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Sex and Consent
California passed an excellent piece of legislation:
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-29406138
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-29406138
"California has become the first US state to require students on state-funded campuses to have clear, active consent before all sexual activity... The legislation stipulates that voluntary agreement, rather than lack of resistance, defines consent."I cannot imagine a person who opposes this who is not a terrible example of their species.
The National Coalition For Men condemned the bill as "misandric"Aaaand, we're done here.
Comments
Also it's kinda scary that lack of resistance was all you needed before.
When two people have sex and nobody expressed consent out loud prior to the act, who's the rapist? Both parties?
Didn't some university in California in the 90s enact on-campus rules similar to this? Verbal consent was required for physical contact on up through sex, in stages. How did that work out in the end, I wonder. It certainly didn't become the norm. I wonder why.
On paper, this actually opens a lot of doors. If some people who did not mean well wanted to, they could do a lot of harm. They could go around having consensual sex with people. Then after they fact they could lie about it and use the law to extract money or exact vengeance upon those sexual partners. That's scary if you imagine it actually happening.
But in reality, this is not a concern. Today in the real world there are billions of people living in places where rape is illegal having consensual sex. How many incidents have there been where one partner has lied after the fact? How often does this happen? It happens pretty close to never. You know what happens all the goddamn time? People having non-consensual sex and saying nothing about it at all.
Practicality and reality matter a lot more than principle. If there's a sudden rash of people misusing this law, then it will be changed. Until such a time, if it ever comes to pass (it won't), this should pretty much be the law everywhere on earth.
In spirit I agree with you, but I think there's a very high potential for abuse and even if it's rarely abused I don't think that's OK. I have no better solution, though. It's a sucky problem.
Srsly. That's pretty much a conversation endpoint.
I don't think it makes the situation any better, or only marginally better, and opens up a new avenue for abuse. I understand the problem, and I understand this attempt to solve the problem. I just don't think it's a practical solution. I have no better, alternative solution to offer.
It will be interesting to see the on-the-ground effects of this law over the next couple of years.
Honestly, it is going to have to come down to a culture change. There is just so much out there that makes this stuff extremely hazy to people from media people consume to the "common" wisdom. Rape culture is really all over the place in media and culture. I mean I didn't realize what was wrong with the first revenge of the Nerds movie till recently :-p
Like Cremlian said, an awful lot of this is culture. And the growing pains of the impending change are massive and nasty.
And you're probably right Scott, it's probably really hard to make a "successful" false rape accusation. I just wonder if this doesn't put another arrow in that quiver. And I concede that it would almost certainly be a very rare issue, but being that guy would fucking suck.
I guess utilitarian is probably the best way to look at it. Help the largest population of people in need of help.
Granted it's been 20 years.
It's also naive to say that laws will definitely get fixed if they are shown to be doing active harm to society. Histroy has shown time again that it's very difficult and not likely to actually happen without significant backlash.