The meaning of sexual consent is often misunderstood in disturbing ways by young people. There’s the idea that if you wear sexy clothing you’re asking for it; that silence during a sex act equals consent; and that women are always falsely accusing men of sexual assault and rape. Surveys have shown that one in two boys and one in three girls think it is OK to sometimes hit a woman or force her to have sex. All of which suggests a new approach is necessary. We need to teach young women and men about affirmative, enthusiastic and informed consent.
This year colleges at Cambridge University have introduced consent talks and workshops after a student survey revealed 77% of respondents had experienced some form of sexual harassment. This culture isn’t restricted to Cambridge. It’s estimated that more than 400,000 women are sexually assaulted each year in England and Wales, and I have friends in universities across the UK who have described being raped, assaulted or coerced into sex. One friend, who has been sexually pressured on a number of occasions, confessed that she was afraid of men walking out on her if she didn’t do what they wanted.
The introduction of consent education in Cambridge sparked controversy among students. It was suggested that the workshops and talks would be patronising and useless, because everyone already knew about consent. Some students reacted to the idea that consent workshops should be compulsory by saying this would be a “contradiction in terms”. One, writing in Cambridge’s Varsity newspaper, was furious that consent workshops equated rape, “a criminal act”, with “behaviour they [women] find offensive”. Others responded: “As future leaders, it is our responsibility to support [consent workshops].”
It’s an odd argument that these talks and workshops should be supported simply because students will soon be in positions of power. It’s also worrying that their introduction fuelled such a backlash. Universities are in desperate need of consent workshops because rape and sexual assault are rife in these environments. The Hidden Marks report by the National Union of Students showed that, from a nationwide sample of 2,000 female students, one in seven had been seriously physically or sexually assaulted, 68% had been subjected to sexual harassment, and 16% had experienced unwanted kissing or touching during their time at university. In other words, ask any female student and it’s highly probable that she will have a story to tell you about sexual harassment, which either she or someone she knows has experienced.
I think some of the fear around consent workshops stems from the way they bring rape so worryingly close to home. They acknowledge that a rapist isn’t just a stranger in a dark alley – it’s more likely to be the person next door who you were too drunk to consent to sleep with, or the friend who refused your request to stop halfway through. We need consent classes to teach students that sex is an activity that requires the enthusiastic verbal agreement of all participants. No absolutely means no. And yes absolutely means yes.
But the workshops are also a chance to discuss the subtleties of particular situations – those in which a person may not be able to consciously consent to sex, or those in which “yes” is assumed. Consent has to be a conscious, willing agreement, made without pressure or coercion.
Consent workshops aren’t about preaching or judging. I attended a training session earlier this year that explained how they would work, and we discussed the sorts of things in everyday life we typically ask consent for. This ranged from seeing if a chair is free, to going to the toilet during a class. It revealed that we ultimately ask for people’s consent all the time, so in sex it should be no different. We also discussed how to “check in” with your partner, to see if they consent at different stages of an encounter, and the ways in which people in ongoing relationships can negotiate an understanding of consent. When feeding back to the session, the phrase that kept being repeated was “Just ask”.
The idea of affirmative and enthusiastic consent encourages people to regard sex as a positive, willing action. It’s about teaching women and men not to be ashamed of sex, and to proceed consciously and confidently. An understanding of consent engenders respect for everyone: from those who choose to refrain from sex to those who are in relationships, and those who engage in sex in a wide variety of situations. Consent is about ensuring that people are completely comfortable in their sexual decisions, whatever those might be.
Colleges at Cambridge have taken a big step by introducing consent talks and workshops – but I’d like to see these made compulsory in all universities across the UK. The workshops bring home the difficult truth that we are all capable of violating someone else’s consent, while creating a safe space to discuss the meaning of consenting positively and enthusiastically. They are empowering, and absolutely necessary.
