Students’ lessons in sexual consent
University freshers to get ‘rape awareness’ classes
YORK University is organising sexual consent classes for all its firstyear students to try to prevent sexual harassment and assault on campus.
The sessions, which will form part of a health and safety induction day, will start by explaining the legal definitions of rape and sexual assault. It will also discuss ‘rape culture’ in a bid to stamp out sexual harassment on campus.
Every student – whether they are male or female – will be asked to attend the genderneutral sessions’, although those who feel strongly will be able to opt out.
University officials said the scheme would help students have a ‘safe experience’ during their studies, but critics yesterday labelled the initiative ‘patronising’.
Ben Froughi, a business student at the Russell Group university, said: ‘I doubt a consent class has ever managed to prevent a single rape. No student arrives at university not knowing if forcing someone to have sex is acceptable or not.’
The scheme follows a nationwide initiative by the National Union of Students aimed at combatting sexual harassment on campus. The NUS has drawn up guidelines for delivering the classes, which advise its regional officers to provide ‘trigger warnings’ about difficult topics in case they traumatise students.
Yesterday York student union president Ben Leatham said: ‘I welcome the work our women’s officers are doing to respond to growing demands from students to address these issues.’ And a university spokesman said: ‘Many other universities have undertaken similar information sessions and we believe they will complement other initiatives across campus.’
But Joanna Williams, education editor of online magazine Spiked, said: ‘The irony in making consent classes compulsory is sadly lost on today’s students. The classes are patronising; if students really need lessons in how to say yes or no then they should not be at university.’
She added: ‘Sex is something people have managed to do without special lessons since the beginning of time. There is no “correct” way to negotiate getting someone into bed. And in suggesting that there is, the classes encourage women to interpret sexual experiences that have not been preceded by a lengthy, formal and sober contractual discussion as rape.’
The news comes after Warwick University student George Lawlor, 19, was branded a ‘rapist’ and ‘misogynist’ after he dared to question the effectiveness of consent workshops. Writing online, he had argued that the majority of people ‘don’t have to be taught to not be a rapist’ – and that men inclined to commit the crime would be unlikely to attend such a workshop.
In recent years student activists have provoked outrage by banning a range of mainstream speakers over fears their views could ‘cause offence’ and violate ‘safe spaces’.