ASHE SCHOW: Regulating student sex lives.

In the article, Bader takes OCR to task for getting so involved in the sex lives of college students. I would note that they’re this involved in student sex lives, while conveniently not wanting the same rules to apply to themselves.

That’s because the rules for college students having sex have become absurd. The new puritans are practically begging for abstinence by making consensual sex so impossible that it is better to forgo.

Part of this problem stems from a broad definition of sexual “violence” that includes unwanted comments about someone’s physical appearance (which could be as mundane as someone telling their female friend they “look good” today). These comments constitute sexual “violence” even between two people involved in a committed relationship.

“If you expect colleges to police ‘remarks about physical appearance’ made during a relationship with an ex-partner, and treat it as ‘violence,’ you will end up with vastly more investigations (and need a vastly larger and more costly administrative apparatus),” Bader wrote.

Bader also expertly tackles the problem of “affirmative consent,” a new rule that requires college students to constantly say “yes” to every sexual act — though it’s never really defined just how often they must say this. Some affirmative consent policies even state that the “yes” must be sufficiently “enthusiastic,” otherwise it’s sexual assault.

That degree of involvement in student sex lives is unconstitutional under Lawrence v. Texas.