So, this is an argument I see that comes up a lot in discussions of rape and alcohol, and I feel the need to break it down:

But how is it any different from a drunk woman driving and then killing someone? Is she not responsible for her actions, then? Why is it any different when it's sex?

I always cringe when someone presents it, to be honest. Not only because it's offensive but because, frankly, it doesn't make a lick of sense.

So here. I'm gonna explain why. If you see someone using this argument in the midst of a heated debate about a woman who's been raped while drinking, feel free to hand them this link. If you've used this argument yourself, then I'm gonna save you from looking like a huge doofus. You're welcome.

An analogy works because it draws a comparison between two events in order to illustrate a particular point. In this case, the purpose of the analogy is to illustrate that women should take responsibility while drinking (there's a second point that I'm gonna hit near the end of this post, but this analogy often comes up in fuzzy contexts so I'm covering all angles).

As such, this analogy can be broken down into three comparable parts: the actor, the action, and the harmed party.

In the drunk driving example, the actor is the woman. The action is driving while drunk. The harmed party is the person who was killed as the result. The overall conclusion is that the action, driving while drunk, is dangerous and irresponsible because it can kill people.

In the drunk sex/rape example, the actor is the woman. The action is having sex while drunk. The harmed party is...well, that's the snag, isn't it? Who's being harmed when a woman has sex while drunk? I can only conclude that the people presenting this argument intend for the harmed party to be the guy she later accuses of raping her.

The problem here, accepting this scenario of a woman having sex while drunk and then accusing her partner of rape, is that the result is unrelated to the action. A woman having sex while drunk is not the cause of false rape accusations. False rape accusations are the result of those few women who lie about rape. This is not comparable to drunk driving leading to the death of someone in a car accident.

The more apt analogy would be a woman who drives while drunk, gets in an accident, and then lies to her insurance about it. The lying is the part that's harming someone, presumably the person she hit. That's not dependent on the driving drunk, however, as a person can easily lie to their insurance about an accident that occurred when they were completely sober. As such, even this more correct analogy fails in conveying the point that women should take responsibility while drinking. Instead, the point is that people who lie are douches. While a valuable lesson, that's completed unrelated to anything involving sex, alcohol, and/or rape.

There's also problem that the two compared actions are not morally equivalent. Having sex while drunk is not morally on par with driving while drunk. For one, having drunk sex isn't illegal. For another, it, in of itself, harms no one and does not significantly increase the risk of immediate harm to anyone. Drunk driving, on the other hand, is illegal and does come with a significant risk of harming another. Analogizing these two actions doesn't make any sense unless you are of a conservative moral viewpoint that has a problem with women either drinking or having sex (or both).

Let's take another tack with that analogy, though. Some will say it's not about responsibility but about ability to consent. If a woman is legally - and morally - liable for harm she causes when driving drunk, then she's also responsible for having drunk sex, therefore it cannot be rape.

This is all about state of mind while inebriated. It's also, frankly, about semantics. I've actually written an entire post about this very subject, and I hope you'll forgive me if I refer you out to that (it even addresses this very analogy). I'd also like to refer you to this post detailing research by David Lisak about 'predator theory': the revolutionary theory that those guys who 'accidentally' have sex with a woman who's too drunk to consent aren't actually doing so accidentally. The inebriation is a feature for them, not a bug.

So in conclusion, these two scenarios have no relation. It doesn't make sense. Stop saying it.