The Sexual Revolution of the 1960s and 70s was touted as a way to liberate men and women from the hypocritical and artificial constraints of the 1950s. It assumed that individual adults could take responsibility for their own decisions.

Well, at least that was the PR for the dismantling of the middle-class mores that put women squarely in the driver’s seat of being the sexual gatekeepers in relationships. It also meant she could count on the backup system of her family. But now it was I.AM.WOMAN.HEAR.ME.ROAR! shacking up, The Pill, abortion, free sex … !

Indeed, there is nary a major university that isn’t in the business without a “Sex Week” that encourages and promotes all manner of sexual practices.

And yet, here we are again, with another gang-rape accusation by a young woman who thought a three-some with a couple of frat bros would be exciting and two years later has decided to sue. The one huge missing factor between “Free Sex” ethos and the reality of what happens when that message hits college kids at their peak hormonal years is something any 1950s parent could tell you. Self-responsibility.

And couple that with the political hacks who use #MeToo or #BelieveAllWomen even with the most contentious cases — and sometimes outright hoaxes like Rolling Stone Magazines “A Rape on Campus” — suddenly young women are incapable of negotiating anything with sexual encounters and if there is regret the next day — well then, RAPE!

Call it Concept Creep

The Bureau of Justice Statistics’ National Crime Victimization Survey, which includes crimes never reported to police, estimates that the rape and sexual-assault rate fell from 4.3 victimizations per 1,000 people age 12 or older in 1993 to 2.0 in 2024.

What has increased in recent years is the range of experiences now described as nonconsensual. Spearheaded by activists, these expanded definitions — and the subsequent encouragement of women to reinterpret past experiences through them — has created serious consequences for individuals, society, and now potentially also the legal meanings of rape and sexual assault.

Psychologist Nick Haslam coined the term “concept creep” to describe how harm-related terms have expanded “horizontally” to encompass qualitatively different experiences and “vertically” to include less severe forms. Applying this framework to concepts like trauma, bullying, racism, and abuse, he found that heightened sensitivity to perceived harm was most commonly associated with a liberal worldview.

While our culture has become more libertine and coarse, there is also the concept of affirmative consent wherein both partners should stop at various steps during an encounter to verbally affirm their consent to the behavior.

Today, nonconsent can cover silence, insufficient enthusiasm, any level of intoxication, or feeling pressured, deceived, or influenced to engage in sexual activity.

Over the past decade, there’s been a push to expand the definition of “rape” to include all manner of unwanted sexual contact. Or sexual contact you regretted the next day.

Moving from teaching men to respect a woman’s choice when she declares “no”, to now telling men that even if she says “yes” they must refer first to a checklist that she is “sober enough, enthusiastic enough, sufficiently free from pressure, and unlikely to feel differently about the encounter later” is teaching them that women have no agency. And what are we teaching women when we tell them that any sexual encounter that disappoints is really sexual assault? Are those women adult enough to even attend a coed college?

When the super feminist is over your BS, you’re done 😅 https://t.co/6ELFlLSguS

— SchmoooToo (@schmooToo3) October 3, 2026

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