When drafting laws, the wording has to be crafted carefully to avoid situations where the words themselves are at wide variance with the intent of the lawmakers and with common sense.

Take the article cited.

“Many schools have moved away from a verbal consent standard in favor of a verbal or physical consent standard, but physical consent is based on non-verbal cues that are often misread, the reading of which is particularly impaired by alcohol, and that some students on the autism spectrum cannot send or receive in an accurate way. If campus administrators cannot provide a clear definition and examples of “non-verbal consent,” then students cannot be asked to use this as the basis for determining whether sexual activities are consensual.”

This can be read as recommending that consent can only be given verbally. That schools which define consent to include consent by non-verbal cues have gone astray.

“Affirmative consent must be ongoing throughout a sexual activity”.

Does anybody just talk talk talk all the way from start to finish? Ongoing consent in the real world is evidenced by continued active participation, and nothing more need be said. Proverbially, actions speak louder than words, and it’s just nuts to insist that actions say nothing.

Another way of crafting a strict standard would be to require that both parties explicitly and verbally consent to whatever it is they have in mind, and that this consent can be withdrawn at any point, in words or by resistance or distress cries or clear indication or evidence of medical distress, and that whoever would rather it continue must nevertheless desist forthwith.

On the other hand, continued active participation, in the absence of any of the circumstances listed above that would count as withdrawal of consent, should count as continuing consent.