A Sex Education: An Open Letter To My Old School

Warnings:  This post contains triggering material including discussion of rape, rape culture and victim blaming.

Below is an open letter of complaint to my old secondary school- I have left the school anonymous for now, because when term resumes, I hope to bring it up with them in person and give them the right to reply.  The lesson in question was one that my sister mentioned today, and was a part of.

Dear X School,

It has recently come to my attention that a member of your staff feels that it is appropriate to make jokes that perpetuate damaging rape myths in the context of a sexual education class. The class, which my sister was present in, was discussing the subject of consent, and “saying no”.

Apparently the teacher in question made what I assume he thought was an amusing remark, informing his students  thus- “Basically, don’t get into bed naked with someone you don’t want to have sex with.” Joke or not, the message behind this joke is highly disturbing. My sister actually came away from this lesson thinking that this was how the law actually stood on consent.

Nudity does not equate to consent. I will say it again. Nudity does not equate to consent. To give students the idea of this is incredibly dangerous to victims, potential victims, and perpetrators of rape. To insinuate that to be nude with somebody is to give up all bodily autonomy to another person is horrendous.

Imagine if a young girl, one of your students, gets raped whilst merely being nude with her boyfriend, and thinks that she was to blame for giving him mixed messages.

Imagine that one of these students goes away thinking that when someone is nude with them, it gives them an all access pass to that person’s body. They feels that it is okay to perform any sexual act upon them they wish, because they have been taught that the other person’s nudity means that they are entitled to that body.

Imagine if one of your student’s friends is raped, and that friend is blamed for that rape because of the rape myth that you have instilled in these young people.

What this has done is perpetuated a victim-blaming rape myth which feeds right into a dangerous rape culture. Instead, we should be de-bunking these myths for students. We should be teaching them that consent can be withdrawn at any time, and that if they don’t respect someone’s withdrawal of consent they have raped that person. We should be teaching them that consent to one sexual act does not equate to consent of all sexual acts. And consent to a sexual act once does not equate to consent to that sexual act for all time. Because that is how the law stands.

You are teachers- you have a duty of care to teach these students responsibly about “saying no”. And if you aren’t going to do it responsibly, I’d rather you didn’t do it at all.

 Yours,

Sarah McAlpine