FWI Is Now a Crime - Coastal Carolina University Goes Even Beyond "Yes Means Yes"

WASHINGTON - July 23, 2015 - PRLog -- WASHINGTON, D.C. (July 23,  2015):  To have sex, students must be completely sober, so that having coitus after even one drink is a crime for which a student could presumably be expelled, teaches Coastal Carolina University in its controversial poster campaign against date rape.

        Interestingly, the school has maintained that legally ludicrous position even after it was pointedly reminded that there is a big difference between "incapacitation" from consuming alcohol (which can make it rape) and "intoxication" (which has no such legal effect), notes public interest law professor John Banzhaf.

        Going even further, and far beyond even those universities which require affirmative consent to every step in the romantic process (the so-called "yes means yes" standard), Coastal also demands that the consent be "enthusiastic" - if it's not, the school warns, "it's a crime."

         So if a woman in fact said "yes, let's have sex," but it is later found that she wasn't sufficiently enthusiastic when she said it, the male involved in the sexual encounter can be expelled.

        "This is campus political  correctness gone wild," says Banzhaf, whose legal analysis of date rape cases and possible alternative approaches has appeared in many leading publications.

        And, speaking of "gone wild," Banzhaf notes that the women who were filmed for the "girls gone wild" videotapes were found to have validly consented to the filming. even though they were obviously intoxicated, because voluntary intoxication doesn't excuse bad choices or bad behavior - whether that's drunk driving, wife beating, or making unwise decisions regarding sex.

        It is a sad fact that most date rapes and other sexual assaults on campus occur when the participants are intoxicated - in one study, 60% of female complainants were so drunk they could not recall what happened - but that does not turn drunken sex into a crime, says Banzhaf.

        The law does not require sobriety as a condition for intercourse.

        FWI is not a crime, even if DWI is, he says.

JOHN F. BANZHAF III, B.S.E.E., J.D., Sc.D.
Professor of Public Interest Law
George Washington University Law School,
FAMRI Dr. William Cahan Distinguished Professor,
Fellow, World Technology Network,
Founder, Action on Smoking and Health (ASH)
2000 H Street, NW
Washington, DC 20052, USA
(202) 994-7229 // (703) 527-8418
http://banzhaf.net/ @profbanzhaf