Messy military lawyer here. Going to start another kind of group of videos where I’m hopefully going to be adding to some of the dialogue and hopefully trying to dispel some of the confusion.
There’s been a lot of videos lately here on Mil Talk and TikTok about consent, about whether or not what somebody was wearing matters, all that kind of dialogue. And there’s been a lot of anger kind of going on both sides of things. And I just wanto to try to help add to some of that dialogue and really try to dispel some of the myth. The first myth, right, so I was sitting in a brief at Fort Hood in 2008. I was a uniformed defense counsel on active duty and sat there during the in-brief that was supposed to be covering SHARP (sexual harassment, assault response prevention). And someone put out in a briefing in this auditorium at Fort Hood with like probably 250 newcomers, like 250 people in processing, and said this idea that if you have had even one drink of alcohol, that means that you cannot legally consent to sex or sexual activity.
Not even close. Not even close. Can alcohol cause you to lose your, or lower your inhibitions and make you maybe do things that you might not have done when you were sober? Sure. But one drink, definitely not the case. Two drinks. Three drinks. Four drinks. Where that line is drawn actually ends up being decided way too often by a military panel. Is it risky to engage in sexual behavior with somebody who has been drinking? Absolutely. But especially if both people are drinking, we’re not talking about people who are necessarily making the best choices. Let me be very clear. This idea that I’ve heard and I’ve had to deal with on juries before, with people having this idea that one drink means that you can’t consent. Absolutely not the case under the law. If anybody has any more questions about that, I have a lot of information on my website. Check it out. A lot of videos too on my YouTube. I’m here to put out rightful information. Thank you so much. Messy military lawyer.
Follow Jocelyn Stewart on TikTok at https://www.tiktok.com/@messymilitarylawyer
Jocelyn Stewart is a UCMJ court-martial attorney who specializes in defense of allegations of sexual assault for all branches of the military worldwide. Contact the Law Office of Jocelyn C. Stewart at 1-888-252-0927.
