Well here's a doozy.

[eleanorjane]

From Dear Prudie, July 19th:

Dear Prudence,
My husband is kind, supportive, funny, generous, smart, and loving. However, I feel like I must divorce him. Six years ago, when we were in our early 20s and had just fallen in love, after a night of partying and drinking, he woke me up in the middle of the night and started to have sex with me. I was dozing and still drunk and, yes, I took my panties off myself. But when I realized that it was not OK for him to make advances on me in my state, I pushed him away and ran out. He later felt so bad he wanted to turn himself in for rape. I was very confused and thought at times that I was overreacting and at others that I was raped. We painfully worked through this, but the incident made my husband very reluctant about having sex. This led to an agreement that he shouldn't be afraid of coming close to me in similar situations as long as he asked my consent. This made us feel better and I felt secure again. However, we just found ourselves in a very similar situation. After coming back from a friend’s wine tasting we went to bed and he started to kiss me. I liked it and went along, only to wake up in the morning and remember only half of it. Now I am in the same painful spot I was before and I can’t fathom how he could have ignored our agreement. Should I just drop it or am I right about feeling abused?

—Confused

Dear Confused,
I understand the need for colleges to have unambiguous codes of sexual conduct for their young, horny, possibly plastered students. These often require getting explicit permission for every escalating advance. However, if two adults are in love and have frequently made love then each can assume implicit consent to throw such legalistic caution—as well as panties—to the wind. Certainly spouses are entitled to say, “Not tonight” or “Not there,” and have such a request respected. But even a married couple who have had sex hundreds of times can enjoy that alcohol might ignite a delightful, spontaneous encounter. Your approach, however, seems to be to treat your sex life as if it is subject to regulatory review by the Department of Health and Human Services. Your prim, punctilious, punitive style has me admiring your put-upon husband’s ability to even get it up, given the possibility he’ll be accused of rape—or turn himself in for it!—if one of you fails a breathalyzer test. Living in terror that expressing one’s perfectly normal sexual desire could end one’s marriage, and freedom, is itself a form of abuse. Stop acting like a parody of a gender-studies course catalog and start acting like a loving wife. If you can’t, then give the poor sap a divorce.

—Prudie

...I am possibly speechless. Or incandescent with rage. Or both!

Comments

[jo_lasalle]

It would not surprise me if that letter was from a troll.

[vass]

What makes you say that?

[jo_lasalle]

That it seems very carefully crafted to:

a) bait the people who think booze+sex is immediately RAPE or anything not textbook perfect is immediately RAPE

b) without any indication that the LW felt uncomfortable at the time the sex was happening, in fact pointing out signs of implied consent each single time and that description of the husband's usual hypercautious behaviour, thus

c) making the baitees look ridiculous.

[vass]

I thought the letter was genuine because I empathised with the LW's self-doubt and confusion, and her discomfort with maybe wanting one thing when drunk and another when sober.

Something about that drunk sex (which he initiated while she was still asleep) didn't sit right with her, so she stopped it before it went any further, and then asked him in future to ask her before initiating sex, to make sure she's awake and sober enough to consent, and he agreed to that.

Do you think that's ridiculous or unrealistic? Or that she shouldn't have felt violated when he broke that agreement?

[jo_lasalle]

I think it's unrealistic (and some degree of ridiculous) to hold the guy to a higher standard than the LW (if I assume she's genuine for the moment), yes. She forgot, six years after the original incident, that she thinks she shouldn't have sex when drunk -- I'm phrasing it like that deliberately because I find it quite noticeable she never describes herself as uncomfortable with the sex in the moment, she describes her discomfort with the idea of sex-while-drunk -- and goes along and enjoys it. He took nonverbal yes for an answer without remembering he wasn't supposed to. I find suggesting he is a rapist because they both forgot about her issues a quite puzzling distribution of responsibility.

If the LW is genuine, then I have some sympathy for her 'wanting one thing when drunk and another when sober', and I would wish for her to be able to sort through that, because that actually sounds quite sad. If the LW is genuine, I also think it's quite possible to say that things as they happened left her feeling violated -- nobody's place to judge how people feel -- and to say that the husband broke an agreement, and I still don't arrive at RAPE.

But coming back to this after a few hours, I'm more convinced than I was yesterday that you're being had. The description of the guy (nearly turning himself in for rape just for making sexual advances and stopping when she stopped him, being deadly afraid of initiating sex etc.) sounds so over the top, it's like some trolly 'look what ur feminism is doing to the menz!' thing.

[vass]

*shakes head*

The first time is a confusing situation (actually the whole letter seemed to have missing bits - I wonder if it got edited) and I can understand why she and her husband got into a whole downward spiral of guilt and self-blame etc.

The second time, however, is a lot clearer. She told him to obtain explicit, verbal consent for all future sexual encounters. He didn't. That is rape.

It doesn't matter if she liked it at the time or not. The alcohol is also a red herring. The point is, he initiated sex without obtaining her verbal consent first, after she told him not to initiate sex without obtaining verbal consent.

It doesn't matter whether she wants that on political grounds or personal grounds or what. It doesn't matter if other couples draw different boundaries. This woman drew this boundary, and he violated that boundary. And her.

[softestbullet]

This woman drew this boundary, and he violated that boundary. And her.

IAWTC.

[shirou]

She told him to obtain explicit, verbal consent for all future sexual encounters. He didn't.

I'm confused about this point. The LW says she can't fathom how he could ignore the agreement, but she doesn't actually know that he ignored the agreement, does she? She blacked out and can "remember only half of it."

I do think alcohol is the problem here - part of the problem, at least. The LW is extremely uncomfortable with her lack of control when under the influence, and her husband obviously has difficulty respecting her boundaries when under the influence, so it probably would help their marriage a lot if they both started drinking less.

[inlovewithnight]

There's an extensive discussion of this letter and response over at Feministe, if anyone is interested:
http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2012/07/19/prudie-on-consent/

[vass]

Thanks for the link. I agree completely with Jadey's comment @42.

[sara]

I will admit I'm a bit bemused that at no point does Prudie say, "Maybe you guys need to quit drinking, if it's bringing this much recurrent stress into your relationship and you feel like things are going well when you're both sober."

[serafina20]

Prudie's response is one of the reasons I'm afraid to have sex. The idea that one has a right, even within a loving relationship, to set limits that both people are supposed to follow, being "prim, punctilious, punitive" only convinces me that trying to find someone who might help me find and set limits in the first place is not only impossible but unrealistic.