About the project
In debates concerning rape, especially when debating rape laws, consent is emphasised as the defining element distinguishing rape from sex. In some ways, this is a simplification. Consent is not necessarily objective or static, but subjective and fluid, as it relies on how the people involved experience the situation before, during and possibly after the encounter. Consent and non-consent may fluctuate, and this might explain why non-consensual sex is sometimes defined and experienced as rape, while at other times it is not. This especially applies to drunken sexual encounters. In the Norwegian Penal Code, incapacitation excludes consent on the victim’s part, and victims are (ideally) not held responsible for their actions. The offender, on the other hand, is. Situations where one of the participants, or both, is blackout drunk can swing both ways in terms of deciding who is victim and who is offender, and how the encounter was experienced by the participants.
Objectives
By addressing drunken sexual pleasures, horrors and the situations leading up to these interactions, the project explored a variety of drunken sexual experiences ranging from 'just sex' to 'bad sex' and rape. The project aimed to explore and explain a recurring problem in research and theorisation relating to sexual violence: How can the same setting and the same actions be experienced completely differently by different people? And what has gender got to do with it?
Project period
The project took place between 2019 and 2024.