How Do You Define Consent?

What comes to mind when you think of consent? Some words that come to mind are agreement, mutual and coerced.

Yes, I said coerced. Because many times when a person does not agree to consensual sex they may be coerced or pressured into agreeing to it. Sometimes we are faced with the question, “If you loved me, you would” or “I thought you loved me”. That is NOT consent! Consensual sex is when you both agree, not when one person forces the other.

Recently, I was on a college campus and women were discussing the “walk of shame”. This was described as when a woman is drunk and she has nonconsensual sex. All of these women were unaware that in the state of California, you are not legally able to consent if you are drunk. This was a wake up call for them! They asked me questions and did not realize that was the law. Prior to this they thought the “walk of shame” was just something that, as they said, “happens all the time”.

Dialogue alone can create change and when that dialogue begins online it can be the first step in making change in your community. What does consent mean to you? How can you create change?

Guest Blog by Lisa Covington

Comments

[norcal]

Got some questions on this one. Assuming the “walk of shame” is after a heterosexual encounter, what happens if both the man and woman are equally as intoxicated? Do they both have rape charges brought against them? What happens if the man is intoxicated and the woman is not, is the woman charged with rape? Has this ever happened?

I’m all for laws that are fair and equal. I’ve seen idiotic frat boys making grain alcohol punch and telling women it had only a little vodka in it. That type of behavior should be criminal, and I’m sure that’s what this law was intended to punish. However, there needs to be a balance of personal responsibility as well. I don’t think regret should be called rape just because someone had a few drinks, otherwise over 50% of the men I know are rape victims.

[Tim]

Raising awareness among college students about rape, the widespread availability of date rape drugs, and related matters are very important. But as a matter of law, a woman who has sex while she's drunk is not necessarily raped, and to suggest otherwise is misleading. You do a disservice to college students by saying this.

Under California statutory law, a person is guilty of rape, among other things, "Where a [the purported victim] is prevented from resisting by any intoxicating or anesthetic substance, or any controlled substance, and this condition was known, or reasonably should have been known by the accused."

A California state court that interpreted this statute has held that in order for the encounter to be deemed a rape, the victim must be so intoxicated that he or she is incapable of exercising the judgment required to decide whether to consent to those sexual acts. An honest and reasonable but mistaken belief that a sexual partner is not too intoxicated to give legal consent to sexual intercourse is a defense to rape by intoxication. PEOPLE V. GIARDINO, 82 Cal. App. 4th 454; 98 Cal. Rptr. 2d 315 (2000).

Similarly, a Massachusetts appellate court recently explained: "In determining whether a person is 'incapable of consenting' to sexual intercourse as a result of intoxication, the inquiry focuses on whether that person is "wholly insensible . . . in a state of utter stupefaction . . . caused by drunkenness . . . or drugs."

Telling women that they have been raped if they have sex while they are merely intoxicated, without any further explanation, is incorrect and absolves them of all responsibility for their actions. It creates a presumption of victimhood that the law does not accept. It is also gender divisive because it unfairly disparages countless college men by branding them as rapists when they are not.