma and beatings, etc. so being in drugged and/or drunken state - my brain would easily black out or dissociate (whatever my brain (mind) needed to protect me from childhood sex, etc. trauma, and my naivete over insane "sex" experiences while I was experiencing becoming a woman. As an older adult woman back then, I then fixated in my mind and believed sincerely that then having sex meant that the man loved me; how whack is that? Whack. I became so confused that sex was love as an older adult woman. I was raised by wolves (expression). I do not believe that I have experienced what it is like to *make love while being in love with a man*. I don't. Always in an altered state of mind. I was married and I knew we were trying to "make love" and I did not dissociate and I remained present. And hubby wanted to do this 4-5 times a day. And I left him after a year or so, for a myriad of reasons, this being only one of many reasons. My fear of being loved by another being a reason to get away (he cheated).

Only you through your T and only if you choose to continue to in depth to talk to your T that you will hopefully be able to determine whether or not this was rape, or what actually occurred that is so mind-bending. Sorry, I wish I could tell you one way or the other. I wanted to share my naivety and blank-slate child-like mentality re: sex vs. rape past personal experiences @Sikes. from - well all the way up through until around 2012 when finally correctly dx'd with p.c.ptsd and md.d. and am now sorting through rape - sex insanity, all of trauma. Hope sharing here was okay. This is only the second time I have ever in my life talked about the sex vs. rape occurrences. I am here for you. (Hugs). JadesJewel

 

[Ane]

I admire the strength and courage it took you, jade (since you posted a name) to talk about your experiences for only the second time in your life. You are very brave to offer your story in such detail in support of the person who created this thread.

 

[Avipib]

I admire the strength and courage it took you, jade (since you posted a name) to talk about your experiences for only the...

@Ane (anonymous) What doesn't kill me (us) may make (me) us stronger. And I have been and will be as sick as these secrets unless I expose them to Light and Love. This is hard stuff. I inadvertently posted myptsd forum name in this anonymous thread - and I thought I'd broken forum rules, so I asked, and no. I thought I was in a standard and/or general posting area, thus I typed myptsd name. In another remaining nameless (due to forum rules) I had posted in myptsd forum a few days ago similar private info about same and no members posted in there. I thought . I may have offended members by being so graphic. Never my intention. I cannot believe (like so many members in this forum) that up to this point I have been and am in survival mode and disbelief at time that (we) I have survived and am still here, after the hell we've been put through.

 

[Umpopu]

I think this could be a fair point in general.

However:





I cannot see how a sober adult who knows the OPer extremely...

black out and pass out are two very different things. There have been times where I blacked out and only to find out I was awake and talking. Plus, black out or pass out if there is no memory after passing out then how do you know he in fact continued having sex??
I just can't resign myself to making such a judgment when the OP herself has said she doesn't remember and passed out/blacked out. I am certainly NOT saying he isn't as guilty of bad choices but saying it is an assault is going to be pretty hard to prove under those circumstances with no witnesses.
Just my opinion but clearly not the only one to have. I really hope the OP can come to terms with any and all of what happened and stay away from the soon to be ex!!!

 

[Ibuk]

With a married (but separated) couple - one inebriated after 2 bottles of wine and the other completely sober?

Because...

Is your therapist a woman??? And a feminist??? Because honestly, regretting sex isn't rape. Rape is an act of non-consent that's generally violent. Unless you were passed out. That changes things. But from what I'm reading, it's your partner. A person that you've had sex with NUMEROUS times in the past.

I'm going to post an opinion that will probably be considered highly unpopular here, but I think you should hear it. There really is no such thing as partner rape UNLESS you are only with your partner for financial or legal reasons. Such as you are going through a divorce and you cannot leave until the judge says so.

I mean, come on. You came on to him, were schwasted and then wake up the next morning and were like OH SHIT. Do you have any idea of how many men's lives have been ruined by OH SHIT moments? The rape culture in this country is ridiculous. Sure, rape happens. But not to the extent that the media likes to claim.

And seeing as you have PTSD, do you think it's REALLY beneficial to you to have your therapist tell you that you were raped when you consented??? I mean, if I wake my man up by rubbing on him and giving him some morning delight, does that mean I'm raping him because he's half asleep??? Let's be RATIONAL here.

He didn't rape you. He had sex with his woman. Who happened to have had a few too many. Who came on to him and then decided later she didn't want sex. BOTTOM LINE.

 

[Pizupi]

lbuk-that is utterly uncalled for.

If she can't remember, then she regrets nothing. She can't remember what she's supposed to regret.

Marital rape is indeed a thing, I'd suggest looking it up.

If you are unable to respond clearly, you are too drunk to consent. That's not regret, that's someone taking advantage of you.

If you wake him up knowing he's going to say "no" that is most definitely rape.

Here's a quick set of statements I've seen circulating that might equivalent it for you:

If someone lets you take money from your purse, can you suddenly take whatever you want from it, whenever you like?

I mean... you let them do it before...

If someone forgets to zip their purse, can you just take money out of it?

I mean...it's just sitting open, they must want you to take their money.

If you're married to someone, can they take money from your purse whenever they feel like it?

I mean...you're married, so that should be okay, right?

If you don't say anything, they can take money from your purse, right?

I mean it's not like you said no.

If you're drunk and passed out, your purse is free reign... after all... you did get drunk.. you knew what would happen.

Apply this to any other object and you see how ridiculous it is, so why do objects, in someone's eyes, get more protection than *their own body*?

No.

This is her body. He does not have a right to it, anymore than he does to her bank account. Just because she's too drunk to say no doesn't mean it's okay to steal or rob her, so it shouldn't make it okay for him to *rape* her.

Our bodies are one of the few things that are ever truly ours. Your body does not belong to anyone but you. If you aren't able to consent, then yes, it was rape.

Please ignore those who make you feel like less, while this can be a relatively safe space for discussion, there are some who can definitely cause issues.

Please seek assistance, and I hope things get better for you.