Tuesday, October 07, 2014

California's New "Affirmative Consent" Law

This lady makes some interesting points:

Women Risk Losing Discretion In Push For Affirmative Consent
A new sexual consent law in California has Progressives pushing for a return to the kind of sexual arrangements they decry as regressive.

Instead there are efforts like California’s new affirmative consent laws to govern sexual relations on college campuses. These are prone to more unintended consequences for everyone. While much of the law appears to simply grandstanding that “Yes does, in fact, mean yes,” the problematic parts start to appear the new law’s attempts to define how people execute affirmative consent. The California law says: “Affirmative consent must be ongoing throughout a sexual activity and can be revoked at any time. "

I’ll leave it to the reader to imagine how people let out constant affirmative feedback during sex and move on to the next problem. This law does nothing to eliminate a possible “he said, she said” situation where one party can claim affirmative consent while the other denies there was “complete” affirmative consent. So we are back to the same troubling reality, but now there is a new legal expectation that may be theoretically impossible to meet during consensual sex.
The next step to alleviate this new state-imposed burden would be requiring of some sort of documentation to ensure both parties consented in order to avoid any post-coital prosecution. Not to worry, there’s an app for that...

Increasing regulations on intimate relationships will invariably lead to a need for publicly documenting a private act. California is blazing the sexual audit trail and placing government right in the middle of our most intimate relationships.
The first time a girl has her “affirmative consent” used to shame her in public, expect backlash from the same people who pushed this in the first place while mocking anyone questioning the unintended consequences of regulating what used to be a private act...
It would be hard for me to imagine a more stupid law.  The unintended consequences will be huge--and not positive.

5 comments:

rsj said...

Hmm. Perhaps an Affirmative Consent Ceremony? With friends, family and other interested parties to observe and witness the consent? Oh, yeah, with a properly credentialed person to officiate? Since everyone is all together might as well have a huge wind-ding too. Wow. How progressive we have become, leaving weddings in the dustbin of history.

I did not come up with the above idea, I read it on other similar posts somewhere else. I can't remember where, though.

pseudotsuga said...

But we wanted to leave government OUT of the bedroom?!!!!1??!

Mike Thiac said...

Hmm. Perhaps an Affirmative Consent Ceremony?
RSJ, please, don't give the California assembly an ideas!

rsj said...

Surely California is not so far gone that they would not see that weddings ARE affirmative consent ceremonies? They are not that crazy yet? right?

maxutils said...

rsj ... they aren't, per the law, because they do not specify the acts which may be performed, AND consent must be 'ongoing' ...