Jerry Brown signs a law requiring colleges and universities that get state money to impose a "yes means yes" standard on student sex.

The Chronicle of Higher Education — citing the famously spurious "one in five women" statistic — says the new law "ushers in a new era in the debate about how to curb sexual assaults on college campuses."

Actually, the statute doesn't — like the Chronicle — call it the "yes means yes" standard, which sounds silly, since "yes" already meant yes. They ought to at least say "only yes means yes." But the statutory term is "affirmative consent":

“Affirmative consent” means affirmative, conscious, and voluntary agreement to engage in sexual activity. It is the responsibility of each person involved in the sexual activity to ensure that he or she has the affirmative consent of the other or others to engage in the sexual activity. 

He or she... this is gender neutral, as, of course, it must be. So no more assuming that the male must want the female's touchings.

Lack of protest or resistance does not mean consent, nor does silence mean consent. Affirmative consent must be ongoing throughout a sexual activity and can be revoked at any time. The existence of a dating relationship between the persons involved, or the fact of past sexual relations between them, should never by itself be assumed to be an indicator of consent.

The statute proceeds to speak of "the accused" and "the complainant." The accused is not permitted to use intoxication as an excuse for misperceiving the existence of affirmative consent and there can be no affirmative consent when the complainant was "incapacitated" by drinking or drugs.

What if both are drunk? The smartass answer to that question is: It depends on who's the accused and who's the complainant. It seems as though, beyond the gender-neutrality of the statute, there is an assumption that only women will complain. The statutory scheme would collapse if men complained too. But social conditioning and convention keep men quiet... at least so far. Perhaps in the future, they will complain defensively after a night of ambiguity.

As The Chronicle of Higher Education says, it's "a new era in the debate."

ADDED: I suspect that what's really going on is an effort to change the culture of drinking and sex. It will go the way of drinking and driving and become something that decent people don't do... not beyond a light drink anyway. The feminist angle is the wedge.