TRENTON, N.J. ― You think the attractive woman at the party who has been chatting you up all night is ready to take things to the next level. She seems to be throwing all the right signals.
But if things turn sexual, are you sure that will hold up under legal scrutiny?
That’s a question at the center of a national debate surrounding “yes means yes” ― more accurately called affirmative consent ― the policy that requires conscious, voluntary agreement between partners to have sex.
A new proposal in New Jersey makes it the latest state moving to require college campuses to define when “yes means yes” in an effort to stem the tide of sexual assaults.
Whether the policy will reduce assaults remains unclear, but states and universities across the U.S. are under pressure to change how they handle rape allegations.
California adopted a similar measure in August, and New York’s governor directed the State University of New York system to implement a similar standard. New Hampshire lawmakers are also considering it.
Supporters and critics agree the measure could encourage students to talk openly and clearly about sex and that a culture of “yes means yes” ― an affirmative agreement compared with the “no means no” refrain of previous decades — could help address the issue of campus sex assaults.
