The New Norms of Affirmative Consent

The New Yorker Radio Hour

WNYC Studios and The New Yorker

News, Wnyc, David, Arts, Yorker, Society & Culture, Storytelling, Books, New, Remnick, Politics

4.2 • 6.2K Ratings

🗓️ 3 September 2019

⏱️ 30 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Mischele Lewis learned that her fiancé was a con man and a convicted pedophile. By lying about who he was, did he violate her consent, and commit assault? Lewis’s story raises a larger question: What is consent, and how do we give it? It’s currently the standard by which the law regulates sexual behavior, but the continuing prevalence of harassment and assault has led many college campuses to adopt more stringent standards. At the core of many new rules is the principle of affirmative consent: that sexual partners must verbally and explicitly express their acceptance of each and every sexual overture. The problem is that few of us use affirmative consent—even many of its advocates find it cumbersome in practice. Alondra Nelson, a professor of sociology and the president of the Social Science Research Council, explores this shifting of sexual norms with The New Yorker’s Joshua Rothman. They spoke with the legal scholars Jeannie Suk Gersen and Jacob Gersen, and with the facilitator of cuddle parties, who compares her nonsexual events to “going to the gym for consent.” Plus, an interview with a climate striker. Inspired by Greta Thunberg, fourteen-year-old Alexandria Villaseñor spends her Fridays outside the United Nations, demanding action on climate change. But the risk of “eco-grief” is high, she tells the reporter Carolyn Kormann.

Transcript

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0:00.0	From One World Trade Center in Manhattan, this is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production
0:05.5	of the New Yorker and WNYC Studios.
0:09.2	Welcome to The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. All over the country, young people
0:14.5	are going back to school. College freshmen are going to orientation, and classes may have
0:19.1	already begun. And one of the things they're learning about now
0:22.8	is how to conduct themselves, not just in class,
0:26.3	but also in their social and intimate lives.
0:29.3	Sexual assault on campus remains a pervasive problem.
0:33.5	One estimate says that more than 10% of graduate and undergraduate students will be assaulted.
0:39.3	So universities have responded with training and rules about what students should be doing and how.
0:45.3	Alondra Nelson has seen that process up close.
0:49.3	She's president of the Social Science Research Council,
0:52.3	and she's also at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton.
0:56.0	A few years ago, Nelson was an advisor to a research study on student sexuality at Columbia University,
1:02.3	and she explained that many universities are trying now to establish guidelines on what's called affirmative consent.
1:17.6	Often the consent has to be verbal, so someone has to say, yes, I consent to engaging and, you know, sexual intercourse. The person has to be able to sort of freely consent,
1:23.6	so they can't be incapacitated in any way.
1:26.6	So someone has to say, can I do this,
1:29.0	and then the other person has to say, yes, I would like that. Although in some cases, one can nod or
1:33.6	blink or moan. Past affirmative consent can't be taken as being present or future affirmative consent.
1:41.8	And so it has to be done in real time.
1:49.5	Alondra Nelson spoke at length with Joshua Rothman, who's an editor and staff writer, about this new idea of affirmative consent, how it works, how it's being taught to young people, and what
	...

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