To ask you all to teach your children this

[autyspauty]

I came across a short video that changed my life the other day.

It was a girl who said she went to a religious school and her teachers got all the girls in a circle and told them (when they were 12/13 don't worry) about having sex with boys.
She told the girls that boys will push for more and as soon as you feel uncomfortable or want to stop and they don't or keep trying to say
"John, stop, you are raping me"

She told them that it doesn't matter if you wanted to kiss or touch or more, as soon as you want to stop you can say 'stop, you are raping me' and it will be true.

And the teacher had all the girls have a go at saying it outloud.

I cannot explain how much this would have changed my life. I thought I was a dirty, shameful disgusting person for years because I didn't know how to navigate this kind of thing when I was younger.

I don't know if I would have said it to 'john' in real life but it definitely would have helped me with the questioning of myself and my feelings and recovery. etc.
also just knowing that a boy or a boyfriend can do that to you. Rape isn't just being dragged into the bushes by a stranger. Rape can be somewhere you felt safe 2 minutes ago with someone you felt safe with 2 minutes ago. Rape can be in the next room as your parents.
You won't always shout or kick off or try to run away.

I also think that at that age, being called frigid or a virgin or a lesbian as an insult really hurts and can make a girl feel wrong for not wanting to go all the way. I definitely felt like I owed some boys 'the rest' even though I didn't want to myself. if I had that recourse of knowing that I wasn't the frigid one, they are the Rapey ones!

Especially these days with porn (hard-core porn and dangerous porn) being so normalised and available. I think this 'teaching' could have given me the tools I needed to get out of some situations.

I also have a problem with the way children are taught about sex education at school. They way they start off telling you about it and having banter with some of the kids, making it fun, made me feel that I was the only one not doing it. Made me feel like I was wrong to not do it when clearly I should be doing it if the teacher is handing out condoms and talking about dildos and different types of sexual pleasure and making us practice putting on a condom infront of everyone. looking back I wasn't comfortable with any of that (especially not in year 7/8) and i would he upset if my daughter and son were told the ins and outs of something so grown up before they were ready. I remember my first sex Ed lesson and only one of the children knew any if the answers and the teacher asked us what a dildo was and whether we knew how to have sex, the mechanics. I didn't know at all and I certainly didn't need lessons on it at are 11. I hadn't even had my period at that point.

This is an awful thing to teach. I am not surprised it came out of a religious school. All children, boys and girls, should be taught about consent in the appropriate and factually correct terms.

Ok, no!! Consent is WAY MORE important with sex than tea!!! More trivialising.

@AgathaAllAlong My kids' school was one of those named in Everyone's Invited and has subsequently carried out a huge investigation into how the school teaches consent and handles complaints. One of the things which came up was how much the girls hate the tea analogy, which they find trivialising and patronising. It even got into the papers as an example of bad PSHE teaching, despite the fact it's so ubiquitous.

That is exactly what is claimed, that kissing touching without consent IS RAPE. "That is true" was the lying claim.

They are not rape.
How the hell are boys going to learn about and understand consent and restraint , if neither party even knows what rape is?

What other sex words words can we use indiscriminately in New Speak?

If only it were that easy. I have sons and I'll be doing my best when the time comes but at the end of the day I won't know if they pressure girls into sex or rape anyone. I will probably know if my daughter is pressured into it or raped though.

it's down to the individual and although I'm sure my sons wont be like this, I know for a fact my daughter will have to deal with it all her life. So I'm going to put as much into making sure she is able to say no as I can.
Shes already soft and let's people walk all over her at only 6 so I'm extra worried for her.

sickening. sexual assault shouldn't have an age limit. That's why these boys think they can do what they like if they evem have teachers backing them up!

I think I would name and shame the school on everywhere I could (once we moved and no photos or names obviously) unbelievable.

I remember my first sex Ed lesson and only one of the children knew any if the answers and the teacher asked us what a dildo was

This can't possibly be appropriate for 11year-olds in a first sex Ed lesson, possibly not for any sex Ed lesson in a school.

You're not suggesting that you think all sex education is like this?

oh dear yes I've read that back and it's wrong. i meant it doesn't matter if you consented to kissing first or something more and now you want to stop before going the full way. You can kiss someone without owing them penetrative sex. you can consent to oral or hand sex (what do you call that?) without owning the full way. which is something I wasn't taught. I was only told by a boy at the time that I owed him the whole lot since I already 'started him off' by kissing him. I felt wrong but didn't know how to go about it. perhaps John would have been able to come to that conclusion himself. or maybe I'd have been knowledgeable and brave enough knowing that my girl friends and boy friends have all been taught that carrying on after saying no is rape.

does anyone remember the advert where a man is watching himself say 'come on baby' etc pressuring and i suppose eventually raping a girl but he is behind a window and he's screaming 'what are you doing? get off her! stop!' at himself?
That was a good one.

it's not necessarily just about telling the boys they are rapists. It's more about being able to say It to yourself.
when someone is in your ear saying 'we've already done 90% so i can take that last 10% and be happy' it might take that little voice inside saying 'he is raping me now' to help navigate what to do next.

I mean even if it was my boyfriend, and I 'loved' him. I think i would feel differently knowing that he is willing to rape me.

oh yes playing hard to get

bloody upsetting when you think back to those times.

yes you have it.

that's lovely and proves that it starts young.

even in y3ar 7 and 8 I had random (and I mean random! not my class not my friends) boys touching me on the stairs, grab boobs, under skirt, unclipped bra through my shirt.
I HATED going down the crowded stairs or in the crowded corridors in school because at least 50% of the time either me or my friends were sexually assaulted by at least 1 boy.
It was daily. And I haven't thought about it until now.

I think if boys knew that carry on or pressuring to get there is rape maybe they wouldn't do it.
Rape is a loaded word, that's great but it is rape.

I worded it badly at the start of the thr

I worded it badly at the start of the thread.

Yeah I don't think you can get girls to shout rape when it's not. Assault is good though.

*shouting assault.

Assault is not good

I agree with the OP.

Thank you for saying this it has made me feel a lot better. Like OP I wish a teacher had told me this.
In the late eighties / early nineties I felt so much pressure to go all the way just because the man had given me a lift, bought me a drink, or we'd all had a laugh in the night club. I was taken advantage of by an older man in authority who said I couldn't not sleep with him... because I'd invited him to see my new flat?! As a woman the underlying fear is that the man will overpower you physically so overall less damage will be done if you give him what he wants.

I am pleased to say my daughter, who was similarly proportioned by her boss, said "No Way, I'm 19 you're 32, what on earth do you think you're doing?"

I so wish I could have said that in the nineties and it be accepted by anyone.

I think you make a good point, OP, about girls knowing they are 'allowed' to change their minds at any point. (Also this would apply to boys too - maybe they would also feel sometimes they don't want to carry on but it's expected?) In other words, teaching them that it's about being in control of what they do and is done to them. This is likely more talked about these days than when I was at school, and yes, dealing with being called a prick tease, frigid, lesbian because you don't want to go further. They should be made familiar with the word 'assault', which is a good one to use. When it came up in Big Little Lies, the little boy thought it meant pouring salt on someone!

My 89 year old neighbour told me she never passed her driving test because the instructor kept putting his hand on her knee and she didn't like it. She refused to have any more lessons and her parents thought it was funny.

I'd say things are improving very slowly.

I'm sorry that happened to you, January. It happened to me too.
I'm glad for your DD.

I would love to know about how to do this. My DS is only 4 and I’m trying to teach him about consent (not sexual yet, being in peoples personal space, touching and also that he doesn’t need to hug or kiss anyone he doesn’t want to). However every rapist was raised by a (hopefully) loving parent. How can we influence our boys when our culture so toxic?

definitely know the fear. I deal with it by thinking I'd
rather be raped than raped and murdered or raped and beat up any day.

but this is exactly what I'm talking about. feeling like I've led them on (by doing something not even remotely sexual)
this has happened at least 3 times by boys my own age. You don't know how to navigate those situations. I wouldn't have classed any of my experiences as rape or sexual assault if I hadn't watched this video. now I feel sick and worried for my children. My daughter especially.

Only 2 boys stopped, my first kiss got a little handsy and I froze and didn't even say stop he just stopped and apologised and we carried on kissing.
and my now dh. I was actually shocked that he stopped and took no for an answer straight away. THATS HOW UNCOMMON IT WAS!

I also had an old man (like 60-70) grabbing my leg and groping on the bus and nobody said anything and neither did I. I didn't know what to do and actually apologised to him when it was time for me to get off the bus! I don't know why? But I felt impolite and rude. i didn't even realise I was assaulted by a creepy paedo. I was only 11 or 12.

oh @Januarytoes this is the main reason me and my sisters didn't learn to drive yet. My friend had a similar story and I still haven't learnt!

There is an episode in the Inbetweeners where Simon (i think?) is sexually asulted while taking his driving test and it's just just laugh.
i watched it as an adult and felt so sick. But it was also quite nice watching it at the time and realising that it's not just me that got touched up without consent by an adult and it was nice being able to laugh about it and feel not so alone. I think the narrator (will) even says '.... he passed his test... probably because he was sexually assaulted' or something along the lines.

But, if both parties have enthusiastically consented up until this point, it’s not rape or sexual assault unless the boy doesn’t stop when asked, surely?

Unless they’re psychic, no one is going to know the exact second someone becomes uncomfortable and to say they are raping their partner at this point is ridiculous.

We should absolutely be teaching children (boys and girls) about proper, enthusiastic consent and how to speak up for themselves… but not by mislabelling rape.

It also works the other way. Girls also have to understand that when a boy says no it means no aswell.

Unless you a family where sex is never mentioned out of marriage your a slut.