antioch infamous?

I read a line which labeled (the now closing) Antioch College in my area as infamous. This got me to thinking on several fronts; first why would it be considered infamous? and second, if so, has infamy had its meaning diluted by popular use?

I was somewhat aware of the strange sexual misconduct and verbal consent policies that Antioch adopted in the early 90s. I wasn't aware how bizarre (and ridiculous) they were. I fully realize some good intentions. But in seeking out a series of clarifying rules, they sort of distorted the actual problem they were seeking to absolve from occurring (namely, aggressive sexual misconduct, usually resulting in forcible sexual acts and in part resulting from sexual objectification).

This is (well, was) the actual policy

Consent is defined as the act of willingly and verbally agreeing to engage in specific sexual conduct. The following are clarifying points:

* Consent is required each and every time there is sexual activity.
* All parties must have a clear and accurate understanding of the sexual activity.
* The person(s) who initiate(s) the sexual activity is responsible for asking for consent.
* The person(s) who are asked are responsible for verbally responding.
* Each new level of sexual activity requires consent.
* Use of agreed upon forms of communication such as gestures or safe words is acceptable, but must be discussed and verbally agreed to by all parties before sexual activity occurs.
* Consent is required regardless of the parties’ relationship, prior sexual history, or current activity (e.g. grinding on the dance floor is not consent for further sexual activity).
* At any and all times when consent is withdrawn or not verbally agreed to, the sexual activity must stop immediately.
* Silence is not consent.
* Body movements and non-verbal responses such as moans are not consent.
* A person can not give consent while sleeping.
* All parties must have unimpaired judgment (examples that may cause impairment include but are not limited to alcohol, drugs, mental health conditions, physical health conditions).
* All parties must use safer sex practices.
* All parties must disclose personal risk factors and any known STIs. Individuals are responsible for maintaining awareness of their sexual health.

These requirements for consent do not restrict with whom the sexual activity may occur, the type of sexual activity that occurs, the props/toys/tools that are used, the number of persons involved, the gender(s) or gender expressions of persons involved.


There are several problems. First: a requirement of verbal consent for each encounter. People will tend to communicate a considerable amount of information in a non-verbal fashion. That sort of intimate camaraderie that develops in any relationship between people will further hone this communication method such as to avoid many misinterpretations that would require a verbal consent for many activities (including physical intimacy). Even such mis-communications do result, a simple verbal non-consent should suffice to stop or halt further undesirable activity. If it does not, then there is a clear boundary line that was evidently crossed and an act of punishable misconduct results. From my own experiences, I would say that having to attain a verbal consent would not only present certain difficulties, but in fact, presents problems in developing that non-verbal intimacy that should be enjoyed. Simply put, not telling someone your every thought is probably a good idea for the long run. But certainly where our actions require some levels of mutual consent, we should be able to ascertain that consent through non-verbal means. That is a well-intended use of such a policy. But in practice it makes for nonsensical policy.

That I am sort of weird and not generally good at reading some such signals (meaning I can more or less follow this sort of verbal consent policy at times), often causes more problems than following it does. People of any sex who are not accustomed to verbalizing their assent, their desires, or their demands will tend to be difficult to assign a posted policy of verbal assent toward (and will often resent that they must overtly communicate their desires toward another person rather than that person simply becoming able to determine those desires non-verbally).

-- Consent is required for each act. The noble intention here is that simply getting married or even romantically involved doesn't mean sexual activity is a freebie. That's a fine notion to understand because it certainly intends to protect the less sexually aggressive partner from (even temporarily) undesired acts. The problem here is not the intention again, it's the implied requirement for explicit verbal consent at each act. There is not really an allowance for spontaneous activities implied by this, and again, a non-verbal consent should suffice in a long-term intimate relationship such as is (or should be implied as) common in a married couple.

-- Understanding of the sexual activity. I think this goes without saying. I guess there are boundaries between non-overtly sexual sex acts and sexual intercourse, but generally these become fuzzy to one or both parties during..and it's generally pretty easy to either imply them or to stop someone from crossing them (and consequentially penalize them if they do). The problem I suppose is what constitutes a "new level" of sexual conduct. That's undoubtedly a subjectively defined boundary..and in many instances, again, there's implicit boundaries that should not be crossed without explicit consent. That's a noble understanding of sexuality. But it's difficult to determine objectively what those implicit boundaries are, or even in some cases, that they are permanent and unwavering (ie, where is a line between an unwanted grope and petting, this line differs from person to person).

-- gestures or safe words I guess sort of addresses the problem of non-verbal consent. But not really. I still am having trouble understanding a need for distinguishing legally between explicit and implicit consents. I realize there's a whole lot of legal trouble in not doing so, but seriously. How often would two parties of intimate relationships not be able to determine these implicit demands without resorting to explicit and pre-defined terms (and in essence, these implicit demands will often take the format of pre-defined terms or events through the natural course).

--- Several of these are pretty obvious -- stopping where consent is denied, sleeping, silence or considerable impairment. The tricky part with "impairment" is the difference between lowered inhibition and what someone might do under normal conditions. Someone who is drunk or stoned may have implicit demands that are based on their demands during quite reasonable and unimpaired states. And will often communicate explicitly what these demands are. What's the difference between this level of inhibition and actual inhibition? A reasonable person can of course, make such discourse as to understand the actual and normal demands of another person so as to act accordingly during times of impaired judgment. And we can presume that where a genuine affection is involved, we would not see an unwanted advantage pressed upon that impairment. Again, I see this as a rather sticky legal quandary with a noble intention and a difficult implementation.

-- safer sex practices and STIs. That's noble. I'd be curious what that implies as far as mandatory practice. But I have no problem inferring that people in a college environment should practice safer sex and should openly request these practices in a consistent nature (such as with birth control or condoms) and openly define whatever risks they may pose to others (because of possible public health problems)


Here's the problem with all of this. It's not really infamous. It's merely a rather impractical attempt to make basic human sexuality a consensual act between involved parties (and adults at that). I could agree this was maybe infamous if say it tried to ban sex entirely or used some imposed college standard as to who could have sex with whom (as some schools use to try to prevent or restrict homosexual relationships on campus). But it doesn't really. It's just a heavy-handed attempt to avoid mis-communication leading to unwanted sexual activity inflicted on one or more parties. I might regard infamy as perhaps the actual commission of those unwanted sexual acts. Not the attempt to prevent it. Infamy to me means things like Charles Manson, December 7th, or the Trail of Tears. It's a pretty big deal.

This is merely an annoying deal and therefore, not really infamous.