http://www.uiowa.edu/~our/opmanual/iv/02.htm
That’s from the University of Iowa and it’s representative of a new concept of affirmative consent. The gist is that without a clear and unambiguous “yes”, no consent is given and any sexual activity is considered rape/sexual assault. I have a few problems with it:
(1) It’s a stupid definition. I’d say that 97% of the times I have had sex, there was no oral consent or unambiguous action (what ever that would be). According to this definition, I’ve been raped and have committed rape an alarming number of times. Do we seriously expect people to get affirmative oral consent each and every time they have sex with their long term SOs?
(2) It solves a problem that, imho, doesn’t exist. I don’t believe that there are a bunch of guys out there accidentally raping their dates. They know what they are doing and a policy like this isn’t going to stop them.
(3) I know that some false rape accusations happen. I don’t know how big of a problem it is, but if this policy is enforced as it is written, then the bar to be declared guilty becomes tiny. Like I said, in (1), the vast majority of the time I’ve had sex it was without clear and unambiguous oral consent. Hypothetically, if an ex wants revenge on me, accuses of me of rape, I don’t see how to defend myself against this policy without lying.
(4) Realistically, this is directed at men having sex with women. Within that context, it perpetuates a couple of unequal social mores regarding the sexes. One, it assumes, or at least anticipates, that women are too weak and timid to say no to something they don’t want. Two, it reinforces the idea that men are always to want sex and women aren’t. Men need to make sure she really wants it before having sex, because who’s ever heard of a woman that wants to have sex?
I realize that the language of the policy applies to both partners, but take a look at Iowa’s “Consent is sexy” page and tell me who that’s targeted at. http://dos.uiowa.edu/policy-list/affirmative-consent-2/
I understand why there is a push for things like this. But I think that ultimately the efforts are misguided. The idea is that with education rapist will stop raping women. Unfortunately, rapist rape people because they are bad people, not because they lack an understanding of what they are doing.