So, just when it starts looking like we're in the clear and the accusations start dying against Till Lindemann, now new accusations are popping up against the keyboarder, Christian Lorenz (aka "Flake"). Basically, he's accused of raping a two women back in 1996 and 2002. Like the Till accusations, they don't seem to be particularly compelling to me, although some are saying they're damning because Flake himself admitted alcohol made him have sex with women back in the day and he stopped drinking as a result.
And these stories seem to be examples of that. Basically, the big story reported on from 2002 happened like this. Till and Flake met some 17 year old in a bar. They were told she was 22. They went back to their place. They drank A LOT, the girl admitted her age, Till went to bed, and Flake ended up having sex with the girl. While it might seem creepy a guy who was in his 30s at the time had sex with a 17 year old, I mean here in the US that would be illegal, apparently the age of consent is lower in germany and it wasnt illegal. But still, Flake is being accused of rape because the girl couldnt consent because she was drunk. never mind that flake was also drunk.
Which brings up a pertinent double standard that I may have discussed a couple times in relation to the Till accusations that I feel like I should bring up here. If a man drinks, a woman drinks, and then sex happens, the guy gets accused of rape, and the girl doesn't. And it seems stupid to me. I really don't believe that sex while drunk is "rape" in the sense that well....forced sex is rape. I think consent exists on a spectrum. On the one end you basically have...Rammstein's darkest songs where a guy just forces himself on a girl. On the other end you have affirmative consent where the parties need to not just consent, but continue consenting throughout the entire process. On the one extreme, you have a brutal crime against another person. On the other end you got a well meaning attempt to idiot proof the world to the point that it goes too far and seems completely freaking stupid.
Ultimately, it is up to us as a society to determine where on that scale that sex should be a CRIME. And this is where I may differ from modern society a bit. Honestly, I think that sex and alcohol inevitably go together. Young people, they party, they drink, and sex happens. Maybe it's not sex that parties fully consent to. I admit that. But should it be treated as a crime? Feminists have fought to make it so, and to me, it creates a messed up double standard for men. Because if the man gets drunk and has sex, he's still expected to take responsibility for his actions and if he has sex with a woman who wasnt sober enough to consent, its rape. but the woman, well, we cant just ask her to take responsibility, that's "victim blaming" or some crap. And a woman can then turn around and claim she was raped because she had sex that sober her didn't want to have. And that seems messed up, that we can ruin someone's life over that. I feel like that this is a bit of a weird overcorrection modern feminism has forced upon society, and it's not something I agree with.
While there is room to claim that sex while under the influence is less than consensual and possibly a crime, I think it should be narrowly defined to the likes of the original accusations against till. If you explicitly try to drug a girl or get her drunk against her will to remove her agency and force her to have sex, yeah, I could see that being rape. but if we're talking a normal environment where the girl drinks, the guy drinks, and then something happens, well no, that's just you drinking too much and making a bad decision. Regretting sex that came as a result of your own choices (including drinking voluntarily) is not the same as being raped. In order for rape to occur, one party should have to force themselves on the other party, and I would argue, malice should be demonstrated.
And here, I'm just not sure it is. yes, Flake initiated sex, and it could be said in doing so he forced himself on the girl to some extent, but he was drunk, and the girl was too drunk to resist. And Flake himself stated that he had regrettable sex while drunk before and as a result stopped drinking. So it seemed clear he knew he had a problem and he fixed it, buy laying off the stuff that clouds his thinking.
And that is what I think anyone who doesnt wanna end up in a situation like this does. Not trying to moralize here, but I myself do not drink. I also do not put myself in situations where something like this can happen. I, however, do understand how these situations can happen, and I really dont believe anyone should really be seen as "at fault" in them in a criminal sense. But my answer to them, for both sexes, is to lay off the mind altering substances. Quite frankly, a huge reason i never touched alcohol outside of a couple sips here and there is because i like being in control of my actions and fear what i might do if im not fully in control of myself. I feel like the best way to avoid these problems is just not to drink. I dont see the point in drinking. I never did. I want to be in control of myself, why would i drink something that makes me do weird things?
ALso it tastes terrible. I admit, my parents bought some tequila and prosecco to do the "does it foam" experiment related to the drugging accusations against till. I took a sip of the cocktail that was created. Just one sip, but I wanted to taste it. You know, same drink till was accused of giving the girl who accused him of drugging her. To me, it tasted like poison. That's what alcohol tastes like to me, it literally tastes like a poison. Like im drinking straight hand sanitizer or something (which makes sense, given that stuff is made out of a form of alcohol). I dont understand why people willingly drink this stuff in large enough quantities that it alters your consciousness. Youre literally poisoning yourself. But to each their own.
That's the difference between me and a lot of these moralizers on the left and right. In the past, there was a movement to ban alcohol as people recognized it was poison. but a lot of people liked drinking it, they drank it anyway, they drank dangerous moonshine versions of it, and organized crime rings formed to supply the stuff. And the movement was such a failure it was made legal again like 14 years later. We also have a war on drugs. People like to poison themselves with all kinds of substances. And we decide to stop them...by ruining their lives and sending them to prison. People wanna do this crap anyway, it doesnt work, and honestly, we should probably decriminalize drugs and legalize the less harmful ones.
Then we have the left. You got these moralizers who much like the religious right want to regulate what sex people have, and sometimes it makes sense, but sometimes it doesn't work. And I would argue that these laws regarding consent while drunk seem horribly one sided, hypocritical and advance womens' causes in such a way that they put an undue burden on men. it takes two to tango, and I would prefer to only ruin someone's life with legal sanctioning if they actually do something bad enough to justify it. And I dont think sex while drunk should be such a crime. Even if the other person technically didnt consent because they were also drunk. If malice, manipulation, what have you, was explicitly involved, that's one thing. But if it's just people of mixed sexes partying together and then doing regrettable things with each other while drink, well, I think the regret is punishment enough. There's no need to ruin someone's life over something like this. I do think that for something to be rape not only should one party not consent, but the other party should be displaying clear malice in the situation, and I just dont see that here. I see a guy doing something he later regrets because he himself was also drunk. And in a case like that, I say live and learn.
ALso, this happened 20 fricking years ago. I think bringing up old history at this point is outrageous, and it seems like given the accusations surrounding Till are dying down, it's like someone dug these up and sat on them waiting for the right time to keep the controversy going.
And let's face it, I'm not even sure that this was illegal at the time. I researched germany's rape laws in relation to the till situation and it seemed like they didnt even expand rape laws like this until 2016, which is very recent. Although some posters in rammstein forums have told me its possible there were lesser charges that could've been relevant here.
So yeah.
Honestly, to be blunt. I'm sick of these accusations in general. unless criminal charges are being filed and the boys are going to court over them, I don't care. I just wanna get back to enjoying the music.
FYI, that's the only reason im hyper fixating on this. Rammstein themselves is a hyper fixation for me, Ive loved their music for 18 years now, they've helped me through some hard times, and it irks me to no end that these cancel culture nitwits and the media are trying to tear them down over this stuff. And I just feel a need to defend them, given that. Unless the band members did something particularly egregious which is actually actionable in court, I just don't care. Stop trying to push culture war nonsense into my fandoms. It just turns me even more anti this stuff. I've already been critical of SJWs as it is, but this whole controversy has brought me to a breaking point of just being full stop against these guys, as if they were the religious right. Because they're just the same moralizers in a left wing package.
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