Hey, Faggot:
–Michael Ritter, Coordinator, Prevention Programs, San Francisco State University
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Like you, I’ve read the research about heavy drinking and bad behavior. Unlike you, however, I’ve also read the American Heritage Dictionary. I suggest you pick up a copy; not only will you learn the correct spelling of “consensual,” but if you continue to flip through the Cs, you’ll learn the difference between correlation (“a measure of the interdependence of two random variables”) and causation (“the act or process of causing”). While studies have correlated booze consumption with all sorts of bad behavior, none has proven that booze causes people who are not rapists to commit rape, or that it makes people who are not idiots do idiotic things like, say, have sex without protection.
If I were a professional, I would be required to advise you thusly: “Don’t let low self-esteem keep you in a relationship with a man who doesn’t respect you! Bag him, sister! There’s another fella out there for you!” Thankfully, as I am not a professional, I am free to offer advice you might find useful.
You are not only dealing with a closet case, but with–hands down!–my favorite kind of closet case: the horny drunk. When consumed in sufficient quantities, alcohol not only makes other people look better, it also inhibits our inhibitions. The more inhibitions someone has, the more dramatic the results. Since a closet case ain’t much more than a big ball of inhibitions–spackled together with chickenshit and guilt–alcohol can have a powerfully transformative effect on one. Your former student got it almost exactly right: he consumed enough alcohol to inhibit his inhibitions, not so much that he couldn’t perform sexually, but sadly not enough that he could spend the night. He was swamped, as so many closet cases are, by postorgasmic regret: “My God, what have I done!” And he beat a retreat.
