By Robin Abcarian, Sept. 30, 2014, Latimes.com

Last Thursday around 10 p.m., 21-year-old Sofie Karasek stood outside a frat house near the UC Berkeley campus, doing her part to prevent rape and sexual assault.

Karasek, a senior who is majoring in political economy, wasn't haranguing or protesting. She was conducting what she described as a "mini consent workshop." Before students were allowed to enter the party, which was thrown by campus Democrats, they first had to listen to her spiel.

“Cal Dems is working to create a culture of consent at our party tonight!” she told would-be partiers. “What does consent meant to you?”

“What are some ways to ask for consent?” she pressed. “What do you need consent for?”
You wanna have sex with somebody, you better make sure he or she wants to have sex with you. Only yes means yes.-

A conversation like that could suck the fun right out of a college party, but Karasek told me it had the opposite effect. Last spring, when someone stopped her outside a student co-op party and asked similar questions, she said, “I felt so much more comfortable once I went inside.”

Karasek was thrilled Monday, when Gov. Jerry Brown signed a first-in-the-nation law that requires California colleges and universities to develop new standards for defining and preventing sexual assault. One of the important goals of the new law is to make sure everyone is on the same page when it comes to giving consent for sex. The old slogan "no means no" has been retired in favor of "yes means yes."

Translated, it’s fairly simple: You wanna have sex with somebody, you better make sure he or she wants to have sex with you. If that someone does not say “no”, it does not mean he or she said “yes.” Only yes means yes.