One in five men think it can’t be rape if both parties are drunk

babe recently conducted a survey about sex and consent where we ask both men and women: “If both parties are drunk, can it be considered sexual assault or rape?”

Results show that 19.4 percent of men don’t think sexual intercourse between two drunk people can be considered sexual assault or rape, compared with only 7.8 percent of women. Of the 2,555 responses, 315 were men.

One male respondent said: “Sex happens, especially when people are drunk. When guys are a little drunk and girls have sex with them, it’s not considered rape. Why when guys do that should it be?”

Another said: “Yes means yes and no means no. It doesn’t matter what they are on or not.”

The line of consent may seem blurry to college students, but according to the law it is fairly clear. In general, sexual assault is defined as committing “a sexual act upon another person when the other person is incapable of consenting to the sexual act due to-impairment by any drug intoxicant, or other similar substance.”

Does this mean people should never have sex drunk? Not necessarily.

Franklin Veaux, sex educator and author, explains that drunk sex is not always a bad thing.

“If you have sex with a drunk person, that is not automatically rape,” Veaux said. “Instead, what the law says is that if that person accused you of rape, you can not use consent as an affirmative defense in court.”

This means that in a court of law, a defendant cannot use consent as evidence to prove innocence if the consent was given while under the influence.

Many respondents expressed their belief that young women claim assault or rape if they wake up the next day and regret the sexual experience. Although this does occur, it is not very common. Research shows false accusations of sexual assault only occur between 2-7 percent of the time.

@TheTab