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Comment by ImSkeptical | Hacker News Reader

I think if you consent to go to the sex party, you consent to physical romantic activity, you consent to taking the drug knowing your context and what the drug will do, and then you consent to sex throughout the experience, it's hard to see how it's anything but consensual.

If you have a colonoscopy done, the medication they give you will make it so you don't remember things or (I hope) feel things, but, my doctor told me, you will still respond to instructions like "roll on your side" etc. If I consent to go to the doctor's office, and have the IV after it's explained to me what the drug does, and then they give me the drug and I have the procedure, am I consenting to the procedure even though I'm very much impaired during the process? I'd say so.

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It would be non-consensual if you didn't give affirmative consent.

However, reading this, it seems that affirmative consent was given at all times, first to taking drugs and then to making out (or having sex) so this article is basically just a hoo-hah over consenting adults engaging in drug-enabled group sex.

Rich men vastly outnumbered by 20 something women? The men are finally in positions of power and the women think that being in the ‘inner circle’ might open doors for them?

In might be consensual in the sense that everyone said yes, but there’s a known balance of power. Sounds like coercion and naivety.

The article certainly wants to paint the women as naive rather than empowered sexual beings.

Maybe ‘naive’ is not the right word. I am sure they knew intellectually what was expected of them.

Sounds like they are explained the situation when they get invited.

But it also sounds like there is no way to back out or participate without repercussions leaking into their normal lives. Not exactly fair.

“Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac” —Henry Kissinger

How do you know these women don’t genuinely want casual sex with rich, powerful men?

Sure it's technically possible. If you were a woman would you want to have sex with Henry Kissinger?

Drugs, alcohol, and whores are cheap compared to the value you can extract from people using them. This article was fun to read; there have been lots of hit pieces coming out this year on SV, can't say it's undeserved either. Nothing here is shocking or unexpected, pederasty would be shocking -- no names which takes a whole lot of fun out of it for the spectators.

I agree that sex without consent is bad, a crime, rape, etc. I hope nothing I've written would ever be construed otherwise.

My point here is that there seems to be affirmative consent, as you say. The example with the young woman who made out with a founder in front of his wife, then took MDMA and then (I assume) had sex with him (possibly, maybe she just left) is one where she consented to go to the party, she consented to the kissing, even checking in with the wife first, she got an accurate description of what the drug would do when it was offered to her, it was clear that she was being offered a drug, she chose to take it, and then she left when she wanted.

I don't want to defend non-consensual activities, but I don't see any being described. Given that these are consensual acts between adults - my point is "What's the issue?"

> If you have a colonoscopy done, the medication they give you will make it so you don't remember things or (I hope) feel things

Maybe a bit off topic but I skipped the drugs for my colonoscopy and it was less discomfort than a trip to the dentist, plus watching my insides on the screen was very interesting. I definitely recommend considering no medication.

Power dynamics radically changes that. That's why you can't have teacher meddling with their students, or a psychologists in a relationship with their patients.

I can see how it would in some situations. From the article's description though it sounded like a lot of the women at the parties worked in different fields. So, while I fully agree it would be a problem for the CEO to be hitting on interns, as an extreme example, I don't see the power imbalance of a rich guy from one field hitting on a woman in a different field - provided there is no implication of coercion (e.g. it would be a problem if a powerful investor threatened to get a real estate agent fired if she didn't sleep with him, but it's not a problem if a rich investor hooks up with a real estate agent because they like each other for whatever reason, even if his reason is that she's pretty, and hers is that he's rich).

Sure... but the drugs in this case are illegal. The key words here are 'illegal drugs'. I believe it is still a crime (I'm guessing a felony) to distribute drugs at any party, sex or otherwise.

Yeah, well, many people here including myself think the "war on drugs" is one of the worst policies our government has ever taken which has been a complete and utter failure (tied with abstinence only education both of which enact the no use whatsoever policy which is a terrible strategy IMO).

I don't consider recreational drug use nor recreational sex to be a problem that social norms nor government should be involved in.

On what basis do you ignore the events that, as reported in the article, were not as consensual as you suggest here?

Can you explain further, please? Which events reported in the article were not consensual?

My mistake - on rereading the article, I see that while there was one example of a refusal of consent being ignored, the activity being reported is, in general, consensual.

No problem. Thanks for clarifying. I fully agree that any instance where a refusal is not respected is a problem.

Fortunately despite your sense of things, try that as a defense for rape and you’ll be in a deep, dark hole full of other rapists. Consent can be revoked, can be modified, and taking drugs doesn’t imply that you’re up for being passed around like a joint.

I'm fairly confident that consent is an adequate defense against the charge of rape.

I completely agree that consent can be revoked or modified and that nobody should be passed around like a joint against their will. That's not what the article is describing though, at least not in my reading. The young woman who went to the party did consent, the whole way through, and didn't revoke or modify her consent until she decided to leave, and when she did, she left, presumably unimpeded. Furthermore, neither the woman in question nor the author of the article called this rape, so for you to imply otherwise seems a bit inappropriate.

Or to rephrase, it took sobering from the cocktail of illegal drugs to realize what had happened. Or it took getting away from the people who allegedly raped her to, etc. The risk of coercion is real, and much of the reason for the jurisprudence around consent.

Give people enough drugs and put them under enough pressure, and you’ll get in some of their pants. You might even get something that sounds like consent, but is it really?

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