Plan to teach sexual consent in school

I think when it comes to men's attitude to rape, if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem.

(Yeah, I probably didn't say that terribly well, the 'entirely' in the sentence probably wasn't enough. Though even criminal law isn't based entirely around worst expectations - if it was there wouldn't be clauses that allow for 'diminished responsibility' and things like that. But yes, criminal law is far more focussed on worst expectations than any other area should be.

And here we're really talking about education policy and implementation here. :) )

(The entire canon of criminal law is based on the worst expectations of people.)

'Wouldn't it be good if more men thought that way?' I think this is the problem in a nutshell -- too many men refusing to speak up, stand up and be counted when it comes to rape, groping etc. Instead we get 'Men don't, IME. Perhaps some misogynists do, and evidently all rapists do, but men? All of us? Or even the majority?' Passing the buck, insisting that it's none of your business, hair-splitting.

Until it is drilled out of girls that having sex is A Bad Thing To Do, then we won't be able to get them to be confident in saying NO.

They won't say NO if they think that they are going to get the blame if they say no and he still doesn't stop, because they shouldn't have 'encouraged' him (by wearing a skirt/looking at him 'in that way'/breathing). In those circumstances, they may feel it is better just to let it happen and pretend you meant to all along.

No, but driving instruction focuses on teaching you to drive safely not on not drinking and driving.

I'm not saying both issues don't need to be tackled; but that they are in many ways two separate issues and they probably need different approaches.

So dealing with consent in a way that puts responsibility on all participants to ensure that the experience is consensual is like driving instruction. Dealing with the issues in a way that assumes the best of people and encouraging healthy attitudes to sex.

Then you still need to deal with rape and assult: surely young people having the idea they need to consent for it to be ok would help in things like the 'small' assults thread? The collegues who stood around and didn't react to things: Might their views not have changed? Might it not give more women the confidence to object loudly that they didn't consent to that if someone groped them on a crowded train? Did you see the newspaper article the other week about the man who reported his friend for attempted rape (after stopping it because he though the woman had been too drunk to give proper consent)? Wouldn't it be good if more men thought that way?

I'm not saying it'd help with really serious cases of abuse, assult and rape. But I think it could be one part of a multifaceted approach. Just like you have to learn to drive and we still run drink driving campaigns.

But there's a need to remember that the young people this is aimed at are those who will be considering sex and not rape.

So we're talking about teaching healthy attitudes to sex, which we hope would in turn decrease the strange views some people who would class themselves as being against rape have on what they might see as a blurred area between rape and sex.

Policy, legislation and educational material should be made with an awareness of exceptions, but to base policy, legislation and education entirely around the worst expections of people is a mistake in my opinion.

I never know when "you" is too personal on the internet!it sounds weird, doesn't it when you address someone in the third person!

I hear what dittany is saying about the emphasis should be on women's humanity.

I just can't for the life of me imagining all the grey-heads getting it.

I think going with SGB's collaborative sex idea is the best bet, for now.

Although, there are also repercussions to that 'model' because it doesn't quite get the message across that the reason women are raped is because they're not seen as being "quite as human as men". However, I can see it helping in some rape cases in the short term. A man will not be able to say he didn't know she didn't want it.

"women give birth" doesn't mean all women do, but those who give birth are women.

Ben do you understand that when the meejah refers to "the middle classes" they don't mean every single middle class person in the world? Similarly, when feminists (or non-feminists) refer to "men" they don't mean all men everywhere. HTH

The problem is that men see women's bodies as theirs to abuse and they set up institutions like prostitution or marriage (as it was previously when men had the right to rape their wives) to enforce that right.

Do you honestly believe this dittany? Men don't, IME. Perhaps some misogynist do, and evidently all rapists do, but men? All of us? Or even the majority?

Yes but the gatekeeping view upholds and re-inforces the sense of entitlement doesn't it? That idea that some men have, that women don't really like sex that much anyway, so the only reason she's withholding it from you now, is out of sheer bloody-mindedness, and it's not that big a deal if you penetrate her without her consent because she's used to being penetrated without really enjoying it...

Yes, how do you get rid of the gatekeeper concept, if you have prostitution? As Sakura says, a woman having sex for money, is gatekeeping by definition.

A woman who likes to shag around is having lots of fun and lots of good sex with men she has chosen.

That's so different to a prostitute who is ONLY having sex with that particular man because he's paying her. In a sex industry sex is a commodity, and women are the gatekeepers (sex on the condition they will be paid)

Condemning the cash transaction as abnormal for male-female sexual relations the only well to get rid of this warped gatekeeper mentality

I didn't make that properly clear: adopting the collaborative/performance model as the correct way of looking at sex would mean that sex workers would only do the job willingly and would not be perceieved as being inevitably dehumanized and degraded by it. Because it isn't dehumanizing and degrading for a woman to have sex with lots of different men (unless those men abuse her) - the view that sex (whether for money or for fun) damages a woman's value in some way is the old sick commodity view.

math, no I think they actually believe the women enjoy it. I had a browse on punternet, the review section. Punters were saying things like: "I don't recommend Crystal from Birmingham (name I made up), she was unenthusiastic, she doesn't enjoy her job enough"
Implyin that they believe a woman selling her body is the equivalent of a woman having sex. They believe that these women are nymphomaniacs, who would have sex with them anyway, but might as well get paid for it. IT's delusional

it dovetails perfectly with the "commodity" version of sex. Punters choose prostitutes/men choose women (women have no sexual preferences of their own and are indiscriminate). PUnters expect to get bang for their buck (pleasure) but there is no onus on them to give the woman pleasure (again, perfectly in fittin with the "commodity" version)
I think the only way to get rid of the gatekeeper myth is for society to acknowledge that prostitute/punter sex does not represent normal, healthy sexual relations between men and women. The Gatekeeper-prostitute, who offers sex in return for money, is NOT representative of women's sexuality.