Cat Cobb
Content warning: sexual assault
The following article contains information regarding sexual assault and rape topics. These topics may be disturbing or triggering to some individuals. Please read with caution.
As much of the student body knows, April is Sexual Assault Awareness month. Many student organizations on NC State’s campus have provided programs addressing ideas such as sexual health, queer sex and consent. I was fortunate enough to be able to participate in many of these events, and I feel that these groups have done a wonderful job raising awareness and encouraging discussion and understanding of these topics.
At the same time, I was taken aback that nobody seemed to be discussing North Carolina’s laws regarding sexual assault and rape. North Carolina is the only state where an individual cannot legally revoke consent after it has previously been given.
In short, if an individual changes their mind about a sexual act, their partner can legally continue, despite no longer having their consent. This precedent has influenced sexual assault rulings since it was set, and the General Assembly’s failure to directly address this injustice through amending our state statute is disgusting and explicitly protects rapists and assaulters.
This law in North Carolina is based off a 40-year-old precedent set by the case of State vs. Way in 1979. The state supreme court ruled that “if the actual penetration is accomplished with the woman’s consent, the accused is not guilty of rape” — regardless of whether or not consent was given for future actions.
The ruling of the court demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of consent. Consent must be given for every encounter and every sexual activity, clearly and enthusiastically. It can never be assumed, nor can it carry through from one sexual activity to another.
The court’s ruling makes sexual assault and rape cases even more difficult to approach. This precedent allows defendants to claim that consent was initially given, either for penetration or for other sexual contact. Under State vs. Way, this defense is considered valid, and the odds of being prosecuted are likely low.
This precedent is especially serious for university students. North Carolina’s attempt to skew the definition of consent leads to greater levels of confusion among victims over whether what they experienced was “really” assault. Failure to reverse the effects of State vs. Way indirectly keeps victims silent, and given that as many as 80% of all campus assaults go unreported, NC State students cannot afford this inaction.
Change hasn’t been proposed until very recently. N.C. Sen. Jeff Jackson, a Democrat, has been pushing for legislative change since 2015, aiming to add a paragraph on the right to revoke consent to the sexual assault chapter of the North Carolina General Statutes.
Jackson proposed the Right to Revoke Consent Bill, also known as Senate Bill 533, in 2017 and 2018, yet both times they failed to pass. However, on April 2, 2019, Jackson proposed the bill a third time, now entitled Senate Bill 563. The proposed bill would explicitly outline that once an individual has retracted consent, “a defendant who continues the sexual act after consent is withdrawn is deemed to have committed the sexual act by force and against the will of the other person.”
This bill would offer far less confusion regarding consent in a courtroom setting. I also appreciate Jackson’s use of inclusive language, not only referring to vaginal intercourse, but all sexual acts, defined in the General Statutes as all other sexual contact.
It is upsetting that this bill had to be proposed three times, as it should have been an easy decision to pass at the very first glance. However, because of lack of support in the past, the Right to Revoke Consent Bill requires as much support as possible to pass this year.
Students can contact their state legislators by looking them up on the North Carolina General Assembly website, calling their offices and encouraging their endorsement of the Right to Revoke Consent Bill. This bill would help promote understanding of consent and protection of victims of assault, and it very much needs and deserves our support.