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Lawmakers in California must love 1993’s Sylvester Stallone flick “Demolition Man,” because they’re now looking into ways to pass “yes means yes” sexual consent laws. For those who are a bit younger, the film includes a scene where Stallone’s John Spartan is awkwardly asked by Sandra Bullock’s Lenina Huxley if he would like to have sex. The two then use a virtual reality headset to refrain from touching during the process. Just give California ten years and the virtual reality technology will be ready for prime time…
The Associated Press reported:
SAN DIEGO (AP) — College students have heard a similar refrain for years in campaigns to stop sexual assault: No means no.
Lawmakers are considering what would be the first-in-the-nation measure requiring all colleges that receive public funds to set a standard for when “yes means yes.” …
Legislation passed by California’s state Senate in May and coming before the Assembly this month would require all schools that receive public funds for student financial assistance to set a so-called “affirmative consent standard” that could be used in investigating and adjudicating sexual assault allegations. That would be defined as “an affirmative, unambiguous and conscious decision” by each party to engage in sexual activity.
Silence or lack of resistance does not constitute consent. The legislation says it’s also not consent if the person is drunk, drugged, unconscious or asleep. …
After some interpreted that as asking people to stop after each kiss to get a verbal agreement before going to the next level, the bill was amended to say consent must be “ongoing” and “can be revoked at any time.”
John F. Banzhaf III, a George Washington University’s Law School professor, rightly says in the piece that the bill, if passed, would “very, very radically change the definition of rape.”
Indeed. We now live in a world where not only do officials believe they should be able to tax you per teaspoon of sugar you consume, but that they should be able to manage your sex life — down to the point where you must get “affirmative, unambiguous” consent while the process is “ongoing.”
At this point it would be easier if California just mandated that everyone have digital “sexual contracts” on hand that could be signed via cell phone apps and revoked by voice command.
The sad thing is, cultural air raid sirens are going off all around us, and the response by politicians is to create more laws.
Take the case of University of California at Berkeley student Meghan Warner, from the AP piece, for instance. She supports the legislation:
She said she was sexually assaulted during her freshman year by two men at a fraternity but didn’t report it because she believed “that unless it was a stranger at night with a weapon who attacked you when you were walking home, that it wasn’t rape. It’s just a crappy thing that happened.” She now runs campus workshops to teach students what constitutes consent.
“Most students don’t know what consent is,” she said. “I’ve asked at the workshops how many people think if a girl is blacked out drunk that it’s OK to have sex with her. The amount of people who raised their hands was just startling.”
If what Ms. Warner says is true, and a “startling” amount of kids on the Progressive UC Berkeley campus think it’s okay to have sex with a woman who blacks out during a party, then that is a problem that can not be adequately addressed by writing “yes means yes” laws; that is a cultural implosion, which requires the kind of spiritual training that is mocked and ridiculed on college campuses.
As G.K. Chesterton wrote in “Orthodoxy”:
“Not only is faith the mother of all worldly energies, but its foes are the fathers of worldly confusion. The secularists have not wrecked divine things; but the secularists have wrecked secular things, if that is any comfort to them. The Titans did not scale heaven; but they laid waste the world.”
Perhaps one day California will come to its senses. If not, they will have only themselves to blame for the creation of a cultural wasteland littered with laws that fail them.
Douglas Ernst Blog 
For some reason I love that movie. The reality of today….not so much.
I want to watch it again, because the more I think about it the more accurate its Orwellian predictions seem. It’s funny, yet sad at the same time.
I agree, Demolition Man and idiocracy seem to be less fiction and more reality every day.
With that said I always find DM entertaining.
Does she not see another problem with this statement? Since when is it okay to pass out drunk, how is that responsible? Please do not get me wrong I do not think that makes it okay to touch the person.
I get what you’re saying. I know you’re not blaming the victim, although I’m sure if you were trying to make that point on a college campus they would try and frame it that way…
I understand that college kids will do stupid things. I did plenty of stupid (i.e., dangerous) things in my youth. I probably came closer than I would like to admit to being mugged, robbed, beat up and worse while running around Europe. However, I think I’ve always been pretty good about accepting responsibility for my actions and cognizant of the fact that if you play with fire there’s a good chance you’re going to get a few burns.
When I was a kid, I didn’t always do the right thing — but I knew the difference between right and wrong. I felt shame when I didn’t act in accordance with God’s will. Today, I think a lot of kids honestly do not even know the difference between right and wrong and they’re told to ignore or suppress the little voice inside that says, “Do not do this. It is not right.”
Well said, and I admit I also made my share of mistakes (many and some were also dangerous) but I always believed in dealing with the consequences. For example I learned when 12+ people say that you do not belong in the area you should probably leave no matter how tough you are…I lost that one. I believe our lack of moral beliefs are having a major impact and it is scary that many cannot see that.
I disagree. It’s not our LACK of moral beliefs, but our LACK of the PROPER moral beliefs and the lack of understanding between objective morality and subjective morality and what worldviews properly supports objective morality and which ones (secular ones) crumble trying to hold it up even on the ontological side of things.
Could part of the problem stem from the fact that many people feel their opinion rates higher than Gods? This would lead to the belief that some people think objective morality is impossible.
What I mean by that is since morality is an absolute set by a god, something could be immoral even if every human disagreed, yet some believe human feelings and desires are what ultimately count, which is truly a subjective morality (making it self serving).
Thus, a subjective morality is strongly preferable to an objective one by many. That’s because, by definition, it is about what we humans want.
There you have the problem moral relativism = self serving and the enforcement of morals only when they fit our needs.
Yep. That’s a big chunk of it in a nutshell.
I wouldn’t say absolute to describe objective morality. For example, the laws of Mosaic Judaism only apply to certain people at a certain time and is therefore relative to that given time, but is no absolute given that it hasn’t been a requirement since Christ’s time, and is therefore relative, even if the moral law and loving of God still endures as an absolute.
This whole “rape culture” myth has become rather sinister, to the point where even consensual encounters can lead to the guy being sent an on-campus kangaroo court and punished. Aren’t the people who perpetuate that myth the same ones who scream “don’t tell me what to do with my body” or “don’t manage my sex life” when it comes to a thing called abortion? Yes, they are. To me, it’s a lot like the Satanic daycare abuse hysteria of the 1980s and 1990s: a bunch of unsubstantiated claims based on flimsy evidence.
The problem is, the radical feminists who perpetuate the myth of a widespread rape culture have also fostered the belief that all guys are inherently evil and want to rape women all the time. Of course, that’s not true, but again, they never let facts get in the way of emotional tirades. This attitude really started to become prevalent during the Elliot Rodgers killings, where you saw the rise of that ridiculous hashtag “Yes All Women” and clowns like Chris Roberson saying that “all of us guys are part of the problem.” Again, that’s nonsense. I’m a straight white guy and I obviously like women. However, I’m not a rapist. I don’t have the urge to rape. Why? Because I’m not a monster. I have morals. I am respectful of women.
This is just more “feel good” legislation that won’t change a thing, and even then, the whole “rape culture” meme is again, based on mass hysteria rather than actual facts.
“When I was a kid, I didn’t always do the right thing — but I knew the difference between right and wrong. I felt shame when I didn’t act in accordance with God’s will. Today, I think a lot of kids honestly do not even know the difference between right and wrong and they’re told to ignore or suppress the little voice inside that says, “Do not do this. It is not right.”
I did my share of stupid things from time to time, too, but I never went overboard like so many in my age group did.
I’ve mentioned this in the past, but I went to a Lutheran school from kindergarten through fifth grade, and I’ve always credited that and good parents for my sense of right and wrong. Today’s kids are being spoon fed moral relativism by professors, politicians and Hollywood and are told to do what “feels good,” regardless of whether it’s right or wrong.
Not all professors:(
I apologize if I offended, Truth; I think you’re an example of a good professor, the kind I wish I would’ve had.
Carl, no offense made sir, I found it funny 🙂 I understand what you mean I sometimes feel very alone in the field. I think this is an area that should be addressed more fully and how it impacts society.