Hi all, I’m sure this question is asked all the time but I’ve been doing research into this topic lately and I just become more and more confused as I see more answers that appear to be different from one another.

I am in my early 20s and a sizable portion of my friends have had sex after drinking, including myself. I was under the impression that as long as both parties are enthusiastic and active participants, and neither party is incapacitated (i.e. unable to walk or talk, passed out etc) that all is good and well. However, I’ve been in a few situations lately where I’ve questioned what I previously thought and felt anxious about the circumstances.

A few times, there has been a difference in levels of sobriety between my partner and I. In one situation, we were both not sober, but she seemed to be a bit more inebriated than me. But she was still coherent, enthusiastic, even asked me for consent after I wasn’t so enthusiastic for something she wanted to do.

Another few situations occurred with a long term friend with benefits of over a year. Early on in our fwb status, she told me she enjoyed sex more while high. After that, we had several nights where one or both of us were intoxicated. The first night I can remember feeling anxious about sex was a night where she went out and was drunk asking me to come over. I think I was sober, but I brought a drink to her place and eventually got to her place a couple hours after she got back from the bars. I was a bit worried when I got there because she still seemed a bit messed up, a little bit more drunk than I expected, but I wasn’t sure if it was tiredness or the alcohol since it had been a couple hours since she had originally asked me to meet her. I chilled with her and talked while I finished my drink. She seemed to be doing better than I initially thought, so I asked her if she was sure she wanted to have sex, to which she said yes, and we were both enthusiastic and active participants throughout the night. I even asked her the next day and she said she was only tipsy by that point. Another couple times, I either picked her up or she got herself to my house while I was sober or very close to being sober and she was tipsy. In both of these situations, I gave her some water and paid attention to her body language and if she was enthusiastic and an active participant.

What should the line be in these situations? Am I doing anything wrong or unethical? Or is my anxiety unfounded and mixing sex and alcohol like this is just not for me?