Right. My specific comment about your being misinformed OMC was in relation to this comment in your previous post:
"....was apparently going to be made illegal."
Misinformed, because the law thankfully changed 8 years ago and rightfully placed the onus on the male to gain consent and moved the onus away from the female having to say "no". HerBex's post admirably illustrates the thinking behind that change in legislation.
However, for me this is less about the legislation and more about sexual and societal behaviour. The legislation means bugger all if rape convictions are still so low and the issue of consent relies so heavily on one person's word against the other.
The new legislation helps rape investigation to an extent, because a suspect is routinely asked whether he gained verbal consent at the point of penetration. However, the police are reliant on the CPS taking the matter to court and rape within relationships (new or old) is notoriously difficult to prove and attain a jury conviction, using the current "Beyond Reasonable Doubt" criminal standard of proof.
What interests me more is that men become aware of the gender politics of coercion and why females can still find it difficult to "say no", silently consenting to sex they don't want. I want people to think about those issues and specifically, I want to raise my son with the attitude that he must at all times check that a new partner is consenting and happy to proceed and yes, that means asking her.
I want to raise my daughter with the attitude that she should never have sex that she doesn't want and to give her the confidence to assert her boundaries. That if she ever feels she might buckle under pressure, she will not get herself into the situation in the first place and, to quote you OMC, "risk-assess" people and situations.
It's not about bringing our sons up so that they don't get caught and prosecuted, it's about bringing them up to treat women with dignity and equality. Asking someone's permission before you penetrate her for the first time is just good manners, because there could be all sorts of reasons why a woman will want to become intimate, short of penetration.
It therefore doesn't matter that a male can still be prosecuted if a woman disagrees that he asked for consent (infinitesimal though that risk would be) - what matters is that the male knows he did the right thing.
I do despair at women who think that if a new man does this, it's unsexy and off-putting and I detest the culture whereby a man is jeered at by women for not "being a man" and "asserting his will". A lot of the posts on here from women who think that "men should be men" drive me round the bend, if I'm honest. I can understand some men's frustration with these appalling double-standards, but that frustration is shared by feminist women too.
As for schools, I do a lot of work in this area and can happily report that the message being given to boys is that there is no such thing as implied consent. He should ask if it's okay to take things further, especially where penetration (by any part of his body) is concerned. The message being given to girls is that some sex can be coercive and ambivalent and the pastoral work helps them to raise their esteem and confidence in asserting their boundaries.
One of the things we've been really keen to do as parents though, is to mitigate against some of the negative and frightening aspects of sex education and affirm to them both that sex is bloody wonderful and hugely enjoyable amongst consenting partners.