It was 2004, a decade before the phrase “affirmative consent” made it onto news shows or big university campuses. I was 21, a junior at another college. I think it was the first time I had heard people talk about consent as something you could ask for verbally. It was definitely the first time I’d ever seen it written out like that. The first-of-its-kind affirmative consent policy was written by students in 1990 as a response to campus rape. But the first thing anyone who was at Antioch in the ’90s wanted to talk to me about was the media mayhem. When The Associated Press ran an article on the policy with the headline “No huggy, no kissy without a ‘yes’ at Antioch College,” it ignited a cultural firestorm.