Huge news just in: being drunk makes you vulnerable to being sexually harassed.
The Daily Telegraph tells us that a study from the alcohol education charity Drinkaware “out of 1,198 women aged 18 to 24, nearly a third also said they had been groped or received unwanted physical attention during an alcohol-fuelled evening.”
It continues: “only 19 per cent said they were surprised that this had happened to them.” Well, of course a full 80 per cent are not surprised – because the sober and sensible sides of these women know that being drunk makes you more vulnerable to being assaulted, despite what the demented feminists say.
The study is, we are told, ‘part of a report which seeks to emphasise that being drunk is not an excuse for sexually harassing people.’ And who, with any credibility, has ever said it should be an excuse, might I ask?
Elaine Hindal, chief executive at Drinkaware, said: “Young people should be able to enjoy a night out without fear of intimidating behaviour, whether physical or verbal.
“Being drunk isn’t an excuse for sexually harassing or assaulting other people.
The vast majority of young adults we spoke to agree that if a behaviour is unacceptable when you are sober, it’s unacceptable when you are drunk. Now is the time for everyone to take a stand to stop this.”
That is all very nice Elaine, but perhaps you should take a trip down your students union or your average British town on a Saturday night and see what happens there when people consume vast quantities of alcohol.
Now, Ms Hindal, it is time to stand up to the ridiculous drinking culture that exists in universities and in society at large. Now is the time to tell men and women that if you get hopelessly drunk you expose yourself to the risk of all sorts of nasty things happening to you.
You might get hit in the face by some drunken idiot outside the chipper if you are a man, you might get sexually assaulted or worse by another evil man if you are a woman, or you might think it is really good idea to run down the tube escalators and break your leg or neck. So don’t do it. It is stupid.
The argument to not get out of your mind drunk is not victim blaming. It is crime prevention. When the police encourage people to lock the doors of their cars and houses, you do not get people saying this is ‘victim blaming’ or an ‘insult to homeowners.’ Homeowners do not get outraged when told of these simple crime prevention measures and take to the streets to have ‘irresponsible homeowners marches’. They just lock their doors.
Taking steps to prevent someone becoming a victim of crime does not make the defendant any less criminally culpable, or indeed should it reduce/mitigate his sentence. In fact sexually assaulting or raping someone who is drunk should increase the sentence as the victim is in a vulnerable position.
But the point is that crime prevention is conceptually separate from the culpability of those who commit the crime, which is different again to how they should be punished. Sexually assault and rape is no exception to this. So why can’t we have a sensible debate about it?
