We’ve had several discussions on the topic of consent over the years, and several discussions of the dangers of alcohol. Recently the intersection of these two topics come up directly. In that conversation, my son was very quick to affirm/understand that a girl who was pass-out drunk couldn’t give consent and how, in his own words, “it’d be pretty f’d up to even try doing something with someone in that state.”
However, he seemed a little less sure-footed when certain aspects of the scenario were modified. E.g. “what if the guy is really drunk too?”, “what if the girl is just drinking alcohol to loosen up a bit?”, etc. My responses were starting to feel like “lecture-mode-dad”, and I felt like I was giving legalistic-sounding advice that might be hard for him to connect with in a real-world situation.
But in a flash of inspiration, I said, “Think of it this way. You and [his friend’s name] might agree that getting a hold of some alcohol and getting drunk at a party would be a lot of fun. You guys would definitely agree that going sky-diving would be all kinds of fun. But what would you say to [friend] if he called and said, ‘Hey! I got some beer and two passes to go sky-diving! Let’s get really drunk and then go sky-diving!'”
My son actually laughed aloud at the sheer idiocy.
I continued “Right!? I mean, first, sky-diving while drunk would be Darwin-award levels of stupid. But even if you survived… what was the point? You’d remember almost nothing about the experience itself, probably puke half-way through, have a crappy landing, and find yourself lying on the ground, bruised and battered and covered in vomit, wondering ‘what the f just happened?'”
He was nodding along, still smirking at the absurdity of the idea, when I connected it back to the topic at hand. “Think of having S with a girl you’re into as something you’d want to be like sky-diving: an exhilarating and memorable experience. Something that was done with all precautions to be sure nobody got hurt. Basically, a positive experience, shared between the two of you, that left you both feeling like, ‘Wow, that was great! We should do it again!'”
I could see his expression shifting into “OMG my dad is talking about S, the awkwardness, it hurts!”, so I wrapped up. “Just think of drinking alcohol and having S as an either/or proposition. Treat your decision – or that of a girl you’re with – to drink alcohol as being the *same* decision that you’re going to have that kind of fun that night, and forgo any sky-diving adventures until some other night.”
One can never know with teens… but I *think* this analogy really connected for him, so again, I figured I’d share it here for others to use.
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