Are you disabled? Have you just had sex? Well, according to Armstrong State University, that means you’ve just been raped.
The Savannah, Georgia college recently implemented a “yes means yes” policy, also known as “affirmative consent,” or “keep a lawyer in your bedroom at all times.”
The policy is much like other affirmative consent laws, classifying all manner of ambiguous sexual encounters as rape. Any “intentional sexual touching” can be classified as sexual misconduct, effectively ruining the campus club scene.
But there’s a twist. According to Armstrong’s new policy, “persons who have a physical and/or mental impairment are unable to give consent.”
Am I reading this correctly? Because it sounds like disabled people are incapable of consensual sex.
As a vicious right-wing bastard and scion of privilege, obviously I don’t spend a lot of time hand-wringing about the marginalised and underprivileged. That’s for other people. (I do watch the Special Olympics, but only for the crashes.)
But I must break character for a moment. Disabled people have a hard enough time getting nookie already. Now they also have to worry about frightening away potential booty due to the ever-present threat of rape charges. It’s just too much.
It’s also a shame because, thanks to modern technology, the opportunities for disabled people to engage in all kinds of fun are increasing exponentially. Grindr and Tinder don’t care if you have functioning legs or not and provide you ready access to more people who might not mind either.
Some disabled people even make a sexual virtue of their impediments. One of my favorite Twitter followers has a claw for a hand. I’ve often wondered if, in more intimate moments, he’s able to replace the claw with a vibrator, or a Bad Dragon. I should ask him really.
It’s certainly possible. We have the technology. Instead of seeing disabled people as helpless victims of predators, we should start considering all the wonderful, depraved possibilities. And the porn! Imagine Sex With A Psycho VIII: Bang or Butcher, a live spectacle on Brazzers TV which pits eleven busty babes against a bipolar sufferer. What will he stick in them: his manhood or his machete? Vote now!
Armstrong University told the Washington Examiner that the current policy was “missing words” and that it would shortly be clarified. According to the university, their intention was for the policy to specifically cover disabilities that impaired consent.
But as the Examiner‘s reporter Ashe Schow asks, just what are these disabilities? In one case cited by Schow, a man was charged with rape after having sex with his wife, who had Alzheimer’s. Although the wife initially consented, it was alleged that she lost the ability to consent at some point during the encounter.
All of this puts you in a pretty dire situation if you have Alzheimer’s or some other disability that makes sexual encounters ambiguous. In addition to all the other depressing features of the disease, you’ll be robbed of the ability to have sex without causing your partners legal and emotional trouble.
No matter how enthusiastically you consent, potential partners just won’t want to take the risk if you have a mental disorder. And, of course, the potential for abuse is huge. What about people who have suffered depression in the past? Could they invoke it to claim they’ve been assaulted?
All of this is eminently avoidable, of course, if society would stop its entirely unfounded paranoia over the non-existent rape epidemic. But there’s no chance of that happening any time soon. Honestly, it’s enough to drive you mad.
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