Getting drunk.

Exactly. Please, drive to town at 2am one morning- you will be truly shocked. Of course a girl wearing next to nothing and blind drunk does not excuse rape - ever. But as the majority of the boys are just as drunk (and or drugged up to the eye balls) and some of the girls throw themselves at them- you can easily see how things can go badly badly wrong- and the boys are not necessarily the only ones to blame. Tragic.

My friend has two daughters in their mid 30s who are regular binge drinkers and one of them has on more than one occasion missed her stop when traveling home late at night on the train from London.

If she had been attacked/raped on the train are you telling me that she is not responsible in any way for putting herself in that situation ?

Of course the rapist must take the blame, I am definitely not siding with the men, but I truly believe women need to protect themselves.

I can see I am very much in the minority with my views, but it is a no brainer for me.

Judge Mowat was not making a moral point she was making a legal one.

What she said was that when a jury has " 'a woman who says : 'I was absolutely off my head, I really can't remember what I was doing, I can't remember what I said, I can't remember if I consented or not but I know I wouldn't have done'. I mean when a jury is faced with something like that, how are they supposed to react? "

In such cases, if the boys are just as off their head and drunk- they could almost be seen as victims in a way- as their physical attributes make them 'perpetrators' rather than 'victims' if you think about it.

That's not what she is saying.

The legal point of view is complicated, difficult to understand. Here's one explanation:
www.cps.gov.uk/legal/p_to_r/rape_and_sexual_offences/consent/

I agree Aka . I think she was just stating a fact, that if many rape cases involve women who are so drunk they don't know what they are doing, it's going to be difficult to get convictions. That doesn't excuse rape in any way.

Do women actually get as far as court if they are unable to bear witness to what happened? It is, I understand, hard enough to get a conviction when they do remember what happened.
Sounds a little unlikely to me but some of you will know the answer.

As a man, or what's left of one, can I say that there is no way the perpetrator of an actual rape can be the victim, although that is what they want you to believe. Drunk or sober, mini-skirt or habit, none of that says 'I'm up for it!' If it's not consensual it shouldn't happen.

A woman goes out on a freezing, wet night to buy a pint of milk. The short route which takes 5 minutes takes her through a dark, somewhat isolated ginnell. The long route is on a well lit road but it's a half hour walk. She chooses to take the short route which she has used many times before in daylight and dark. In the ginnell she is attacked by a male stranger.

She could have taken the longer well lit route but made the choice not to. Is the woman responsible for the attack?

Absolutely not- just does not compare, at all.

Why not? She chose to use the dark, isolated route. She put herself in the path of the stranger. If she'd been sensible she'd have taken the well lit but longer route where the man wouldn't have been able to attack her unseen.

If a drunk woman puts herself in a position of danger by making the wrong choices then surely my hypothetical woman has too.

Bit Harsh, must be a totally terrible thing to be raped .

One must only feel sorrow for the victim , .

IMO

Dark, unlit ginnels should not be dangerous, nor should any woman anticipate being attacked when she leaves her house. I sometimes wonder if women are being subjected to covert curfews when the arrangements for moving around their neighbourhoods have to accommodate the risk of being jumped on. It's time men started having a serious talk with themselves and each other.

Most rapes are not by strangers in ginnells or by men hiding behind bushes! Most are by family members or people known to them!

Thank you feetle

I am surprised you can't see the difference VampireQueen- it is not about being 'sensible'- but about being aware of what you are doing and sure about the circumstances, etc, of an attack- if one does happen.

If y woman cannot remember what happened, if she consented ... or not, etc, etc- then it is VERY, in fact totally, different.

Totally agree Feetle- but if a woman cannot remember if she did consent or not, because she has no memory at all of what happened...

But, I am genuinely puzzled here, if you can't remember if you consented then how can you have consented?

Ginnel, is a lovely Northern word ,think we know it down South as alleyway.

It is lovely IMO the difference between North & South.

Have you never been drunk, GrannyTwice? It's possible to feel completely in control and in charge of one's behaviour when under the influence, but to remember nothing the next morning. It's a well-known phenomenon. People actually joke about not remembering what they've done the night before.

So in answer to your question, yes, you may have consented at the time, but can't remember having done so the next day.

I would think dark unlit alleyways are very , very dangerous in todays climate.
Wouldn"t catch me going down one alone, no way.

Ana - seriously that's helpful. I'm just trying to get my head around the consent thing and remembering. I suppose if you were at a party and your friend saw you in a very drunk state go off into a bedroom with a bloke and then later you realised you'd had sex, there would be a case you had not been able to consent because there was so someone else who'd seen the state you were in just beforehand. As for being drunk - Ana goodness me! As if! But seriously, when I look back to my younger days, I can see now that I must have known a lot of very nice men ( as most of them are anyway) and never ended up in any tricky situations despite having drunk too much

If a woman can't remember giving her consent, then the man who has taken her consent for granted (or not even considered whether she was willing or not) is of course going to say that she consented enthusiastically and took the lead.