The problem of sexual violence and abuse on college campuses is a huge one. But California’s new “affirmative consent law,” which requires college students having sex to obtain “affirmative, conscious, and voluntary agreement … throughout a sexual activity,” is certain to be hugely problematic. It sets up a standard of guilt for sex crimes for 3 million college students that is vastly broader than the one for other Californians.

Thoughtful liberals starting with New York magazine’s Jonathan Chait are among those who wonder how this could possibly work out well. He also thinks it could haunt the CA Democrats who passed the law. This is from Chait’s latest column, headlined “California’s Radical College-Sex-Law Experiment”:

The law’s defenders have made some interesting counterarguments. But these, in turn, merely underscore the vast distance between the law’s aspiration and its realistic prospects. “Confirming consent leads to much hotter sex,” writes my colleague Ann Friedman, who suggests various ways that continuous affirmation could be given without killing the mood, “We’re still deprogramming the idea that nice girls don’t admit they like sex, let alone talk about how they like it.” …

It surely is possible to imagine that sex that comports with these new guidelines is sexy, or even more sexy than the kind most people have now. Yet one might find these ideas about reimagining sex attractive, as I do, while still having deep reservations about codifying them into law.

Hollywood sex scenes fit definition of CA college rape

Chait finds a smart way to frame how sweeping this law is.

The fact that we need to change cultural attitudes about sex itself underscores the fact that cultural attitudes about sex lie well outside the contours established by the state of California. What percentage of the last decade worth of Hollywood sex scenes, if acted out between college students in California, would technically constitute rape? A majority? Ninety percent?

Deprogramming and reorienting societal ideas about sex is an evolutionary process. California isn’t merely attempting to set out to nudge the culture in this direction. It is reclassifying all sex that falls outside those still-novel ideas as rape. A law premised on this sort of sweeping, wholesale change is likely to fail.

And what might that mean politically?

[P]eople have certain intuitive beliefs about justice. If most college students today do not think that sex without continuous, affirmative consent is actually rape, and there is a law in place rendering it as such, soon enough, somebody is going to be prosecuted under these terms. And that person will become a victim of a standard of justice that offends the moral sensibilities of a large number of Americans, which is directly attributable to the actions of California’s elected Democratic officials. What will the law’s defenders do then?

‘Your guess is as good as mine’

This day is coming. It’s inevitable, given that authorities are being told to enforce a vague, amazingly broad law.

This passage from Cathy Young’s recent essay in TIME is chilling:

In addition to creating a vaguely and subjectively defined offense of nonconsensual sex, the bill also explicitly places the burden of proof on the accused, who must demonstrate that he (or she) took “reasonable steps … to ascertain whether the complainant affirmatively consented.” When the San Gabriel Valley Tribune asked [bill sponsor Bonnie] Lowenthal how an innocent person could prove consent under such a standard, her reply was, “Your guess is as good as mine.”

Your guess is as as good as mine. Wow.

Chait is right. This is an experiment. I wonder how many people will have their lives destroyed before it is called off.

“LONG BEACH — A bill on its way to the state Assembly mandates that California’s public universities adopt a policy requiring college students to obtain ongoing consent throughout a sexual encounter.

“Senate Bill 967, introduced by state Sens. Kevin de Leon, D-Los Angeles, and Hannah-Beth Jackson, D-Santa Barbara, requires Cal State University, the University of California and community college districts to adopt campus anti-sexual violence policies that include an affirmative consent standard.

“The bill, which was co-authored by Assemblywoman Bonnie Lowenthal, D-Long Beach, passed the state Senate 27-9 on May 29 and was moved to the Assembly.”

Sex rules for 22 million students at U.S. colleges

Now I completely get that colleges need to treat rape with every bit as much seriousness as any well-regarded law-enforcement agency, and that some colleges have done from a bad job to an appalling  job dealing with rape.

I also get that alcohol is a big factor in this problem.

But between SB 967 and new federal rules ordered by the Obama administration, we haven’t just tiptoed up to the line in which government regulates sex for 22 million college students and possibly everyone in the same way it regulates restaurant cleanliness or handicapped parking — we’re already there and getting ready to vault far past the line.

We are on our way to colleges that don’t just have affirmative consent rules. We’ll see the rise of the assumption that anyone who has had even a single drink is incapable of legal consent. I’m 100 percent sure we’ll see this become the campus norm at a ton of colleges when it comes to students under the legal age to purchase alcohol, which is 21 in all 50 states.

Feds demand campus ‘conduct boards’ serve as rape juries

Here’s an NRO explainer of the federal regs I referred to:

“Through a series of heavy-handed executive actions, the Obama administration has effectively required universities to serve as investigators and jurors for felony offenses. By doing so, they have placed universities in an impossible position, created costly bureaucracy, trampled students’ due-process rights, and empowered a cadre of hypersensitive, trigger-happy gender warriors on campuses. 

“Campus conduct boards are best suited for handling academic infractions such as cheating or plagiarism. But in 2011, the DOE’s assistant secretary for civil rights, Russlyn Ali, issued a directive warning colleges that failure to aggressively pursue sexual-assault offenders would be considered a Title IX violation punishable by loss of federal funds. As a result … there are conduct boards composed of English professors, librarians, and math majors across the country determining guilt for what is generally considered the second most serious crime known to man.

 “To comply with the new rules of Title IX, universities have been frantically revising their policies. To be sure, many have added valuable resources and programs for victims of sexual assault. But for the most part, universities have responded to new federal guidelines exactly as you would expect — by hiring more bureaucrats to focus exclusively on Title IX compliance. … It’s hard to imagine how hiring more college administrators will help solve the problem of campus rape.   

“Despite the many resources expended in efforts to comply with Title IX, campus courts have unsurprisingly done a bad job adjudicating rape … . The result has been a surge of lawsuits from students who allege that their universities mishandled their sexual-assault cases … .”

‘The second most serious crime known to man’

This is such a stunning comment on authoritarian liberalism:

“… there are conduct boards composed of English professors, librarians, and math majors across the country determining guilt for what is generally considered the second most serious crime known to man.”

If it weren’t certain to ruin the lives of many students, I would actually be happy about this grotesque government overkill. If anything will ruin the reputation of a political movement among young people, it is the advocates of that movement telling them that sex after the consumption of a single beer or shooter is either illegal or in a legally dangerous gray area.

By Katy Grimes

Alert the media! The Assembly Women’s Caucus is offended.

Seth MacFarlane, the creator of Family Guy, and a successful entertainer, actor, and writer, hosted Sunday’s Oscar awards show, with his usual snarky, brazen, naughty gutter humor. And in helping the Awards show achieve a much-needed ratings increase, McFarland managed to offend the feminists of the California Legislative Women’s Caucus. The women’s caucus sent a formal complaint Wednesday to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, complaining that McFarland “struck a new low in its treatment of women.”

Boo hoo. As if Hollywood doesn’t already reach record lows in taste and humor. Look at these dresses!

“In a world where women have historically faced challenges and obstacles when it comes to their portrayal in popular culture, Sunday evening was a setback for women fighting hard to gain appropriate respect as contributors in this industry and society and general,” read the letter from women’s caucus Chairwoman Assemblywoman Bonnie Lowenthal, D-Long beach, and Vice Chairwoman Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson, D-Santa Barbara.

I’ll bet they hate that I called them “Chairwomen.”

I tend to take the approach to television that if you don’t like something, change the channel or turn it off. But that doesn’t work for the perpetually offended in society. What would they talk about if they couldn’t be offended?

“On Oscar night, when Hollywood seeks to honor its best, Seth MacFarlane’s monologue reduced our finest female actresses to caricatures and stereotypes, degrading women as a whole and the filmmaking industry itself,” the letter said. “To degrade women is totally unacceptable in today’s world.”

It’s not as if lawmakers have more pressing things to be very concerned about. Tuesday at a legislative hearing on the $68 billion-and-growing High-Speed Rail system, Lowenthal cut the microphone of two members of the public, when they dared to question the unholy alliance between labor unions and the High-Speed Rail Authority over the Project Labor Agreements.

We still don’t have any answers about the inflated PLA contracts, and the Legislature isn’t requiring the Rail Authority to answer.

Be very concerned when lawmakers attack free speech, even if you find it offensive. McFarland may be offensive to some, but others find him very funny, as evidenced by his phenomenal success. I´d rather be offended by a comedian than have Assemblywomen Lowenthal and Jackson claim they speak for me because I’m a women.

Lowenthal clearly doesn’t respect free speech — on the television or in her hearing room. Be very concerned when lawmakers attack free speech, even if you find it offensive.