>Do women react to alcohol differently? No. >It seems like our culture and our legal system treat an inebriated woman differently than an inebriated man when

>Do women react to alcohol differently? No. >It seems like our culture and our legal system treat an inebriated woman differently than an inebriated man when assessing a situation. It seems like if a woman is wasted and making out with a guy "consensually" she is being victimized because she cannot consent when she is drunk. >But what if the guy is also inebriated and he cannot consent or decipher consent. If the woman is initiating the contact, then it could be argued that she doesn't have consent, either. >What if it's just two really drunk people hooking up? Is it one of those "I know it when I see it" situations? In this case, Scoble proceeded to aggressively grope the author in between going after the clearly too-drunk-to-consent woman. >This is fine for me, but it seems like it is only applied with women being the victim and a man being the aggressor. Maybe that is because of the natural sexual dynamic of the onus being on the male to seduce the female. I think this is a correct interpretation. I also have trouble thinking of examples of times I've ever seen where a drunk (or sober) woman went out of her way to aggressively pursue a male, drunk or not, consent or not, and anecdotally it's much much much rarer. But in those rare cases, would still not be okay. >By saying that the woman had no control because she was inebriated, but Scoble did, aren't we denying the woman of her agency? Unless of course Scoble plied her with alcohol/drugs a la Bill Cosby? Holy shit this is scary. This is perilously close to "she shouldn't have lowered her guard" or "she was basically asking for it" or "it's essentially her fault for getting too drunk to resist." And thus, you're dangerously close to victim-blaming. It's not "denying agency" to factually state that someone could conceivably become so drunk that they are no longer able to willfully consent. "Denying agency" is a dressed up way of accusing the victim for not being strong-willed enough to know what she wants when she gets drunk, instead of recognizing that it's everyone's right (or agency) to enjoy themselves at a party and get inebriated without having to worry that your mental wits and physical fight ability are 100% about you throughout the entire evening, lest an aggressive man approach you and take your slurred protestation as consent. >Now this Scoble situation might have been a black and white case, but it seems to me there is a lot more grey area in these situations than we let on as a culture, and I am just wondering what the "rules" are. Is the other person so drunk that a reasonable observer would recognize that consent is extremely unlikely to be truthfully given? Then don't. That's a very easy rule. If your target requires significant enough alcohol to "deny their agency" or "let down their guard" or "consent" with you, then it's not true consent. And it's not a win. It's gross and disappointing and regrettable and predatory and frequently illegal.