My opinion on the Drew/Katie situation
This is an actual essay dear God.
I just rewatched this morning on Teennick so now that my fangirl feelings are out of the way, I can actual have a logical unbiased opinion about everything that happened.
In short, this episode didn't involve rape.
The thing that makes this episode so great is the fact that you have this huge building conflict, but no one to blame. Drew was drunk, but he didn't want to drink, the hockey guys put the trophy to his mouth and he was pretty much powerless. Bianca is the main reason that Drew wanted to break up with Katie, but she's not being malicious to her. Katie's going from different extremes to get Drew back, but he was her first real boyfriend and they dated for 8-9 months so of course she's going to be attached to him.
Another thing is, everything in the episode is pretty ambiguous. When Drew told Katie about "Courtney" the last thing he said before she left was that he hoped she would forgive him. Us watching know that he meant that in a platonic way since he thought she understood he was breaking up with her, but she could have easily assumed he meant that he wanted her to give him a second chance. At first she didn't want to but then when she talked to Marisol, she wanted to give him another shot, hence why she started crying when he didn't seem happy to see her when she showed up out of the blue. It was a big misunderstanding.
And now we get to the "rape" that happened. There reason I say it wasn't rape was because everyone says Katie knew he was drunk and took advantage of him. No, she did not know he was drunk. The only time he stumbled was when he opened the door and she immediately said that if he was drunk, she was going to back off. He lied and said he was sober, walked perfectly fine to his bed, and spoke clearly afterwards. If we hadn't known months in advance that he was drunk off his ass and you changed the channel at that very scene, you may have thought he was sober too. I showed the scene to my brother who doesn't watch Degrassi, and he said himself that he thought Drew might have been drunk, but after watching him talk to Katie, his suspicions went away.
And also, people say Katie raped him because he wasn't in any state to consent, but honestly, was she? Katie is fresh out of rehab recovering from a drug addiction. It's only been like what? A week? And already, her world is starting to come crashing down on her again. She's losing her first real long term boyfriend and she doesn't even know why. You can't expect her to suddenly regain control of her life in the matter of one week, or be in any position to make a decision as big as having sex. She's frantic and even a bit delisional about what's going on around her right now. Drew's lies have kept her from knowing that he doesn't want to be with her because she doesn't know he still has feelings for Bianca. She doesn't know he has a girlfriend that isn't her, she doesn't know he's drunk, and really, it's terrifying that she just got out of rehab and already she has no hold on reality already.
Katie didn't even initiate anything physical with him. Yes, she did scoot closer to him, but assuming him to be sober, she left it open for him to decide if he wanted to take things a step further or not. He kissed her and she thought he loved her, because honestly, Katie loves him. Listen to the way she talks to him. Look at the way she looks at him like he's a super hero. She honestly and truly loves him, and just wants to keep him. She didn't do it to hurt him, she didn't didn't do it forcefully, and right now she's living in a bubble where she thinks that everything will honestly be alright between them because she doesn't know that there's someone else in the picture.
That's the thing about Katie right now. Her vision of reality and what's actually going on are two completely different things.
Neither Katie or Drew were in the right place to consent. The sex shouldn't have happened but it did. Mistakes were made, but that's life.
