Sex While Drunk

On a tricky issue of consent

Here’s a quick moral dilemma.

Let’s assume that in the absence of previously established consent (as, for example, might exist between a married couple), it is morally wrong to have sex with somebody if they have ingested some X amount of alcohol, on the grounds that it undermines their ability to give informed consent. For the purposes of this dilemma, it doesn’t matter what this amount is—just that there is some amount.

Okay, so this is the twist. Suppose somebody says this to you:

I want to want to have sex with you, but I never want sex unless I’m high or drunk. I can’t relax and I don’t enjoy it. But look, I’ll start drinking, and hopefully there will come a point where my inhibitions are sufficiently lowered and I’m relaxed enough to ahead. But realize I’m not consenting right now to have sex with you later, I’m simply telling you that I’m making the choice to drink in the hope that I will come to want sex later on. If that happens, I’ll let you know, but it might not.

This person then starts drinking, ingests some X + 1 amount of alcohol - that is, past the point at which under normal circumstances you would consider it wrong to have sex with them - and then tells you they are ready to have sex with you.

We need to get clear about a few things before posing the (obvious) question.

First, this person is not approaching unconsciousness, they are able to reflect reasonably cogently on their desire to have sex with you, but it is counterfactually true that in the absence of the alcohol, they would not have consented.

It is also true that if a random sample of drinkers consumed the same amount of alcohol, then some non-trivial number of them would consent to a sexual encounter they would not have consented to otherwise.

Second, this person would deny that they are psychologically vulnerable. They would be offended if anybody suggested that they were being taken advantage of just because they never want sex while sober. They know their own mind – they want to want to have sex.

Third, you have no particular reason to think they will come to regret any sexual encounter that takes place. They might, but they might not.

So the question is:

In this situation, would it be wrong to go ahead with the sexual encounter, and if so, why?