How 'Yes Means Yes' Already Works on One Campus

"When Tyler Anderson spoke to first-year students at Grinnell College this fall about the institution’s policy on sexual consent, he acknowledged that asking for a partner’s approval during sex may seem unnatural. Grinnell’s two-year-old policy, which is similar to the hotly debated one just adopted in California, requires students to gain "affirmative consent" from partners in all sexual interactions.....Teaching students how to make sure they and their partners are on the same page during sex so that encounters don’t lead to charges of assault is sensitive and tricky. Students, like most people, aren’t used to being told so explicitly what to do in the privacy of their own bedrooms. But guiding them is a role colleges find themselves playing as they are responsible for both preventing sexual assault and for handling reports of sexual misconduct. At Grinnell, most students seem to accept the college’s involvement in what many consider a very personal matter."