The California Supreme Court has expanded the definition of rape and narrowed the definition of consent. In a 7-0 ruling yesterday, the Court held that if a woman first consents and then retracts that consent during intercourse, the man can be convicted of rape. The Court offered no guidance on what constitutes a revocation of consent, nor did it say how long a man has to withdraw before the consensual act in which he is engaged becomes a forcible act of rape. As a reader notes, this ruling neatly dispenses with the idea that rape necessarily involves force, and replaces it with a definition of consent that is as uncertain and shifting as the woman who wields it.

One imagines that prudent men will now not only carry condoms in their wallets, but consent forms and stopwatches.

UPDATE: The Associated Press misreported the ruling. It was 6-1, not 7-0.