The erosion of rights can happen in a variety of ways, and manipulation of language is one of them. At the root of the problem on campuses is a change in the way the word “sex” is used. While sex is considered an activity, until recently, it commonly referred to an activity shared between people, as in the familiar phrase, “having sex.” Implicit in the concept of sex is consent. Without consent, sexual activity becomes rape.

The prevalence of drugs and alcohol on college campuses, however, has blurred the boundaries between sex and rape to the point that many college campuses have adopted the term “nonconsensual sex” to refer to sexual activity that occurs when one party, usually a woman, is unconscious or semiconscious. Rather than address sexual assault as the felony crime of rape, these campuses define it as the honor code violation of nonconsensual sex. Given that unconscious women cannot say either yes or no, they can give neither affirmative nor negative consent.

There are several problems with the notion of nonconsensual sex. First, sex implies consent. Without it, sexual activity is not sex but violence. Thus, the very term “nonconsensual sex” is an oxymoron. Second, nonconsensual sex suggests that one party engages in sexual activity while the other party gives or withholds consent. In most cases, this means that men engage in sexual activity while women merely consent, and not vice versa. Third, the notion of nonconsensual sex does not take into account power politics that continue to plague gender relations in a context where women are expected to please men. Fourth, the notion of nonconsensual sex simultaneously reveals and disavows that at least one strain of our culture actually values the lack of consent.

Some colleges have attempted to institute affirmative consent policies to deal with the problem of “nonconsensual sex.” There is even a cellphone app that records a woman’s consent, sends it to a cloud where it can’t be tampered with or even seen except by the authorities. Although affirmative consent is certainly better than no consent, there are several problems with the liberal notion of consent implicit in these policies.

Again, it is assumed that one party asks for sex and the other merely gives or withholds consent. In addition, the risk is that consent is treated like an on or off switch where once it is given it cannot be revoked, which doesn’t work for sex. Current affirmative consent policies are contractual models of sex wherein parties agree first and then act on it. But, this “Fifty Shades of Grey” form of consent is impractical when it comes to sexual activities. (In that novel, the heroine never signs the contract and the hero has his way with her nonetheless).

Sex is not a contract. It is a dynamic interaction. Furthermore, consent to one type of sexual activity does not imply consent to another.

Just because a woman consents to accompany a man to his apartment doesn’t mean she consents to being strangled. And just because a woman gets drunk at the party does not mean she consents to sex while she’s unconscious. Drugs and alcohol lead to “50 shades of consent.”