‘We need to teach what consent means’
Understanding that absence of ‘no’ doesn’t mean ‘yes’ is crucial: experts
Sexual assault allegations against former CBC Radio host Jian Ghomeshi have sparked a national conversation about how to facilitate the reporting of such incidents, but some advocates say the focus should instead be on prevention.
A key to stopping sexual assaults from happening in the first place is education about the legal landscape, says Kim Stanton of the Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund.
“It’s so important to educate young people on the law of consent and the fact that consent is something that has to be renewed at every stage, it can’t just be assumed,” she says.
Ghomeshi was fired after the CBC said it saw “graphic evidence” that he had caused injury to a woman.
In all, nine women have come forward with allegations, some dating back a decade, that Ghomeshi sexually or physically assaulted them. Police are investigating complaints by at least three of them.
Stanton says it is very important that sex education for younger people includes a discussion of consent.
“I’m not sure that that message is one that all school kids in Canada are exposed to in a healthy way.”
In Ontario, the government has announced it will reintroduce an updated sex-education curriculum for schools that it withdrew in 2010 because of objections from some religious leaders.
The reintroduced sex-ed curriculum will teach kids about homosexuality and same-sex marriages in Grade 3, encourage discussions about puberty, including masturbation, in Grade 6, and talk about preventing sexually-transmitted diseases in Grade 7, which could include information on oral and anal sex.
Education Minister Liz Sandals says it will also “explicitly” deal with the issue of consent.
Cristina Stasia is part of Accessing Information not Myths, an Edmonton-based group pushing to get consent taught in the sex-ed curriculum in school boards across Alberta. She said it’s unrealistic to expect people to successfully negotiate the thorny issue when they become sexually active, without a proper fact basis.
“We need to teach what consent means,” said the gender studies professor at the University of Alberta. “This is information that kids need to know, just like they need to know in driver’s ed what a red light means.”
Deborah Roffman, an American human sexuality teacher who has written several parenting books on how to talk to children about sex, says she has always incorporated the topic of consent into her classes. She teaches kids that that the absence of “no? does not equal consent, she says.
“The concept is respect for people’s boundaries,” Roffman said. “That’s a concept we teach with very young children.”