Drinking alcohol does not impair women’s ability to recall sex attack, study suggests 

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Drinking alcohol doesn’t affect women’s ability to remember sexual assault, study suggests

  • A study found that drunk women are not significantly worse at remembering details
  • Less than 3 percent of alleged violations end in charges or citations

Having a few drinks does not affect a woman’s ability to accurately remember being sexually assaulted, a study claims.

Convictions for rape are notoriously low in the UK, with police investigations and court cases often casting doubt on women’s recollections of the events because they were drunk.

Now the researchers say that women who have consumed alcohol are not significantly worse at remembering important details of a sexual assault.

A study of 90 women, ages 18 to 32, provided them with a fictional scenario in which they met a man named Michael in a bar or at a party and got talking.

Half of the study volunteers drank three vodka and tonics on an empty stomach. The others had tonic water in a glass that contained a vodka-soaked lime and some vodka on the rim, so they didn’t know if they were consuming an alcoholic beverage.

The researchers say that women who have consumed alcohol are not significantly worse at remembering important details of a sexual assault.

Professor Heather Flowe, who led the study from the University of Birmingham, said it suggests that

Professor Heather Flowe, who led the University of Birmingham study, said it suggests that “being raped creates strong memories of certain distressing details, independent of alcohol consumption.”

At 22 separate points on stage, read on a computer, with a female voice also reading aloud, they could decide to continue or ‘end the night’.

Nearly one in five women continued the scenario to the end, having imaginary consensual sex with Michael after going home with him. For the 83 percent who called in one night, they were told that she refused to take ‘no’ for an answer and raped them.

When asked about this fictitious rape and asked to imagine what had happened to them, the women who had drunk alcohol were no less accurate in their recollection.

The participants, who were warned about the subject of the study before enrolling, generally remembered the sexual assault better when they expected to drink alcohol.

The researchers said women may be “hypervigilant” about men’s dangerous behavior when they know they might be drunk.

Professor Heather Flowe, who led the University of Birmingham study, said it suggested that “being raped creates strong memories of certain distressing details, independent of alcohol consumption.”

Less than 3 per cent of alleged rapes in England and Wales end in charges or summonses.