The recent move to introduce mandatory consent classes for first years living in Trinity Hall has been hailed as a triumphant step forward in the war against rape and sexual violence. Advocates have pointed to the worryingly high numbers of students – 25 per cent of females and 5 per cent of males – reporting that they have had a non-consensual sexual encounter while at college as evidence that there is a clear need for us to have a serious discussion about consent. Meanwhile, detractors of the proposal assert that such classes amount to an authoritarian infantilisation of adults who don’t need to be taught how to have sex.
The topic is emotional. Debates frequently deteriorate into the emotional realm of deeply held convictions. Opponents of the classes care nothing for the suffering of rape victims and proponents just think all men are just rapists in waiting, in need of re-education. Somewhere amidst this trench warfare of online punditry and social media tit-for-tat lie the facts of the situation. The problem is that consent classes are a new phenomenon, introduced at UK universities such as Oxford and Cambridge and at universities in California only in the last year and a half or so. In other words, they are a social experiment in progress. Regardless of what the talking heads say, any discussion of whether or not they will actually stop rapes from happening is a moot point.
Everyone knows what is going to be in a fire safety lecture, and there is no disagreement whatsoever on what one needs to do when that disaster strikes.
ADVERTISEMENT
A better thing to figure out before making one’s mind up about them would be ‘what will these classes actually teach?’ The comparison between consent classes and fire safety seminars has been made elsewhere. Most people know how to avoid setting their kitchen ablaze, but there’s always someone, isn’t there? So sitting through one hour of boring safety talks every year isn’t much to ask to avoid burning down Trinity Hall. The analogy seems apposite, and the argument compelling, but upon further contemplation, the analogical fallacy rears itself: everyone knows what is going to be in a fire safety lecture, and there is no disagreement whatsoever on what one needs to do when that disaster strikes.
Consent is a different beast. The particulars of the upcoming classes are not yet known at the time of writing and so we have only our British and American counterparts to look to as examples. The consensus from the Oxford classes is that consent isn’t about signing a contract, rather it is a question of being aware of your partner’s feelings and looking for the right signals from them. The Californian approach appears to be different still, emphasising the “Yes Means Yes” approach whereby the “initiator” of any given intimate act needs to seek enthusiastic, verbal consent from their partner at every stage of the encounter.
The benefit of both of these models is that they automatically protect people who are blackout drunk or otherwise incapacitated from exploitation, since they cannot affirm their consent. No reasonable person would oppose this aspect. The downside of the Californian approach in particular is that there is a clear disparity between “Yes Means Yes” and the reality of how people actually have sex. Consent is normally communicated through a combination of verbal and body language cues – the sort of things that the Oxford model urges us to pay attention to. Yet under “Yes Means Yes”, any form of sexual advancement could be considered a transgression if it isn’t expressly approved. It is therefore unsurprising that sarcastic comments about calling up an attorney before bringing a date home are commonplace in reference to the approach.
A rapist cares little for their partner’s subtle body language cues, nor do they care if their victim said “yes” or “no”.
Neither of the systems seem to have any relevance to the terrifying reality of rape. After all, a rapist cares little for their partner’s subtle body language cues, nor do they care if their victim said “yes” or “no”. These courses are unlikely to dissuade them from their depredations any more than the current laws are: both rape and aggravated sexual assault carry a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. To assert that Ireland’s brightest students coming into Ireland’s premier university are incapable of comprehending the immorality of forcibly inserting one’s penis into another’s mouth, anus or vagina – the definition of rape from the Criminal Law Act, 1981 – is to assert the fantastical.
But if the classes are not for forcible rapists, we are left with the inevitable “grey” area – that diffuse penumbra that falls somewhere between rape and mutual bliss, the people who change their mind about their partner once they’ve gone home with them and those who aren’t sure if they’re ready yet, but weren’t entirely comfortable articulating it. Their needs and experiences also matter. But how will these classes help them, if the idea of affirmative consent flies directly in opposition to the concept of personal responsibility?
It must be said that all people capable of consenting to sex have both the right to consent, and the corresponding responsibility to ensure that their consent is understood. This is true even if all of the right body language was used, and even if consent was affirmed previously (what use is “Yes Means Yes” if a potential victim said “yes” but really meant “no”?). We should be teaching the next generation of students that a firm “no” is the only unambiguous way to withdraw consent, because both legally and practically speaking this leaves no room for misunderstandings and no recourse for aggressors to honestly claim they thought they had consent. For these murky cases, this is the only approach consistent with the legal definitions of rape and sexual assault. It’s also the approach I personally was taught long before my first sexual encounter.
As far as sex is concerned, a universal approach that caters to all needs and accounts for all experiences is a chimera. When it comes to consent classes, there is a fairer compromise to the mandated consent workshop: students should have the right to know what they are going to learn and which ideological framework, if any, they are going to be operating within before they go. Knowing this information, they could then reach a decision on whether or not to attend based on their own needs as independent adults. Trusting the next generation of adults to critically examine different ideas isn’t just the right thing to do. It’s the pragmatic thing to do. After all, nobody can make you accept an ideology without your consent.
If you have been affected by any of the issues raised in this article you can contact the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre at 1 800 778 888 and www.drcc.ie, Samaritans Ireland at 116 123, or Trinity Counselling at (01) 8961407 and www.tcd.ie/Student_Counselling.
