As Americans, we do love punishment.

I think the better question is: How do we want sexual mores to shift, and what will that do for the American experience of both consensual and nonconsensual sex?

Regarding punishment, we've learned from the downfall of Harvey Weinstein and other famous men not only that times have changed, but also that ostracism is an efficient tool. It reminds me of the tradition of bathroom lists of sexual assaulters at Brown beginning in 1990. Back then the administrators called the students who wrote them "magic marker terrorists" and threatened them with expulsion if caught. Now a Shitty Media Men list can dominate the news for days as HR departments across the coasts hastily assess their employees and their liability.

As a journalist, I try to be as fact-based and objective as possible, though I'm also aware that objectivity is an illusion. This way of moving through the world is what separates journalists from activists.

I also believe that upending ingrained ideas about what assault is a gun to the head, a stranger, a parking lot and what consent looks like a woman who gives a no really means yes is very messy. And part of the messiness is some students - and yes, usually these are liberal students - over-determining the definition of assault.

I'm a staunch believer in the effect of pop culture - including advertising and the internet - on the young. Pop culture in its narrowest sense - mass-produced film, TV, and music - either truly reflects what's up in youth culture, or it reflects what youth-filled focus groups have told marketing companies that they want to consume.

If we agree that universities need to monitor sexual violence in various locations, and that they will require students to hew to a narrower set of rules than the wider world, how do we deal with putting these ideas into the brains of teenagers who have been schooled in the disgusting gender norms of our American culture for the previous eighteen years? This is the essential conundrum. Can we teach these relatively young dogs new tricks? I believe that we can.