A Kiss Is Just A Kiss (Update)

When the foundation upon which a call to action is built starts with this, it’s a problem:

Sexual assault is rampant on campuses, and colleges have failed to respond adequately. “Yes means yes” won’t make these problems disappear. But the new standard is worth trying.

The link in the quote from the New York Times editorial relates back to its story about the report of the White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault.  That was the report that noted that it needs to be studied, as there is a huge hole in the empirical evidence, but in the absence of facts, they were just going to assume it to be true.  Repeat a baseless claim enough and it’s bound to show up in a New York Times editorial. Then again, most people believe anything that’s in the paper. It has to be true, right?

So sexual assault is rampant because, well, reasons. The gist of the editorial is that California’s Senate Bill 967 is a “new standard worth trying.”

The original draft specified that consent should be given “by words or clear, unambiguous actions” and noted that “nonverbal” signs could create misunderstanding. Since — obviously — many consensual sexual encounters are nonverbal, the bill could have dangerously expanded the definition of assault. The offending language was removed, however, and the bill now defines consent more simply as “affirmative, conscious, and voluntary agreement to engage in sexual activity.” It need not be spoken.

In its current form, SB-967 is not radical. Its underlying message is that silence does not necessarily equal consent, and that it’s better to be certain that sex is desired than to commit assault.

It need not be spoken. It just can’t be silence.  Does that clarify things for you?  There isn’t any question that it’s better to be certain that sex is desired, and any young man (because that’s who this is directed to, pretense aside) should be certain. But even if he is certain, he still has to be able to prove it. That’s because sexual assault and rape have been redefined.

Proper training will be crucial as officials get used to the new standard, which requires the accused to account for his actions and explain why he thought he’d received consent.

Catch that? The burden will be on the accused to prove he didn’t commit sexual assault.  But what is sexual assault?  While California has become the focus of attention due to this law, the shift is quietly occurring all over the country.

But in the week the legislation sailed through the California Legislature, the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill adopted the same policy without much of a whisper at the national level. It’s in place at Gettysburg College, St. Louis University and the University of Iowa. And Antioch College has had it for 20 years.

The overlords of academia explain why this is critical:

Lisa Maatz, vice president of government relations at the American Association of University Women, said affirmative consent is preventive but can also improve campus disciplinary proceedings, by making it “even more clear what behavior is acceptable and what behavior is not.”

“Affirmative consent policies can also ensure that those involved in disciplinary proceedings no longer ask survivors stereotypical and problematic questions like: ‘Did you fight back?’ or ‘Have you had a relationship with the accused?’ or ‘What were you wearing?'” Maatz said.

One of the vital components of the new process is to protect “survivors”  No, they didn’t also have cancer, but “victims” doesn’t conjure up a sufficiently strong mental image to appreciate how much they’ve suffered, providing you presume guilt and shift the burden onto the accused while eliminating questions that might traumatize the “survivors.”

But what did they survive?  The new UNC policy is instructive.  The 28-page tome provides definitions:

a) Sexual Contact

Intentional touching or penetration of another person’s clothed or unclothed body, including but not limited to the mouth, neck, buttocks, anus, genitalia, or breast, by an other with any part of the body or any object in a sexual manner.

Touching a clothed body? The mouth? The neck?  Remember that awkward moment of a first date? Will she kiss me? Will he try? Will I cry rape if I decide the next day, because my friends don’t think he’s cool or my professor tells me he “fits the profile of a rapist” with his high GPA and good family.

Whether this is happening by legislative fiat or college by college, it’s happening.  With two consequences that may not be immediately apparent.  The first is that there is a minefield for rather ordinary young men that has the capacity to blow up without notice or anything remotely resembling reason, unless one views sexual politics through a radical feminist prism.

The second is that a generation of young people are being indoctrinated to believe that males are all rapists and that a heinous crime is defined not by offending conduct, but by how a woman feels about it afterward.  If you think Sex Offender Registry laws are a disaster now, consider what the future will bring when these young people are in charge of crafting law.

And a new taxi venture in New York called SheRides will only transport women, because women don’t feel safe using regular taxis with male drivers. The trend is clear, and if you ignore it now, you will spend the next 30 years trying desperately to undo the damage. And in all likelihood, it will be too late.

Update:  Hans Bader gets deep into the consent aspect of the UNC rules, including reference to that bastion of MRA, Saturday Night Live.

H/T Hans Bader

21 thoughts on “A Kiss Is Just A Kiss (Update)

  1. John Burgess

    There’s an easy solution to at least one aspect of the problem: Criminalize sex if the consumption of alcoholic beverages is at all involved. Both parties get three years for “Sex with alcohol in the system.”

    I’m not concerned about unintended consequences of this, because (Choose)

    a. Children
    b. Women
    c. Sex
    d. Rights to be free of unhappiness throughout life
    e. Some/any combination of the above

  2. Mark Draughn

    Is there a statute of limitation to this stuff? Enhancements for a child victim? You see, when I was a little kid, grown women I didn’t even know would grab me and kiss me on the cheek. I distinctly remember that I did not like it at all! I don’t necessarily want them charged, but do you think I have a cause of action? I could use a little extra cash right now is what I’m saying.

  3. Eric S. Smith

    “It need not be spoken. It just can’t be silence. Does that clarify things for you?” It has to be communicated clearly, but not necessarily verbally.

    I have to say that I don’t see much wrong with making it a thing that you always get verbal consent before doing something involving another person. But I don’t see how someone who doesn’t respect such a principle is really held back much. If the model “requires the accused to account for his actions and explain why he thought he’d received consent,” a guilty accused can just make something up, same as before: there totally was consent, it was just communicated while all of the witnesses were looking the other way.

    “Will I cry rape if I decide the next day, because my friends don’t think he’s cool or my professor tells me he ‘fits the profile of a rapist’ with his high GPA and good family.” Does this word salad mean that you think accusing someone of rape is a great way to make friends and simplify your life? Actual incidents go unreported because the opposite is clearly true.

    1. SHG Post author

      No one says you can’t do it if that’s how you want your human interaction to be, but the vast majority of the world has never functioned that way, stopping every three seconds to ask permission for the next kiss or grope. But hey, you can do whatever makes you feel better. The problem here is that just because you don’t see much wrong with it doesn’t mean the rest of the world either agrees or will behave contrary to the way it’s been done for millennia.

      As for the crying rape after the fact, it’s happened and is happening with increasing frequency, as opposed to “actual incidents go unreported because the opposite is clearly true,” an empirical myth which you’ve obviously accepted as “clearly true” despite there being absolutely no empirical evidence to support it. So, if you’re asserting baseless myths as “clearly true,” your lack of credibility on the subject is manifest.

      Hope you find success with that asking permission thing. Maybe some young woman will find that sexy and endearing, but I doubt it.

        1. SHG Post author

          This is the sort of brainwashing that I fear has permeated the thinking. They’re being fed baseless “truisms” which the believe implicitly, while simultaneously told that this is normal and proper human behavior, despite the entirety of human history saying otherwise. And this is the product of the manipulation. Sad.

        2. Fubar

          An L-2 looking to focus on contract law might.

          She cried breathlessly “Take me, you fool!”
          His performance, she said, “was not cool.”
          Her rescission then failed,
          And he never was jailed.
          Promissory estoppel’s the rule.

    1. SHG Post author

      I left in your link as it goes to a worthwhile story, though link are prohibited in comments here. I believe this is what you are referring to:

      When asked how an innocent person is to prove he or she indeed received consent, Lowenthal said, “Your guess is as good as mine. I think it’s a legal issue. Like any legal issue, that goes to court.”

      This is a law blog. The problems may be more remarkable to non-lawyers, but the difficulty with proving consent is fairly obvious to criminal defense lawyers.

      1. david

        Consent is not consent until it is written down (preferably typed in Arial 11point with 1.15 spacing), signed by both parties, witnessed (preferably by a senior judge of an appeals court), and subject to a 30 day cooling off period.

        The good news is the will do wonders to reduce the numbers of children born out of wedlock; the bad news is it will give PETA yet another cause celebre when the inevitable drift to human-bovine interaction occurs.

        Moo, I say. MOOO.

          1. Lurker

            From the point of legal history, ovines, i.e. sheep, seem to have been a preferred method. Intercourse with animals was a truly widespread felony in 17th century Northern Europe. Very typically, the felon would come to the session of a district court and confess the deed in open court, out of his own volition, claiming to have had intercourse with an animal, usually a sheep, as a teenager.

            This was a form of judicial suicide. Confessing a deed done 10-20 years ago was not particularly shameful but the crime carried a mandatory death penalty, which was also never commuted by higher courts, unlike in other felonies where clemency was a rule. More than 2000 men took this way out between 1600 and 1800 in Swedish realm. In comparison, only some 500 witches were executed during the same time. (On the other hand, only a single trial for ordinary homosexual sex took place during the same time period, and even that was tried as an assault.)

            1. SHG Post author

              The only thing more interesting than this comments about ovine sex executions is that you had sufficient interest in the subject to write this.

  4. Patrick Maupin

    Whatever happened to truth in advertising? The text of the law says that consent can be revoked at any time (which is OK, I suppose, until that is taken to mean retroactively), but, of course, that puts lie to the phrase “yes means yes.”

    I suppose “yes means yes until I change my mind and tell you no (but of course you already knew that no means no, right?)” isn’t as catchy, but still, Orwell would be proud.

    1. SHG Post author

      While consent can be revoked at any time, that doesn’t impact that requirement that explicit consent must still be obtained for each “sexual” act, even as part of an ongoing course of conduct. One kiss with consent does not get you a second. One kiss on the lips does not mean a second, more intrusive, kiss is acceptable. Right breast does not give rise to consent for the left. Etc.

      Nor does mere allowance/tolerance suffice for consent. After all, women may claim to be too afraid to say “no” or stop a man, and so what appears to all to be consensual is subject to her secret fears and feelings. Of course, she can similarly say yes for the same reason, but that’s where we run out of excuses and solutions.

      1. Patrick Maupin

        > One kiss with consent does not get you a second.

        But does the 20th stroke get you the 21st, if you don’t have her screaming “yes, yeS, YES!!!” by that point?

        Was the law created by feminists, or by guys with easily bruised egos?

        “Honey, you have to keep telling me yes the entire time, or the law says I gotta stop.”

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