The stories of young women being sexually assaulted at parties that have emerged in recent weeks have been individually shocking and cumulatively harrowing. Those who have shared them have called for hundreds of schools – especially boys’ schools – to step up and do more by radically improving our education on consent, gender relations and respect, something I and many of my colleagues at other schools will be doing.
If you have seen pornography, what did it make you think about how people have sex? How is the sex that it showed similar or different to the sex that most people have? What parts of it shouldn’t be copied into real life? How is porn not reflective of real life? Think about a woman or girl who is important in your life.
It might be difficult to engage a 15-year-old whose preferred mode of family communication is a grunt. Perhaps start with: “We should have a conversation in the next day or two about consent – when works for you?” Or catch them in the kitchen. Or even better the car – no eye contact and no means of escape.Some extra tips: Try to get your son or daughter to do at least half the talking, or it might just become a thinly disguised lecture. Admit to your child that it is a difficult conversation.
Mostly their sons...
What advice does he give the boys boarding there about consent in the dormitories?
This US report says 40% of boys have been sexually abused and for non rape abuse just over 50% of it was committed by girls.