Do Rapists Only Pretend to Be Drunk?

When there are accusations of rape, alcohol is frequently involved. Because of that, many rape cases are never reported, many never go to trial, and many prosecutions fail because the cases devolve into he-said she-said arguments. Defense attorneys claim that both perpetrator and victim were drunk, everything was consensual, no one's at fault and there was no crime.

Even if they believe the woman's accusation, judgmental jurors may decide to punish the woman for going into bars and getting drunk in the first place, or for being a "tease." Women jurors may be the least likely to believe the victim.

But a study conducted by the universities of Toronto and Washington seems to counter some of that narrative:

Young women are often the targets of aggression when they're out in bars, but the problem isn't that guys are too drunk to know better.

Instead, men are preying on women who have had too much to drink.

That is, the perpetrators of sexual assaults may be cynically pretending they were drunk as an excuse for crimes they commit while in full possession of their faculties.

Men may perceive intoxicated women either as more amenable to advances or as easier targets who are less able to rebuff them because they don't have their wits about them, the researchers say.

I believe the intent may be even more sinister: if their victims press charges, they know that intoxicated women are less likely to be believed, and that people will think they deserved whatever happened to them.

I admit I have no personal experience with this; my personal anecdotes about alcohol involve my paternal uncles dying of various diseases caused by alcoholism, the disintegration of my sister-in-law's marriage from alcohol and prescription drug abuse, and my wife's cousin who went to prison after shooting his brother in a drunken fight. I don't drink and I don't frequent bars. They're too loud, too dark, and for most of my life they were smokey. Drunk people get into nasty arguments and brawls. And they kill people by the thousands on the highway.

All I have are the statistics from the National Institute of Health, which indicate that a quarter of all American women have been sexually assaulted, half of all sexual assaults involve alcohol, and 80% occur in social situations.

I am in no way blaming the victims here, but if you're a woman who wants to reduce your chance of being raped, the single best precaution you can take is to not drink in public or on dates. Not only do you keep your wits about you, it deprives rapists of their best excuse, and warns them immediately that you're not easy: they will just seek easier prey. That may mean you won't get as many dates, but you don't want to go out with those guys anyway.

There's a theory that farming was developed not to grow grain for food, but to produce beer, which allowed the development of civilization. If so, it's about the only good thing that came from booze.