Rape is when you have sex with someone who doesn’t want to have sex with you.

I feel compelled to offer that reminder because after reading Jonathan Chait’s dire warning about California colleges’ “radical” new affirmative consent standard, you might find yourself confused. He claims that the new law will legally redefine “most, and possibly nearly all, sexual encounters” as rape.

It will not. Rape is defined by an absence of consent. I would argue–and I don’t think Chait would disagree–that, ethically, that has always been the case. And thanks to decades of feminist efforts to reform rape laws, that’s increasingly the legal standard too.