Regulations for the Birds (and the Bees)

Legislatures try and regulate all sorts of things that they shouldn't.  The Indiana legislature once considered a bill that would have defined the value of pi as 3.2.  The state of Texas has a law creating a program that will allow for control of the weather. But nothing is sillier than the state of California’s latest attempt to legislate teenage hormones.

Let me begin by saying that “date rape” is a serious problem on many, if not most (or all), college campuses. Many young men, away from home and forming their own moral code for the first time in their lives, often make dubious decisions about what a young woman “wants” when the two of them are together.  Any young man who forces or coerces a young woman, or takes advantage of her incapacitation, for the purposes of sex should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

That said, the California legislature is going about it all wrong.  The California Senate recently passed, unanimously, SB 967 (De Leon). The bill requires all higher educational institutions in the state, under threat of having state funding cut off, to adopt certain policies regarding sexual assaults.  If the bill was concerned about general policies to reduce the incidence of date rape maybe wouldn't be so bad, but the legislature had to go into detail.

To determine if “affirmative consent” was given by both parties to the “activity”, the standard is that there must be an “affirmative, conscious, and voluntary agreement to engage in sexual activity.”  Further, it is the responsibility of “each person involved” (I’ll give the author credit for not limiting sexual activities to twosomes) that he or she has the consent of the other parties (singular or plural). If there is an accusation of violation of the policy, it is not a defense that the accused was intoxicated, and the accused must have taken “reasonable steps” to ascertain that consent had been given.

So here’s the situation: Timmy and Debbie are in a dorm room, and they decide to take things to the “next level.” Upon hearing this from Debbie’s lips, Timmy reaches for his wallet and pulls out . . . a pre-printed consent form that he carries around in case of emergency. How else can Timmy prove that he took “reasonable steps” unless consent is in writing? He fills in Debbie’s name in the appropriate blank, notes the date and time, and checks the boxes denoting exactly what “activity” he is anticipating, while Debbie waits patiently to sign.

But wait! How can Timmy demonstrate that Debbie’s consent was not acquired through intimidation or coercion? Obviously the document will have to be notarized. Yes, after this bill becomes law, thousands of college students will be able to pay their way through college by working as freelance notary publics. Timmy calls the dorm notary and asks him or her to stamp the document.

But wait! How can the notary attest to whether either party is competent to give consent? The group will have to go to the campus health center, so Timmy and Debbie can take a blood test to determine that neither is inebriated enough to nullify consent.  After all, the law specifies that either person’s intoxication nullifies consent. The blood test taken, the document notarized, Timmy and Debbie can return to the dorm room for an evening of discovery and wonder.

But wait! SB 967 says that “[a]ffirmative consent must be ongoing throughout a sexual activity and can be revoked at any time.” So the document time-stamped at 10:15 is no longer valid at 10:30. Every ten of fifteen minutes (assuming young love is capable of sustaining itself for that long) Debbie and Timmy will have to stop and go through the entire process over again.

No college wants to be cut off from state funding, so every campus in California will have to deputize hundreds of special “967 enforcers” who will have to roam through dormitory hallways trying to locate offenders.  If suspicious noises emanate from behind any dorm room, these enforcers will have no choice but to interrupt the participants and check out their paperwork. If the appropriate forms are filled out and notarized, the activity may continue; of course the enforcers, like meter maids, will have to return after fifteen minutes to make sure new consent papers have been filled out.

Yeah, this sounds workable to me. If the Governor signs this bill and it becomes law, I'm sure there will be no more illicit sexual activity on college campuses. SB 967 passed the Assembly by a vote of 57-20 and passed the Senate by a unanimous vote of 36-0. I have always said the stupidest decisions in human history were made unanimously.

I guess now that the California legislature has solved the problem of on-campus sex, it can now turn its attention to other, less pressing matters. Like global warming or nuclear war.