Re: [Official!] Project Horizons Comment Crew Chat thread.

[Scienza]

It's Quetzalcoatl, coming to blow us away!

[Frost]

A rather salient point has been brought up with fair frequency lately.

If ol' Granny Shmeckldouche is walkin' down the road, tryin' to keep the blood flowing through her, like, billion-year-old veins; just walkin' that racoon she thinks is a dog because she's fucking senile, when--suddenly--I come around the corner doing 78 through this suburban neighborhood and subsequently turn Granny Shavendinkle into dinner for her carrion-eating not-a-dog, and am later proven to have been blackout fuckin' piss-drunk-- It's not just okay. It's not just not my fault because I'd have never done such a thing sober (I wouldn't have left any evidence, anyway). Point being--even though I was drunk, I'm still held responsible for my actions.

Why, then, if Brittney Partyface gets completely hammered and, with mutual consent, nails some dude in the bathroom at the club, can she suddenly claim it to be rape? Why, suddenly, is one no longer held responsible for the actions and decisions they make while under the influence? Why can some guy's life now be ruined and he be imprisoned because he (likely also drunk) had consensual sex? Either alcohol relieves you entirely of the burden of your own actions and decisions, or you're still accountable for the decisions you make. A little consistency would be nice.

[Guest]

That is a good point Frost, I was talking about this exact thing a few days ago with a friend.

Consent is a very difficult thing to prove one way or another, you can prove sex occured through means, but proving whether or not it's consentual often comes down to he said, she said. Unless there happens to be a witness to those events.

The only fair way to do things, to protect both men and women from rapists and those who would falsely accuse them of it, is to make sex under the influence a crime for both men and women. Not an optimal solution by any means, but it is a much easier way to determine whether or not a crime actually occured.

[Frost]

It's a crime that's as emotionally-polarizing as it is hard to prosecute, yes, but that doesn't excuse falsely or unfairly accusing or even convicting a lot of people of a crime they had no idea they "committed"--hell, 9/10 of these cases, the man's drunk, too--but that still means he's raping her. Somehow.

[Tytan]

@Drunk sex, According to the letter of the law it's illegal to have sex with anyone or anything that can't reasonably consent. This includes teens under 18, animals, coma patients, and people under the influence.

Technically speaking if she were drunk at the time she was incapable of consenting, even if she said the word 'yes'.

I'm not sure on the particulars of what the law says if both parties are under the influence. I'd imagine the laws get a little tricky.

While the public is coming to terms with rape being a thing that happens, they have yet to come to terms with the fact that it is possible for women to rape men.

It's a clear bias. They just assume that an erection is consent. Ergo, men can't be raped by women. (Of course ignoring the possible use of paraphernalia.)

[Guest]

It's a crime that's as emotionally-polarizing as it is hard to prosecute, yes, but that doesn't excuse falsely or unfairly accusing or even convicting a lot of people of a crime they had no idea they "committed"--hell, 9/10 of these cases, the man's drunk, too--but that still means he's raping her. Somehow.

Just to be clear, I'm not saying the level of proof required should be lowered for rape cases. It's terrible to see the way people react to false accusations, innocent people demonized for something they never did. Even when they're not convicted of the crime. It's stupid the guy should always be guilty, if we decide that he is responsible for his actions she should be as well. If we decide she's not responsible for her actions the he shouldn't be either.

I wouldn't say anyone should be convicted of rape because the other person had a compareable amount of alcohol in their system (I don't know how to refer to scales of drunk).

That all being said, if we're going to go down this path (as we are now) of the guy being guilty of a crime for simply sleeping with someone as drunk as he is, then I prefer the crime he be convicted of not be rape. Charge both parties with sex under the influence. If for one of the parties this is a repeated thing than you can look into it as maybe being something more nefarious.

[Frost]

@Drunk sex, According to the letter of the law it's illegal to have sex with anyone or anything that can't reasonably consent. This includes teens under 18, animals, coma patients, and people under the influence.

Technically speaking if she were drunk at the time she was incapable of consenting, even if she said the word 'yes'.

I get that, yes. My point being why. Why, if I am to be recognized as a competent, fully-cognizant adult if I do one thing while drunk, but treated in the same manner as a child if I attempt to do another thing while drunk? Do alcohol or mind-altering substances completely separate you from all actions you undertake while under their influences, Or do they not?

[Guest]

It's a clear bias. They just assume that an erection is consent. Ergo, men can't be raped by women. (Of course ignoring the possible use of paraphernalia.)

I've heard this before but no one's ever shown me proof of it, does anyone know how the law defines rape? It's probably true if the definition includes penetration, a female obviously does not need to penetrate a male to have intercourse. But I have no idea how it's legally defined.

[Tytan]

Well, the trick is that while the law doesn't specifically spell out whether or not you're at fault for every single instance, it does allow for the judge and jury to interpret it and decide based on the story they're told how at fault you are.

So in the end, it ends up being a bunch of random fuckwads who don't want to be there to decide whether or not they like you enough not to send you to prison forever.

@Definition, The actual legal definition says that it requires some form of penetration. So technically speaking a woman can literally get away with rape as long as she doesn't stick any of her appendages in any orifices.

That's straight fucked up.

Kind of a tangent going more in depth about stuff:

[Frost]

I get that. Entirely.

The point is exactly this:

So as far as the courts are concerned, if you're under the influence of anything that can impair your judgement, be it booze, meds, or a disease like schizophrenia or Alzheimers, you're not capable of making adult or legal decisions. 

That's the case for consent, yes--they consider you incapable of deciding to go have sex with some random person. You are not held liable for your decision, and your partner is now considered a rapist. Then, when the circumstance is, instead, that you, your judgement impaired by alcohol, get behind the wheel of a car--then you're suddenly culpable for everything you do and every mistake you make, and can expect  a hefty penalty on top of whatever the punishment was, just for DUI.

When you could run over Granny shmitzlenazi, then you're to be held accountable. When you wake up, decide that this random dude was way hotter last night so, fuck it, you were raped so your friends don't think you're a slut, then you're incapable of making decisions.

[Tytan]

I think the difference, at least in your two specific examples, is that in the hit and run the one that's drunk is the one that's committing the crime.

And I'm not entirely clear on who's the one who's supposed to be drunk in the rape situation, so let me just spell it out below, and if I get it wrong please correct me.

You were drunk and the other person was not.

In that case your partner is, technically speaking, a rapist. You were under the influence and legally incapable of consent.

Now, if whether or not you accuse them of rape is up to you, and police can't force you to press charges.

If you do press charges because you don't like them or whatever, technically you're still in the right, but morally not so much.

So to sum up. Hit and run is still a crime, and it's up to the judge to decide the circumstances of your inebriation warrants leniency. And in the case of the rape, the drunk person didn't commit a crime and pushed charges once he or she sobered up.

[Scienza]

A rather salient point has been brought up with fair frequency lately.

If ol' Granny Shmeckldouche is walkin' down the road, tryin' to keep the blood flowing through her, like, billion-year-old veins; just walkin' that racoon she thinks is a dog because she's fucking senile, when--suddenly--I come around the corner doing 78 through this suburban neighborhood and subsequently turn Granny Shavendinkle into dinner for her carrion-eating not-a-dog, and am later proven to have been blackout fuckin' piss-drunk-- It's not just okay. It's not just not my fault because I'd have never done such a thing sober (I wouldn't have left any evidence, anyway). Point being--even though I was drunk, I'm still held responsible for my actions.

Why, then, if Brittney Partyface gets completely hammered and, with mutual consent, nails some dude in the bathroom at the club, can she suddenly claim it to be rape? Why, suddenly, is one no longer held responsible for the actions and decisions they make while under the influence? Why can some guy's life now be ruined and he be imprisoned because he (likely also drunk) had consensual sex? Either alcohol relieves you entirely of the burden of your own actions and decisions, or you're still accountable for the decisions you make. A little consistency would be nice.

Those aren't really comparable examples though, since one is your direct actions and the other is forced upon you by another party. A better example would be if you were walking down the street piss-drunk when ol' Granny Shabbadrazner is like "Hello, young lady. Would you like some cookies I just baked?" And of course, being piss-drunk, you're like "Hell to the yes" and don't notice the suspicious bulge in her knickers. And as you're reaching for a cookie, she whips her .45 out of her knicker-holster and shoots your balls off. While you're arguably responsible for getting piss-fucking-drunk and wearing a lacy g-string, that doesn't make it any less Granny Shonzololo's responsibility that she shot your balls off, nor does it make it any less a crime.

It's inevitable people are going to abuse sexual-assault laws the same way that people have been abusing every other law since the dawn of human civilization. However, I'd much rather live in a society where victims of sexual assault have the ability to safely report what happened to them than one in which they do not.

[Guest]

@Sci

That is bad comparison. He's not talking about someone who is completely sober being predatory as the granny in your example clearly is. He's talking about two drunk people in a club banging. Why is the male wrong for approaching? It's not like she slurred out a negative to his proposal and he slammed her into the counter of the bar and proceded anyway.

If the guy is legally responsible for approaching her when equally drunk, why is the girl not legally responsible for her response? I'd get it if the guy was intentionally being predatory, and seeking people with impared judgement all the while being sober. But in this scenario he is not being that.

[Frost]

Ty. I'm pointing out a discrepancy/double standard in the laws. I do not need you to explain the law. I understand the law. I understand the process. Thank you. 

@Sci: no, in the example I gave, "I" undertook direct action in both cases. "I" drove drunk and "I" consentually had sex while intoxicated. My point being that, in one circumstance, the mere act of driving is a crime while intoxicated (and, as mentioned, the relevant "drive/don't drive" judgement and decision-making abilities are impaired) and you are held fully accountable for your actions. In the other, with your judgement similarly or less impaired, you are not accountable for your actions and your decision to have sex with this person is not considered an adult decision in the same way your drunken decision to drive was. And, the next morning, you're completely free to decide that to ruin this person's life on the grounds that you were "raped", which, around here, at least, happens fairly commonly.

[Tytan]

Frost the point I'm trying to make is that I don't see a discrepancy.

Edit: I think the reason for the double standard you describe is that the drinking a driving could result in fatalities. Drinking one to many appletini's and sucking a guys dick most likely won't kill any one.

[Guest]

Well, if we're talking about a drunk girl approaching sober man or vice versa and the man or woman knowing that person is intoxicated and chooses to have sex with them anyway, well that should be a crime. Just the same as if a friend was with you while your drinking and had no other way home so they didn't speak up about you getting behind the wheel.

That friend should be an accomplice to your crime.

I get the double standard you're getting at. In almost every other aspect of the law, being intoxicated is not an excuse you can use to avoid legal responsibility. At the same time I don't think that should be any kind of excuse for someone to ignore the fact you're intoxicated and take advantage of the situation regardless of who initiated. That should be a crime.

[Tytan]

Another reason could be that the state makes more money from DUI's than is ethically comfortable for most dictatorships.

[Frost]

I get the double standard you're getting at. In almost every other aspect of the law, being intoxicated is not an excuse you can use to avoid legal responsibility.

This is exactly the point I'm trying to make. Call me crazy, but I kinda think that if someone goes to a club, knowing the subculture and environment of nightclubs, and then proceeds to drink, knowing how drinking will affect them, and then proceeds to make their decision wholeheartedly to have sex with another person--then, no, I really don't think they should be allowed to cry 'rape'.

[Ironmonger]

Unrelated: AMD might be getting their stuff together.

I'm really excited for this, and I hope it's true. To me, it kinda seems that development of CPU technology as been rather slow in the past few years.

[Tytan]

They aren't. They're super illegal.

Being held in contempt of court is another matter.

[Scienza]

@Frost/Last
Look, I'm not disagreeing that there's a massive double-standard when it comes to gender roles in these cases and if anything in a case as murky as the ones you propose, the male should have equal claim that they were sexually assaulted because legally speaking they were.  However, I'm going to vehemently oppose the "she should have known about club culture" argument, for the same reasons that "he should have known it was a rough neighborhood" wouldn't be an admissible argument in a murder trial. It's at best anecdotal and doesn't change the fact that a crime was committed. Personally, I believe that the verdict should  rely more on whichever party's decision-making was more impaired and that all sex should be between sober adults capable of properly expressing consent, but neither of those could be realistically implemented.

I'm being honest when I say that my heart goes out to anyone whose lives were affected by false sexual assault accusations and that the perpetrators should rot for the rest of their lives in prison for utterly ruining another person's life and making it even more fucking impossible for actual victims of sexual assault to be taken seriously by authorities and their peers. At the same time though, it's incredibly fucking uncommon compared to the 1 in 4 women and 1 in 6 men that will be sexually assaulted during their lifetime. Both are morally reprehensible and deserve justice, but I feel that the latter is the bigger issue that needs to be addressed in society.

I think we can at least agree that the justice system is broken and racked with double standards (like how ugly defendants get statistically worse sentences) and the way society approaches sexual assault is in severe need of an overhaul.

[Scienza]

Hopefully moving on to another topic, I recently started watching Danger 5 and have determined that it is the greatest show of the last few years.

I'll let this image speak for itself:

[Frost]

I'm not, at all, talking about the context of "She was raped while she was drunk." 

I'm talking about "She had consensual sex while she was drunk, and that's considered rape." The fact that the examples are male and female, respectively, is more-or-less coincidental; it could be anyone in either role. The point is that someone who willingly made the decision to go to a club, knowing that they would likely get completely shitfaced and, in that state, has a fair chance of willingly going to bed with someone--hell, even someone they wouldn't have given the time of day when they were sober--doesn't really have much ground to stand on when it comes to "I was raped."

Hell, cases like that being counted as "rape"--drunken mistakes, sexual encounters one later came to regret--are why the "1 in 4/ 1 in 6" statistic exists. As I linked to a while back, the real statistic of non-consensual, real rape cases is down near 1 in 16, if that.

And, I'll admit this is somewhat anecdotal, but I also doubt the statistics on false accusations of rape being so low. To my knowledge, I know and work with exactly 0 rapists. I also know that (usually as part of a divorce or separation) at least two guys I work with have been falsely accused of rape. The notion that "3%" or some similar percentage of rape accusations are false or mistaken seems pretty fuckin' unlikely.

TL;DR--if you have to fucking ask "Who raped who", then it probably wasn't fuckin' rape.

[Guest]

*snip*

I know it's rare, there's not much point in falsely accusing someone as they likely won't be convicted, because as stated previously it's incredibly difficult to prove consent one way or the other. However because it's hard to get convictions there are some people who propose the idea that the standard of evidence should be lowered in rape cases, or we should in these cases remove the idea of innocent until proven guilty.

But here's the problem, if the standard of evidence were lowered false accusations would skyrocket, that's my primary concern. The secondary one is people's reaction to false accusations, what I mean to say is the reason someone would be falsely accused can only be a handful of things. Whether it's they dislike that person, that person they feel has wronged them in someway, in any case the accuser wants the accused punished. Court is no longer needed for that. Just claiming it happened can get a family, workplace, community to turn on that person.

As far as sex while intoxicated, if both are drunk, they're either both guilty of a crime or neither is. If one is drunk then I think it's fair enough to shift resposibility to the person most capable of taking it. If the car in the drunk driving example was sentient, unintoxicated and capable of understanding the concept of punishment then I would say the car should be punished in place of the driver. But as it stands the driver is the only one involved with the drunk driving, so he's the one most capable of taking responsibility. If a sober friend was in the car as far as I'm concerned he's complicit in the action and equally guilty.

[Guest]

Completely unrelated, but I stumbled across a guy on youtube that goes by the Name Rob Dyke, He's got a show called Seriously Strange that has a Ripley's Believe It or Not kind of feel.

Thought you guys might be interested. I found it entertaining.

[Guest]

@Danger 5
I watched the first episode, and was entertained, but didn't end up watching more. It's not exactly my cup of tea, I guess (I enjoy the style of humor, but maybe not in such large doses?), but it's definitely funny.

[Downloaded Skill]

I don't think there is a spin. I think it was either poorly thought out or politicians trying to raise money by basically sacrificing people a majority of the voting public won't care about. People might make a case for the punishments being ludicrous, but a simple rebuttal of "don't break the law" tends to get wide spread support and the issue doesn't really get looked at further. People, on average, tend to not care about criminals or lawbreakers.  The states need money, but if you try to raise taxes you might as well kiss your office goodbye. Since a politician without a political office is just a guy with a fancy title and no job they want to keep their office by any means necessary.

This leads to a very uncomfortable situation where the government basically builds on sand. While the tickets and such are potentially very lucrative it exploits a group of people who would not be able to consistently pay them off, especially considering the rather shady practices of these private parole companies and the multitude of extra fines that get added on as part of the process. While some people do pay off their fines, the rest that don't end up going to jail which costs the state a decent chunk of change to take care of them. It's self defeating really.

I really don't think there is a spin on this. Based on what information I could find I think it's politicians trying to raise money without pissing off the voting majority or any private interest groups, potentially even courting favor with a "tough on crime" stance, and the little guy get's screwed. Cynical politics with a short term, non sustainable bent.

[O. Hinds]

...I feel like I'm missing something, here.
What we have are people that cannot pay the hundreds of dollars these tickets demand of them. Thousands if the debt has, essentially, been sold to these companies that "collect" for the courts.
These people end up selling their cars, going without food, going without heat, everything they make going toward trying to pay off this debt.
Then, when they finally cannot make a payment, they get thrown in jail because they can't pay.

What is the spin, here? And shouldn't the debt be forgiven after they've served time to "pay" it off?

Hah, of course not!  Then the debt companies couldn't make as much money.  It's like you expect the justice system to not be run for the benefit of private companies at the expense of the poor and the government or something.

[Guest]

People, on average, tend to not care about criminals or lawbreakers. 

It really depends on the person commiting the crime (Insert any relevent celebrity) and the crime they're charged with. People, understandably, have very little sympathy for someone with piles of unpaid speeding tickets, because obviously by this person's own actions they have proven themselves incapable of learning anything resembling a lesson.

[Downloaded Skill]

You probably could argue that these practices reinstate debtor's prison in all but name. It's been made before and it got a few people out of jail. I think Tytan hit the nail on the head by bringing up contempt of court, but some districts offer incarceration as an method of forgiving the debt. I believe it's still a thing in California.

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