(Context is, of course, l'affaire Akin.)
15 Comments 
music, Politics & Current Events
Am I terrible for thinking that song is catchy?
I can't resist a timely novelty song.
I'm not going to look, because then I'll be tempted to read the comments, and then the NSA will get all up in my grill about trying to buy plutonium on Amazon again.
@Grifter: I'm really, really concerned that I'm going to sing this under my breath around people sometime in the next few days.
This girl is relevant to my interests, I'm going to have to check out her other hats songs.
Oh no, I'm going to have this stuck in my head. As Gal said, please don't let me mutter it quietly where people can just barely hear me say it…
Female, here, almost raped by a neighbor when I was a kid. I got away. Some scenarios:
1. Woman invites man over to spend the night and they have great sex. Later, he wakes up and has sex again, only she's asleep/groggy. Rape! Or so says Julian Assange's accuser.
2. 17 year old senior has 16 year old girlfriend. They have sex. He turns 18. Her dad finds out they have been having sex, only NOW, it's … Rape! 18 year old is now listed as sex offender for life.
3. Two college students go to a frat party and get smashed. They stagger upstairs, drunk as skunks, and have sex. The next morning, the woman claims that she was too drunk to consent, ignoring that he was obviously too drunk, as well. Rape!
These scenarios happen ALL THE TIME. These are NOT forcible rapes.
@Another Gal: So what's your point?
@Another Gal:
Glad you got away! I hope you felt comfortable enough to press charges against that a-hole.
Eh… I would debate number 1. A girl that is asleep cannot give consent. It's equivalent to number 3 if only the girl was drunk.
As for number 2, statutory rape, I was under the impression that most states have instituted a range greater than 18 years for the date to kick it off. Even then, yes, one day can make a difference but only if they have sex after that date has passed. Still, this does happen so you're right.
I don't know what laws are elsewhere, but in regards to statutory rape, here in Ontario it's having sex with someone under 18, if there is an age gap larger than 4 years between the two people. So 17yr old and 18 yr old, not rape. 17 yr old and 21 yr old, definitely rape. Sex with anyone under age 14 is also statutory rape, no matter the age of the other person.
Also, that song is super catchy, loved it!
A little off topic, but I just want to note what the web cam has done to us all. The web cam flips the image.
Now nearly every armchair guitarist on youtube can pretend they are a lefty guitarist. But they are nothing more than a poser Paul McCartney, Dick Dale or Jimi Hendrix. They are not left handed, and I don't appreciate them pretending to be a member of the right minded club.
@matthew: Kurt Kobain, too.
"A little bit drunk"? really? Look I've had sex when I was "a little bit drunk" and then thought it was a hell of a mistake…
Now "too drunk to give consent" (e.g. passed out, or one degree short thereof) is one thing, but "a little bit drunk"? There must be a difference between "post drunken-sex regret" and rape.
If you are going to cry rape from having sex you consented too while "a little bit drunk" then you either need to (a) never get drunk in public or private with someon in your "would do them" demographic, or (b) get a forehead tattoo that says "will cry rape if not sober".
Lets face it, "a little bit drunk" is firmly in the "personal responsibility" column; pending consent or apparent consent of course.
Guys need to operate their penis responsibly, but women bear an equal burden with their vagina…
I agree with the rest of the song.
I agree. If you're responsible for driving drunk, you should certainly be responsible for having sex drunk (or self-drugged). If there's really that much ambiguity to your ability to consent, it's up to you to prevent sex while plastered, whether that's by drinking at home alone or using the buddy system while you're out. There's no good reason why drunk consensual sex should be indistinguishable from rape; if you indicate yes and got drunk or drugged of your own free will, it's not rape. If you got blacked-out drunk and don't remember whether you consented or not, there should be free date rape drug tests available; if that's a no, it probably can't be proven whether or not you were raped. While no one should commit rape, since it's so far impossible to remove that compunction from the animal mental process, it's just stupid to put yourself in that situation. There's a point beyond which a person's actions are just plain lack of self-preservation.
This is why I can't be a feminist. You can't expect equal rights without accepting equal responsibility, yet paradigms such as "all drunk sex is rape" not only defer equal responsibility for women, but reinforce the role of men as chivalrous caretakers of helpless little damsels who aren't intelligent or aware of their own bodies enough to know their limits. It also completely ignores the reality of sexuality and gender, which is that men can rape men, women can rape men, and women can rape women. It would be quite easy to rape a drunk man by those same standards; where's the outrage about that? Oh right, it doesn't exist because it's a double standard.
@M, you are a feminist. Your points are very valid to anyone who supports women's equal rights in society. We just haven't worked out all the details yet. That's part of the resistance to feminism: A lot of people are frightened by not knowing how it will play out in the future. (I found it interesting that My Fair Lady changed the emphasis of Pygmalion to be a question of whether male/female relationships could survive women's independence rather than a question of how language defines class, changing the ending to the complete opposite outcome. Feminisim was the more significant question for our time.)
But yes, there are real issues about how drunk makes one unable to give consent, and how drunk makes a man no longer responsible for being unable to understand the difference between resistance and playfulness.
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Aug 21, 2012 
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