Sorry, this is going to be long. But I’m not posting again today, so read it in sections if you like.
In women’s history class this week, we’re talking about the birth of the temperance movement and nineteenth-century feminism, as well as the sudden and stunning rise in alcohol consumption that America witnessed as a consequence of the Industrial Revolution. In the first half of the nineteenth century, access to alcohol was to some extent sex-specific: many taverns excluded all women save prostitutes, and women who may have wanted to drink faced both economic and social barriers to doing so.
I often connect the problem of heavy drinking in the nineteenth century to the drinking and drug use we see among young — and not so young — people today. Here’s what concerns me: so many of my female students (and even many of my youth group kids) use alcohol and drugs to give them a kind of what might be crassly called "liquid feminism". If one key feminist goal is to empower young women to be clear and forthright about their desires, then it’s fairly evident that some young women, more than a few, use alcohol as a tool to overcome their own doubts and fears and insecurities. And that makes that kind of drinking a feminist issue.
Last November, I wrote about the crushing problem of the "internalized audience." Let me quote three paragraphs from that long post:
The make-up of the audience varies little from young woman to young woman: mothers and fathers, friends and family members, teachers and pastors and peers. Each member of the audience has his or her own set of expectations for how the girl ought to behave, and gradually, those expectations have crawled deep into the psyche. Raised to be acutely sensitive to the wishes and values of others, most young women "internalize the audience" by adolescence if not before…
Thus I’m convinced that one of the most important feminist tasks is helping young — and not so young — women to quiet that internalized audience. Quieting, mind you, is not the same as dismissing. All of us, at times, can be comforted and strengthened by the memory of what some loved one or respected person has told us. On occasion, it’s appropriate to ask: "What would so-and-so say if they could see me now? What advice would they give?" We ought on occasion to consider the wishes and beliefs of our culture, our faith (if we have one) and our parents. But though these ought to be factors in our decision-making about food, sex,and pleasure, they ought not to be the decisive ones. Helping young women listen to their own desires, separate from those of the large and loud audience, is a key feminist goal.
To put it another way, I often argue that feminism is about helping young women to find both their authentic "yes" and their authentic "no". By authentic, I mean that it is congruent with their deepest desires. And wherever they may ultimately lie, we know this: these "deepest desires" lie beneath the surface longing to please parents and partners. To put it crudely: many young women will encounter many young men who very much want them to say "yes." Many of these young women will come from backgrounds where their cultural obligation is to say "no". So whether she says "yes" or "no", her own desires may well have already been silenced by the overwhelming pressure to please one faction or another in the audience. She will find it very difficult, it not impossible, to please everyone.
I stand by that post today.
What concerns me as a youth leader and a teacher is the huge number of young women who report using substances to quiet the internalized audience! What so many teens discover is that alcohol presses — if only temporarily — the "mute" button on all of the competing voices in one’s head. For some young women, alcohol and drugs enable them to say "yes" to what they really want to say "yes" to but don’t dare while sober; for others, alcohol may allow another’s "yes" to override their own drowned-out "no." But what so many of my young people report is the consistent use of alcohol and drugs to live a double life: a life where, when "lit" by a drink or five, they are able to feel powerful, decisive, and in control, unhampered by doubt. As we all know all too well, the consequences of using alcohol and drugs to overcome inhibitions, to become a short-lived "liquid feminist" who says and does what she wants, can often be disastrous.
We live in a culture that puts impossible pressures on so many young women: to be sexy but virginal, demure yet aggressive, autonomous and independent yet pleasing to men, beautiful but effortlessly so. It’s hard enough for many adults to silence all of these nagging voices in their heads while sober, far more difficult for vulnerable teens and early twenty-somethings. And chemicals offer such rapid relief, or at least the illusion of rapid relief! Chemicals reconcile the irreconcilable; chemicals drown out the shouting, arguing, hectoring voices that so many women carry around in their heads every waking second. And yet those same chemicals bring so much devastation and heartbreak.
One of the things I want for my students and youth groupers of either sex is the confidence to act on their own deep desires — while stone cold sober. I want them to support each other while they do the work of silencing the nagging internalized audience – without relying on booze or drugs to suppress those voices. I have become convinced, in other words, that drinking and drug use is a feminist issue for a wide variety of reasons. Obviously, intoxication can increase a woman’s risk of being sexually assaulted. That and that alone makes the topic a vital one for those of us who care about the lives of women and girls. But more subtly, in our modern culture alcohol and drugs become an escape from doing the overwhelmingly difficult work of figuring out what the hell it is you really want, and then having the courage to give voice to that want.
We’ve got to do more than lecture young women about the dangers of turning to "liquid feminism." If all we feminists and pro-feminists do is give lectures, after all, all we end up becoming is another damn voice in the head — and another reason for a young person to feel she’s not living up to other’s expectations for her! That’s the last thing I want. I’m convinced, however, that those of us who care about the next generation of feminists have to confront the issue of drinking and substance abuse among women and girls. We have to see that it’s fundamentally tragic for our sisters and our daughters (maybe even our wives and mothers) to resort to alcohol and drugs in order to tell us what they really feel and what they really want. On an individual level, "drinking to silence the voices" is fundamentally at odds with the most basic feminist ideals.
At the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848, where the nascent American feminist movement first began to organize in a serious way, the delegates issued the famous Declaration of Sentiments. One of the charges against "mankind" (what we today call the patriarchy) was this:
He has endeavored, in every way that he could, to destroy her confidence in her own powers, to lessen her self-respect, and to make her willing to lead a dependent and abject life.
Read positively, this first women’s rights manifesto is calling for three things: self-confidence, self-respect, and independence. As modern feminists, we must be committed, as our fore-mothers in 1848 were committed (most of them, by the way, were firmly in the temperance movement) to instilling in our daughters those three precious attributes. One great enemy of those goals is, I think, the habitual use of substances in order to give the user the false impression that she does in fact have, if only for a moment, self-confidence and independence! As any recovering alcoholic will tell you, booze lies. Drugs lie. And as the inheritors of that legacy of Seneca Falls, one of our goals, as lofty as it may seem, is to remove the tremendous cultural pressures that drive so many of our sisters and daughters to the false promises of liquid feminism.
“Obviously, intoxication can increase a woman’s risk of being sexually assaulted.”
No, it increases the chance that men will view you as less-than-human. Women don’t increase their risk of being sexually assualted. Men increase their boundary violations when they perceive vulnerabilty, or more precisely, when they can safely assume that the woman won’t 1) remember 2) won’t press charges because of shame or 3) after hounding her for sex all night she finally “gives in”. Men rape women regardless of the circumstances. Just certain circumstances provide men with more foolproof legal loopholes.
Women and alcohol is no more a troubling feminist issue than women perpetuating heteronormative paradigms of love, romance, sex, family, and religion. It would be foolish to think that one is more harmful than the other.
One of the problems it took me ten years to overcome was a very hard drug habit, which had its roots in all manner of things including molestation by a babysitter and a chronic depression that I have only gotten a grip on within the past 15 years – I was self-medicating like hell. Speed, (Meth before it was trendy), Quaaludes, acid, coke, tea – jeez. It’s a wonder I survived. Some of the things I did while in that life I will probably never be able to atone for – and yes, I did them, it wasn’t some “disease” or any of the other silly excuses. I took the drugs – I did the deeds – it was self inflicted – my fault, and mine alone.
Getting off them was no picnic, and even that had consequences. Not taking drugs helped in part to unravel my first marriage – she ragrded me as a “traitor” or something to the who “Sex/Drugs/Rock’n'Roll culture; and it damn near got me killed. (You don’t just quit dealing for Panchman.)
This isn’t just a feminist issue, Hugo, But I’ll agree on everything else. It’s poison. And from a Christian perspective, it’s a vile desecration of the body as a Temple of God.
Q Grrl, I did not say “women increase their risk of being sexually assaulted by drinking.” I said “intoxication can increase the risk” — there’s a world of difference, and my intention is not to let rapists off the hook, but to acknowledge that alcohol plays a pivotal role in sexual assault cases. It doesn’t mitigate the offense, but it does increase women’s vulnerability. I don’t think saying so is incompatible with feminism.
The point of the post is not, however, assault or rape — the point is the issue of using alcohol to silence the internalized audience. I’d like the comments to go in that direction.
I’ve been thinking of this issue a little, and I’ve noted one thing. Addictions hurt, and exist, and alcohol does cause sloppy and sometimes violent behaviour. We need to be aware of those dangers.
However. In my life and circle, there were certainly moments in my early twenties where a stiff drink allowed me to get away from my censors: leaving a bad partnership is one noticable example. Although now I’m older and don’t need such a crutch, using it at the time didn’t stop me from eventually standing on my own. I really believe the alcohol may have helped in one situation by not letting a bad relationship drag on due to my own cowardice: I was repressing so damn hard, trying to be “nice”, that I was Stepfording myself and making both my partner and myself miserable. Anyway, in vino veritas, et al: I had to look at myself more closely, and everything good in my life came out of those moments.
I live in an incredibly urban, youthful area; and I know a lot of the kids who were clubbing at the time I was. Hundreds, actually, since I worked at a post-clubs coffee house. Aside from a notable few, most have moved past the alcohol and bar hookup scene.
I also have religious friends from high school who married and had kids right away. Now my kid-club group is trying to get pregnant, where my married post high school group is dealing with marriage issues. Addictions problems between the two groups are similar: the one thing I’ve seen from my temperance friends is that there are some who go from “never across these lips” to substance abuse with no stops: I wonder if it’s not a lack of cultural preparation.
I don’t know. I think they’re two different lifestyles that cause different development paths, but I’m not sure that I’d bet on which is more damaging to human happiness. I’m not entirely against “liquid courage” for any kid learning how to be themselves emotionally – and I think that’s pretty much *all* kids of every stripe.
That said, and I think kids need pragmatic strategies to protect themselves if they’re planning on living on the edge for awhile. Rules for my roommates and I in the olden days: leave the car at home; go out in groups; after 11, make every second drink a drink of water. One roomie’s rule was that she’d only bring dates home – not go to their places until they were ‘practically married’ – and only when she knew we’d be there. That was a really helpful safety strategy.
Oh, I should say: I’m not saying that the club-kids I know are not going to be having marriage issues at a later time… the data’s not in.
I’m with arwen here. Anything can be used abusively–physical susbtances, legal or otherwise, as well as more intangible…I won’t say addictions, but compulsions. But I also believe that most of those “harmful” substances or practices can be beneficial, or at least neutral. Context is everything.
The original post interests me in that it brings to mind someone who’s been nibbling the back of my conscious since I started reading here (and a few other places): Carrie Nation.
http://www.fathom.com/course/10701039/session1.html
Arguably the original scary proto-feminist stereotype, long before Rush Limbaugh started ranting about feminazis and so on. Both physically intimidating and grimly Anti-Fun; if she hadn’t existed, someone would’ve had to make her up.
I kind of admire her moxie–it’s hard not to have a soft spot for a woman with an axe (cough), but..in earnest, I don’t think her legacy has worn well. Prohibition didn’t work, and neither is the War on Drugs, working; and neither does any movement that ultimately becomes about stamping out impurities and earthly weaknesses, in my opinion. At least, not in the way it was originally intended.
Perhaps Arwen and Belledame are subtly pointing out that this is one of those areas where my Christian zeal for personal transformation and my feminism reinforce each other…
As per the internalized audience: well, yes, that’s a very important concept, and no doubt central to addiction/compulsion issues in general. I wonder, though, why focus on young women, especially?
That is: I get what you’re saying about the “people-pleasing” business, and I agree that women in particular (at least of certain socioeconomic background(s)) are still socialized to do this more than men. I’m just struck by this, though, Hugo, in the context of your recent post about your own stuff about people-pleasing (in the form of wanting to be “nice,” and a gentleman).
And I am absolutely with you on the need for feminism to be about saying yes and no, both.
For me, the best way to start with this was to accept that it was okay to fuck up. Or get fucked up, on occasion, even, maybe. And that in the long run, I could only truly speak for myself, worried as I might be by someone else’s behavior.
relevant slippage.
Well, I have my own experiences with alcohol — and trying to escape an internalized audience. And men surely do struggle with their own issues as well, and I may address that in a future post, but the issues are not quite identical.
Hugo: I spent several years in AA with my home group being a gay/lesbian one. I’ve sat in a room of 35 women and have been the only one not to have been raped. I think girls/women drink for reasons you’re not willing to look at yet. Screw the internal voice. Let address the internalized voice that needs to be drowned out. Most women don’t drink or drug to get rid of that voice — they conform instead; conform to sexist, male views of women in a rape culture.
With all due respect, the fact that you can say “screw the internal voice” puts you in a very different place from the teens and twenty-somethings I work with.
And as I said, men and drinking is a topic for another post; men do have internal audiences, but audiences with different repetitive messages.
Well, what if one were to combine it and speak of the ways in which gender straightjackets (as per another thread) contribute to addiction?
But specifically Hugo, I wasn’t alluding to your issues with alcohol (I was not aware you had such), but rather suggesting that the forces which conscript one to be “nice” and people-please aren’t limited to women in this culture, although I’d agree it’s almost certainly more common among them/us. And that I might have a better idea of where you were coming from if you were to connect your own stuff (the people-pleasing at least) with the more generalized idea of the people-pleasing young women, as introduced here.
How do you suggest girls sort out what is an authentic internal voice vs. an inauthentic one? Are there studies you can point to and / or publicatons?
Well, it’s a process, Heather — a long one.
Great book on the subject: Lynn Phillips, “Flirting with Danger”
“In the first half of the nineteenth century, access to alcohol was to some extent sex-specific: many taverns excluded all women save prostitutes, and women who may have wanted to drink faced both economic and social barriers to doing so.”
That is VERY much specific to particular subcultures in particular places in the US. Consider the people who “brewed their own”.
My study on the subject has started with “In a Different Voice” by Carol Gilligan (anything by Carol Gilligan really)including “The Birth of Pleasure” which you may have read considering your past posts on pleasure as a feminist principle, and “Women’s Ways of Knowing” by Mary Belenky, Blythe Clinchy, Nancy Goldberger, and Jill Tarule.
The latter looks at the stages a woman goes through from only listening to authorities to listening to her authentic voice. The former gives value to a morality based on relationship. For me that’s huge because patriarchy based psychology tends to portray women’s pursuit of relationships and the preservation of relationship as somehow inferior to the pursuit of autonomy as the highest psychological goal.
My impression is that these are foundations for learning how to listen to one’s authentic voice.
I’ve never been much of a drinker. I dabbled in drugs but was more interested with the practical aspect of things than getting high- never had addiction issues. I cannot even smoke cigarettes regularly.
One of the most important things we can teach kids is control, boundaries and awareness. With so many confusing messages that abound for kids today, I am so glad my parents raised mw with a sense of control and boundaries. I was raised in an environment where I was allowed to have a sip of alcohol as a child at the dinner table, and alcohol was never taboo. As a result, possibly, alcohol never had a mythical appeal to me that it can have for many kids. My parents encouraged me to find my drinking boundaries at home- not outside of the home. Once I hit about 14, I was able to drink at home with the parents, but my parents were very careful to watch me, and we would discuss the experience a few days later. As a result, I knew what my limit was, and i never had to test it out in an unsafe environment. I also knew to stay within my limits, and I was fortunate to be thick-skinned through annual moves to be resistant to peer pressure. I think the biggest thing that helped me navigate my perilous teen and young adult phase was my own confidence in my decision, and also my sense of obligation to myself and my own actions.
One of the biggest things i try to bring up with kids when I have the chance is to stress self-cofidence and careful though before making a decision. I want that to be automatic as possible for the kids- to consider their actions- before they act, and have the process be natural. Practice makes perfect, and I rarely accept token answer from kids. It’s important to build a place of safety where kids can make mistakes, and know that it’s all right… but also a place where they are acountable and turn for guidance.
Whoa. For once, I’m going to totally agree with Gonzman.
Hell just froze over.
But, much like him, I’ve been DEEP in the whole “get obliterated” thing, I spent several years that way, and I can say, without a doubt, it had jack to do with what I thought was expected of me as a woman.
I can’t comment on the “Spring Break” college-culture drinking thing, cause that’s not where I was coming from. But, Loser Druggie Idiot, playing out self-destructive tendancies because of a severely dysfunctional abusive childhood? I was *there*, man.
I’m a big Carol Gilligan fan.
Folks, there are many many reasons why young women drink to excess. I’ve been focused on one of them, a vital one, but not necessarily the only one.
I’m a big Carol Gilligan fan
this could be a whole ‘nother story/post/discussion, but really? carol gilligan? that whole vein of thinking that heather referenced above seems pretty problematic to me. now, i haven’t read the books cover to cover, so i can’t make authoritive statements at all, but their arguments smack of essentialism, don’t you think? i never got the sense they were claiming that “women’s ways of knowing” or the way women prioritize relationships were learned so much as innate.
i’m not against subverting the dominant paradigm, but i also don’t want to just invert the paradigm either, you know? when we start categorizing what kind of genders have what kind of innately authentic “voices,” then we’re headed for trouble aren’t we?
i’m happy to be enlighted if there’s nuance to gilligan et al. that i’m missing.
Gilligan is a useful pop culture introduction to a lot of interesting gender theory. I like her work the way I like that of John Bradshaw on family dynamics — not cutting edge, not controversial, but nonetheless useful, and thus miles ahead of the John Grays of the world.
Whoa. For once, I’m going to totally agree with Gonzman.
Hell just froze over.
Scary, ain’t it?
I’m curious where prescription medications come into the equation – I never really experimented with alcohol or illicit drugs, but I’ve been on prescription antidepressants for the last six years (and am now experiencing the fun of knock-you-over withdrawal symptoms trying to wean myself off!). I can definitely identify with what you wrote about finding an authentic voice (and even wrote a bit about that on my own blog), and I may have to check out some of the books others have mentioned here.
But in a way, it seems like getting a prescription from a psychiatrist isn’t too far off from drinking the voices away. It’s just different chemicals to “reconcile the irreconcilable.”
Of the two really memorable books I’ve read about substance abuse, the one that comes to mind now is Drinking: A Love Story by Caroline Knapp (chapter six is excerpted here). One of the things that struck me about this book was Caroline’s descriptions of the way that alcohol deadened her anger, and helped her to tolerate things she would’ve otherwise found intolerable… such as the inappropriate attentions of her college advisor, or (as described later) the constant, nitpicking criticism of her fussy boyfriend.
On the other hand, alcohol gave Caroline (and also her friend Meg, as described in this excerpt) the kind of liquid courage that Hugo is describing above.
But in a way, it seems like getting a prescription from a psychiatrist isn’t too far off from drinking the voices away.
You must be one of those people who sees going to the doctor when you’re sick as a sign of being pussified, eh?
Whoa. For once, I’m going to totally agree with Gonzman.
Nah. Even a broken clock, etc.
Hugo, I’m not sure that you touched on this, but drinking is also an excuse. “Oh my god, I was so drunk” is something women can use as a get-out-of-being-called-a-slut-free card.
On a way tangent, I’d be very grateful if anyone can point me to digitzed versions of some of those old temperance posters. I have a Photoshop project.
Correction: I meant to type, “alcohol sometimes gave Caroline… the kind of liquid courage that Hugo is describing above.”
Having just returned from a many years in the UK this is a hot media topic over there – and a culture that for both males and females views alcohol as a the way to “communicate” – similar in some ways to the Japanese – a release of the “public” face and proper emotions. This acceptance of often two completely different personalities was, for a North American was at best surreal (for example one “Straight” fairly homophobic boy would start making out with guys every time he drank; no one considered this either unusual or any sign that he might be bisexual).
The big concern regarding women drinkers was primarily in the unspoken feeling that women should not be “allowed” to make bad, immature or similar choices, at least not publicly and not in a traditional male area (over-drinking). Binge or event drinking, which has been part of British life for at least 80 years for men has only recently been adopted by groups of women (labelled “lad-ettes”) much to the concern of everyone from the Queen down (remember this is a country where the prince, getting drunk underage at a club at 16 was considered a “normal” rite-of passage).
I guess my concern is whether the post is about making a “better” choice or a feeling that women “shouldn’t” be making these choices.
If anyone can figure out a way to keep family, society and other “voices” of appropriate and inappropriate behaviour then power to you and sign me up. But until there is a truely equal world I don’t think that is going to happen – as long as other people exist, there will be pressure to conform to expected values, whether that is coming from Mom or in a lesbian collective.
Even if that happens, women will still drink, to excess. Women will chose to drink for poor reasons, for stupid reasons. I don’t believe a view that men can make “bad” choices but women must always make good and responsible ones is any better an view toward alcohol than it was toward sex (Men can’t help themselves, women must be the responsible ones, etc).
Nah. Even a broken clock, etc.
Hugo, I’m not sure that you touched on this, but drinking is also an excuse. “Oh my god, I was so drunk” is something women can use as a get-out-of-being-called-a-slut-free card.
Back atcha.
I was going to forbear bringing it up, but now that a PFIGS (Pro-Feminist in Good Standing) has, I wish I had a nickel for every college girl I’ve seen get lit up, dance on tables, engage in public displays of – um – unrestrained affection, and who later disappeared with someone who they wouldn’t normally give a look at, blame it on drinking, and even claim victimization, despite the fact that nobody forced them to get schnockered. I mean, I’m a hundred percent on board with revoking the testicles and locking up some guy who takes an insensible woman to bed, or joins an unconcious woman in hers; but Jack Daniels fueled though it may be, a “Do me, do me, do me!” is most certainly a “yes.” Even if it isn’t remembered the next moring and we have buyer’s remorse.
And if he’s drunk too, and we’re going to charge people, seems to me we should charge them both, equally. Unless men are going to be held more responsible because they are innately more responsible…In which case we have a whole new set of premises to deal with.
No – like me, I used drugs like an idiot of my own free will; and the consequences of what I did while on drugs are my own fault – blaming someone else is a dodge.
I think there’s a difference, Gonz. I think the “Oh my god, I was so drunk line” is meant to avoid the judgment of others, as opposed to trying to make an excuse for your own behavior. It’s the difference between “I don’t want someone else to think I’m an indiscriminate slut (and all that such entails)” and “Wow, that was a dumbass thing for me to do.”
It also assumes that a woman would never have casual sex or dance on a table if she *weren’t* drunk; that no proper/real women would ever elect to do such things.
YEah, I can see the context of it – if it’s said sheepishly with the “Oh my God, I did what?” as opposed to the “Not my fault!” – is that the distinction you’re making?
Yes, sort of. I’m struggling with a way to make this distinction.
Example: I go to a bar, have a drink, hook up with a guy and take him home with me, freely, cheerfully, and because I want to have casual sex. Someone will inevitably say that was a slutty thing to do. If I then say “But I was so drunk!”, that’ll temper the response. Oh, you’re not really a slut, your judgment was just bad because you were drinking.
Inherent in that is the idea that no woman should ever want to have casual sex when she’s sober.
Excellent, Gonzman. Spoken like a true rape apologist.
Elizabeth and evil, I am in no way interested in enforcing a double standard. But my Christian feminism tells me that there is much that is desirable about helping women and men reach the point in their personal development where “Yes” always means yes as well as “No” always meaning no.
It’s vital that we all do the inner work of becoming more clear about what it is that we truly want. I’m a bit of a puritan about alcohol for many reasons, but chief among them is my loathing of the notion that in order to live out our fantasies and our dreams, in order to tell the truth, we need some chemical help. I’ve worked my ass off to get to the point where I can live without mind-altering chemicals (caffeine doesn’t change one’s reasoning in the same way as booze), and I grieve how many folks I see around me are leading double lives, where their only opportunity to tell the truth and say what they want comes when they are three sheets into the wind.
Hugo, I’m not disputing your point. People should be able to say yes when they mean yes, and no when they mean no. It shouldn’t take alcohol to silence the internal audience or encourage it. But it’s also inappropriate, in my view, for alcohol to be used as a cover for true desires when dealing with an external audience. The fact that I’m “permitted” to behave differently sexually when drunk is a huge part of your analysis, in my view. It speaks to the accepted norms of sexual behavior in society, which are a huge part of the internal audience.
I suspect that’s a bit convoluted, but when you’re trying to sort out what’s the authentic self/audience, you’re also talking about normative standards and cultural conventions.
So there we have it — if a woman was drunk and dancing on a tabletop and falls unconscious afterward, she’s just as responsible for the rape that occurs if someone later decides to take advantage of her unconscious body. Because if a woman demonstrates at any point in time that she’s a sexual being, she’s consented once and for all time.
Christ.
I don’t believe drunkenness to the point of dancing on tabletops or passing out is a good idea for anybody, man or woman — and notice that virtually nobody attacks men for this on the grounds of chastity or putting their safety at risk, despite men being just as physically vulnerable when unconscious — but if someone takes advantage of someone who’s drunk and passed out or semiconscious, that person is in NO WAY responsible for the crime that was committed against them.
If a drunken man does a strip routine on a tabletop, all the while saying that he’ll do anybody, and then passes out cold, how many men here would think that should legally signal open season on his ass?
Someone who’s unconscious is incapable of giving consent. Period. Whatever they may have mumbled drunkenly beforehand.
Dave, that’s not just a cheap shot, it’s a crock of paternilistic crap. If you are saying men can get drunk, and be expected to be responsible for how they act while drunk, and women aren’t, the unspoken context is always “Because we can’t expect the poor widdle tings ro be responsible for themselves.”
In a word: Hogswallop.
If no means no, period; then yes means yes, period. It may make a man who takes advantage of a drunken and willing (Even enthusiastic) woman a cad, if he promises her things he has no intent to deliver on, a liar; but it does not make him a rapist. If she’s unconcious, yes. If she is drooling drink where she can’t say yes or no, yes – but if she says yes, then it is yes.
I’m a former drug abuser and addict, and I can tell you truthfully that “I was under the influence” is a flimsy exuse I used oftyen until I grew up and took responsibility for the fact that I smoked, inhaded, snorted, and/or shot that crap of my own free will, and acting irresponsibly was a predictable result which I was equally responsible for. Dope is a problem because it causes you to behave stupidly, and self destructively, and you solve nothing with the addict when you enable them to continue down that path my making everyone else responsible for their idiotic behavior. That includes driving, assaults, horrible words spoken, adultery, and sexual irresponsibility.
Rape apologist my sweet patoot. It’s paternalistic sentiments like that which enable idiot men to continue to absolve women of bad behavior, and regard them as mere children who are incapable of any free agency as a human being. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, but even I and most real feminists agree there, as much as it galls me to admit it.
So there we have it — if a woman was drunk and dancing on a tabletop and falls unconscious afterward, she’s just as responsible for the rape that occurs if someone later decides to take advantage of her unconscious body. Because if a woman demonstrates at any point in time that she’s a sexual being, she’s consented once and for all time.
Christ.
And that would be a straw-MRA, Erin, if you will actually read what I have said – which I cannot edit, to wit:
and who later disappeared with someone who they wouldn’t normally give a look at, blame it on drinking, and even claim victimization, despite the fact that nobody forced them to get schnockered. I mean, I’m a hundred percent on board with revoking the testicles and locking up some guy who takes an insensible woman to bed, or joins an unconcious woman in hers; but Jack Daniels fueled though it may be, a “Do me, do me, do me!” is most certainly a “yes.” Even if it isn’t remembered the next moring and we have buyer’s remorse.
By all means, if I have said something you disagree with, attack me on that, but please do not attack me on what you WISH I had said.
It’s taken me a day to figure out what bothers me about this post, Hugo. It’s similar to Elizabeth’s concern over whether the post is about making “better” choices or telling women they “shouldn’t” be making those choices. In reading the post, I picture a disapproving parent staring down his/her nose at me. It took a while to figure out how to respond without sounding like a drunken idiot, and feel it necessary to make it clear that I almost never drink (because my stance makes it sound like I do). Here it is:
I think being in a state of altered consciousness can open up a different part of the psyche that’s inaccessible when completely of sound mind. I don’t suggest everyone go out and get wasted, but I think there is a place for slightly inebriated thought and discussion. Getting to an altered state is part of many cultures worldwide. Think of whirling dervishes and Zen masters meditating for hours at a time.
I’m reminded of a very close friendship I had years ago. We both had busy lives but would get together to talk late into the night, forfeiting sleep for pivotal discussion. We didn’t drink together (or sleep together), but, at some point in the night, we’d get into a sleep-deprived stupor where we’d begin to relate in a more intense and honest way, pouring out our hearts, our deepest fears and longings. Drinking can be a short-cut to this place. I’ve found that out when writing in a journal after a few beers. My writing cuts to the chase and gets right to the depth of the situation. I can tell the truth without chemical help, but it gets me there faster, sometimes surprising me with the results.
So, while alcoholism and using alcohol to avoid responsibility for actions are clearly problems, I think drinking does have something to offer.
Views?
Sage, fair enough. I write from the perspective of someone whose own very troubled relationship with alcohol (combined with a healthy streak of censoriousness about a strange set of things) leads me to question whether anyone who drinks to the point that they begin to think or speak differently is doing so in a healthy fashion. That’s my shortcoming.
But in a way, it seems like getting a prescription from a psychiatrist isn’t too far off from drinking the voices away.
As the wife of a man with bipolar disorder, I really beg to differ. Go to any bipolar family group and ask, and you can get an earful about how very different is the effect of the prescriptions the psychiatrist gives, and the alcohol and drugs some people (fortunately for me not including my husband) used to self-medicate before they got properly diagnosed.
There is a solid body of research showing real differences in the brain between people with bipolar disorder and “normies.” There is evidence that the brain deteriorates over time if bipolar disorder is left unmedicated, and that it actually recovers under the influence of medication.
Brain disorders like my husband’s bipolar disorder are medical conditions just as real as disorders of, say, the pancreas. When my husband regularly takes his lithium, he’s following medical advice just as solid as the medical advice that leads him to take medication for his diabetes.
And if that means he no longer hears the occasional voice in an electric fan, well, that’s a form of “medicating the voices away” that I’m all in favor of. Big difference between that and drinking so you can get a kind of “permission” to do things you wouldn’t otherwise do.
Lynn Gazis-Sax: You’re definitely right, I a) didn’t phrase myself well and b) oversimplified and made a comparison that doesn’t really line up.
Mythago: I didn’t think that I was that sort of person – I’m generally someone who tells other people to go see a doctor if something’s wrong – but I think I might apply a double standard in my own case. (I should note, though, that the reason that I am trying to wean myself off medication is not due to shame but to side effects that are making life difficult.)
But anyway, on further thought, I don’t think my comparison between prescribed medication and “self-medication” stands.
Apologies, Gonzman, I misread. I got the impression you were advocating for extra-legal punishment for those individuals but thought the law should leave them alone.
Well, I was testy myself, so I snapped at you, so …We’re not about that. We have daughters, mothers, wives; we don’t want to see them raped or assaulted. The pendulum can swing too far though.
Getting to an altered state is part of many cultures worldwide.
Those cultures tend to use hallucinogenics, not alcohol.
Gonzman, there is a difference between falling-down-blackout-drunk and having a few Cosmopolitans so that you can go ahead and do what you were going to do anyway. Which is the point I was making. It’s not just that alcohol lowers inhibitions; it’s social cover.
Beleive me, though, Myth – there are several times in my life where I have lost even two or three days of time from my drug abuse, but apparently was fully functioning and interacting with people while doing so. Blackout drunk or stoned does not always involve falling down; the more you use a drug, the more of a tolerance you build up. Things I can’t remember include spending money like mad, wrecking a car, fights, and having sex.
What I am saying is this:
Person says yes, but is insensible or unconcious by the time you get to bed: Liability for rape. (And I qualify this only because I have had girlfriends tell me “Well, you could have just gone ahead…” Yeah, I could have, but it would have opened me up to charges)
Person cannot say no or yes because they are staggering, drooling and insensible: Rape
Person is passed out: Rape
Person is in one of these states where they are functioning, and participating, and says “Yes:” Consensual Sex – even if they can’t recall it in the morning.
Unless one is a very hard-core abuser or addict, the latter is rare; However, if one is, it can be very common.
It’s very simple, Gonzman. If you believe that women are responsible for what happens to them while intoxicated (not what they do, but what is done to them)… while men are not responsible for what they do to women while they are intoxicated, then you are a rape apologist. If this description offends you, then look to your own attitudes.
Nossir – I believe that everyone is responsible for their own actions, and using intoxication as an excuse for them, or a cover, is moral and intellectual cowardice
Man or woman – if you are so far out of control you sleep with people you wouldn’t normally sleep with while you are drunk, or otherwise behave in a irresponsible manner or one contrary to you nature, you have a substance abuse problem. It is your fault. Grow up, be a responsible adult, deal with it, and don’t blame other people. If you are subject to blackouts because of a lack of self-control, you need to get a grip of yourself, grow up, be a responsible adult, deal with it, and don’t blame other people.
Even Erin admitted to misreading me – I guess you lack that same strenght of character; you are putting words in my mouth I clearly did not say, where I clearly state that sex without an clear, coherent, and unequivocal “yes” is rape. With a yes, with an active and conscious participant, it is not. Reading anything else into that is bogus, and you should be ashamed of yourself for doing it.
Adult people should behave in an adult manner. It is nobody’s job to conduct breathalyser tests on you, psychoanalyze you, or read minds. It is up to the individual to be in control of themselves, and if one cannot use intoxicants in moderation, and remain in charge of their own life, it is them who is at fault if something happens – not J. Random Stranger who took them at their word.
And you can quibble on “What if” and petty nitpicky scenarios – the principle will still stand: People who are capable of particpatory consent to something have nobody to blame but themselves. It’s not “Blaming the victim” because there is no victim to begin with. If you cannot give a meaningful yes or no, it is not participatory consent. If you are unconcious, it is not participatory consent. If you give that consent, and become unconscious or insensible, it presumes consent is withdrawn. If the intoxicant is forced or given unawares, it is a different story as well – the whole thing is a crime.
But a drunken or stoned person, man or woman, who says “Let’s fuck” and goes to the bed, and participates in it, has not been raped, even if they wake up the next morning with a pounding hangover, wondering “Who is this person and what am I doing here?” It’s happened to me – I was not raped – so I grew up, became a responsible adult, took charge of my own life, dealt with it, and stopped blaming other people. It’s that simple – you want to be an adult, stop acting like a child.
Giving consent to sex while intoxicated is not something done to you, but what you do. I don’t know what kind of women you have sex with, but I prefer mine to be enthusiastic partners, not passive receptacles – but if that is how you regard women, as passive agents rather than active ones, then you are paternalistic and condescending, and should look to your own attitudes.
Damn. This one spun out.
“Someone who’s unconscious is incapable of giving consent. Period. Whatever they may have mumbled drunkenly beforehand.”
Good grief. In a perfect world, folks wouldn’t blackout and wake up next to a stranger on the other side of town with no ride home. In a perfect world drunk sex wouldn’t happen. But, how is someone who’s likely to be drunk as well supposed to know if you’ve hit “black out” or not? You’d be surpised just what a person can do and not remember at all. Believe me, the stories I’ve heard about myself shock me to this day. YES, the rule of thumb should be to err on the side of caution, and just not go around screwing folks that are intoxicated, but people, particularly drunk peoploe act stupid.
It’s rape if the person says no. It’s rape if the person is actually unconcious. But, believe me when I say that a person can give enthusastic non-mumbly consent, and have no clue about it when they come to.
Okay, the thread drift police are coming.
Back to topic, pronto!
Back to the topic.
In the 1960s radicals used drugs to expand their consciousness (so they claimned). I know people who told me that psychadelics helped them see the unity of all people, regardless of race, creed or sex.
Today we are seeing a lot of drug use to keep people numb: Ritalin, Prozac, and so forth.
Kind of interesting how TV can show PSAs condemning marijuana use but then have commercials for pharmaceuticals as the solution to all problems.
Perhaps drugs that lead to revolution are outlawed, but drugs that give the state control are good?
Remember MK-Ultra?
Alexander, this is actually thread drift. Topic: alcohol and feminism, not national drug policy.
This is your last warning.