In light of yesterday's post about drunken sex being treated as rape, I guess I shouldn't be surprised to see that the woman charged with having sex in a Minnesota men's room is now turning up the volume on the victim claim:

MINNEAPOLIS - While police say a high-profile indecent conduct case in the Minneapolis Metrodome Saturday is closed, a Carroll woman involved in it told the Daily Times Herald she believes she was a victim of foul play rather than a willing collaborator.

Lois K. Feldman, 38, of Carroll, and Ross M. Walsh, 26, of Linden, were ticketed for indecent conduct after they were reportedly caught engaging in sexual activity in a Metrodome men's restroom handicapped stall during the University of Minnesota Golden Gophers game with the Iowa Hawkeyes. More than a dozen people in the restroom were cheering Feldman and Walsh by the time authorities arrived, a University of Minnesota Police report says.

Feldman acknowledged drinking heavily before the game and says she doesn't remember being in the bathroom.

"I would never ever do that," Feldman said. "My kids are my life. I go to church every Sunday."

Information obtained in police reports and during an interview with University of Minnesota Police Chief Greg Hestness revealed no suggestion or evidence that the incident was anything but consensual on the part of both Walsh and Feldman.

But Feldman tells the Daily Times Herald she may have been drugged or otherwise victimized.

"Everybody thinks something got put in my drink," Feldman said.

She offers no further details as to how that might have happened or who may have been involved.

"Right, and that's what my attorney and I are working on," Feldman said.

Contacted this morning and asked if Feldman was planning to file a complaint or seek a reopening of the investigation in Minneapolis, Jeff Minnich of Carroll, Feldman's attorney, said he had no comment.

The Daily Times Herald sought to contact Walsh, but there is no phone listing with the address he gave police. An Avalon Security officer, Craig Andrashko, who was listed in the police report as the first witness to the incident, did not return a phone call.

But in the police report, Andrashko described what he observed as "sexual intercourse."

Hestness said the case is closed by citation.

When asked to respond to Feldman's suggestion that she is a victim of a crime, Hestness said: "All I can say is the actions went on for some period of time with many witnesses on hand and no one reported either party was objecting."

Hestness said Feldman made no allegations to the officers at the scene about the incident being non-consensual.

"If the implication is lack of consent due to intoxication, I guess that could be true for either party, however, they declined the officer's request to submit to an (alcohol test) so the extent of intoxication cannot be demonstrated," Hestness said.

Once again, I think the idea that women are less capable of consent than men is irredeemably sexist -- and degrading to women.

Philosophically, there are serious problems with the idea that one sex is more capable of saying no than the other. And saying no to what? One's own impulses? One's natural inhibitions? The other person's entreaties and advances? The effects of alcohol?

I'm just thinking out loud here, and since this might as well be satire, let me ask... Why is no one speaking up on behalf of this man as a victim of intoxication or as a possible rape victim? I notice that the woman at 38 is twelve years older than the man, who was only 26. Doesn't this indicate what is often called a "power imbalance"? (Anyone remember Mrs. Robinson? How about Dean Wormer's wife?)

But suppose the man had been 38 and the woman 26. Would the situation be viewed differently? I think it would. Why?

In terms of power imbalances, is there a difference between an older man with a younger woman, and an older woman with a younger man?

If there is, can someone please offer a non-sexist explanation?

I'm concerned that there might be an imbalance of power imbalances, and that would be unfair.

MORE: If alcohol lowers inhibitions, and if inhibitions are what normally prevent us from giving way to our sexual urges, then it would seem to follow that the presence of alcohol intoxication would make consent to sex (and therefore sexual intercourse) more likely. Yet these laws are saying that alcohol intoxication renders consent to sex legally impossible, and thus intoxicated sex equals rape. But if consent derives from lowered inhibitions, and inhibitions are lowered in both sexes, I am unable to understand -- either from a legal or scientific perspective -- how alcohol would eliminate the ability to consent in women but not men.

The rule has to stem from some strange (and IMO sexist) presupposition that men are deemed incapable of consenting to sex in the first place. Whether a man consents to sex is seen as superfluous, because he is seen as always "in charge" of the act. By committing the physical act of penetration, he is seen as inherently having consented to doing it. And alcohol, far from diminishing his ability to consent, is seen as increasing it. Under this sexist view, the drunken penetrator is analogous to a drunk driver, who cannot be heard to complain that alcohol made him unable to "consent" to drive. The woman is not seen as a participant in the driving, but as a passive victim along for the "ride."

Therefore, drunk or not, sex is always the man's "fault."