"College dudes worried that movement to take rape seriously is ruining their sex lives"

From Salon's Katie McDonough:

... Time’s Maia Szalavitz noted ...college students “aren’t hooking up more than they ever were, or even more than their parents did.”

So with this in mind, I didn’t put much stock in a Bloomberg News headline declaring that hookup culture was waning “amid assault alarm.” According to the piece, heightened awareness about sexual assault on college campuses and a greater move toward justice for survivors has made some college men’s boners shrink in terror. We are, it seems, meant to feel alarmed at these shrinking boners....

This is what happens when we when we publish stupid piece after stupid piece blaming women’s behavior for sexual assault, when we don’t encourage young people to communicate openly and regularly during romantic and sexual encounters, when we don’t teach affirmative consent or really any kind of sex education.

The Bloomberg piece is mostly framed to support the idea that women cry rape and that asking men to assume any responsibility to prevent sexual assault is asking too much. I don’t doubt that young men with little sexual experience feel anxiety about negotiating new relationships and sexual encounters, but claiming that the push for more education, a focus on consent and stronger systems of accountability to hold perpetrators accountable somehow means that men can’t call women on the phone to ask them on a date is absurd.

But not all college guys see themselves as the victims of a newly galvanized movement to prevent sexual assault. An incoming freshman from North Carolina named Clark Coey told Bloomberg that he is aware of the schools that are under investigation for Title IX violations, and is “concerned how [consent] will be defined when other students, including women, may be using drugs and alcohol that affect their decision-making.” Coey is the only person interviewed in the piece who makes clear that more education is needed to address consent and healthy relationships in the brave new world of university life. “I haven’t learned anything about consent since I was a freshman in a health class,” he said. “They have to give you a better understanding of what’s right and what’s wrong.”

More people should listen to Clark Coey. He is correct.