CNN via CNN Newsource

By Lauren Mascarenhas

New York (CNN) - Resurfaced allegations of a gang rape at a Cornell University fraternity house have renewed outrage over what experts call a legal  loophole  in New York's - and other states' - sexual assault laws that can make it nearly impossible for survivors to seek justice if they voluntarily consumed alcohol or drugs before an assault.

At issue is the fact that the woman, identified only as Jane Doe, says she drank alcohol and accepted drugs the night she alleges she was sexually assaulted for hours and advertised as  free p*ssy  by someone in a Chi Phi fraternity member group chat.

The Tompkins County district attorney this week offered many words to describe Doe's account of how the men assaulted her: disgusting, repugnant, offensive, morally reprehensible.

But he did not call it a crime.

 The young men who engaged in that conduct were morally wrong. It was disgusting, and so she reported that to the police, and the police investigated it. That does not mean - if it's morally wrong or disgusting or offensive, all those things - it does not mean that the penal law was violated,  prosecutor Matthew Van Houten said on CNN's  The Situation Room. 

His response has left many asking the same question: How could that be?

The answer, sexual assault survivors and their advocates say, is what's come to be known as the voluntary intoxication  loophole  or  exclusion,  a gap in the law that exists in about 19 states in the US. It's one reason countless assaults have gone unprosecuted, experts say, and adds to the overwhelming number of barriers survivors face in seeking justice.

What does the law say?

Under New York law, a person is guilty of rape if they engage in sexual contact with another person who is  incapable of consent by reason of being mentally disabled or mentally incapacitated. 

Here's the  loophole:  A person is only considered  mentally incapacitated  under state law if they were temporarily unable to understand or control their actions due to the influence of a narcotic or intoxicating substance administered to them withou

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