"The yes-means-yes standard turns almost all of us into rapists. We have let the radicals hijack this issue..."

"...with disastrous results for innocent young people." = the highest-rated comment at the NYT article "Sex Ed Lesson: ‘Yes Means Yes,’ but It’s Tricky."

The next 3 highest, in order

If we're assuming women are to weak willed or stupid to even say "no" to something they don't want to do, why don't we go full 15th century and require permission from her male relatives and a marriage?

Articles like this make feel good about being 70. Keep 'em coming.

"'Kevin de León, the California State Senate speaker pro tempore and lead sponsor of the high school legislation, said the new law was as much about changing the culture as it was about changing the law.' Changing the culture? This is a law that the California legislature passed and the Governor signed. It is not purely symbolic. Students who find themselves on the wrong side of this law may be expelled from their schools. And California has left it to the students to decipher what the law means because the grown-ups like [Shafia Zaloom, a health educator at the Urban School of San Francisco,] are unable explain it. Apparently you have to break the law to find out what it means. Talk about unconstitutional vagueness!"

ADDED: The article names a particular teenage boy asking a question — “What does that mean — you have to say ‘yes’ every 10 minutes?” — and I wonder if he affirmatively consented to having his name associated with that quote in The New York Times. The teacher, who probably consented to having the press in her classroom as she forced this intimate topic on the compulsorily educated students, said: “Pretty much.... It’s not a timing thing, but whoever initiates things to another level has to ask.”

Do you want to risk looking like a dummy in that press-observed classroom by asking what, to me, seem like the obvious questions: Sex has levels? What counts as a level? When does a level begin? Is there always someone who goes to the next level first or is it possible to change levels simultaneously? Can there be 2 new levels coming up at the same time, with one person "initiating things to" new level A while the other person is "initiating things to" new level B?

Actually, now, this has me thinking of a way students could force adults to become more responsible in their sex education behavior. Listen to what the teacher said and ask questions about the meaning of the words. A phrase like "whoever initiates things to another level has to ask" contains material for a hundred questions. Do these teachers really understand what they are saying, as it applies to real human beings, or are they struggling to follow government orders?

By the way, Zaloom is not just another teacher following government orders. As we learn in paragraph 22 of this 30-paragraph article, she "has written a curriculum for affirmative consent programs that is being used throughout the country." I was surprised to see that, because much earlier in the article, she looks like just another teacher trying to follow orders. Paragraph 9 says Zaloom "has taught high school students about sex for two decades, said she was grateful for the new standard, even as she acknowledged the students’ unease."  

Grateful? Is she a receiver of the imposition of the standard or did she... initiate?