There have been some questionable developments in the US legal system recently. With transgender people being refused access to toilets, Planned Parenthood getting defunded, and ‘religious freedom’ gaining priority over basic LGBT rights, it’s starting to feel like the country has gone into reverse.

Now, in a bid to prove that theory, an Oklahoma court has reportedly ruled that having oral sex with an unconscious person does not legally count as sexual assault.

According to The Guardian, the controversial ruling was made by a Tulsa County judge last November; who dismissed rape charges on the basis of the state’s statutes. He allegedly claimed that forcing a drunk, unconscious person into performing oral sex was not legally seen as rape.

The case – which involved two high school students – was appealed in March: only to be met with a unanimous ruling in favour of the defendant. “Forcible sodomy cannot occur where a victim is so intoxicated as to be completely unconscious at the time of the sexual act of oral copulation,” the court determined.

According to records, the 16-year-old girl involved in the case was heavily intoxicated, with a blood test showing her in the category of severe alcohol poisoning (0.34 alcohol content). Despite this, her 17-year-old assailant – referred to as ‘RZM’ – insisted that she had consented to performing oral sex; with hospital tests revealing his DNA around her mouth and on the back of her leg. The girl reportedly had no recollection of the incident, and couldn’t even remember getting in his car.

The defense claimed that the law lists a number of circumstances which do constitute as rape, but this specific example was not one of them. RZM’s attorney, Shannon McMurray, claimed that there was “absolutely no evidence” of force, or “or him doing anything to make this girl give him oral sex... other than she was too intoxicated to consent.” 

Tulsa County district attorney Benjamin Fu, who was leading the case, said the ruling had left him “completely gobsmacked”. 

“The plain meaning of forcible oral sodomy, of using force, includes taking advantage of a victim who was too intoxicated to consent,” Fu stated. “I don’t believe that anybody, until that day, believed that the state of the law was that this kind of conduct was ambiguous, much less legal. And I don’t think the law was a loophole until the court decided it was.”