Like It Or Not People Who Get Drunk Share The Blame When They Are The Victims of People Who Prey On Drunk People

The word "mansplaining" seemed really useful to me the first times I heard it, back when it was used to describe the condescending manner in which men talked to women, often feigning explanation when what they were doing was articulating their sense of entitlement at the expense of women.  But that quite valuable use of the word has given way to  it meaning just that some man, somewhere has said something that some woman or women don't like.

It is hardly the only useful word that is stolen to be used in a way that ruins its usefulness, "irony", "troll", "The First (or Second) Amendment", virtually all the names of the common classical fallacies of debate have undergone this kind of abuse and diminution of usefulness.  It's my guess that the rise of the internet and the explosion of unedited babbling by the soi disant educated class has accelerated this kind of thing.   There is no surer sign of a mid-brow with a degree than the dishonest application of the names of logical fallacies.

This article by Dana Liebelson,  Controversial Former College President Mansplains Alleged Rape Victim, is part of the piled on response to Stephen Trachtenberg, the former president of George Washington University, saying that women on college campuses needed to have the dangers of getting drunk pointed out to them.  Not having heard the program he said it on, here is how the incident was described in the Washington Post.

“Without making the victims . . . responsible for what happens, one of the groups that have to be trained not to drink in excess are women,” Trachtenberg said on the [Diane Rehm] show. “They need to be in a position to punch the guys in the nose if they misbehave. And so part of the problem is you have men who take advantage of women who drink too much. And there are women who drink too much. And we need to educate our daughters and our children on that — in that regard.”

A few minutes later, another panelist on the show questioned Trachtenberg’s remarks. Caitlin Flanagan, a writer for the Atlantic, said she wanted to “take a slight exception or maybe a real exception to what Dr. Trachtenberg is saying about how if young women are sober they have a better chance of protecting themselves from rape by being able to punch the guy in the nose. That’s not a realistic strategy for protecting ourselves from rape.”

Well, no it isn't a strategy but it would certainly be part of any realistic strategy for preventing campus rapes or any other kinds of attacks.   People who get drunk or drugged are at increased risk of being preyed upon by the kinds of people who take advantage of people who are vulnerable to them.  It's part of the reason that rich people so much more often rob poor people instead of rich ones, even stone cold teetotalers, because they are more vulnerable than rich people.  People who are drunk, not just women, are obvious targets for people who want to take advantage of them and harm them.  Men who get drunk are certainly at a higher risk of being raped.   And men are raped, by men and by women, apparently at a far higher rate then you might guess.   Being gay, it is the rape of men by men I know the most about and for a long time and, I would guess, even today, the idea that a gay man would accuse another  man of raping him would have been laughed out of the police station, never mind the courts as being incredible.   A straight man who made the accusation would have been taken more seriously, though both a combination of the stigma or being raped and the suspicion that the man was covertly gay would certainly impede many criminal complaints being filed.  I think a lot of the refusal to see rape as a problem for anyone except women might be due to the failure of male victims to come forward.

I remember way back in the period when sobriety became an all too minor and all too short term fad in some gay circles that a lot the discussions about the consequences of gay life being centered around bars included the fact that being drunk made you vulnerable to people who wanted to take advantage of your impairment.  Were the people who pointed that out "straightsplaining"?

Liebelson says:

In the midst of this controversy, a woman who says she was raped when she was a George Washington student in the early 2000s and was "extremely traumatized" by how the university handled her case confronted Trachtenberg via email to share her experience and denounce his remarks. In an email response, Trachtenberg, now a professor at the school, said her story "surely entitles you to your anger" and implored her to "tell me exactly what I said that you think I need to be ashamed of." The exchange was obtained by Mother Jones.

Following the NPR show, the woman—who asked not to be named—emailed Trachtenberg about her case and said:

…Your recent remarks on the Diane Rehm show disgust me. Shame on you. Shame on the message that you have just sent to millions of women, millions of daughters, and millions of us survivors. I hope you can take the time to reflect on your statements and understand the impact of your words.

In interviews with Mother Jones, the woman recounted what happened to her. She said she was raped on campus by a fellow student, in the middle of the day, with no alcohol or drugs involved. She didn't immediately report the assault, but after she began to experience depression and symptoms of PTSD, she decided to take a leave of absence. According to documents she provided to Mother Jones, a counselor recorded the account of her rape and an associate dean examined her records in order to approve the leave. "No one ever talked to me about my options," she said. "No one suggested reporting to the police or going through the student judicial process." Maralee Csellar, a George Washington spokeswoman, said she can't comment on the case due to privacy laws.

Notice buried in Libelson's text is this statement, " she was raped on campus by a fellow student, in the middle of the day, with no alcohol or drugs involved."  "NO ALCOHOL OR DRUGS INVOLVED"  which you would think could lead a reasonable person to conclude that a comment about the role of alcohol in rape wasn't relevant to the woman's case.  Why would a professional journalist choose that incident to condemn Trachtenberg's comment when the victim's statement proves that it isn't covered by what Trachtenberg said?   Why would the victim think she was covered by a statement about the dangers of being drunk since she wasn't drunk at the time she was raped?

The LGBT rights movement, the feminist movement, civil rights movements claiming the rights of ethnic and racial groups are all based on the right of adults to self determination within the framework of mutually held rights.  It is a demand that they get to exercise the full range of rights of adults when they achieve adulthood and as children, while they are still children.  No civil rights movement that doesn't accept the necessity of those rights also coming with responsibilities to other people and for your own actions will succeed or produce good.  All of them must accept that just as the rights they demand are equally held, so are the responsibilities that come with adulthood.

Young women I know today are being sold a number of stupid ideas in the name of feminism, it would seem mostly from online sources.  There are similar campaigns of folly in other movements, certainly among gay men.  A number of those ideas are not adults demanding their rights and accepting their responsibility as adults, they are adults gaming the language of liberation to claim a right to be irresponsible and to attack people for saying reasonable things.  Those stupid ideas have nothing to do with adults demanding their full rights as adult citizens of the world.  And a lot of those are around the issue of adults taking responsibility for their bad choices and the stupid idea that you taking responsibility as an adult is unrelated to your ability to exercise legitimate rights.  The false claim is that being realistic about this excuses the behavior of criminals who do what criminals do, take advantage of the weakness of other people, especially when that weakness is voluntary, in the form of getting drunk or being drugged is, somehow, oppressing you.

The issue of rape figures into a lot of them, as could be expected when it seems to be a right to get plastered in venues in which predators are known to prey on vulnerable people that is being claimed.  Well, guess what, such human predators are not going to be driven into extinction by any campaign or any laws, rapists are already breaking the law just as certainly as the people who roll drunks and take their wallets are.   And if the police and the justice system can't stop people from rolling drunks or raping drunk people then colleges and universities aren't going to stop that happening either.

I have nieces and nephews in college and in the age group which has been sold the stupid idea that there is a right to get drunk and that people who voluntarily get drunk share no part in the strategy of people who are out hunting for drunk people to victimize.  I despise the "journalists" and bloggers who sell people their age on irresponsible behavior that could end up getting them attacked, raped or murdered.

There is nothing in noting that people who choose to get drunk are doing a good part of the criminals' work for them in making themselves into easier marks that exonerates the criminal.

The example of someone who gets their wallet stolen when they are drunk is a perfect example of why, even if they could get the sympathy of those willing to ignore their part in it, their wallet would still be as missing as if they took all of the blame.  But they don't.   Stealing someones' wallet is a crime.   About the only improbable defense relevant to this argument would be if the thief could claim that the wallet was given voluntarily, something that happens far less often than consent to have sex.

The only difference is that with rape is that a rapist can claim that there was consent.  And, no matter how much you might not like it, that means of defense will always be open to someone making an accusation of rape who was drunk not remembering giving consent or not realizing they have. Getting drunk impairs the memory which will will make the that of use in defending accused rapists in court.   If there were witnesses who could say that the accuser was extremely drunk it would make a conviction far less likely if the standard of judgement was on the level of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.  People accused of rape couldn't easily use that in their defense if the accuser was known to never drink and if the prosecution could make a credible claim that the accuser had not been drinking at the time of the attack.

I know nothing about Stephen Trachtenberg except what I've read about him this morning and didn't hear the show but I don't see anything in what he's quoted as saying that warrants the response it's gotten.  If there was worse I'd imagine they'd include that, in the absence of that, he's getting railroaded in the media.

There is, my fellow adults, no right to get drunk.  Being drunk is a voluntary mental impairment, a voluntary suspension of the ability to act like a responsible adult for the term of inebriation.  And, worse, there is no possibility that getting drunk is not going to figure into the defense on a charge of rape.  That people of the age of college students hadn't already been taught that they are setting themselves up by getting drunk, that they needed to be told that as young adults is a scandalous proof that our society is negligent.  Pretending that getting drunk isn't a problem and that it shouldn't be discouraged and prevented isn't feminist, it is an abdication of responsibility.  And if you think that me pointing that out is condescending, well, there really isn't any other way to address ideas that are so childish, so badly thought through and so unrealistically self-indulgent that avoids talking down to those thoughts.   Make an argument on an adult level and it can be addressed in a way that doesn't have to deal with the childishness in these claims.