University Requires Sexual Consent to be Sober and Enthusiastic
Just saying yes isn’t good enough at this school.
Colin Crossman reports at the FIRE blog.
Consent at Coastal Carolina Must Be Enthusiastic, Sober
According to Coastal Carolina University, sex is only consensual if both parties are completely sober and if consent is not only present, but also enthusiastic. This is a troubling standard that converts many ordinary, lawful sexual encounters into sexual assault, and it should frighten any student at CCU.
The controversy began recently when Reddit and Twitter users seized upon the troubling implications of this CCU poster. It describes a situation—two drunk students having sex—that is presumably common on many college campuses. “Jake” and “Josie” are, quite literally, the poster children for college hookups. Many people rightly asked, therefore, why the poster branded the male student a rapist when the female student had done exactly the same thing he had—have sex with someone who was drunk. As FIRE has explained to other schools, such as Duke University, turning mutually consensual sex into rape is both dangerous and unhelpful—the touchstone should be incapacitation, not mere intoxication. To its credit, Duke recognized this oversight and adjusted its policy.
FIRE reached out to CCU to verify the poster’s authenticity, and we received the following response:
The poster referenced in your email was created and distributed on our campus approximately 8 years ago and was very short lived – long before other campuses our size were having in-depth discussions regarding consent. Since that time, the conversation with our students about sexual consent has changed dramatically. Currently, educational initiatives regarding consent on the Coastal Carolina University campus include extensive online and in-person education.
Comments
That means that if a woman has had a drink, assuming that she’s under the age of 21 and has already broken the law, that she is incapable of forming consent. I wonder what else a woman is incapable of forming consent over in that scenario. Can she toss out her exams? Can she refuse to pay tuition? A contract is a contract after all and if we can tear them up because of inebriation then why not all of them? On another track, why not require all men to carry portable breathalyzers and get a printout from all the women they come across to ensure there’s documented evidence she is capable of forming consent?
Sounds like a second-wave feminist nightmare to me. How soon before women can’t sign a contract at all? Back to daddy and hubby owning all her property and having control of her children.