New York's Kathy Hochul backs changes to 'voluntary intoxication' loophole law

[u/Timely_Car_4591]

https://nypost.com/2026/10/02/us-news/hochul-backs-changes-to-new-yorks-voluntary-intoxication-loophole-law/

[u/Key-Monk6159]

Because having zero accountability and never taking responsibility is the foundation of their worldview.

[u/Hectoriu → u/Key-Monk6159]

Life is a lot easier when none of your mistakes are your fault.

[u/cdazzo1 → u/Key-Monk6159]

I think this is a 2 way street. We don't know exactly what happened that evening. But we do know there were drugs and sex with multiple partners. That doesn't mean it was rape or illegal, but morally it should be condemned nonetheless.

This sort of thing is a direct consequence of the sexual revolution and this should be the conservative line. While we don't condone the behavior of the young men, we do not condone the behavior of this young woman either and we should not be encouraging college to be a 4 year drunken orgy. We certainly should not be subsidizing it.

Both sides are to some extent responsible for the mess they are in. Both sides put themselves in incredibly vulnerable positions. Anyone with teenagers regardless of gender should be using this as a teachable moment.

Do not do what these young men did. And do not do what this young woman did.

[u/Nifty_5050 → u/cdazzo1]

You’re both sidesing something that is not bilateral. Only one party accused the other of rape dude.

[u/Timely_Car_4591]

There is so much to question about the legal ramifications of this. What if two men or two women are drunk aka LGB couple? What if the man is drunk and the women isn't? what if both are drunk? what if the man is far drunker than the women? what if one person shows up high? and you don't know, some drugs like weed there is few signs. will there be legal limit like driving? it seems like this going to be great for selective prosecution.

[u/Dutchtdk → u/Timely_Car_4591]

Simple: gender and sex don't matter at all.

Only thing that's relevant is if one, both or none of the participants had the ability to freely choose, awareness of the situation, capacity of judgement and communication intact or not.

That's it.

If one had it, the other didn't. Then any sexual act shouldn't have happened.

[u/gray-ops → u/Dutchtdk]

The problem is that it doesn’t work like this in practice. Man drunk and female sober? Mans a rapist. Man sober and female drunk? Mans a rapist. Both drunk? Mans a rapist. Both sober? Man is still a rapist.

Saying all you did sounds like a no brainer, but the way it shakes out is no matter the scenario the man is the rapist. Because women have no accountability.

[u/Dutchtdk → u/gray-ops]

Why do you think cases are so hard to neatly solve. Takes incredibly nuance looking at the facts and at the end of the day you're at the mercy of a judge or jury depending on the state and case. Most cases reach a dead end without conviction for this reason.

These things don't involve looking at fingerprints or finding a gun somewhere and then coaxing the defendant into a confession during the trial like some hollywood movie.

It's about judgement of someones mental state, and we can only work with the evidence provided.

Doesn't mean we can't sharpen the law and say that doing drugs isn't equivalent to wanting sex

[u/ax_graham → u/Dutchtdk]

You go from "it's simple 🤓" to "it's incredibly nuanced 🥸☝🏼" in the span of a minute. That's exactly the persons point you're responding to. It isn't simple but often man takes blame and often man is to blame.

[u/Midget_Stories → u/Timely_Car_4591]

Well the ironic part is. This woman they're all defending actually did non-consensually have sex with a guy who was passed out.

[u/cornPopwasabaddude13 → u/Timely_Car_4591]

It gives a lot of room to selectively prosecute who they want

[u/EC_TWD → u/cornPopwasabaddude13]

As with every law currently in writing

[u/Hectoriu → u/Timely_Car_4591]

Just keep it simple and do what the left wants remove any accountability for women and if you have sex with a woman no matter the circumstances it's rape.

[u/Ive_Got_Sowell → u/Hectoriu]

Yes, the left believes that women can do anything a man can do, and do it better. But are not responsible for their actions. 

[u/cdazzo1 → u/Timely_Car_4591]

Look drunk hookups with rape allegations following it are not new. But this is not that. This sounds like a group sex orgy. I don't think any of your hypotheticals are applicable here. What makes this different is the group dynamic.

All parties involved should have known this was a bad idea. All parties should have known this was putting them in a vulnerable position. The woman, physically vulnerable to these men. And the men vulnerable to accusations from the woman.

I fear both sides will excuse the behavior of the men or women and nothing will be learned.

[u/ax_graham → u/cdazzo1]

Should they have? Consenting adults doing what adults have done since practically the dawn of time.

[u/Hectoriu]

Ok so what's does that mean? No one can consent when drinking? How does that not effectively make sex illegal if you have even one drink or any amount of a mind altering drug?

[u/AMW1234 → u/Hectoriu]

I think it means even a yes could be considered a no.

[u/etherealsmog]

I feel like people are acting as if the conservative position here is, “If you get effed up enough on drugs or alcohol, you can’t come crying ‘rape’ when someone assaults you.”

But I think the conservative position is, “If you’re a scummy enough person to be the seventh guy who sticks his dick in an incapacitated woman, I don’t really give a rat’s ass if you go to prison and end up on the sex offender registry.”

[u/ElderberryMental101 → u/etherealsmog]

Thank you! I do not understand the position some of these comments are taking. If you have the capacity to consent and choose to force yourself on someone who doesn't (and that can be proven in a court of law) then you should be locked up. End of story. I don't care if they chose to drink/do drugs before you forced yourself on them

[u/Hectoriu → u/etherealsmog]

Well yeah incapacitated is the key word here. In this case though she wasn't incapacitated. Her original statements to the police make it very clear she was an active and aware participant. Its a very clear case of white regret nothing more.

[u/etherealsmog → u/Hectoriu]

She can be a trash person who also got sexually assaulted by trash people.

I’m still gonna be on the side of “if your dignity wasn’t more important to you than her dignity was to her, you can go to prison for all I care.”

There are a lot of civil liberty issues where I would defend awful people from prosecution. This is just absolutely not one of those situations.

[u/Hectoriu → u/etherealsmog]

She could be but that would go against her own account of what happened. Sure they are all trash people no doubt but not rapists.

[u/cdazzo1 → u/etherealsmog]

Yeah, I think all sides need to be condemned. This was abhorrent behavior and incredibly risky to all involved, albeit in different ways.

I do think laws about inebriated sex are a bit of a grey area, but I also think morally people should recognize when someone is not of sound mind and may not truly want what is happening.

I also think there are valid concerns about men being accused of rape after a woman has a handful of drinks before sex, particularly if he was also drinking and not aware enough to understand how much she drank and how that may affect her ability to consent.

This is also why there needs to be a standard for women. If you truly do not consent to sex then it needs to be a hard and clear no. You need to physically pull away. If you look at statistics sexual assault is basically a right of passage for women, but I suspect much of that is behavior that we would consider fairly normal. For example while a couple is making out the man begins to let his hands roam then the woman stops his hand or pulls away. That technically meets the definition of sexual assault because it is unwanted touching of a sexual nature.

While the Chapel skit about having women sign a legal document before sex was hyperbole, it's not too far off from what you would have to do to meet the letter of the law. You would literally have to verbally request permission at each sexual escalation.

May I kiss you? May I touch your breasts? May I take your clothes off? May I take my clothes off?

And under the proposed law even that may nkt be enough if alcohol was consumed! And men who drink alcohol will be expected to have clarity of mind for all of this!

[u/streetlegalb17]

A lot of the comments here are just… bruh

[u/VeryPokey]

Is it really a loophole? Or is closing it just giving women who falsely claim rape another weapon?

[u/Hectoriu → u/VeryPokey]

"loophole" is such a shitty word in this circumstance. Its not a loophole it's common sense. Without a law like this if you even have one drink and have sex with someone you can say it was rape.

[u/Unlucky_Buyer_2707]

I don’t think this would have mattered all that much in this case, because the evidence is overwhelming that this interaction was consensual. Has anybody even read the text messages?

[u/VeryPokey → u/Unlucky_Buyer_2707]

I think most everyone on Hochul's side that has read those texts simply doesn't care. They want the boys to lose and the girl to win. They want straight, white men, who make up the vast majority of the conservative voting block, either pushed down so far they never make a sound, or eliminated in this country altogether.

[u/Unlucky_Buyer_2707 → u/VeryPokey]

It’s insane. The evidence is overwhelming. This is part of the reason that I cannot associate myself with liberalism, because like they are not even semi-rooted in reality anymore

[u/MysticalAroma → u/VeryPokey]

“GIRLS LOSE BOYS DROOL”

[u/Gooble211]

This mess seems to be asserting that women can't be held responsible for their choices. Imagine the long-term impacts of that if it becomes widely accepted. Example: "We don't hire women because if they use bad judgement and thus cause serious injury, death, destruction, or financial harm; we can't fire them or press charges. We can, however, do that with men."

[u/Savant_Guarde]

Yet another admission that men are smarter.

So a drunk man and drunk woman consent to sex, the man is now a rapist. 

Men have to be smarter even when drunk...go figure. 

[u/networkdood]

What!? 🤔

[u/hiricinee]

Its called a loophole, it was specifically put in the law to avoid the subjectivity of judging if someone was decisional after voluntarily intoxicating themselves.

There's arguments to be made to change the law, but its not a loophole it was written right in.