Half a ballroom full of college students was exposed to the dangers of confusing drunk sex and date rape on Monday evening.

The featured speaker, Brett Sockolow, an attorney, created an interactive experience, presenting a story about two college students and the consequences of drunken sex as a courtroom drama, and allowing for the audience to act as jury and vote “guilty” or “not guilty” at the end.

“The title of the presentation is ‘Drunk Sex or Date Rape, Can You Tell The Difference?’ and that’s the question I came here to ask every one of you,” Sockolow said. “I don’t really consider it my job tonight to answer that question for you.”

“The point of me being here is to create an opportunity for all of us to talk together about this tough issue,” Sockolow said.

Sockolow’s story involves a 19-year-old woman, Amy, and a 20-year-old man, Todd. The story goes, Amy visits a party on a Thursday night with her friends. She has five beers, which is a lot in particular for her, since she is 5’4″ and 125 pounds.

She meets Todd, who has three beers to catch up to her, and then gives Amy five jello shots containing Everclear, a grain alcohol that’s usually about 90 percent alcohol.

“Five shots with Everclear, which is illegal in California, is the alcoholic equivalent of 15 drinks,” Sockolow said.

Amy drinks the shots voluntarily, and, after a while, runs outside to vomit.

Todd walks Amy home, and he intends to drop her off and come back to the party. When they get to her dorm room, Amy invites him in and soon they are involved in a passionate kiss.

Amy then becomes ill for the second time.

“She comes out of the bathroom,” Sockolow said, “and the kissing continued.”

The students erupted in cries of “Oh, sick!” and “Ewww!”

Amy tells Todd that she needs to rest, so Todd watches the Discovery Channel for 20 minutes until she regains consciousness. When she does, they engage in sexual intercourse.

When they’re done, Todd gets up and writes her a note containing his name and telephone number.

When Amy wakes up, she doesn’t remember anything. She goes to campus police and ends up being taken to the hospital for a rape kit, which turns out positive. Amy is no longer a virgin.

So, is Todd guilty or not guilty of sexual assault?

Audience reactions were varied.

“I don’t think it has anything to do with whether he raped her or not,” one student said. “The fact is that he was sober and knew exactly how much alcohol she had, and she was not in a position to make a decision about this.”

“If I wanted to rape someone, I wouldn’t leave my number,” another audience member said.

The larger portion of the audience voted “not guilty.”

In the actual case, Sockolow said, Todd was pronounced guilty and was sentenced to two years in prison. He was particularly brilliant in the field of mathematics, and scored a 1600 on his SAT, but the university he attended expelled him and no other school would take him. He ended up with an associate degree from a community college. He also now has to register as a sexual predator wherever he moves to, Sokolow said.

“I think it’s very important for students to go to this, because the number one issue that I get asked about when I do presentations about sexual assault is the whole drinking issue,” said Jessica Heskin, a victims advocate in the Women’s Resource Center, which sponsored the program along with the Multicultural Center.

“Alcohol is involved in at least 85 percent of all sexual assault cases,” Heskin said.

Tom Roberts can be reached at [email protected]