The idea of consent is rarely taught in today’s sex education, leaving the youth uninformed and therefore irresponsible and unprotected.
Only 22 states in the U.S. require sex ed to be taught in schools, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Living in one of the “most progressive” nations in the world, you would think sex ed would be held to a high enough standard to be taught in more of our nation’s schools.
Including other states that do not mandate sex education, 35 states allow parents to opt out of sex ed for their children, according to NCSL.
Students who are subjected to sex education, however, still have very little knowledge on consent and what it entails.
Consent isn’t that big of a deal, anyway, is it?
One in four college women have reported surviving rape or attempted rape, according to One in Four USA. The idea of consent needs to be more prevalent throughout the upcoming generation than it is in ours, starting with sex education.
“The problem with rape culture is that consent is negated, and it’s not on the map,” said Shannon Salisbury, a sex educator in Ontario, according to www.genprogress.org. “So why don’t we shift the lens, so how we’re talking about rape culture is through consent?”
There is no way to draw a line between sex and rape culture without introducing consent. They are unfortunately very intertwined.
According to Reuters, a school in Nairobi, Kenya, began teaching their students the importance of consent through a program called “Your Moment of Truth.” Rape in schools where “Your Moment of Truth” was taught dropped by 20 percent, according to researchers.
“You can stand up and say: ‘No. This man is doing something wrong.’ Out of that, many other people will join hands with you,” Collins Omondi, a leader in the program, said to Reuters.
Where is the U.S. in this type of teaching? Surely not in our sex education.
The Appalachian State University Office of the Dean of Students and OASIS have been demonstrating the magnitude of sexual assault and rape on campus through the Red Flag Campaign, showing consent as a solution to the rising rape statistic.
Imagine what change could happen if students were introduced to consent at an earlier age rather than in their college years. Imagine how many students could have been protected.
Burrows, a freshman journalism major from Mint Hill, is an opinion writer.
Column: Lauren Burrows, Opinion Writer
Riversong • Apr 21, 2015 at 1:15 pm
As there is no such thing as “rape culture” in the US, where rape has always been treated as a major crime and is condoned by no one, and as no study has ever found “one in four college women have reported surviving rape or attempted rape”, and as consent is never clear-cut or unambiguous and sexuality is one of the most confused and confusing elements of human relationship, this diatribe reflects some combination of woeful ignorance and ideological dogmatism.
Jack • Apr 21, 2015 at 8:01 am
That “1 in 4” statistic has been thoroughly debunked. (The original study’s authors stated that the findings only applied to the particular university they studied, and in case one doesn’t realize it, that the findings aren’t readily applicable to the rest of the nation. They also used an expansive definition of sexual assault.) If you look at actual crime statistics and inflate them for whatever your guess of “underreporting” is, you won’t come close to “1 in 4,” and DOJ statistics indicates that campuses are actually safer than the general population for college-aged women.
It might be surprising, but people can learn what consent is in the same way they learn many other moral imperatives; it doesn’t just have to be from your government.