<p>This week California lawmakers (and other states already) are deliberating the adoption of a legal standard they call "Affirmative Consent," which if I understand correctly, will require public colleges to clearly establish rules that define what and what is not consensual relations between students.</p>
<p>We all know what legislators and others seek to do...to prevent campus assaults on women and to provide explicit rules. But still, I can't help but think that the proposed standard is another sign in our society that words have no meaning anymore, leaving the rest of us dumbstruck. When did "No" cease to mean "No?" When did assault and battery become decriminalized? It seems to me that it's not necessarily a problem determining whether a crime has occurred, but with regard to college campuses, what are administrators doing to properly investigate alleged crimes, adjudicate and punish if warranted? Should campuses just report all allegations to the police and simply not get involved in an investigation? Isn't that how Vanderbilt handled the recent incidents on their campus? I recall that Vanderbilt was praised for its actions, wasn't it?</p>
<p>There’s a myth that women are supposed to say “no” and that “no” doesn’t mean “no”- it means “maybe” or “convince me”. Furthermore, a lot of times women will say “no” in other ways but the guy has been taught that only “no” means “no”. </p>
<p>Those of us who work in sexual assault prevention have been trying to push for consistent, affirmative consent for at least a few years but the “no means no” message is too entrenched and it’s hard to get universities to change their trainings because it actually takes effort. Most schools don’t have positions that specifically address sexual assaults so it falls to Title IX coordinators or Deans of Student Life and their staff. </p>
<p>We advise students to never, ever go to campus police. You need to go to the real police. That’s not to say that it’ll necessarily get investigated, but you have a MUCH better chance than with campus police. </p>
<p>For campuses, they’re caught between a rock and a hard place. If they do the right thing and report the assaults, they look much more dangerous than schools that don’t report it. Recently, U of M was reported to have the 2nd highest (I believe) sexual assaults of any university. This isn’t true, but since there is such an active sexual assault prevention program here, many more sexual assaults that do happen get reported. </p>
<p>In practice for women, for time immemorial, “no” has not necessarily meant “no,” and assault and battery have not been prosecuted in proportion to their occurrance. On another thread here, I reported how someone brioke into my off-campus apartment in 1971 and raped me. The local police who responded convinced me not to tell my parents because it would upset them too much, and for them not to prosecute for rape because it would put my sexual history out there for everyone to see. They wound up prosecuting the rapist for criminal trespass which is not even a misdemeanor. This has happened much more (throughout history in one form or another) than most people think.</p>
<p>Oldmom, I feel a strong empathy for you and vicarious anger for the police who minimized your suffering. This stuff is not O.K. Too many perpretators go without punishment. If Affirmative Consent is the way to prevention or punishment, then perhaps now is the time to see if it’s the tool that will protect women. I didn’t realize that “No means No” is problematic for prevention/education. We (society) have taken this issue too lightly for too long.</p>
<p>I really agree with the premise, although, I wonder where the burden of proof that consent was in fact given or not given lies. I say this rather tongue in cheek but I can see guys having clips boards hanging in their rooms with permission slips written by attorneys saying something like “I __<strong><em>, being of sober and sound mind give my consent to _</em></strong> to go to first base, second base etc.” and signing it before anything happens with a beginning and ending time to confirm the length of the consent. They could add a condom addendum as well. It would have to be in at least duplicate so each person could have a copy.</p>
<p>There are many instances when women consent to sex but then regret it (for various reasons) and then convince themselves they have been raped. A better standard would be there is no consent until the woman says yes verbally. This would eliminate the risk to men of being falsely accused of rape when they reasonably believed the woman was consenting. </p>
<p>Antioch College once had a rule where students must verbally say “yes” aloud before participating in sexual activity or intercourse. Somehow, I don’t think this is what they are going for</p>
<p>I really like the idea of Affirmative Consent. It should make everyone much more thoughtful about what they are doing. How can that be a bad thing? What is the downside here?</p>
<p>The downside is that it injects the government into the 99.9% of sexual encounters that are consensual while doing very little to address the 0.1% of encounters that are not. I think sexual assault on campus is a huge problem, but I don’t think these kinds of laws are the answer.</p>
<p>I would much rather see the government inject it self prior to sex than after words when that involvement consists of terrorizing a man who is innocent or expecting prosecution by a woman who is a victim of rape that could have been prevented if the man only knew the woman had not consented. </p>
<p>A: “Wanna fool around?”
B: “Why don’t you come over here and find out?”</p>
<p>Couple goes onto have mutually initiated sex.</p>
<p>Two questions:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Has there been affirmative consent?</p></li>
<li><p>Do you really want to outlaw that kind of communication across the board?</p></li>
</ol>
<p>In sum, I totally agree that “No means no” is a much better standard.</p>
<p>No means no is hillarious. In no other situation is consent implied but sex. I mean, he didn’t say I couldn’t take his car this time, and I’ve taken it before. Sheesh. What do you mean I stole the cash. She said I could check inside her purse for a pen, and she didn’t say I couldn’t take the cash. I mean, in what situation is a yes the assumed situation unless notified otherwise? You guys are kind of hilarious.</p>
<p>I’m gonna say this sums up my opinion pretty nicely. </p>
<p>Why should colleges by any different than non-college in this respect? What is the sense in implementing these rules for college only? If they’re important why not across the state in all regards? If they’re not important then why even put it anywhere?</p>
<p>Any assault should go to the police. More laws won’t do anything if no one reports a law broken. </p>
<p>There is a reason we have courts. They serve an important function. We don’t need silly laws, we need reasonable laws and courts to judge. </p>
<p>But in many cases the woman is in shock (or had too much to drink or in a haze, etc.) and does not say “no” but she does not wish to have sex. The man continues because she had not said “no” but she does want sex and then later claims rape. </p>
<p>Not to beat a dead horse, but people often communicate consent in sexual encounters through non-verbal or indirect means. I am very leery of government intervention into consensual sexual encounters. A law that requires certain magic words to be uttered is way overbroad in that it would regulate or intrude into MANY fully consensual encounters. </p>
<p>We might be willing to tolerate such an intrusion into fully consensual encounters if such a law would help to prevent rape. But I don’t think it would do so. In fact, I don’t think a law like this would do ANYTHING to prevent sexual assaults. The problem is NOT that consent is ambiguous sometimes; it is that men are forcing women to have sex in circumstances in which the women CLEARLY do not consent because they have said “No.” How is this law designed to address that problem?</p>