That’s Men: Advising a drunk person to be careful is not blame-shifting

Now and then public figures come under attack for pointing out that young people, and especially women, may be more vulnerable to assault when they are drunk.

The debate often occurs in the context of rape, the accusation being that the commentator is shifting at least some of the blame for the attack on to the victim.

I wonder, though, if these accusations are making it more and more difficult to say things that are sensible?

My own criticism of statements of this kind is that they are usually directed at young women. I suspect that young men may be more likely than young women to come under attack. My impression is that parents are more afraid of their sons than their daughters being assaulted on a night out.

But back to this question of shifting the blame.

Suppose a parent says to a teenage son something like: “If you pass a group of guys who start making insulting remarks, ignore them and walk on. Don’t give them the excuse to do what they want, which is to attack you.”

Nobody, I presume, would accuse this parent of shifting the responsibility for the attack on to the victim.

If a drunken teenage boy answered his tormentors back and was set upon and hospitalised, and if a judge, or anyone else, said “You asked for it”, that would be a reprehensible attempt to shift some blame on to the victim.

Similarly, it would be an outrageous act of blame-shifting to say to a young woman or girl who was sexually assaulted when she was drunk that she “asked” for it.

I can see where the fear of shifting blame onto the victim comes from.

I recall women marching through Dublin in the late 1970s to draw attention to rape and to demand a more effective response from the legal system.

Expecting women to take responsibility for the behaviour of men is a despicable presumption. The idea, for instance, that women must cover themselves up to avoid inflaming men was part of that presumption. As many a woman has learned, being covered up is no protection against rape or assault.

Similarly, I suspect that more women have been raped in our society when sober than when drunk.

Still, most people, I imagine, would think that young people – and not only females – who become utterly drunk make easier prey for predators. That an attack on somebody who is drunk and going about their own business is 100 per cent the responsibility of the attacker is something few would dispute.

What, therefore, is wrong with saying to somebody that if they become incapably drunk then, as Janet Street-Porter put it in the Independent recently, "You are less likely to make sensible decisions about how to get to a safe place and who to travel with"?

If you want to go out and get drunk, be my guest. I have no objection, as it happens, to that. God knows, I did it often enough myself.

If you want to down lots of shots so that you are drunk before you go out to get drunk, and thereby render yourself incapable by the end of the night, I have no objection to that either.

Personally, I cannot figure out where the enjoyment is in it but you are entitled to do it if you want to.

What’s more, you are entitled to do all of that and to come home without having been molested or even hassled in any way.

But I think it is perfectly reasonable for me or anybody else to say that when you do this you may also find it harder to make your way safely past the predators, the thugs and the other drunks who may seek to harm you.

If you’re going to get drunk, try not to become incapable as well. That the attacker bears the blame will not be a lot of comfort when you’re on a trolley in an emergency department.

pomorain@yahoo.com

Padraig O'Morain is a counsellor accredited by the Irish Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy. His latest book is Mindfulness on the Go. His mindfulness newsletter is free by email.