Aaawww, Does the Little Girl Want a Margarita?

A "unique study" finds that women aged 17-30 in Ireland and England are the world's biggest binge drinkers. The numbers are pretty pathetic: Four drinks in one night, once every two weeks, qualifies a woman as a heavy drinker, and only one woman in three can meet that standard. But it doesn't take much to motivate a government advertising campaign across the pond. The theme this time around? Nice young ladies who drink get sexually assaulted. And in the event that women continue to drink after the alcohol-means-rape warnings, doctors want bar owners to stop marketing to children women:

Doctors also blame the drinks industry for deliberately targeting women with female-friendly drinks and decor. They want ministers to exercise more control instead of allowing the industry to self-regulate.

Ah yes, female-friendly decor. Little known fact: All women become incapable of resistance at the sight of shiny pink interiors. It's the rohypnol of bar design.

Comments

[Number 6]

Men, OTOH, are free to be drunken sots.

[smerkin]

penis-shaped pints help too; to down that golden liqueur

[Jenna Bush]

"Four drinks in one night, once every two weeks, qualifies a woman as a heavy drinker, and only one woman in three can meet that standard."

Lightweights!

[thoreau]

Frankly, I expected more from the Irish.

[Native NYer]

I worked on the DSM-IV coding back more than 10 years ago. We were aggregating data on alcohol usage and comparing it by nationality. When the results showed Germans averaged 12 beers per week one of the PhDs on the project, an uptight pseudo-hippy, stated "everyone in Germany is an Alcoholic!"(you could hear the capital A in her voice).

This woman, who was a mental health professional, just couldn't get her mind around the fact there are cultural differences in alcohol use.

[ChrisO]

My part-Irish wife claims that studies have shown that the Irish are not anywhere near the heaviest drinkers in western Europe. Germans are much bigger sots. In my personal experience, Yugoslavs have a truly frightening capacity to drink. Fun people to get drunk with, actually.

[mediageek]

Next up: A mandated switch to only allowing people to drink Victory Gin.

[Lamar]

If female-friendly marketing worked, you'd still see Remy Red around. Not only did those ads cater to women, the women looked completely trashed. So it's both female and trashed-friendly.

[AmyLou]

ChrisO: very true. I am not sure anyone can hold a candle to people of Slavic descent when it comes to drinking

If I were Irish I would be classified as a heavy driner. I'm of Slavic descent, and therefore just normal in my drinking habits.

I vacationed in Ireland several years ago, and I do remember a certain amount of distaste for my drinking habits in public. I was told, very politely, but told nonetheless, that it was not considered proper for a woman to drink a whole pint (proper, polite women only drank 1/2 pints). Nor was I supposed to join the boys in singing drinking songs or shooting pool. I do not know if attitudes have changed much since then (7 years ago), but it seems not.

[fyodor]

Targetting half the human race isn't much of a targetting.

[Chris S.]

Why don't we just simplify the warnings proposed for alchohol, HPV, morning after pills, etc., into a broad warning against female sexuality (male sexuality is fine, of course)?

[Timothy]

Four drinks? Dude, that's called "lunch".

[Pro Libertate]

Hold on, folks. I've known quite a few women that get drunk from merely ordering a drink.

[M]

quite a few women that get drunk from merely ordering

Drunk on power. That's something else.

[M]

Men, OTOH, are free to be drunken sots

It's spelled "ETOH".

[Cab]

Four drinks in one night, once every two weeks

I think this is an impressive stat. Think about it, that's 26 fights a year for Irish women.

[smacky]

In my personal experience, Yugoslavs have a truly frightening capacity to drink.

True. This is part of the reason why I virtually never drink anymore. I could down drink after drink after drink and not get drunk.
And it's usually pointless and a waste of money to have one or two, unless I'm really in the mood for the taste of beer/liquor/wine.

Yes, siree, you'd have to pull all the stops out to date-rape me...giant rohypnol injections might do it.

Fun people to get drunk with, actually.

Also (generally) true, since we're stereotyping.

[Postmodern Sleaze]

"Why don't we just simplify the warnings proposed for alchohol, HPV, morning after pills, etc., into a broad warning against female sexuality (male sexuality is fine, of course)?"

Hmm... but how can male sexuality be fine, if both female sexuality AND homosexuality are bad, unless we're talking about masturbation? But porn is bad too, so it has to either be imaginitive masturbation, or masturbation with classic erotic literature...

Hmm... yeah. Okay, all sexuality except masturbation is bad. Problem solved.

[kevrob]

The National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism defines binge drinking as a pattern of drinking that brings a person's blood alcohol concentration (BAC) to 0.08 grams percent or above. This typically happens when men consume more than 4 drinks and women consume more than 3 drinks in about 2 hours. - da gubmint.

The researchers don't mention a time-frame in their definition of a "binge." What's a "session"? All afternoon? An evening? Lunch?

The revised U.S. definition of a binge is enough tipple, drunk so fast that you'd get a DUI if you drove and got caught. Stretch the same amount of hooch over 4 hours and you aren't as dangerous to yourself or others.

Kevin
(Any Irishman knows you don't binge. You "go on a spree.")

[Me]

My part-Irish wife claims that studies have shown that the Irish are not anywhere near the heaviest drinkers in western Europe. Germans are much bigger sots. In my personal experience, Yugoslavs have a truly frightening capacity to drink. Fun people to get drunk with, actually.

Well, Yugoslavs aren't technically WESTERN European, but they certainly can hold their drink. I dated a Serb for a while and I never had to worry about her father thinking I drank too much. I could barely keep up with him. There was literally a shot glass of travarica next to my place at the breakfast table every morning. And beer was treated the way we drink water throughout the day. Let me know if you should become single, smacky.

[Tym]

In my personal experience, Yugoslavs have a truly frightening capacity to drink.

Never underestimate the Swedes.

[wingnutx]

You let 'em vote, now they want to wear shoes and drink in bars.

[Warren]

Don't even get me started on "Ladies Night"

[Russ R]

Scariest line in the article: "The Government is considering tighter laws so that even when a woman has consented to sex, men can be prosecuted for rape, if she was drunk at the time."

Uh... miss... now that you've given me both your verbal and written consent, would you mind blowing into this breathalyzer so that I can verify your sobriety before we proceed.

[Todd]

Quick, sell your stock in tiny umbrella manufacturing companies!

[wingnutx]

I plan on pursuing a class-action suit against Red Bull and every vodka producer I can find.

[zach]

"The Government is considering tighter laws so that even when a woman has consented to sex, men can be prosecuted for rape, if she was drunk at the time."

Oh, alright. They should have just come out and said this was a population control thing.

[David]

That's alright. I can't resist a shiny pink interior either.

[grumpy realist]

Based on my own experience, the Finns are the top drinkers in Europe. Able to drink the Russians under the table.

[Zoomie Junior]

Don'cha love the "Woman + Alcohol = Date Rape/All Men Are Predators" mentality?

US Air Force basically breaks it down like this:
Fellas, Don't drink and screw. No matter how smashed both partys are and/or how concentual it seems at the time, you are guilty even if proven innocent. "No" means no, and sometimes "yes" means no.
Forget about asking a female co-worker to lunch or complementing her new haircut. Zero Tolerance for treating a woman like a lady, she (or another woman in the area) MAY take it as harrassment, and it's that individual's perception that counts.

[J sub D]

If a women cannot give consent while intoxicated it logically follows that a man can" either. It is amazing how many times I've been raped by wanton women.

[Mad Max]

"Uh... miss... now that you've given me both your verbal and written consent, would you mind blowing into this breathalyzer so that I can verify your sobriety before we proceed."

That's no breathalyzer!

[Ben]

"If a women cannot give consent while intoxicated it logically follows that a man can" either. It is amazing how many times I've been raped by wanton women."
Happens to me all the time, without my consent. I usually wake up in the morning, alone and naked in my bed, and I don't even know her name. Can I prosecute her?

[Reformed Republican]

In my college orientation, it was explained that someone who was drunk could not give consent for sex. If both parties are drunk, the first person to file a report would be considered the victim.