California Passes First-Ever Bill to Define Sexual Consent on College Campuses

[aGameOfThrones]

California Passes First-Ever Bill to Define Sexual Consent on College Campuses
Eliza Gray @elizalgray 7:36 PM ET


A new definition of sexual consent


The California Senate passed a first-in-the-nation bill Thursday to define what amounts to consensual sexual activity in colleges in the state, a milestone at a time when colleges across the country are under close scrutiny for how they handle campus sexual assault.

The bill will head next to Gov. Jerry Brown’s desk. If enacted, it would make colleges adopt a student conduct policy requiring “affirmative, conscious, and voluntary agreement to engage in sexual activity,” as a condition for state funding. The bill defines consent to sex as the presence of a “yes” rather than the absence of a “no,” a cultural shift that victim’s groups have long advocated. In practice, colleges would be required to use the bill’s definition when they teach students about sexual assault during orientations, and when investigating claims of sexual assault. It would apply any public or private colleges that receive state financial aid funding.



California’s bill comes after more than a year of pressure from the federal government, Congress, and student activists for higher education institutions to do more to prevent the widespread sexual assault occurring on the nation’s campuses. Colleges and universities have been changing their policies for months in response to federal pressure. And after recent changes in the Violence Against Women Act that require colleges to explicitly report their prevention efforts, many colleges will be unveiling new policies and programs this fall where they never existed before.

The so-called “affirmative consent” standard that California’s legislature has introduced in the latest bill is not a new concept. Similar affirmative consent policies already exist at some 800 post-secondary institutions across the country, including the 10 campuses that make up the University of California system. Educators from the University of California collaborated on the bill with its author, State Sen. Kevin de Leon, a Democrat, and the system’s president, Janet Napolitano, has endorsed it. This would be the first time that a state has tried to put such a policy, usually confined to student conduct handbooks, into law.

There is some disagreement in higher education about whether the affirmative consent standard is the best practice. Though many colleges have adopted it, Harvard recently rewrote its sexual assault policy without adopting an affirmative consent standard, to the dismay of women’s advocates. Harvard’s Title IX Officer, Mia Karvonides, said the school rejected such a policy because there is no “standard definition of affirmative consent,” according to the student newspaper The Crimson. Critics of affirmative consent policies often point to an unrealistic set of standards set in 1991 by Antioch University in Ohio, which required verbal consent (excluding “moans”) for “each new level” of sexual activity—a standard that doesn’t reflect the real interactions between human beings during sex.

The California bill stops short of Antioch’s standard.The bill’s language clarifies the definition of consent by stating what it is not. “Lack of protest or resistance does not mean consent, nor does silence mean consent,” it reads. “Affirmative consent must be ongoing throughout a sexual activity and can be revoked at any time. The existence of a dating relationship between the persons involved, or the fact of past sexual relations between them, should never by itself be assumed to be an indicator of consent.”

The bill’s language does not require verbal consent, said Claire Conlon, a spokeswoman for de Leon, adding that it would allow for “verbal and non-verbal” consent. Conlon said the intent of the bill was to change the way school administrators approach their definition of sexual assault. Instead of asking: “Did she say no?” We are having them ask, did she consent?,” Conlon said. The bill does not require specific punishments for students found in violation of the policy.

Brett Sokolow, a higher education risk management consultant who supports affirmative consent policies and the bill in California, uses a traffic metaphor to describe the kind of behavior these policies are designed to prevent. “You go forward on a green light. You stop on a red light. But most people tend to run the yellows. They tend to increase their speed rather than slowing down to look both ways. Affirmative consent is telling you to slow down at the yellow light. You’ve been able to fondle, pet, kiss, if you assume those lead you to the next behavior without permission, then you are running a yellow light. You are putting your needs to get through the intersection above the needs for others’ safety.” Sokolow said the affirmative consent policy is preventative—it won’t stop predators, but it will coax some male students towards a healthier norm.


http://time.com/3211938/campus-sexual-assault-consent-california/

[Origanalist]

AP News | Aug 28, 2014


SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — State lawmakers on Thursday passed a bill that would make California the first state to define when "yes means yes" while investigating sexual assaults on college campuses.

The Senate unanimously passed SB967 as states and universities across the U.S. are under pressure to change how they handle rape allegations. The bill now goes to Gov. Jerry Brown, who has not indicated his stance on the bill.

Sen. Kevin de Leon, D-Los Angeles, said his bill would begin a paradigm shift in how California campuses prevent and investigate sexual assault. Rather than using the refrain "no means no," the definition of consent under the bill requires "an affirmative, conscious and voluntary agreement to engage in sexual activity." Earlier versions of the bill had similar language.

"With this measure, we will lead the nation in bringing standards and protocols across the board so we can create an environment that's healthy, that's conducive for all students, not just for women, but for young men as well too, so young men can develop healthy patterns and boundaries as they age with the opposite sex," de Leon said before the vote.

continued...http://townhall.com/news/politics-elections/2014/08/28/california-legislature-passes-yes-means-yes-bill-n1884682

[DevilsAdvocate]

AP News | Aug 28, 2014


SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — State lawmakers on Thursday passed a bill that would make California the first state to define when "yes means yes" while investigating sexual assaults on college campuses.

The Senate unanimously passed SB967 as states and universities across the U.S. are under pressure to change how they handle rape allegations. The bill now goes to Gov. Jerry Brown, who has not indicated his stance on the bill.

Sen. Kevin de Leon, D-Los Angeles, said his bill would begin a paradigm shift in how California campuses prevent and investigate sexual assault. Rather than using the refrain "no means no," the definition of consent under the bill requires "an affirmative, conscious and voluntary agreement to engage in sexual activity." Earlier versions of the bill had similar language.

"With this measure, we will lead the nation in bringing standards and protocols across the board so we can create an environment that's healthy, that's conducive for all students, not just for women, but for young men as well too, so young men can develop healthy patterns and boundaries as they age with the opposite sex," de Leon said before the vote.

continued...http://townhall.com/news/politics-elections/2014/08/28/california-legislature-passes-yes-means-yes-bill-n1884682

So it's basically a "he-said she-said" scenario. Was there consent given? Nobody knows!!! She says no, he says yes. Court inevitably sides with the woman. All this does is give women massive power over men in these relationships. Now the woman can claim there was no consent even if there was, and get the guy thrown in prison, or kicked out of school.

So now when a girl gets drunk with the intention of getting taken home by some guy at a party she's going to, she absolves herself of any responsibility. "I was drunk I didn't consent". Despite the fact that she intentionally got drunk hoping that she'd get taken advantage of.

[osan]

More raw genius from the nitwits infesting California.

Well done, ye imbeciles! Well done.

[CaptUSA]

Clearly, the only way to determine for certain whether or not consent was granted is to make college kids record the encounters on their cell phones. Then the pervs in the just-us system can get their rocks off while deciding whether or not they want to destroy someone's life.

[presence]

I truly fail to see when exactly you give an affirmative yes before engaging in sex or foreplay.

[Origanalist]

I truly fail to see when exactly you give an affirmative yes before engaging in sex or foreplay.

A written contract with lawyers on both sides present should do the trick.

(Or not, let's just cut to the chase here. All sex is rape, m'kay?

[Brian4Liberty]

I truly fail to see when exactly you give an affirmative yes before engaging in sex or foreplay.

Can men claim rape if they never said yes?


A written contract with lawyers on both sides present should do the trick.

(Or not, let's just cut to the chase here. All sex is rape, m'kay?

And a notary public for each instance.

[trey4sports]

nothing gets her in the mood like reciting a verbal contract at each new level of sexual intercourse.

"do you consent to heavy foreplay?"

"do you grant me permission to stick it in?"

[presence]

[QUOTE=trey4sports;5632384"do you grant me permission to stick it in?"[/QUOTE]

Perhaps a whole new genre of femdom "mistress may I?"

lol

[nobody's_hero]

Guy: "Hey, wanna have sex?"

Girl: "Sure do."

Guy: "GREAT! I'll have my lawyer write up the contract."

[PaulConventionWV]

I guess one way to protect yourself would be to have a secret microphone whenever and wherever you plan to have sex. That way, you can ask for an affirmative yes for legal purposes and she will give it if she really does want to. Other than that, it's actually becoming a risky endeavor for a man to seek sex at all.

[tod evans]

There's a money making opportunity here somewhere....

College town bars that require consent disclosures maybe?

[presence]

Other than that, it's actually becoming a risky endeavor for a man to seek sex at all.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-51f6Jw_P2mY/UG_Iv7c1bsI/AAAAAAAAAFQ/KbCJxbF2uUc/s1600/georgia-guidestones-top-commandments.jpg

[PRB]

Can men claim rape if they never said yes?



And a notary public for each instance.

men can't even claim rape if it was actually forced...has it ever happened?

[PierzStyx]

I guess government can define rape after all.

Why is this even a thing? If you need the government to tell you if you've raped someone or not, or how to give consent to sex or not, then you're a friggin mental and emotional incompetent!

[RonPaulIsGreat]

Need to make an android consentual sex app.

You need NFC enabled phones. You put the phones next to each other, then you hold the phones at head level with each persons phone with their heads in frame, they both read, from the screen a legally binding sex agreement. Both must record at the same time, and it will only work with the devices in contact. You then hit submit on both phones. It is uploaded to an approval server, where the videos and consent will be permanently logged and videos stored. A representative will then send a request for the viewers to scan the room with their phones, and show that no one is being coerced by off screen actors.

Optionally, either party may request that the whole act be recorded and uploaded in real time, so as to prove if consent was withdrawn mid pump or something.

[PRB]

I guess government can define rape after all.

Why is this even a thing? If you need the government to tell you if you've raped someone or not, or how to give consent to sex or not, then you're a friggin mental and emotional incompetent!

Government defines all crimes, doesn't it?

[dannno]

nothing gets her in the mood like reciting a verbal contract at each new level of sexual intercourse.

"do you consent to heavy foreplay?"

"do you grant me permission to stick it in?"

This, after you have been dating for MONTHS... EVERY TIME!!

Crazy shit.

[Christian Liberty]

I guess the best advice is not to even go out with the type of person that would screw you over. Maybe even just date libertarians;)

[BSWPaulsen]

Pull out your phone, press record, say "Nice shoes, wanna fuck?"

If she says no, you'll probably end up with something that'll go viral. If not, you get laid. Win-win.

[Philhelm]

A written contract with lawyers on both sides present should do the trick.

(Or not, let's just cut to the chase here. All sex is rape, m'kay?

I signed an agreement once when I went to an orgy. Not sure how legally binding it was...

[Philhelm]

Pull out your phone, press record, say "Nice shoes, wanna fuck?"

If she says no, you'll probably end up with something that'll go viral. If not, you get laid. Win-win.

On our second date, my wife didn't even bother to tell me that I have nice shoes.

[alucard13mm]

Audio agreement might not be good because the girl can say it is not her voice. Minimally, you need video agreement with her face on video.

[Carson]

↑ This sounds obscene to me.

It allows for third parties to horn in on an act of nature meant for two people.

I suppose if your into that sort of thing...

but even if your not...


Not this. ↓


http://photos.imageevent.com/stokeybob/thebegining/doormat.jpg

[limequat]

I thought we wanted government out of the bedroom?

Buy your own contraceptive = Republicans legislating the uterus
Government defining consent = totally cool

[Suzanimal]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jo4568PIRnk

[Brian4Liberty]

A new article on this over at Ben Swann. Guilty until proven innocent.



...
Late last week, the first state bill to require colleges to adopt an “affirmative consent” model in their sexual assault policies passed the California senate unanimously.

This bill seeks to change the perfectly moral and behaviorally natural “no means no” standard of consent to sexual activity into “everything except an explicitly verbalized “yes” (along with the acquisition of positive evidence of the same that can be later presented just in case you are ever accused of anything untoward), means “no”.

Let us be absolutely clear what such a rule does and does not do. It does not require that sex always be consensual. That is already the law and the policy of any sane institution. Rather, this bill seeks to make most heretofore consensual sexual activity between adults punishable by requiring a specific form of consent – explicit agreement to a specific request.
...
Consider an ongoing sexual relationship. Does explicit consent have to be given for the 200th sexual encounter between the couple? And if so, how should it be recorded? That there is clear implied ongoing consent of a kind that stands behind most sexual encounters among human beings is not a prescriptive statement or a normative one: it’s just a recognition of reality. California is thus making normal sexual encounters – of which the sexual act is the culmination – punishable.

Of course, relationships can end and the contextual element of consent can thereby be changed. But consider a relationship that ends acrimoniously. By California’s new bill, since the man cannot provide proof of explicit consent for that last sexual encounter, he has, a priori committed an offense if the woman seeks to declare that an offense was committed. He is, in other words, guilty until he can prove himself innocent. “Slippery slope” does not even come close.
...
Defenders of such a rule might argue only that nothing is mandated because no one is forced to have sex. That would, of course, be to miss the point entirely, but let’s address it for completeness: if someone is willing to have consensual sex with me, then we have a natural right as human beings to engage in that activity, regardless of how we have expressed our willingness to do so. No public institution can impinge on that – or any other – natural right.

Let us generalize away from sex to focus on the principles at stake here.

If you were to say to me that I may not perform any other activity unless I communicate something to someone in a certain way, then you would not be protecting anyone from the outcome of that activity: you would be merely removing my freedom to engage in it with the positive purpose of controlling my communication. You would be preventing me from exercising a natural right, from being a normal human being, going about my business without harming others. This is exactly what happens in prison: which operates by firstly removing a natural freedom (to move freely, for example), and then requiring the incarcerated person to earn that right back in limited fashion as a privilege by performing positive, specified activities. I truly don’t wish to be over-dramatic or reactionary, and obviously the degree of infringement of freedom caused by California’s bill is not quantitatively comparable to that caused by imprisonment, but the principle must be starkly seen.

And what do we get for this basic violation of natural rights? Will California’s bill prevent campus rape? Under the bill, any dispute will still come down to she-said, he-said. Whereas a real rapist would in the past have tried to lie his way out by claiming “she consented to sex”, he will now lie his way out by saying, “she affirmatively consented to sex”.

So in the best case, California’s rule does nothing; in the worst, it punishes decent, sexually active adults and compromises natural rights.

Either way, it is dangerous. The passing of such a law gives lazy politicians and institutional officers the sense that a very real and serious problem has been taken care of when it has not at all. By defining consent so narrowly, non-consent is defined so broadly that its true instances cannot be identified. The genuine moral responsibility of educational institutions to identify actual sexual predators – and to engage in the self-examination necessary to identity the cultural causes of the presumed heightened prevalence of rape at the institution – is entirely abdicated.

Of secondary import is the negative contribution of such a bill to an even broader, if less dangerous, problem: men’s generational inability to understand women, with all those mysterious-to-men female modes of communication, all the ways they communicate their desires, all the ways they like to be made to feel like women, and the way in which everything on that list is mediated by context.

To summarize in British vernacular, “don’t bother with any of that, mate. Just get her to sign here”. That’s where we are going. A law that forces free people, harming no one, to do things they choose not to do can only be consistently enforced with repeated refinements to specify, in ever-increasing detail, the mandated action whenever a case is brought. Such law-making turns the real meaning of rights on its head. Just as all human beings have the (negative) right to the integrity of their bodies, they have the same (negative) right not to be forced to do things they do not want to do when they are harming no one.
...
And meanwhile, the Californian government will be not only in your bedroom, but also in the conversation you have on the way there.
...
More:
http://benswann.com/no-sex-please-were-californian/

[PRB]

so it only applies when it's on campus?

[FindLiberty]

LOL, photo in post #25 "Vote with your feet"

[mad cow]

All sexual conduct on California campuses should be videoed from at least three different angles and put on youTube for We The People to view and judge whether or not any sexual exploitation has taken place.

This would eliminate all of that bothersome contract signing and many of us would consider it our civic duty to watch these videos diligently,using both slow motion and freeze frame,to insure that justice prevails.

[DamianTV]

If only this was made retroactive, just think of all the Criminals, er Students that would have to pay fines!

[chudrockz]

I truly fail to see when exactly you give an affirmative yes before engaging in sex or foreplay.

Maybe not before, but perhaps during:

"Yes! Yes, yes, YES!!!"