Sex, booze and affirmative consent on campus 1

by Anonymous

(This is part of a series of short posts from students in Sociology of Drink. I credit the authors by name when they have given me permission to do so.)

In the article “College Women: Stop Getting Drunk,” author Emily Yoffee decries the practice of women drinking in the manner of their male counterparts as an increasingly dangerous practice that is largely to blame for the enormous incidence of campus sexual assaults. She writes that this is a necessary message which not often heard, likely because her counterparts are afraid of being accused of blaming the victim, a standpoint villainized across pop and media culture.

Yoffe’s argument is that while the fault ultimately lies with the assailant, it is the responsibility of the potential victim to prevent such assaults by not incapacitating herself to the extent where rape becomes a more present possibility.

In fact, Yoffe’s attempt to shift the responsibility to women extends beyond this article. In 2014’s “The College Rape Overcorrection” Yoffe argues that the procedures which are being enacted in response to this crisis are fundamentally flawed in that they, in fact, victimize the otherwise well-meaning men whose only fault is blundering around with their pants down after one too many. The undertone in Yoffe’s writings is that this all goes too far, and we cannot expect men to hold the brunt of the blame when an incident occurs when the woman who chose to drink to a certain level of intoxication is perhaps equally at fault.

Unsurprisingly, there has been enormous backlash from her most recent article as well as its predecessors which essentially pigeonhole Yoffe as the antichrist of modern feminism.

While I do not agree with her writings in whole, I do believe there to be a kernel of truth in what she says. I believe at the core of her words is the assertion that women should assume the first line of responsibility when it comes to preventing sexual assault. While the perpetrators, be it men or women, of any given assault should be the ones ultimately prosecuted, I don’t see it as victim-blaming to encourage women to take measures to protect themselves.

However, as Yoffe and others have argued both for and against, the gray area is where we see the real issues of consent come into the light. When alcohol mixes with hormones and contact ensues, that’s when the questions of affirmative consent is the most important. In fact, as discussed across the readings for this week, affirmative consent is a hot-button topic right now and the question of whether or not some policies go too far is very much worth discussing.

For example, the University of Minnesota’s policy on affirmative consent states that consent may not be obtained if either party is “incapacitated” due to drugs or alcohol. It is clear that this leads to an enormously hazy gray area which is a nightmare to address in the legal system. How do we define incapacitated? To what extent is such a thing measured? If the line between “sober enough” and “too drunk” to consent to sex were to be objectively based on BAC, from where would we measure? Consider impaired driving laws. The legal limit is .08 BAC. Just a hair under and you’re off the hook, just a hair over and you face a litany of very harsh consequences. So if we were to use BAC to determine ability to consent, would the same rules apply? Would the difference of .005 be the difference between a felony sex crime and…nothing at all?

I do believe that affirmative consent is grounded in very real and very important ideals, and that the concept is important and viable. However, if we are to really embrace this practice moving forward, there needs to be more clear and concise guidelines. Without them, we will continue to see these messes of cases drag through the legal system without bringing the proper course of action to any involved parties.