The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Do You Wanna Rock-and-Roll?

Posted on | June 16, 2015 | 163 Comments

In 2014, Lane Moore (@hellolanemoore) became “Sex and Relationships Editor” at Cosmopolitan magazine, which has been giving young women bad advice for decades. When I was in college, I’d go visit girls in their dorms and read their magazines — Cosmo, Glamour, Mademoiselle, whatever — as part of my intelligence-gathering operation.

Like, what are girls into? So, I’d read their magazines and, holy crap, what miserable dreck it was! The sex-and-relationship advice was relentlessly bad and wrong. If you let women’s magazine advice columnists tell you how to run your love life, you’re probably going to end up as a lonely cat lady. And speaking of Lane Moore . . .

What brought her to my attention was an article headlined, “College Students Throw Shade at Enthusiastic Sexual Consent”:

According to a new poll from the Washington Post and the Kaiser Family Foundation, college students are still pretty confused as to how sexual consent actually works.
The poll, which surveyed 1,053 current and recent college students, aged 17 to 26, found that 83 percent of men and women are aware of the concept of “yes means yes” and what its purpose is — for the record, it means that only an enthusiastic “yes” from your partner means they consent, and the purpose is to prevent any sexual consent grey area — but only 69 percent of them felt it was a realistic practice, with 30 percent saying it wasn’t realistic at all. But whether or not its realistic doesn’t change the fact that it’s still extremely necessary.
According to the poll, at least 40 percent of the students thought that things like someone getting undressed, or getting a condom, or nodding in agreement indicated consent. Seriously? A nod? Or taking off clothes? I know 40 percent isn’t the majority but it’s a disturbingly high number of people who think that if a woman takes her shirt off she’s consenting to pretty much anything.

Sweetheart, where you from? I mean, does good old-fashioned spontaneity never happen where you’re from? Has the world so completely changed in the past 30 or 40 years that young folks no longer have basic animal passion? Must every hook-up now be negotiated like a spending bill in the House Ways and Means Committee? But never mind, please continue, Miss Moore:

Saying something like “sure” or “OK” isn’t exactly a yes, and in many cases, especially in violent situations, the victim may not say “no” because they’ve panicked and shut down, or they feel like they’ll be hurt or ignored if they do.
For example, one 22-year-old student polled said she’d had sex with a man even though she did not consent, and only said “OK” because “he was bigger, we were alone, he wouldn’t stop.”
And if there’s all of this uncertainty, why can’t we get people to agree that “yes means yes” and put that simple concept into practice? If “most people agree that no means no,” what’s so hard about adopting the opposite mantra?
What really breaks my heart about what that 22-year-old student said was that she started her statement with, “It wasn’t rape, but it was kind of similar.”

Welcome to 2015: College kids have forgotten how to fornicate.

Excuse my habitual sarcasm, but exactly what did this 22-year-old think was going to happen when she got alone with this guy? Don’t these kids ever listen to rock-and-roll music?

I remember every little thing
As if it happened only yesterday.
Parking by the lake,
And there was not another car in sight.
And I never had a girl,
Looking any better than you did.
And all the kids at school
They were wishing they were me that night.
And now our bodies are, oh, so close and tight
It never felt so good, it never felt so right . . .
Though it’s cold and lonely in the deep dark night,
I can see paradise by the dashboard light.
Ain’t no doubt about it, we were doubly blessed,
‘Cause we were barely 17 and we were barely dressed.

We didn’t need advice columns back in the day. We had rock-and-roll.

Have these kids been so incredibly sheltered they don’t understand how sex happens? Lane Moore isn’t really helping:

Therein lies the problem exactly. She knows she didn’t consent, she knows she didn’t say yes, she knows she only had sex with him because she thought he wouldn’t stop anyway, but she didn’t want it. That’s still rape. But because so many people still consider “no means no” the standard, there are many sexual assault victims who didn’t say no, but didn’t say yes, and they’re left feeling like they have only themselves to blame for not fighting back harder.
There has been some initial success with California’s “yes means yes” law enacted in 2014. A March Cosmopolitan article interviewed UCLA students about how it was going: “Freshman year we were like, ‘I guess it was my fault. I never really said no, so you can’t get mad at him,'” Morgan, a senior, said. “Now we’re a lot more aware that unless we’re saying we want to do this, then it’s not OK for it to happen.”

Exactly what is going on here? It’s mystifying to old-timers like me, perhaps because of a general decline in morality. Back in the day, there were Good Girls and Bad Girls, and everybody knew the difference. The Good Girls were hanging out at the Baptist Campus Ministry, and the Bad Girls were partying down at the Red Rooster Pub. You can guess where I was, right? But I was a Democrat back then, so . . .

Say whatever you want about double-standards and sexist “myths,” there were probably fewer misunderstandings over consent back when sex was something we learned about from Bad Girls and rock-and-roll songs.

Hey, hey, mama, said the way you move,
Gonna make you sweat, gonna make you groove.
Oh, oh, child, way you shake that thing,
Gonna make you burn, gonna make you sting.
Hey, hey, baby, when you walk that way,
Watch your honey drip, can’t keep away.

Which pretty much says it all, really. The proposition was simple to understand: “Do you want to rock-and-roll, or not? It’s up to you, sweetheart. There’s lots of Bad Girls and cold beer down at the Red Rooster Pub, and I’m feeling kind of thirsty.”

Meanwhile, there’s more from Miss Moore at Cosmo:

But interestingly, when the students in the Washington Post poll were asked what they thought would do the most to prevent sexual assault, a huge 93 percent of students said men simply needed to respect women more. This answer beat out things like drinking less (78 percent) and avoiding casual sex (64 percent).

Here’s a crazy idea: If you want men to respect you, be a Good Girl.

If you don’t want to rock-and-roll, you should spend your evenings at the Baptist Campus Ministry, praying for the lost souls of all those Bad Girls and hell-bound Democrat boys who are getting so drunk and having sex so “casual” they can’t even remember what happened, much less whether or not they consented to it.

Trying to pretend there is no difference between Good and Bad, believing you can indulge in drunkenness and fornication without risk or consequence? Trust me, I was a hell of a young fool back in the day, but I was never that kind of fool. And now, let’s rock-and-roll.

UPDATE: Welcome, Instapundit readers! Professor Reynolds asks, “Really, what’s the point of college anymore?” Indeed, campus life in 2015 brings to mind the immortal words of Joseph Blutarsky:

“Seven years of college down the drain.
Might as well join the f–king Peace Corps.”

Let’s face it: Animal House was “rape culture, because everything from the 1970s was “rape culture,” especially rock-and-roll.

 

Category: Crime, Education, Sex Trouble

Comments

163 Responses to “Do You Wanna Rock-and-Roll?”

  1. Nan
    June 18th, 2015 @ 2:29 pm

    Why the hate for dolly?

  2. Nan
    June 18th, 2015 @ 2:58 pm

    But we still use the reasonable man standard, Would a reasonable man in those circumstances believe the woman had consented? Yes, I believe he would.

  3. Nan
    June 18th, 2015 @ 2:59 pm

    But you can’t make those arguments after the fact. At the time, the guy had no verbal or non-verbal indication that she didn’t consent.

  4. Dana
    June 18th, 2015 @ 3:02 pm

    Nan, your statement is based on the notion that silence is consent; that notion is falling by the wayside these days, as it should. If the legal presumption is that consent has to happen, then silence is consent has to eventually fail, because the default is no.

  5. Dana
    June 18th, 2015 @ 3:04 pm

    And the judge of reasonableness will be a jury . . . and juries can do some unexpected things.

  6. Nan
    June 18th, 2015 @ 3:20 pm

    You’re wrong; the legal definition of consent includes implied consent which can manifest in silence or inaction. So no, silence as consent is not falling by the wayside.

    ETA: If the girl objects at the time, it’s one thing, but if she objects after the fact it’s regret not rape.

  7. Cosmo
    June 18th, 2015 @ 3:51 pm

    The problem is that yes means yes until the very moment that the word “no” is uttered. Then it’s rape. It is only a matter of time before some enterprising young woman offers insurance against that. At a bar just picture the scene: The young woman says “Just tap here and you will have insurance that I am saying yes and I am not going to say no.” Of course the insurance premium is $200. It’s insurance . . . with an app just like Uber, complete with experience ratings . . . You know it is coming.

  8. Dana
    June 18th, 2015 @ 6:40 pm

    What you are going to find is that is exactly what will be changed.

  9. Nan
    June 18th, 2015 @ 6:54 pm

    If that happens, it’ll take a long, long time.

  10. Daniel Freeman
    June 19th, 2015 @ 1:26 am

    The problem is that yes means yes until the very moment that the word “no” is uttered.

    No, “yes means yes” until they stop saying it. I know, it’s hard to wrap your head around. You’re still thinking in the current “no means no” terms.

  11. Daniel Freeman
    June 19th, 2015 @ 1:32 am

    Ferrets are the worst. One of the most horrific stories that I’ve ever heard had to do with a couple that left one alone with their baby. It’s seared into my brain and I can’t get it out. Don’t look it up.

  12. FMJRA 2.0: Avoiding EDC Edition : The Other McCain
    June 20th, 2015 @ 9:59 pm

    […] Do You Wanna Rock-and-Roll? Batshit Crazy News […]

  13. The Do Not Attend / Do Not Support List Of American Colleges And Universities | Theological Geography
    June 27th, 2015 @ 9:40 pm

    […] Robert Stacy McCain: Do You Wanna Rock-And-Roll? […]