Students are deeply divided on the meaning of consent
LOS ANGELES: Many embrace “no means no.” They have grown familiar with another three-word standard, “yes means yes.” But America’s college students are deeply divided on how to read the unspoken language of sex.
What if someone undresses? Or gets a condom? Or nods in agreement?
In each of those scenarios, a Washington Post-Kaiser Family Foundation poll found, at least 40 per cent of current and recent college students said the action established consent for more sexual activity. And at least 40 per cent said it did not.
Conflict and confusion about consent pose enormous challenges for colleges scrambling to prevent sexual assault. Many have discovered they need a new curriculum just to teach incoming students about the do’s and don’ts of intimate communication.
One of the biggest problems: Men sometimes see a green light when women are signalling yellow or red.
Another: Alcohol muddies everything. Many students find it hard to tell when someone has drunk too much and is therefore incapacitated, when a gesture or murmur in the dark might not be what it seems.
“You don’t always hear a yes,” said Luis Garcia, 21, a student at the University of Southern California who participated in the Post-Kaiser poll. “It’s more like a physical affirmation. That’s hard to judge when either party might be intoxicated or impaired.
It does become super hard to explicitly define what should be said and what should be done.”
The poll, conducted from January to March, obtained views on sexual assault and related issues from a national sample of 1,053 women and men ages 17 to 26.
All are current students or had been undergraduates at a fouryear college within the past four years.
The findings, along with dozens of follow-up interviews, offer a rare window on student attitudes nationwide as colleges, states and the federal government focus on sexual violence.
More than seven in 10 said their school had a sexualassault-prevention programme. Of those, most said students took the programmes seriously. Lessons about sexual consent are often taught during student orientation through live skits or online tutorials.
The Obama administration, in a public relations campaign called It’s on Us, is reminding students that “if someone does not or cannot consent to sex, it’s rape.”
Here in California, Governor Jerry Brown (D) last fall signed a landmark law establishing a standard of “affirmative consent” for sexual conduct in college.
The standard, known as “yes means yes,” is gaining favour among schools country-wide. It requires “affirmative, conscious and voluntary agreement” between students before they begin sexual activity.
“Lack of protest or resistance does not mean consent,” the law says, “nor does silence mean consent.” People can withdraw their consent during an encounter, and consent can’t be presumed just because two people had sex in the past.
The University of California at Los Angeles teaches incoming students about consent using slides, video and a live performance of an acquaintancerape scenario.
People in the audience are asked at various points to hold up green cards if they think consent has been established, or red cards if they don’t.
Roxanne Neal, UCLA’s director of new student and transition programmes, said the message is clear: “If you’re not sure, you just need to stop. Everyone can stop.”
In many ways, the Post-Kaiser poll found, young men get it.
Ninety-five per cent of current and recent male students said sexual activity when one person is incapacitated or passed out is tantamount to sexual assault.
Seventy-five per cent said it does not indicate consent when the other person has not said no. And 66 per cent said that sexual foreplay, such as kissing or touching, does not indicate consent.
“Consent needs to be something where both parties are actively saying yes, rather than not saying no,” said Alan Bowers, 25, a student at Utah State University. “It is completely realistic for both parties to say, ‘Yes, let’s do this.’ I don’t see any situation where that wouldn’t be possible.”
Joshua Johnstone, 21, a student at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, said verbal consent is very important at the outset of a relationship. “Obviously situations are different every time,” he said. “I would say nodding is okay. But I’ve had a situation where somebody nodded at me and I asked again, just to be sure. And she said yes.”
Among women, 38 per cent said it establishes consent for more sexual activity if someone gets a condom; 44 per cent said the same is true if someone takes off his or her own clothes; and 51 per cent said a nod of agreement signals consent. Women were much less likely than men to infer consent from sexual foreplay.
“In an ideal world, you would have verbal consent, but that’s not the way things happen usually,” said Cadence Crone, 20, a student at Salisbury University in Maryland.
She said getting a condom or shedding clothes often implies agreement to further sexual activity. “That means I’m expecting something to happen,” she said.
But kissing and touching, she said, are different. “Foreplay could be just that,” she said. “It doesn’t mean the same thing to both people.” —WP-Bloomberg