Rape Victims Are Never Responsible For Their Assault

By: Laura Alix

Posted: 2/26/07

Good news for the anti-feminist movement in America - another "feminist myth" has now been debunked. Wrexham Maelor Hospital in Great Britain recently conducted a study that aimed to analyze the problem of drink-spiking in local nightclubs and pubs. The hospital examined 75 women who alleged that their drinks had been spiked over the course of one year. The hospital discovered that fewer than one in five women had actually been slipped a "date-rape" drug - such as Ketamine, GHB or Rohypnol. Instead what the hospital found was that most of the women were just extremely intoxicated. Sixty-five percent of the patients were found to have twice the blood-alcohol content (BAC) limit for driving, and 24 percent had three times that limit. What this essentially means is that many women in Great Britain - and it is not such a stretch to suggest in America, too - who claim they were drugged have actually instead suffered the result of binge drinking.

A small handful of anti-feminists here in the states have dubbed this story a "Will They Report It Moment," and crowed that this seriously undermines the alleged radical left feminist effort to discredit most men as sexual predators who slip drugs to unwitting victims. "Aha! She wasn't drugged, after all! It's her fault for drinking too much, so don't blame the nearest man!" they seem to be saying. One blogger doubted that the story would get much coverage in the U.S. because of how badly it would surely undermine radical feminism's influence. After all, on the surface, the study could almost be construed as placing some of the blame on the victim. Let's face it - a woman who claims to have been raped under the influence of a date-rape drug like Rohypnol will probably find more sympathy from the general public than will a woman who claims to have been raped when she was only inebriated. The first woman will surely seem like more of a victim, while the second woman will probably be chided for drinking too much and then scolded for blaming some hapless man who only thought he was getting lucky.

Well, I'm sorry, but this study should not change a thing, or at least it shouldn't change much. All we have learned is that so-called "date-rape" drugs are actually not used in endemic proportions, as we might sometimes be led to believe. This study says absolutely nothing to undermine the matter of consent. A rape victim who is too drunk to give consent is no more to blame than a rape victim who is too drugged to give consent. Both have been taken advantage of in a situation where they were not in a sober state of mind. The only matter is how they came to that state of mind, yet a woman who drinks herself into oblivion is still not up for grabs.

I want to take this opportunity to address what appears to be something of a paradox that I am sure we've all heard at least once here. When we talk about rape, we always reiterate that rape is never the victim's fault. Then we turn around and advise young women to watch how much they drink at parties because they could be victimized while intoxicated. This almost seems to implicate the drunk victim as being partly responsible for what happened to her. Certainly, everybody ought to watch how much they drink. Drinking in excess puts you in a vulnerable position, and it can make you do stupid things that you wouldn't even consider in a sober state of mind.

Binge-drinking can particularly be a problem for freshmen women, who have seldom been drunk before they experienced their newfound freedom at college. Most college freshmen, men and women alike, don't know their limits when it comes to alcohol. Further, popular drinking games, like beer pong and "asshole," can cause new drinkers to lose track of how much they've had. Additionally, since many drinking games only make use of beer, young men and women may have even more of a tendency to binge-drink, thinking, "It's only Bud Light. It's not like I'm downing tequila." All of these factors can help college kids to wind up drinking way in excess of what they can handle, or what they intend, to drink.

None of this negates the responsibility that we have for how much we drink or for what we do when we're drunk. If you knowingly drink a lot of alcohol and wind up smashed, then yes, it is your fault. If you get behind the wheel of a car while intoxicated and take out a few road signs and a fire hydrant, that's still your fault. Now this is where consent comes into play. While we are still responsible for the things that we do while inebriated, we are not responsible for the things that other people do to us while inebriated. A young woman who foolishly drinks too much deserves to suffer a hangover the next morning, but she doesn't deserve to be raped. The hangover is her fault. It's the result of something stupid that she did the previous night. The rape is not her fault because the rape was the action of another person against her. And victimizers who are at least more sober cannot claim ignorance. It's pretty easy to tell when a person is drunk, and being in college, we should all know that Connecticut state law dictates that one cannot legally give consent while intoxicated. In other words, if she's vomiting and barely able to walk, a "Yeah, baby, let's get it on!" still doesn't give you the go-ahead.

Now I realize that this can become immensely more complicated if both parties are equally intoxicated. After all, if neither can legally give consent, then it seems we either have to blame both of them or neither of them. However, I'm not addressing that particular sticky situation. A woman who alleges rape while she was intoxicated is no less of a victim than a woman who alleges rape while drugged against her will. A drunk woman deserves to suffer the consequences of her actions, not the consequences of someone else's actions.

Weekly Columnist Laura Alix is an 8th-semester political science major. Her column appears on Mondays.