Cleary, I'm not keeping up with the times.
Part of the reason, I've said it before, is because I'm tired. Reading the same pieces over and over and over again, having the same arguments, realising that there's no point.
Take a comment section on a piece of news. Most of the people who comment are bigots. And then I think about it. Can this be? Can every single person who's decided to comment on a post be an incendiary troll? The easy answer is yes. They can. Normal people don't comment. Normal people read and maybe give a passing thought to replying, but something has to affect you quite deeply for you to respond. So my conclusion is that comments sections are full of outliers, people with extreme views on topics, or quite simply, people who are incendiary. There's no point in arguing with them because, not only will they not change their minds for the most part (I've had incredibly productive conversations and discussions and even arguments with people who have not changed their minds, nor managed to change mine), they will also refuse to admit that they have changed their minds when they have, just for the sake of angering another (foolish) person, or simply because they refuse to admit they were wrong. There's no point in arguing with people such as this, especially over the internet.
But anyways. Here I am again. Yesterday, we had a sexual consent talk at college. I think a lot of people disagreed with me (I find it funny, but when it comes to feminism and consent people assume that if you don't agree with them it's because you are not as enlightened as they are) in that it's not always clear when someone has been drinking (please read that sentence, it says "when someone has been drinking" not "when someone is drunk" or "when someone is passed out from drinking") whether they can give consent or not. I didn't want to get into it too much yesterday, but I've been thinking about it all day. I drink. I enjoy drinking. I like having a drink at the end of a very long day, or simply going out for a drink with a friend once in a while. Occasionally, I really enjoy going to a house party and getting considerably more drunk than I should. And yes, I don't recommend it as a lifestyle, but sometimes, being drunk can be fun. Anyways, (and obviously with the disclaimer that this is only my experience) whilst I've done a couple of things I regretted whilst drunk, I've never been so drunk that I couldn't give consent. Actually, this is inaccurate, I have been so drunk that I couldn't give consent, but when it has happened, I had already realised I was going to get to that state so I made my way home. This is, any person I've made out with or had sex with can rest easy that it was willingly, even though on occasion I had been drinking before, and I was somewhere ranging from tipsy to actually very drunk (and in this last case, the sex probably shouldn't have happened, in the sense that it was obvious I was drunk and the person in question didn't have a way of knowing whether I consented other than I was a very willing participant... but then again, they were drunk as well). This is not to say that a) this is the experience for everyone (that would be stupid) or b) it makes it any better if one has sex with a drunk person who didn't want it. All I'm saying is, it's not always clear that someone isn't in the right state of mind to consent to sex.
Then again, as someone else summarised very well, if you're deciding whether or not to proceed with sex with someone, there's a relatively easy rule to follow: if you're even a little unsure that what you're doing is consensual, don't do it. So, if you've seen a person have a couple of beers, and you don't know how well they handle their alcohol, don't have sex with them. If you meet someone on a night out and you don't know how much they've had to drink, don't have sex with them. If someone seems very willing but are slurring their words, don't have sex with them.
I almost sound like I'm telling people not to have sex. Nah. That would be dumb. People are gonna have sex (or not, as may be the case) regardless of what anyone else tells them to do. All I'm saying is, save yourself the trouble of maybe forcing someone to do something they don't want. After all, it should be fun.
