The Reality Blog

Carey Roberts column

Warning to women: the government wants to turn you into a rape victim

Carey Roberts
December 29, 2011

Ladies, looking to celebrate New Year's Eve in grand style? Plan to cut loose at the gala event? Indulge in some free bubbly? Maybe a romantic fling to welcome in 2012?

Hold on there, because the federal Centers for Disease Control has decided alcohol and sex don't mix. To drive home this point, the CDC has radically expanded its definition of rape. No, this isn't some crazy end-of-year gag — it's the real deal.

A couple weeks ago the U.S. Centers for Disease Control issued a report on partner violence and sexual assault:http://www.cdc.gov/ViolencePrevention/pdf/NISVS_Report2010-a.pdf. The CDC's National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey decrees that "alcohol/drug facilitated completed penetration" is now rape. (You can see the government agency's X-rated definition at the bottom of this column.)

Consider these scenarios:

1. While getting ready for the big event, Mary flirtatiously comments to her husband that a novel New Year's Resolution would be to make love every night for the whole year. During the carefree celebration, she finishes off a couple bottles of champagne. After the midnight countdown, the couple takes a taxi home, where they make good on her resolution.
   
2. Nicole goes with a girlfriend to the party, where she happens to run in to one of her old flames. He's not into the hard stuff, but with her needling and coaxing, both of them are soon joking and laughing like old times. During the wee-hours of the morning, Nicole grabs his necktie and orders, "You're coming to my place." There they have sex.
   
3. Like previous years, Gail and her husband of six years plan to get juiced at the New Year's Eve party, followed by what she smirkingly calls, "making whoopee." At the stroke of midnight, the two share a lingering, romantic kiss. A few minutes into the new year, they retire to their hotel room for sex.

In the first scenario, Mary proposed the love-making idea, then willingly over-indulged in alcohol. In the second case, Nicole pressured her ex-boyfriend into drinking high-alcohol content beverages and then coming to her apartment. And in the third example, Gail suggested she and her husband celebrate their long-established New Year's Eve drinking and mating tradition.

In all three scenarios, the women gave their consent — expressed or implied — before they sipped the first drop of liquor.

Do these examples represent typical, if over-wrought New Year's Eve frolics? Ninety-nine percent of Americans would say 'yes,' even if they themselves don't approve of alcoholic over-indulgence.

And what is the verdict of the Centers for Disease Control?

Count One: Guilty of Rape

Count Two: Guilty of Rape

Count Three: Guilty of Rape

That's right, because all three cases represent "alcohol/drug facilitated completed penetration." It doesn't matter that the three women gave their consent in advance — it's still rape, insists the CDC.

And even though the female is the clear initiator in the first two scenarios, the CDC will still count her as the rape victim, and her paramour as the rapist.

So abuse-reduction advocates can now claim — with a perfectly straight face — that "Nearly 1 in 5 women (18.3%)...in the United States have been raped at some time in their lives," as the CDC states on page 1 of its report. Of course that hyper-inflated claim does little for the credibility of real rape victims.

Rigging definitions to create bogus victims is old-hat to the abuse industry. It's worked like a charm to expand the well-heeled domestic violence industry.

And now they have fresh ammunition to push for tough laws to crack-down on the newly-minted "epidemic of rape," and pressure lawmakers to fork over billions for a raft of abuse-prevention programs.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

According to the National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey, rape includes "alcohol/drug facilitated completed penetration," which is counted if the respondent answers "yes" to any of these statements:

"When you were drunk, high, drugged, or passed out and unable to consent, how many people ever...

- had vaginal sex with you? By vaginal sex, we mean that (if female: a man or boy put his penis in your vagina) (if male, a woman or girl made you put your penis in her vagina)?

- (if male) made you perform anal sex, meaning that they made you put your penis into their anus?

- made you receive anal sex, meaning they put their penis into your anus?

- made you perform oral sex, meaning that they put their penis in your mouth or made you penetrate their vagina or anus with your mouth?

- made you receive oral sex, meaning that they put their mouth on your (if male: penis) (if female: vagina) or anus?