Rapists

[DeistPaladin]

Maybe a little of both. It would be fair to say that if "the perp" has their judgement impaired, they might rape when they otherwise wouldn't have. I'm not saying that should allow someone to get away with it scott free, but I do think the impact alcohol has should be taken into consideration when deciding how to handle this person.

Well, that gets back to what I said about how we treat alcohol and drugs regarding other decisions. If you choose to drink or do drugs and then later decide to get behind the wheel of a car, having an accident you normally wouldn't have, or simply get caught driving while intoxicated, you're held fully responsible for your choices with no consideration of your state of intoxication.

Personally, I think that's how it ought to be. If you choose to partake in drugs or alcohol, you choose to be responsible for the things you subsequently do while in that state, right mind or no.

Agreed, this, again, is a bit of a gray area. I acknowledge that it can be easy to rape someone who is intoxicated and even easy to do it without their saying 'no,' but I also don't want to say that any intoxication turns sex into rape. That would automatically turn it into rape when people hook up at singles bars or at college parties or stuff like that. It's a bit too wide a brush for my tastes.

Largely I think this would be academic, anyway. I've mentioned elsewhere, four different women have confided in me they are rape survivors of violent attacks and sadly none of them pressed charges. It's an under-reported crime. I can't imagine women would be inclined to go through the ordeal of pressing charges for the fact that she agreed to have sex while mildly intoxicated and then later had morning-after regrets. I only hear about technicalities being pursued when homophobic parents find out their 17 year old had sex with their 19 year old same gender partner.

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I think if I was a rapist and the rape sentence was as bad or worse then the murder charge, then I would seriously consider murdering the people I rape.

Even though the two would carry their own punishment? Say, to use round numbers, if both were punished by a 20 year sentence, is a 40 year sentence not worse than 20?