The Alcohol Blackout In the war against campus sexual assault, why are we not talking about drinking

http://www.texasmonthly.com/the-culture/the-alcohol-blackout/ I thought this was a very interesting article about drinking and blackouts specifically. The author is a woman who drank to blackout many many times and had sex while blacked out many times as well (in college and after). She also talks about feeling conflicted on whether or not that means she was raped (she seems to feel mostly no, though others disagree with her). She is about 20 years out of college. Some quotes: "But as the debate around alcohol and consent unfolded, I also felt caught in the vortex of messaging. On one hand, I was glad to see a younger generation refuse to cede their seat at the bar and put the onus on men to change. On the other hand, I didn’t think anyone could drink without consequence, ever. I was glad to hear some feminists address alcohol, calling it “the number one date-rape drug,” explaining how predators will get you drunk to take advantage of you, and yet the language made my forehead crinkle. Get you drunk? I’d gotten myself drunk just fine, thank you very much. Inside this vortex was a person very torn on the issues of empowerment, alcohol, and consent—a confusion clearly shared by others. " "This blank space in one’s story makes blackouts slippery from a criminal perspective. If you can’t remember a thing, are you still responsible? The court system usually says so... A 2013 article in the Journal of Forensic Science determined that people in a blackout are conscious and know what they’re doing. The blackout may disable memory, but it has no effect on a person’s sense of right and wrong." "Consent and alcohol make tricky bedfellows. The reason I liked getting drunk was because it altered my consent: it changed what I would say yes to. Not just in the bedroom but in every room and corridor that led into the squinting light. Say yes to adventure, say yes to risk, say yes to karaoke and pool parties and arguments with men, say yes to a life without fear, even though such a life is never possible. Still, there is a point at which someone who has drunk too much cannot, legally, consent to sex. So what is that line, exactly? And if your partner has been drinking all night too, how can he or she detect it? For that matter, has your partner passed the point of consent too?" I also liked the suggestion at the end given at one of the programs that if your friend is too drunk to drive, s/he is too drunk to have sex. Bystander intervention again.