The College Fix

You could learn the proper way to have sex from a musical number like “You Can Be As Loud As the Hell You Want,” from the Broadway hit Avenue Q. (It starts with puppets saying “take her home, she’s wasted!”)

Or you could sit through a mandatory musical about sexual consent written by an unemployed theater grad or local theater troupe during freshman orientation.

That’s what several colleges are doing to incoming students, giving them catchy jingles that lay out vague basic rules to follow in seeking affirmative consent, Inside Higher Ed reports.

Indiana University-Bloomington neglects to mention in its student-written musical, though, that you must keep seeking and receiving consent throughout a sex act or face the wrath of a university investigation and “more likely than not” evidence standard, should your partner complain weeks or months later. And its lyrics makes sexist assumptions that men are inevitably the initiators:

When you’re havin’ a good night

And things are goin’ well

But you don’t know where it’s goin’

It’s sometimes hard to tell

So if you think it’s goin’ somewhere

And you might go all the way

There’s something you gotta ask for

There’s something you need to say!

You gotta get … consent!

If you think you’re gonna do it, you need consent.

Consent … whoa consent

If you’re waitin’ to go further you need consent

Consent … whoa consent

So if you’re hangin’ with your girl

You think you might go for a whirl

All you’ve got to do … is get consent!

Consent … whoa consent …”

“Consent is unmistakable … it’s often verbal … it’s uncoerced … it’s freely given … and if you’ve got those things together, that’s consent! Consent … whoa consent!”

Other schools using theatrical performances to coerce students into learning, vaguely, how to avoid getting expelled and ostracized for life because of one confused sexual encounter, include New York’s Daemon College and St. Bonaventure University, as well as New York University.

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IMAGE: Avenue Q screenshot