The College Fix

A return to modesty 

Under these new “yes means yes” campus sex policies, pretty much all hookups among college students can be deemed a sexual assault or rape.

Think about it.

If a guy hooks up with a girl and they’ve been drinking, that’s sexual assualt because under “yes means yes” people under the influence of alcohol can’t give consent.

If a guy hooks up with a girl and does not ask “can I touch you here,” “can I kiss you there,” “can I put it in there” through every single step of the process, that’s also a violation of “yes means yes” because affirmative consent must be ongoing throughout sexual activity.

If a girl is moaning and groaning during the hookup in apparent pleasure – even that’s not legal sex under “yes means yes,” because nonverbal consent doesn’t count.

Basically, guys are screwed under these new affirmative consent “yes means yes” policies, pardon the pun. Because we all know what brain young men think with during college. What are they to do? They’re in between a rock and a hard place.

And now the topic has reached mass crescendo. The word is out. Thanks to the White House, there’s not a college student in the nation who hasn’t heard how “it’s on us” to stop sexual assault (that means you, guys).

Back in the day, women held the control by keeping their modesty in check and making guys work for it. Today it’s mess with her after you mess with her, and she may get you tossed.

The threat is too real to ignore. So young men must take action. And their only sensible option? Keep it zipped.

Men must once again treat women like ladies. Go on dates. Stop at first base. Form a relationship.

Yep. It’s a Christian conservative’s wet dream! Young men must make chaste to avoid the possibility of a false accusation sure to be believed by administrators with titles such as “Sexual Assault Response Coordinator” and “Sexual Misconduct Director,” whose very jobs rely on having cases to adjudicate.

Here’s another way of putting it, via Heather Mac Donald in The Weekly Standard:

To be sure, the new campus sex regime puts boys in danger of trumped-up assault charges heard before kangaroo courts. But the solution is not more complex procedural protections cobbled over a sordid culture, the solution is to reject that culture entirely. Just as girls can avoid the risk of what the feminists call “rape” by not getting drunk and getting into bed with a guy whom they barely know, boys, too, can radically reduce the risk of a rape accusation by themselves not getting drunk and having sex with a girl whom they barely know.

Mothers worried that their college-bound sons will be hauled before a biased campus sex tribunal by a vindictive female should tell them: “Wait. Find a girlfriend and smother her with affection and respect. Write her love letters in the middle of the night. Escort her home after a date and then go home yourself.” If one-sided litigation risk results in boys taking a vow of celibacy until graduation, there is simply no loss whatsoever to society and only gain to individual character. Such efforts at self-control were made before, and can be made again.

We could be witnessing the end of casual campus sex, the slow strangulation of the hook-up culture. It cannot survive in a world where every casual sexual encounter can legally get a guy ejected.

Goodbye Hugh Hefner. Hello Mr. Darcy.

Jennifer Kabbany is editor of The College Fix. (@JenniferKabbany)

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