When it comes to preventing rape, “No means no” just doesn’t cover every case. A woman blacked out from drugs or alcohol no longer has the capacity to say no. Yet many teens and (unbelievably!) adults believe that sex with her while she’s unconscious isn’t rape because she didn’t say no. We need to emphasize that “consent” means a woman positively assenting to any sexual activity. That should be taught as a vital part of any sex education.
This from a high school teacher in Atlanta talking with her class about the rape of an unconscious teen in Steubenville, Ohio:
If you want to keep teens from being rapists, you can no longer assume that they know how. You HAVE to talk about it. There is no longer a choice. It is no longer enough to talk to our kids about the mechanics of sex, it probably never was. We have to talk about consent, what it means, and how you are sure you have it. We have to teach clearly and boldly that consent is (in the words of Dianna E. Anderson) an enthusiastic, unequivocal YES!
What came next, when the idea of a clear yes came up, is the reason I will always choose to teach freshmen. They are still young enough to want to entertain new ideas. When we reversed the conversation from, “well she didn’t say no,” to “she has to say YES!” many of them lit up. “Ms. Norman,” they said, “that does make a lot more sense.” “Ms. Norman,” they exclaimed, “that way leaves a lot less confusion.” When one of the boys asked, well what do you want me to do, get a napkin and make her sign it, about four girls from the back yelled, YEAH!
What happened in Steubenville makes me sick, but we are kidding ourselves if we think that it is not representative of what is happening in basement parties after the homecoming game all across America. Our kids want to talk about it. They need to talk about it. We need to have conversations about consent that are not centered around what should have been done, but are instead centered on what will be done in the future.
via The Day I Taught How Not to Rape | Accidental Devotional.
If we don’t teach our kids how to navigate this terrain as they’re becoming sexually aware then we can’t expect them to become sexually mature. All we can do after the fact is shake our heads at the tragic course they charted for themselves.