The hangover from hell

If a drunken woman and a drunken man have sex, our legal system treats the man as a rapist. That’s wrong — and patronising

Imagine, for a moment, that you’ve had a few sherries. Perhaps, even, more than a few; perhaps you have enjoyed that most pernicious of doses: the one that leaves you on the right side of consciousness but the wrong side of common sense. In which demonically stupid state, you do things that you would never do when sober: you prang a car, smash a window, break a nose, bare a backside, betray a confidence, dish an insult or, more generally, just bore for England. Whatever your behaviour, the sorry morning after will be made worse by the one thing of which you can still be sure: the fact that you were steaming drunk at the time will not constitute a defence.

From the codes of polite company to the less polite reaches of the law, we are all agreed: no deed shall ever be exonerated by the involvement of alcohol — in fact, opprobrium will usually be doubly heaped, once for the misdemeanour and again for the incontinent imbibing that preceded it.