One thing that has puzzled me, and no one has ever been able to given me an explanation for why this is the way it is.... is a women who has sex when she's drunk (not passed out, but drunk) has been raped because she can't consent, but if that same women were to get into a car at that same level of intoxication and were to crash and kill someone, she would be guilty of vehicular homocide... Just curious why a women is responsible for her actions if she were to drive drunk, but the same women at the same level of intoxication is not responsible for her actions if she has sex.... And similarly... a 15 year old has sex with an 18 year old and the 15 year old has been raped because a 15 year old is a child and cannot consent to sex with an adult. However, if that same 15 year old kills someone, that 15 year old can be charged as an adult??? Which is it, is a 15 year old an adult or a child???? The only answer I can come up with that makes any sense is America is a police state. For example America has the highest rate of incarceration in the world, higher than the second and third highest countries, Russia and China, combined. So as such whatever is in the police states best interest is the answer: a 15 year old is a child or an adult, depending on what's in the best interest of the police state, and a drunk woman is responsible and she is also not responsible for her actions depending on what's in the best interest of the police state anyone...anyone...anyone...anyone...anyone....anyone....anyone....anyone....anyone....anyone.....anyone.....anyone.....anyone....anyone....anyone..... anyone else have an explanation for why this is the way it is????? thank you Ryobi
The difference would be the level of interaction that the victims in your examples have with the victimizers. In your example of the drunken woman, the bad guy is -in essence- forcing her to have sex since she lost the ability of informed consent. He is taking advantage of her. No one forced her to drive drunk, and her victims are not necessarily aware she is until it's too late. Same with your teenage victim: the primary actor is the person responsible, whether that person is a minor or not. Part of the reason our prison population is so large is that our laws tend to be lenient compared to Eastern regimes. Things which merit a long sentence here get death over there. Further, when we do execute criminals, it is only after a long and exhaustive appeals process that consumes years, if not decades. Compare this with, say, Stalin's Soviet Union; as a true police state, often trial was dispensed with in favor of summary execution.
While there can be choice without consent ie where you choose to do something for yourself, there can not be consent without choice. In your drunken woman example she does not have a choice to consent to a third party imposing upon her, while there is no third party involved in her choice to drive the car. The rape involves another person taking advantage of her incapacitated state, driving the car does not .. a better comparison would be if someone else placed her in the car, started the engine, put it into gear and then left her to it . .would she then be guilty of a crime or not?
what puzzles me is why anyone would WANT sex with a drunk? I mean, if you're a complete and utter scumbag like that, why not just go have sex with a goat or a hole in the fence?
