Affirmative Consent Laws

[Famous Mortimer]

Consent under ACLs is, literally, a two-step process:

1. Were all parties willing to engage in sex? If "yes", go to step 2. If "no", rape has occurred.
2. During sex, did any parties express unwillingness to continue? If "yes", rape has occurred.

1) can be fulfilled with something as simple as "hey, wanna screw?" "Yeah, sure." and if you think 2) is an unreasonable standard...

As for the fantasy of Government Sex Goons watching you screw and taking notes at every moment that has been embraced by the right and, sadly, some segments of the left, well, it's an effective scaremongering tool, but still a fantasy.

This is not how it works under an ACLs, this is how it works under normal anti-rape laws.

The explicit stated reason for ACLs is that is that for rape to take place, 2 doesn't even need to happen. One party doesn't need to go as far as expressing unwillingness, they just need to feel that it's rape. They are under no obligation to tell he other person, even if consent was clearly granted 5 minutes before and they are withdrawing it. The burden is on the partner to know that they are withdrawing consent, even if they don't say it. That is why ACLs are unreasonable.

[Famous Mortimer]

"Affirmative consent" doesn't mean that you have to ask for permission in every single step of the process. It's simply the notion that, when a person wants to f**k another person, he/she should state his/her intention and ask said person for her/his assent. It's really not that hard for a normal human being. You can ask the way you want, and the answer can be in whatever form you want (as long as it is actually affirmative). I have no idea why you're all bent on making it look like some sort of insane thing.

Now who's strawmanning?

Here are some quotes from this very thread:

Buhbut TNF!  How will I know when it's okay to unhook those thingies on a girl's bra unless a signed contract from the University of Berkeley Women's Studies Department head tells me?!

Clearly the answer is requiring a notary.

I would suggest a compromise that conservative, college feminists and asbergers could be happy about; Let's ban extramarital sex. This is a truly Solomonic solution. The college feminist can declare all sex in college for rape, the conservatives can defend marriage and tradition and the asbergers can get clear legal contracts into people's sexual lives. Everyone are happy.

You literally just said "ACLs don't mean asking for permission every step of the way, they mean [paraphrased version that literally means the exact same thing as asking for permission every step of the way]"

[Famous Mortimer]

I'm fairly sure you can just say "Should I grab a condom" or something

What if someone wants to withdraw consent in the middle of sex though? Under these laws, they do not have tell the other partner. The only way to be sure is to check in every 2 minutes.

[Famous Mortimer]

I'm fairly sure you can just say "Should I grab a condom" or something

What if someone wants to withdraw consent in the middle of sex though? Under these laws, they do not have tell the other partner. The only way to be sure is to check in every 2 minutes.

No, they don't, but they'll probably say something because THAT IS HOW NORMAL HUMAN BEINGS FUNCTION!

Again, yes, they do. You literally do not know the content of the laws you are defending. Look at the name "affirmative consent" It means consent can only be granted by signaling in the affirmative. Not actively signaling consent, even if you did signal consent 2 minutes prior (because consent should be able to withdrawn under any law) does not count as continued consent. The ENTIRE PURPOSE of these laws is that "No means no" wasn't enough. These laws make it so that the person claiming rape does not have  to say "no" even if they said "yes" prior. That is the entire reason they exist.

[Famous Mortimer]

I don't think it would be a comprehensive fix, I just think we should be encouraging that just as much as asking the initiator to feel sure consent is present in some fashion. It's much more reasonable than effectively expecting the men (let's be honest here) to be the ones that have to figure out the parameters of an encounter. Hell, my whole point has been that this is a super complicated issue that has more than one solution. I actually included "just as much" in a draft of that post and then somehow it didn't make it in the end.

In any event consent is already, ideally, invalidated when the individual feels threatened, which is of course the way it should be. I just think we should be encouraging people to figure out what they want out of sex and defining that with the people they're with. Women aren't passive in all of this. Honestly I'm still super uncomfortable thinking about the fact that these laws make them out to be so. Nothing is doing more to reinforce traditional gender norms in sex than these laws.

I would argue against the idea that these laws encourage gender norms with regards to passivity. Affirmative consent means consent from both parties and I don't see any reasonable interpretation under these laws where if a woman propositioned a man and a man withdrew consent that the woman would not be committing assault. The problem that these laws are meant to address is that even if the individual is conditioned to say no and wishes to withdraw consent from the situation, that may not happen simply due to the power dynamics of the sexual act or other psychological factors affecting the victim.

I've personally worked with people who have worked on these laws and have some people very close to me who have undergone similar experiences, and if anything, I have noticed is a greater propensity to charge the victim with not doing enough to stop the assault, even from authorities, than there has been to hold the perpetrator responsible. We should question whether its more effective to teach prevention as opposed to attacking the root cause of the matter, which is the actual choice to commit assault. I see affirmative consent laws as the right step in the latter direction.

If someone WOULD stop if their partner said no but their partner doesn't, there is no choice to commit assault. The "choice to commit assault" therefore cannot be "the root cause of the matter" in that situation.

[Famous Mortimer]

I more just don't like the shift in culture as to what constitutes rape. Rape is a horrible crime and we're expanding the definition to include trivial things. If I'm dating a girl and I'm not really in the mood for sex but she is and I'm just like "whatever" and agree to go down on her because I like her, that should be fine. I have heard many otherwise sensible people call such a scenario rape though.

[Famous Mortimer]

Well, if you don't want that to be seen as rape, then DON'T ACCUSE HER OF RAPE. So many paranoid idjits miss out on the "accusation" part of "false rape accusation", I swear...

If I did want to accuser her of rape though, I'd be an idiot. Problem is lots of people wouldn't think I was an idiot.

[Famous Mortimer]

Of course I won't do it. Other people might though. I think it's horrible that people will be labeled "rapists" (even if they aren't convicted in court) just because they had mechanical sex with a bored partner. Of course, I'm not saying marital rape isn't a thing, I'm not saying people can't be coerced within a relationship, but that's not what I'm talking about. I'm not talking about coercion. I'm talking about the proliferation of "my ex-boyfriend doesn't even know he raped me!" stories you hear on college campuses today. Cases where it's pretty clear the perpetrator might have/probably would have stopped but the their partner never said "no" for whatever reason.