‪Students, staff talk efficiency of Yes Means Yes law

When Ohio’s Antioch College revised their 1993 Sexual Offense Prevention Policy requiring students to clearly ask for consent during each step of any sexual encounter — from the initial touching and kissing to the eventual foreplay — Antioch became the butt of several jokes.

Saturday Night Live mocked the college’s new policy by airing a sketch game show called “Is It Date Rape?” starring Phil Hartman.

Comedian Dave Chappelle similarly lampooned the idea with his sketch video “The Love Contract.”

Two decades after the drama at Antioch and the SNL skit, few people are still laughing at the culture of sex on college campuses.

On Sept. 28, California governor Jerry Brown signed off on SB-967, or the “Yes Means Yes” law. The policy was designed to better help colleges and universities handle cases of rape and sexual assault by mandating “affirmative consent.”

The law turns the conception of “no means no” on its head, and says that “lack of protest or resistance does not mean consent … nor does silence,” according to the text of the law.

People engaging in sex must give “affirmative, conscious and voluntary” agreement, so this requirement immediately discounts anyone that is asleep or otherwise incapacitated by drugs or alcohol the ability to give the type of consent required by the law.

A kiss at the beginning of intercourse is not voluntary consent that lasts the entire time two people consensually have sex, either — the bill says consent must be given continually during intercourse and that consent can be taken back at any time.

Kathleen Joyce, a School of Arts and Sciences sophomore, called the law “incredibly important.”

“People shouldn’t have the right to argue that just because someone didn’t say ‘no,’ that it’s not rape,” she said.

A lot of rape cases are thrown out or not given enough attention because the individual that was sexually assaulted never said “no,” she said. In those types of situations, the person being assaulted has trouble saying anything at all, especially if they are intoxicated or simply afraid.

Joyce hopes the law will work to increase awareness, education and the normality of asking for consent.

A lot of people think when people are in relationships or “hooking up,” they don’t have to ask for consent because people think it is “implied” that sex was already part of the deal, she said, but this is not the case.

“No one normalizes the act of asking,” she said. “People say it kills the mood, and [that] it’s not what you actually [should] do, but you can just ask, ‘Are you comfortable? Are you okay? Does this feel good? Can I go on?’”

She said if someone is having sex with another willing participant, they could work consent into being part of the fun.

Judy Janansky, an Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy second-year student, agreed with Joyce. She said continually asking for consent during sex is not a mood killer.

“I feel like people wouldn’t want to [ask for consent] because it’s awkward, like, ‘Oh hey, can I do this?’ and stating it out loud … but I think if you’re with someone, you can make it more sexy, and say, ‘Yes, I want this,’” she said.

Both Joyce and Janansky support the “Yes Means Yes” bill. But Ruth Anne Koenick, director of the Center for Violence Prevention and Victim Assistance, does not.

She said the people introducing legislation have good intentions to prevent sexual violence, but they are making a mistake. 

“I personally think it’s a knee-jerk reaction to what’s going on,” she said.

This reaction is part of nationwide attention to the problem of sexual assault. Emma Sulkowicz, a Columbia University student, has received widespread attention for carrying her mattress around campus to protest the school’s refusal to dismiss her alleged rapist.

Matthew Leibowitz, a Wesleyan University graduate, started a nonprofit organization, “Consent Is So Frat,” after the slew of sexual assaults at his alma mater.

Gov. Brown’s reform joins other efforts to curb widespread sexual assault on college campuses across the country, such as the White House’s task force called “Protect Students from Sexual Assault.”

On April 29, the White House released the first report for the initiative, which chose Rutgers to spearhead the initiative for its quality work in handling cases of sexual violence.

But Koenick said Brown’s law would not accomplish what it wants to do. She said the people who are perpetrators — people who rape — know when they have consent and when they do not.

She does not look at it from the perspective of two people who want to have consensual sex, but from a perspective of someone who does not want to have sex and is forced to, through coercion, physical force or a variety of other ways.

She is concerned Brown and the rest of the California legislature are trivializing all the prevention efforts by focusing on things that do not really help prevention.

The law is not going to educate people, she said, and it is not an effective way to target the problem of sexual assault on college campuses.

“I would hope that legislators would put together good prevention laws,” she said. “In the state of New Jersey, every victim is entitled to an advocate. We’ll get them an advocate fast and let an advocate talk to the victim about what their options are.”

She said if California could legislate sexual assault advocate training and action, mandate that every campus has trained advocates and “really focus” on The Federal Campus Sexual Assault Victim’s Bill of Rights, schools would see a difference.

But for now, she would watch to see how the law plays out in California.

“What is the end result of this [law]?” she said. “What do we get out of this? I don’t know if we get anything.”