Affirmative Sexual Consent: Is it the future?

Here is a controversial topic that effects a vast majority of the age group that frequents the Vine. I think it is a great thought, but the follow-through could use some work. There are a lot of problems and questions I can see this bill raising. I'd like to hear what everyone else has to think about it. Let's please discuss this in a mature manner. i'd love to hear some differing viewpoints and reason's you believ eit will or will not work.

Article

@lunacyde: It has some interesting criteria but I'm not sure how they would expect two parties to actively ensure they are both receiving continued consent.

so basicly this bill is saying that both people need to agree before they start? isn't that how in normally works?

It is saying that there needs to be a verbal "yes" to count as consent. This means that your intent to have sex needs to be verbalized and met with agreement from the other party.

This is not how it is in many cases. What they are doing is making it legally easier to prosecute sexual assault cases by taking off the table instances where consent is questionable.

Here are my two points where I think it goes wrong.

1. What is the source of proof for verbal consent? Short of signing a waiver, witnesses, or video/audio recording there is no way to prove that affirmative consent was given. Just like before it can easily devolve into a case of his word vs. her word. Given the often intimate nature of these occurences it seems that witnesses to verify one claim or the other would be exceedingly hard to find.

2. As you point out how are we supposed to continuously ask for consent during the duration of the act itself? Are there any guidelines to designate what is acceptable and what is not? Do we need to check in every minute? Every 5 minutes? 10? At this point it has entered the realm of ludicrous.

@racob7:

I explained to Hylian above ^

Nearly everyones phone does text messaging and pictures. It would be very simple and very fast for each party to text each other their consent. Or pull out your phone. put it in video mode and make a 5 second video confirming your consent. You can state that you consent until you both climax( or at least until i do) or for the night or until they make another video saying it's over. all these can be done in the time it takes to put on a condom. It may sound silly but when people make millions of videos of themselves twerking, planking, lighting themselves on fire, at least this serves a purpose

PFFT HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

"A pair of friends at Cal State Long Beach said the bill seemed well-intentioned, but questioned how practical it is when it comes to ensuring consent throughout sex with their partners.

" 'I feel like their hearts are in the right place, but the implementation is a little too excessive,' said Henry Mu, a 24-year-old biology major. 'Are there guidelines? Are we supposed to check every five minutes?' "

That part of the article shows where they're doing too much. There's no reason to check that often during the act too. Otherwise I'd say it pretty good. Not sure how much it will change though.

Yeah, I agree. Just logically if you gave consent before beginning should not the burden turn to someone to vocalize that they did not wish to continue at whatever point they changed thier mind? Otherwise you get bogged down in keeping time and worrying about asking for consent every certified point in time and you completely miss out on the enjoyment of the act.

Why is this such an exciting topic? Topics are only good for debate when there are opposing, justified sides... and this one seems pretty cut and dry. I'm all for needing someone's consent to f*** them and if you're not, then f*** you and your opinion means nothing.

Quirky as it may seem....this would go a long way in helping prosecute sexual violence I believe.

Some may argue it's awkward or ruins the moment. I don't believe you'll ever get a majority of people to do it.

I think this is more in the case of if a girl can barely stand and gets taken off somewhere and later says she was exploited, in the past defense could probably ask her if she remembered consenting or not.

Also to answer the title, no I don't think this is the future. Simply because most people probably won't do this.

The question is over implementation, not the need for consent. Perhaps you should try reading the article before posting ignorantly.

What is the standard of proof for affirmative consent? How often during the action must consent be reaffirmed? What are the legal guidelines this bill will put into place?

I think anyone with common decency and general reasoning skills agrees that affirmative consent is needed for sex. The questions I have, and the part I think is controversial to some, would be exactly how they are going about it. Just having the idea that something is good is not enough if you have no way to implement it.

Right, my point with the title is to ask whether other Bills like this, putting into law a need for verbal affirmative consent and giving specific guidelines, be the new normal?

Personally I hope they are and the trend spreads to all states. The specifics can always be refined and problems addressed. The main idea of the law is a good one.

I did actually read the article and saw people mentioning the means of implementation and expressing their doubts. But we don't have any word yet on what will be done exactly, so there really isn't much to talk about. Honestly, since sex is such a challenging-to-impossible thing to monitor anyway, any mid-coitus instructions will be difficult to enforce. To be completely frank I don't think I'd care much if you had to sign a contract first, considering the amount of people that get raped, date-raped, or otherwise sexually taken advantage of.

The only real concern is how it will be enforced, which is realistically... not relevant. There's nothing that can actually be done to legally affirm consent mid-coitus without a team of lawyers present every time you get your freak on, so they'll likely focus on affirming pre-sex consent -- none of which I have any issue with, as it's probably entirely needed.

@lunacyde: I just wonder how it could be enforced. The only way I can think of is if someone claims they were sexually assaulted, and the couple says they didn't get verbal consent from each other first, and they get punished for that.

Honestly, while this sounds like it has the best intentions of the world, the implementation sounds so over-the-top it's hilarious.

@joygirl:

My apologies if I assumed you didn't read the article, but your response seemed to completely ignore any of that, and sounded as if you were saying the debate being had was simply over whether affirmative consent needs to be given. I can only reply to what you comment.

I agree it's a great idea, and desperately needed. My only hesitation is how even with pre-sex affirmation of consent there is the great potential for it to devolve into his word vs. hers, which is no better than where we left off. This is not to say I don't think that the bill is better than what we have now. I am honestly interested in finding a way to register and prove consent in a court of law. Pooty's idea is interesting but I doubt most would ever actually do it.

I agree completely.

@lunacyde: I just didn't consider the implementation important enough to discourage something that sounds like a pretty fantastic idea. When they start implanting us with microchips or monitoring us every time we unzip our pants, then I'll speak out. Until I actually hear anything about how they plan to enforce this, it's a great idea.

I am not trying to discourage the bill. I support it. i am just interested in discussing the ramifications and implementation of such a law, and how it can be improved/how they went about it wrong. Sorry, I am a legal nerd.

Not a problem.

But accusing me of speaking out in ignorance on a subject is not the best way to get on my good side. :)

I see a few problems with this but whatever.

I call them as I see them. I also admit if I was wrong. From your comment it seemed you ignored any of the actual details of the article and only commented on the title. I'm perfectly willing to concede I was mistaken.

I see this as a movement in the right direction. We just need to fine-tune the details is the overall point of view I am trying to get across. Hopefully other states will follow California's lead.

That would kill the mood so fast lol nobody sits there and says " So I would like to have sexual intercourse with you, would you like to have sex with me? " Lmao it's one of those things that just kind of happens , its common sense if it is consensual or not and most if not all people know beforehand if it is consensual or not.

Ideally, the means they use to enforce this will only inconvenience rapists. Unless the case gets taken to amazing extremes with big brother watching us, the only non-rapists I see being affected by this are frequent clubbers/bar-hoppers/one-night-standers.

Every time I've had sex we've verbally agreed on it and consent on both ends was given. Didn't ruin the mood one bit.

Lol every time I have had sex nobody verbally agreed on anything but we both new beforehand it was completely consensual.

This Bill Won't Get Far. How will we prove if I said yes or not? And how often will we need to check ? Most folks won't do this anyway. Back to square one. Let My Girl @Squares Answer This.

For a long time people said condoms were awkward and killed the mood. But people began to see the pros outweighed the cons. The thought of being accused of rape and going to jail is a much BIGGER turn off then taking a few seconds to take a consenting pic. and any dude.... who has any game..... can get a girl right back in the mood. Or do what I do: hide cameras and tape the entire session!!

Oh well. What do I know. I'm just under your bed right now.

Lol what are you doing under there silly?

Nooooooothin'.

Well as long as you keep it clean down there I don't mind, make yourself at home.

how is this desperately needed....?

I keep reading people typing that.

1. this will not stop some regular rapist out there.

2. this will most likely not occur to two drunked co-eds about to do it, and if it does...well I've consented to a number dumb things while young an intoxicated and quite a few of them I don't fully remember.

3. no one, i repeat, no one will get it in writing. thats just pretty much not how 'doing it' works. "oh hold on baby, don't take off your pants yet, I just need it in writing that you DO want to have sex with me. so can you just take out your phone and text me the words: 'yes i will have sex with you, tonight on august 30, 2014 saturday at your place around 11pm".....quite the mood killer.

It's not as awkward as people are making it seem. It not like the person has to say "Are you now willing to have sexual contact", there are plenty of ways to articulate it in a way that seems natural and doesn't "ruin the mood". Anyway I will say that the bill is a bit flawed, but has good intentions.

All in all: It's a start.

I think that there still could be problems. Couldn't the girl still say that the guy raped even though it was consensual? even with this in place I really don't see how this is going to stop rapists. making people say yes to each other isn't going to stop people. laws haven't stoped people before. I think that politicians should waste there time on something else. can someone please tell how this going to help?

Consent in a lie in this patriarchal world we live in.

All heterosexual sex is rape.

This is unnecessary and will only help in jailing innocent men

Let's all calm down.

Butters lets hear your reasoning. i reserve the right to tell you it's idiotic though....if need be.

@superlightning123: Thanks for the tag!

I seriously can't see how this would hurt.

How I have always handled it is I tell a girl beforehand that if you feel uncomfortable with this at any time just make sure to tell me, don't keep it inside.

If they agree to this I take it as affirmative consent.

Good intentions, not completely in touch in reality.

Consent? Of course. Verbal consent where the words explicitly revolve around "do you agree to have sex with me is spoken", and a spoken "yes"? I think people have to be honest here. These rules around sexual assault could very well likely to revolve around people who are intoxicated and are engaging in casual encounters. I don't see how this potential law expects two drunk people to

1. Actively state verbally consent on both sides which isn't subject to at least some ambiguous meaning.

2. Affirm during sex ( We'll just ignore that for now)

3. Record all of this in some form so there is proof.

I'll give three personal examples.

Example 1- I go home with a girl and some of her friends. They split off and I go to the girls dorm in question. I use her toilet. I come out and she says and I quote "Let me turn off the lights". We embrace, which was triggered by her and engage in sexual activity.

Example 2- I go home with a girl. I go her place and we talk for about 15 minutes. After which she puts my hand on my crotch and leads my hand to hers. We embrace. Ditto.

Example 3- I go home alone. A girl asks if she can come round by phone. I say yes. We talk for 15 mins and she takes off her blouse and kisses me. I respond and I quote " Are you sure you want to do this"? She nods. Ditto.

They are 2 examples where there was no verbal statements which amounted to "do you want to have sex with me?" and "yes I do want to have sex with you", only body language and gestures. The third one, where I there is a qualifying statement, doesn't even respond with a verbal statement (Also the reason why I verbally asked was because the girl in question was my Ex). No sexual assault occurred on either side.

These examples also all happened under the influence. Not to the point where neither me, or the people in question were oblivious to what was going on, but to the point where making explicit statements about sexual consent when it isn't exactly a prerogative to begin with, and remembering to explicitly record evidence of doing so, is not 100 percent guaranteed.

Which brings me on to my next point. Drunk people who have sex are not 100 percent "due to laziness, forgetfulness, stupidity" going to use a condom in the first place. On top of the fact that all the stuff you said is not as easy as simply putting on a rubber, its sounds silly because its unworkable.

Thing is I would, because that solution is even more unworkable than the one the user suggested previously. What's stopping a date-rapist from feigning the signature of one of his victims? Or even using drugs to coerce her into signing the document? Blackmail? Honestly, a contract sounds laughable. A passionate response to an injustice is fruitless, if it does nothing to actually tackle the problem at hand.

Its a great idea in the same way as saying "Let's end child hunger!!" is a great idea. If it lacks feasible ways for it to be enforced fairly and wholesomely in a way which captures the wrong doers, its nothing more, and at worst going to be a poorly implemented plan that can do more harm than good.

.........

One thing I will say is that this possible "rule" would be alot more effective if Alcohol and other behavioural altering recreational drug consumption outright stopped. However, not many students would actually want that, and 2, contentious sexual assaults disputes where consent was questioned would probably fall to the extent that this new idea may not have been brought up in the first place

The majority of rape as define by many people nowadays (feminist) go unreported. More than 99% of women don't get their male partner to say yes to sex before they engage.

Btw, completely made up statistics