Cathy Young of Minding The Campus has published a new essay about sexual consent among college students that serves as a warning. You might want to get that yes in writing before proceeding.

Hat tip to Instapundit.

Want to Have Sex? Sign This Contract.

The idea that sexual consent requires an explicit “yes”–one step beyond “no means no”–has long been the dogma of feminist anti-rape activists.  In the early 1990s, when Ohio-based Antioch College incorporated this principle into its code of student conduct to mandate verbal consent to each new level of intimacy, it was widely ridiculed as political correctness gone mad. Yet policies similar to Antioch’s, though not as detailed, were even then spreading to college campuses across the country.  In 1994, a senior at Pomona College in California was nearly prevented from getting his diploma because of a sexual assault complaint brought with a two-and-a-half year delay, in which the alleged victim admitted that she never said no but claimed that she never gave consent, which the college policy defined as “clear, explicit agreement to engage in a specific activity.”

Now, for the first time, this standard may be codified into law–not criminal law (as yet), but law regulating sexual assault investigations on college campuses.  SB-967, a bill proposed in the California state legislature in response to the “crisis” of campus rape, would establish “affirmative consent” as the standard for disciplinary proceedings for sexual assault complaints.  The bill allows that “willingness to participate” in sexual activity can be conveyed through “clear, unambiguous actions” as well as words, but also cautions that “relying solely on nonverbal communication can lead to misunderstanding.”

Meanwhile, as the New York Times reports in its Education Life section on February 7, there is a new wave of student activism–coordinated through the social media–advocating for “consensual sex.”  One might think that consensual sex would need no advocacy; but, of course, this is not just consent in the traditional sense.  The goal is to encourage students to “ask first and ask often before engaging in sexual activity.”  The movement seeks to “make consent cool” through such gimmicks as giveaways of condoms with pro-consent slogans on the wrappers (“ask before unwrapping”) and a website featuring a spoof line of Victoria’s Secret lingerie with such mottoes as “consent is sexy” and “ask first.