My old boss, M. Stanton Evans, loved to tell a joke centered around the late Senator Jesse Helms, R-NC, a conservative icon: “Jesse Helms announced that he is now in favor of sex education in public schools. He said, ‘If the government does that as well as it does everything else, pretty soon nobody will be doing it.’”
Well, that joke is becoming a reality. “Consent from the person you are kissing — or more — is not merely silence or a lack of protest, Shafia Zaloom, a health educator at the Urban School of San Francisco, told the students,” as Jennifer Medina reported in The New York Times on October 14, 2015 from San Francisco.
“They listened raptly, but several did not disguise how puzzled they felt.”
“What does that mean — you have to say ‘yes’ every 10 minutes?” Aidan Ryan, 16, asked. “Pretty much,” Ms. Zaloom replied.
“With Gov. Jerry Brown’s signature on a bill this month, California became the first state to require that all high school health education classes give lessons on affirmative consent, which includes explaining that someone who is drunk or asleep cannot grant consent,” Medina reported. “Last year, California led the way in requiring colleges to use affirmative consent as the standard in campus disciplinary decisions, defining how and when people agree to have sex.”
“More than a dozen legislatures in other states, including Maryland, Michigan and Utah, are considering similar legislation for colleges.”
