Yes, most of those things would be absurd. But as I've explained, there's little reason to think Ted would believe them. And one thing that is NOT absurd is to say that being equally drunk should rule out rape, if the only reason to make rape accusations in the first place was the drunkenness of one party (claiming this would mean there was no informed consent). And this is what Ted was talking about.

You say it's "absurd to believe that a situation could arise where people are sufficiently drunk that they can't give informed consent but are still able to initiate sex". So apparently you believe it's informed consent pretty much all the way until totally passing out. But the mail is talking about a study classifying sex as "rape" due to drunkenness. Did the study use this same high "practically passed out" standard for its classification? If it did not, or if was not clear to the participants in the discussion that it did, then talking about this problem case in the classification is not absurd at all.