Cathy Young on the Vague, Problematic Rules of ‘Affirmative Consent’

Efforts to legislate “affirmative
consent” as the standard for college disciplinary proceedings on
sexual assault continue to advance. The California bill
requiring colleges and universities to adopt such a standard to
qualify for state student aid, S.B. 967, was overwhelmingly
approved by the State Assembly’s Committee on Higher Education on
June 24. Now, similar measures may be coming on a federal level.
What is affirmative consent, exactly? Cathy Young says that the
arguments of its proponents boil down to this: rules so murky that
even its advocates aren’t sure exactly what it means or how it will
work, and which allows virtually any sexual encounter to be
reclassified as a violation after the fact, is not a problem
because people can be trusted not to abuse it. What could possibly
go wrong?

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