I would be really cautious about judging a better course of action based on some YouTube videos which can cause a lot of paranoia and fear. Or the reverse by giving you a false sense of security because you may have seen a few tips online.
I live in NYC. I hear from all sorts of people who don't live here how dangerous it is based on what they see on the internet and given all sorts of safety tips that are outrageously naive. Quite frankly this is the safest place I've ever lived to almost a comical degree.
Point being, you can take every precaution you want to protect yourself but if someone wants to hurt you or take advantage of you, they are going to try and find a way to hurt you or take advantage of you. Those people come in all sorts of shapes, sizes, colors, backgrounds, and situations. Most victims of a crime aren't drunk. They almost never see it coming. Most perpetrators of a crime aren't drunk. They just do what they know or think they can get away with.
In this specific case, would a lack of alcohol really change anything? She went to her room consensually with one person. Even if that was done completely sober, it really doesn't absolve inviting a handful of your buddies into the room. At that point, there's a significant imbalance of power happening. You don't completely know what those people are going to do. In any situation, sober or not, someone suddenly surrounds you with a bunch of their friends and you're alone in a room with all of them, it's very easy to see how someone could get coerced into doing something they may not be thrilled about participating in. She didn't decide to be in that situation. The people accused did what they knew or thought they could get away with.
We can't expect women to act like detectives or Liam Neeson just because they have a few drinks at a bar and go home with someone. It's unrealistic and not on them to have that extra homework. If it was really 8 men involved, well then you have at least 8 circumstances where men failed. It could be parenting, role models, holding each other accountable, etc. Take your pick.
I disagree with most of what you have said.
Alcohol can severely limit our ability of perception. If you are exceedingly drunk in any setting, there is increased risk to your well being.
I am not blaming drunk people who are harmed by others (in this case, theres of course infinity cases of drunk people acting absurdly stupid), the fault is on the people harming them, but there is of course an increased risk to your well being if you are exceedingly drunk.
This is common sense.
The youtube videos I've seen are mostly from Active Self Protection. It's true that some instances of harm are not preventable, at least in part, but many if not most absolutely are. We are not beings without the ability to think and act. There is self defense training that you can do, steps to increase your fitness, being cognizant of your surroundings (not looking down at your phone), not being in the mean side of town late at night, etc. There are things we can do, to lower the chance of harm happening to us and those near us. Putting on a winter coat when it is -50 degrees Celcius is an act of lowering the chance of harm that will befall you. You can really do so much.
Also worth mentioning, there is such a thing as women's intuition, and it is 100% real. They absolutely can be detectives in a sort of 6th sense way. Alcohol impedes this ability, as it also does to accurate perception of our surroundings.
I think it is good advice, to gently tell people, of the risks of extreme alcohol use. You can get black out drunk at a club at 2AM, in the mean side of town, but you take on increased risk to yourself when you do so.
I strongly disagree with you that there is not an increased risk in doing so. Strongly. I have not seen the statistics, but it's an easy bet for me, that black out drunk people are in danger of more bodily harm than those who are not.
It's like a common sense thought to me. It doesn't mean that the danger is always their fault (of course not, in this case, if the allegations are true), but being relatively a little more sober will increase your chances of being able to protect yourself from such harm.
