Plan to teach sexual consent in school

Also agree with SGB - youngsters need to be taught that sex is nice. If both of you aren't having a good time, there is a big problem that cannot be ignored.

(plenty adults need to learn this too)

I think youngsters also need to have the dynamics and unrepresentativeness of healthy sexual relationships in porn explained to them.

Children and adults do need to understand that no means no. However they also need to understand that absence of 'no' does not equal 'yes'.

In the area of sexual consent, we need to understand the dynamics of coercion, societal pressure, fear of saying no, not feeling one has the right to express no, etc.

The idea that women saying 'no' will stop rapes is ridiculous and frankly, dangerous.

It is just victim blaming before the person has even become a victim. Hey, a whole new sort of blaming to do to women! Patriarchy - 1, women's rights - 0 or is that actually minus 10,000?

I just hope this will be done right and not presented as stupidly as it is being by the DM in the media in general.

I can see this spinning off into a stupid controversy over whether children are too young/will be shocked and corrupted, instead of a sensible thing that has to be done right so as not to do more harm than good.

There must be no inkling of females as gatekeepers.

Oh yes, that's another one "Well, does she LOOK as though she's enjoying it? Hmmm?"

I think it's vital to get across the message that sex is supposed to be ENJOYABLE for all concerned, and rather than going, oh well you didn;t say No, people should consider that their sexual partner ought to be participating enthusiastically with what's going on. (Unless you have pre-negotiated some sort of sexy game where one partner is wholly passive throughout). So if someone's just lying there and not saying anything, the very, very least you do is STOP and talk to the person, ask them if something's wrong.

I do think it's important to get across the "No means No" message in other areas of parenting, too. I am conscious (uncomfortably conscious in some ways as he's only 5 and I don't like thinking about That Sort Of Stuff) that I phrase messages to DS like "No, you may not snatch that toy off your sister. She said No, and No means No" or "Stop tickling her now. She has asked you to stop and you need to respect that and not carry on anyway". Although I may be overthinking this.

I agree with everything Beachcomber has said. We should be concentrating our efforts of boys (I am a mother of 2 boys). Women have been conned into thinking that if we modify our behaviour (dressing modestly, not going out after dark, not getting drunk, blah, blah, blah) we will not be raped. Bollocks. Men need to learn what rape is and what consent actually involves.

It will be another way of putting the onus on the girl to control the unmanagable but entirely natural urges of the boy

one of the most shocking stories on the recent rape thread was a case where the rapist got off because he didn't speak English very well and claimed he didn't understand what 'no' meant. As if it is ok to have sex with someone when you don't speak their language well enough to know whether they are consenting or not .
The woman saying no loud and clearly wouldn't have helped her in that situation....

I'm just worried (and seemingly with some reason judging by the DM headline) that this is going to still put the onus on the woman to say No and not the man to gain that consent.

Agree the DM headline is .

How about 'girls and boys taught about boundary respect and to dispel rape myths, will help stop rape in later life'.

I do think consent needs to be examined as an essential part of sex education. I would hope it would be explored in a 'respecting boundaries' sort of way.

Too much emphasis on the word 'no' would piss me off though.

As had been said before on MN, the idea that women are in a perpetual state of consent unless they have voiced a 'no' is dangerous and misogynistic.

We need an entire culture shift towards, 'only have sex with someone if they have enthusiastically communicated "yes", and not becuase they didn't say no/you didn't hear them say no/ they couldn't say no because they were asleep or had their face shoved in a pillow'.

We don't just need this in schools - we need it on 20ft billboards across the country.

am furious about the way the Daily Mail described this in a headline: 'Girls taught to say No: Sexual consent lessons will help stop rape in later life, Minister tells schools'.

as if it is all the fault of the girls....

Good. I think this an essential part of preventing violence against women and girls. Both boys and girls need to be taught about consent and to understand that "no means no" and that someone being too drunk to say "no" doesn't mean they have consented etc.

I don't think we can assume that all parents teach their children about this stuff and it's too important to just hope that they'll learn it by magic!